​​Back in February, we discussed just how hard we sometimes have to be on our staff and coworkers, even letting them go when they’re not doing enough to contribute to our schools and our students.  But there are other, more amiable circumstances under which you might need to have a succession plan up your sleeve.
 
I find myself operating under such circumstances; my time as a superintendent is ending, and I will be retiring next June. So I have, then, to ensure that my successor is ready to take on the responsibilities and challenges of the job. Succession plans thusly need to be well-thought-out, thorough, and exhaustive – because the future of the district is literally hanging in the balance.
 
The beginning of succession planning comes with the acting superintendent informing the board of his or her intention to leave. Quickly, it becomes the board’s responsibility to decide both when the succeeding superintendent is to take over and what the district’s goals are going to be under that new superintendent. And this, actually, is where succession planning sometimes fails; the process can be rushed and truncated, leaving the board members little time to reach an agreement on district-wide goals or initiatives. What the board needs is a long lead time, one that leaves them space for thoughtful and deliberative decision-making.  
 
Personally, I’d recommend that the board appoint a deputy superintendent who spends a year learning the nuances of the job before fully assuming the position. The to-be-successor needs that time to learn and to simply be exposed to the job, and what better mentor is there than the outgoing superintendent? The deputy superintendent has that extra year to build relationships within the district’s administrative team and with the district’s teachers, support staff, and community. They have that extra time to ask the sorts of questions that any good leader is always asking: “Why does the district function the way it does? Are we offering our students the best education and educational opportunities we possibly can? How can we change to better ourselves – and at the same time, what are we doing well? What are our greatest strengths?”  
 
They have to come to know what they don’t know; for example, a high school administrator now in the role of deputy superintendent gets a chance to hang out in elementary schools and to see the joy of learning in the faces of young children. They also get to visit middle schools to see how students’ peer learning works to accelerate their intellectual growth.
 
The superintendent-to-be, after all, has to learn the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of the district they’re going to be running. They have to become known to the community at large, to the state department superintendent, and to the district’s state legislators whose decisions will impact the district’s schools. They have to build up a peer group of other superintendents and have to get to know the county and statewide organizations which lobby on behalf of schools and school administrators. 
 
Taken as a whole, then, building a solid succession plan is like knocking down a long line of dominos: every moment and every choice affects what’s to come. The succeeding superintendent’s roles, responsibilities, and skills are all determined by how they are trained and how they are positioned to affect change in the district. Superintendents determine whether the district’s schools are the forefront of educational innovations or riding in the backseat. Superintendents provide stability for principals, teachers, students, and parents. And new superintendents breathe new life into ever-changing and evolving districts, cleaning out the cobwebs and warming the boilers for new initiatives and greater strides forward.
 
I know this because I have been privileged to lead a district that has achieved a great deal in a comparatively short amount of time. I have been supported and buttressed by wonderful schools led by enthusiastic and hard-working principals and teachers. Together, we merged technological advancements and demanding instructional strategies. We personalized learning for both our students and our teachers. We built a stronger, more unified, more organized district, and my successor and his team now have the helm and the duty to polish our twenty-first century schools to an even finer shine.

Starting with the second week of the school year, the board members accompany me on my many tours of the district. On one such tour, this time to a middle school, the board members were impressed with the students’ contagious enthusiasm and their impressive academic accomplishments and progress. In fact, the whole school seemed buoyed up with optimism and an easy joy.
 
Part of this was due, no doubt, to the fact that the new principal of the school had had a birthday earlier that week, and the staff were still busy celebrating. But why were they so enthusiastic about this new principal? Why him in particular? Why was his birthday such a grand cause for celebration?
 
I thought I knew the answer.
 
The former principal was a good manager with an old school principal philosophy. Before coming to the middle school, he had been appointed to one of our high performing elementary schools. But as soon as he arrived, he changed teacher assignments without asking teachers for their input and without research that supported the changes he wanted made. He appeared to be saying, “I’m doing it because I can.” Right off the bat, he put his staff forever on their toes as to what he was expecting of them as their leader.
 
When we moved him over to the middle school, he was unhappy there, too. He insisted that he instead be transferred back to one of our high performing elementary schools.
 
But I was hesitant. In observing this troubling situation, I began to notice his lack of teaching experience becoming more and more of a liability. His inability to support his teachers and to listen to their frustrations de-stabilized a high performing staff. With every passing year, the gaps in his preparation and experience as a leader became more and more apparent. He was simply an old school manager at heart who was trying to operate in a world much too unfamiliar to him.
 
So when he expressed his desire to be moved to one of our high performing schools, I told him he would have to go through our principal selection process like any other candidate first.

He was not selected.
 
That day we toured the school, we celebrated the new principal’s birthday with a staff as enthusiastic about their new administrator as we ever could have hoped for. I found the clearest evidence I needed that we made the right choice. It’s all about the students and our creating the conditions for student learning. If the administrator can’t perform that job adequately, then they can’t remain in the position. It’s a tough call to make and, at times, an even harder one to justify to yourself, but it’s a call you’ve still got to make - and you’ve got to act in the best interests of the district, the school, and, of course, the students.
 
What’s always stuck with me about this story is that, through my five years as Superintendent, I have been painstakingly searching for talented leaders, deliberately combing through the fields of applicants for the right mentors and supporting them up the administrative ladder with great care and intention. I know it takes sensitive, relational, and distributive leadership to support our teachers as they work hard to improve their teaching to fit a twenty-first century model of schooling. I will wait and give people a chance. I will support them if they’re having trouble. I will do all that I can for every single member of this district’s invaluable educational team.

But at the end of the day, we’re in it for the students.

​It was going to be a long day.
 
On the agenda: work on my annual report to the board, one-on-one meetings with my senior staff, and an evening at the local church to discuss violence prevention and what the schools and community are doing about it. 
 
But when I think back on why this day in particular helped to define me as a leader, I think to the afternoon spent with my administrative team. I introduced the new staff and our goals for the session. And then, most importantly, I posed to them the question of leadership.
 
“Read through these questions,” I told them, “and check off if you’ve ever experienced something similar.” 
 

1. Did you go to college on a scholarship?
2. Did you go to college on an academic scholarship?
3. Did you go to college on an athletic scholarship?
4. Did you pay your own way through college?
5. Were you raised in a two-parent family?
6. Were you raised by a single parent, mother or father?
7. Did a grandparent raise you?
8. Did you know your father?
9. Do you know someone who is incarcerated?
10. Do you have a family member who is incarcerated?
11. Do you know someone who has committed suicide?
12. Have you considered suicide?
13. Do you know someone who is homeless?

 
It was a tense few minutes. The air in the room thickened.
 
“If you answered yes to at least a few of these, then you probably know our students better than most,” I said.
 
Because everyone in that room needed to ask themselves what those questions and our answers were telling us about the children who walk through our halls each and every day. What do they want from us? What do they need from us as their leaders?
 
That night, I drove over to the church. Our talk on violence prevention quickly evolved into a discussion about race and student safety. Other talks like that one are planned throughout the country this year in response to the ever-intensifying and ever-ongoing national conversation. And if we’re going to be responsive to what it is our students need, then we’re going to need to be a part of that conversation.
 
The day ended at 9PM, when I finally sat down to dinner. A long day, indeed, but one which asked the questions of us that we’ll need to be able to answer for the students waking up at 6AM tomorrow.
 
Next Up: Making the Tough Call

There’s something special about a principal assigned to the same school where he was both a student and teacher. To say the least, Warren was excited to hear about Paul’s appointment, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him and to help him to better a place he knew so deeply and so personally. 

I had just seen him two weeks prior with his supervisor. We all sat down to review his student data and, more importantly, his plans for the coming year. But this time, I was going to see him alone. I wanted to see how he was relating to his staff, how he was establishing himself. His predecessor had been very close with the staff, and Paul had big shoes to fill—so was he filling them? 

Paul was an excellent teacher and a terrific coach for his staff—there was no doubt about that. But I had heard that he had been changing staff members’ schedules. He was also handling more of his correspondences and writing more of his own reports than he needed to. These were tasks for the school secretary.
 
When we sat down to talk, I asked him to consider the impact of taking work away from the secretary without giving her other work to do in its place. He said that it was his preference to do the work himself.
 
“Have you considered how the secretary sees it?” I asked him.
 
“No,” he said slowly. “I suppose I hadn’t.”
 
I reminded him that her identity, her sense of self-worth at Warren, had grown out of how much the former principal had relied on her. It went deeper than having something to do—she needed to feel relied upon as a member of the administrative team, and her relationship with Paul as the highest administrator at the school was critical. 

I suggested he have a conversation with her to discuss what she liked most about her job. I told him to ask her how she saw herself helping to make the school successful under the new administration. All of this, we agreed, would make her feel, not only involved, but empowered and valued.
 
There was also, however, the problem of the media specialist, who was concerned because Paul had changed her schedule. He wanted all staff members in the classrooms to support struggling readers during the elementary reading block, and this had meant taking staff away from the support roles they often played in her Media Center activities. Again, I asked Paul to have a conversation with her, to explain his reasons for instituting the change. More importantly, though, I told him he needed to ask her how the change had affected her and her ability to fulfill her responsibilities.
 
All of this clearly made Paul a little nervous. He had been concerned from the beginning, he said, that he had been overusing the district media staff when, in fact, all he had been doing was looking for support during the first month of the year. I re-assured him that it would have been more concerning if he had not reached out for support.  
 
“We’re there,” I said, “to make our schools great for staff, students, and administrators. You can’t be the best right out of the gate, and you don’t rise to the top by going it alone.”
 
Next Up: What Defines a Leader  

​A few weeks into the first month of school, I stopped in at the high school’s Career Center to have a chat with the director. I asked him what he thought the center’s biggest successes were in terms of finding career opportunities for the students. He asked me if it was okay for him to take the district’s CORE framework and add three more Cs to it: College, Career, and Community. 
 
This is exactly the kind of initiative which marks a great leader.
 
The more I thought about our discussion, the more I thought about how the different parts of CORE fit together. I thought about what it means to tailor CORE to the unique culture of each school and department, and I was excited to see how this new director might redefine our framework to better align district and Career Center goals. It made me restless, so I drew up my own model:   

1. Civility is required of a community of learners in school and in the community at large for the expression and acceptance of individual differences.

1. Order allows each person the opportunity to pursue individual and collective projects.

1. Respect grows out of positive, mutually beneficial relationships.

1. Excellence is only achieved with equitable practices which create opportunities for all students as they prepare to build their careers.

 
But it will ultimately come down to what the director wants—this is his initiative, and like every administrator in Warren, the CORE framework he lives by will need to be of his own creation. Superintendents need to empower school leaders to take initiative to meet the needs of all students. Do you do this in your district?
 
The students at the Warren High Career Center are in very good hands.
 
Next Up: Mentoring the Next Generation of Principals 

When I took over in Warren Township, the Board of Education had expressed concern about student safety and disciplinary issues. My first real act as Superintendent was the opportunity to both put the district back on track and to show my fellow administrators that I really do mean business.
 
AO Director Leonard Burrello took me with him to New York after my appointment as Superintendent. He had a specific purpose in mind, as he had just attended his fiftieth high school reunion, and all of his closest friends had identified one teacher in particular who they had all revered. His name was Brother Phillip Eichner, their former Latin teacher.  
 
He and his Irish driver, Brother Donovan, met us at our midtown hotel, and as we walked to the restaurant and talked over dinner, Father Phillip described the philosophy of his schools on Long Island and their commitment to COR, an acronym taken from the Latin word for heart. In his schools, COR stands for Civility, Order, and Respect.
 
Father Phillip spoke grandly of a curriculum built for all students, a curriculum designed to really prepare students for college instead of just pulling them through standardized tests and reducing them to figures on a spreadsheet. He believes that, with educators guided by COR, with hard work and effort, all students can and will meet the high expectations we should be setting for them.
 
When I got home, Father Phillip’s words began to coalesce. I couldn’t stop thinking about COR. But his idea kept churning, and it didn’t take long for a new idea to finally take shape: Add an E!
 
The E stands for Excellence and Equity for all, and ever since this revelation, the CORE framework has been posted around every school in Warren.
 
As it turns out, I had been living by the philosophy of CORE for some time without knowing it. Back when I became Principal at Liberty Park, my teachers were concerned that the students from the neighboring low-income housing projects could not possibly achieve on the same level as middle class students. Faculty thought they could best serve those low-income students by caring for their social and emotional health - and not for their education.
 
The faculty were preoccupied with classroom management instead of with the instruction, focused on discipline instead of the art of teaching. But I reviewed every student record and found that some of the students from the housing projects actually had the highest IQs of all the students in the school! This was a revelation, indeed, and when the teachers were confronted with the data, they had no choice but to change their mindsets.
                                               
My favorite reminder to the staff became: “If you do not believe all students can learn, fake it - they’ll believe you.” We have since amended that philosophy further, and we now live by what we like to think of as CORE’s mantra: “All students can learn the important stuff under the right conditions.” Some students will learn best through a project-based approach rather than through lecture, while others will learn best in teams rather than in isolation. Some will need extended practice and support. It all depends on the individual, but it’s our job to pay attention to what every individual needs.
 
Thanks once again to Father Phillip - Warren Township is all the better for having learned from you.  
 
Next Up: Adapting CORE to Our Schools - and Yours 

The first day of school! In the past thirty-seven years and through the last thirty-seven first days, nothing has proved more rewarding than my annual tour of the district. By 1:45, I’ve been to seventeen of the schools, and as I take a moment to breathe in the lobby of my next stop, I’m struck once again by everything I’ve seen: smiling faces, shining uniforms, and teachers teaching by the CORE matrix.
 
This is the last year of our Race to the Top grant, and I can see real, tangible proof that the results of our work with Education Elements, our partner in personalizing education, really are far exceeding our expectations. This new plan for personalized learning is being piloted in five schools and is well on its way to becoming a permanent fixture throughout the district.
 
Which means that we’re on our way, too.
 
One of the teachers I visit writes to me, and her note sets the stage perfectly for the coming year. During my visit, I had reminded her students that they were so smart that I could feel them absorbing my brainpower - this, of course, drew out smiles from all around the room. Imagine my smile when I receive this in my inbox:
 
"I have this fabulous class of very curious 2nd graders this year. They were so intrigued by your visit. They wanted to know what I meant by 'big boss' and asked if you were another new principal for our building. I told them you were a superintendent and they gasped, 'So she's a super hero.' I laughed and said that you were a superhero in our Township. They had a hundred more questions, so we talked about what a superintendent was. It was such a fun conversation that we decided to do a superhero project about you just like the ones they were doing for themselves. We will send it to you as a thank you gift for visiting us. Each child contributed something to the project, and we worked as a group to come up with the ideas for the boxes. I wish you could have been a fly on the wall when they were discussing all the strengths they felt you would have as a SUPERintendent, and the powers you would have as a super hero. Priceless!
 
They were also very fascinated by the idea that you felt the power in our room. They asked me if that was true. I told them that learning is one of the most powerful things in the world and that since they are learners, there is a lot of power in the room. I think that 'mind power' be our reoccurring theme for the year. Thank you for that! 
 
Please feel free to stop by and visit the Room 7 Superheroes anytime!! They will love it. I have attached pictures of their projects and I will send yours in the pony. Enjoy!!"

And I’ll be sure to take her up on that - the Room 7 Superheroes, like the superheroes in every room in every school in this district, are the reason it’s going to be so difficult to face retirement at the end of the year.
 
But why focus on that now? The year’s got a long, long way to go, and even after the summer’s come and gone, all those smiles and that teacher’s email will stand proud in my memory like trophies in a display case.
 
Because it’s the students that really matter.
 
And that’s where CORE comes in.   
 
Next Up: What CORE Means to Us and Could Mean to You 

A superintendent’s annual calendar is filled with graduation ceremonies; board meetings; school visits; professional conferences; time for lobbying state and city officials; days of participating in community-sponsored partnerships; and many evenings spent attending athletic events, musicals, and art shows. The year is cramped and hectic, and superintendents have to reach not only their own expectations, but also the expectations of fellow administrators, faculty, parents, and, most importantly, students.  

This blog will attempt to show how my fellow administrators, faculty leaders, and I have moved our urban Indianapolis school district from the traditional teacher-directed classrooms of the past to a truly twenty-first century learning environment. We are personalizing learning and cultivating in students the instinct and desire to be self-directed, independent, deep thinkers learning real important stuff beyond what is taught in a traditional curriculum. And beyond even that, personalizing learning is how we might ultimately provide equitable opportunities for all students to learn at higher levels. My playbook to accomplish this transformation is as thick as any NFL quarterback’s, and the school calendar is like the four quarters of the game.

One of the most important days of the year is the opening day of school and the address to my 1750+ staff members that comes with it. And unlike most male superintendents, one question my folks are wondering is, “What will she wear?”

My husband I often go shopping together to find the perfect dress for the year’s opening ceremony.  This year, Leonard and I found a red jacket and matching red dress to go with my new favorite ladybug pin for the collar. I later reported to him that the “folks raved” about the dress. Perfect.

But more importantly, my message that day in July, the weekend before school started on our nine-week calendar, was to re-affirm our purpose as a school district and to reassert our Civility, Order, Respect, and Excellence (CORE) framework as the means by which we can best serve all children equitably and make sure teachers and principals lead a balanced life. After all, our administrators need the time to unwind with their families because leadership is hard work—you have to work at it daily to meet our high expectations for student success.

And that comment about time to unwind, by the way, earned me a second rave review from the staff.
​
Next Up: The First Day of School