Dr. Kelvin Adams, Superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, doesn’t have a magic formula for success, or why his leadership role within the St. Louis public school system has lasted for nearly fourteen years. If honesty, sincerity, and providing people with the correct information are magic, he’s happy to reveal those secrets. “At the end of the day, it’s always about keeping kids first and making them the priority,” Adams said. He joined Dustin Odham to talk about his journey and reveal some best practices for superintendent leadership.

Dr. Adams recognizes at its core, being a superintendent is akin to being a business leader. In his line of work, that business is education. And while there can be a lot of noise coming from many sides, it’s crucial to filter that out to ensure the best education for the kids is always top of mind.

One sage bit of wisdom Dr. Adams offered when it comes to communication. “I never put anything in emails that I could not say to people in their face. People will hide behind that little button called send. And you can’t hide behind it.” Emails can be translated differently by many people in many ways. Talking directly to people helps navigate concerns precisely and quickly.

Leadership roles kept finding him throughout Dr. Adams’ career, even while he continually denied his abilities. It took him a while to recognize within himself the leader others saw. “I think it is about mentorship,” Dr. Adams said. “We must identify people and encourage them. And we must find the right people with the right hearts to do this.” Dr. Adams believes in servant leadership, where to be a great leader, one must have served in the role they will someday lead. Superintendents are leaders who serve, and in this case, they serve the community.

Pollak’s interest in public speaking dated to her K12 years when she won a prize for reading a Shell Silverstein book. Next, a Rotary Club college scholarship requirement to give a series of Rotary Club speeches began a journey that has not ended. The speech requirement was four. Pollak did thirty-nine. “I realized maybe there was something about this that I’m starting to enjoy,” Pollak said. “And that’s how the writing and speaking thing came together.”

Finding the right career path to channel the joys of speaking and writing wasn’t always easy for Pollak. Eventually, the road revealed itself through many freelance writing opportunities and her first published book in 2007.

The key to success in any field is networking, but Pollak admits that many people, especially those getting ready to graduate from college, can find the term intimidating. “I think a couple of things hold people back,” Pollak said.

“Number one is the idea that it’s fake, and that you’re using people, and taking and not being authentic. In good networking, that couldn’t be further from the truth. But the second is, particularly for first-generation college students or whose parents maybe weren’t professionals, for those from under-represented groups, there’s this feeling that networking means you have to know important people. And that’s not true.” Sometimes, it takes guts and trust to start that networking journey.

The report aligns with the mission of JFF, founded in 1983, to create a system that benefits all students and prepares them for work in a realistic way. “The work over that time has always focused on the mission of creating and scaling up solutions that can really transform our education and workforce systems so that it achieves economic advancement for all equitably,” said Vargas.

After working within the system, he went to graduate school to study “the problem of the American high school and its lack of connection to what comes next”, especially for lower income youth or first-generation college students. Ultimately, Vargas’ work led to the research leading to the publication of The Big Blur: An Argument for Erasing the Boundaries Between High School, College, and Careers – and Creating One New System That Works for Everyone.

“Jobs of the Future, a national non-profit focused on education in the workforce, released a report that argues for a radical restructuring of education for grades 11-14. It advocates for a new kind of educational institution that is neither high school nor college starting after the 2nd year of high school. These institutions would combine coursework from the last two years of high school with more specific education and training of community college to train students for future careers,” said Odham.

But are these programs scalable? Are they practical? To answer, Vargas spoke to a program that the organization was operating when he began working there. The Early College/High School Initiative allows students to earn an associate degree by the time they graduated high school. It’s one potential version of the new American high school.

To learn if they are scalable, we need to “not be afraid to try some things out and learn real fast from them including what you are doing wrong” Vargas explained. The Early College/High School Initiative was a great example of this. The original design was in charter schools and future-forward school districts serving two to four hundred students where it was wildly successful.

However, it was not the same case when taken into larger schools with fewer resources. In fact, there were very mixed results that resulted in some very hard lessons learned. This included beginning to understand the harm programs such as these could cause if the right support network was not in place.

Listen in to enjoy a lively discussion unpacking the research while getting a glimpse at what the future of American secondary education might look like someday.

Straight A’s are not always easy to come by, but often, earning them in a traditional setting means getting to the right answer, not learning why an answer is needed or how to go about solving a problem. Sally Amoruso, Chief Partner Officer at EAB, a firm dedicated to serving educational institutions, spoke with Change Starts Here podcast host Dustin Odham to discuss how to prepare for the changes that are set to come within the educational system.

“My why is rooted in helping others, people and institutions to reach their potential. And above all else, that’s really what gives me energy,” said Amoruso. EAB serves to connect communities of interest in order to foster bold ideas and creative thinking. Through EAM, Amoruso reframes problems as opportunities.

The current challenges that higher education faces are one of Amoruso’s chief studies. She has interviewed over 100 presidents at different institutions since covid began and found that, “Some of the ever-present challenges that were with us before covid, have been amplified and accelerated, so they haven’t gone away,” said Amoruso.

Issues like mental health, affordability, and access problems, in addition to this intensifying competition within the higher education world, need solutions. While leadership teams remained agile, bold, and student-centric throughout covid, one of Amoruso’s worries was the leadership’s desire for a return to normalcy, rather than reinventing the education space based on the knowledge gained throughout the pandemic.

“If we are able to build on the lessons from the pandemic, what we’ll see across the next ten years is a greater diversification and differentiation of universities and colleges around the specific needs of the student populations that they serve,” remarked Amoruso.

Within the next ten years, there is expected to be a massive surge of collaboration across the spectrum, leading to more consortia development in higher institutions. These consortia will build strengths at each school while continuing to “innovate around different offerings,” said Amoruso.

To successfully transition to this new learning economy students must become lifelong learners, understanding why a problem exists and how to go about investigating possible answers before presenting a solution.

Garcia speaks several languages, is a speaker, a teacher, a comedian, and a world traveler who has not yet made it to Antarctica, but he’s checked all other continents off his list. His strong faith background guides him, and Garcia believes everyone is born with a purpose. And through his struggles in high school, he learned the art of simplicity. When Garcia learned how to keep things simple, he uncovered his ability to understand languages. “When I realized I had a way to make learning simple, and I could transmit that to others and do that for children in other languages, something just went off,” Garcia said.

Although Garcia may disagree with some aspects of the education system, he loves education. “We need to cut the duplicity,” Garcia said. “Because we’ll say things to kids like if you want to be successful, you have to pass my class. No, they don’t.” Fear-based education models don’t work. Honesty is essential. And Garcia said that children learn that it is okay not to be an expert in everything. If a child finds a particular subject difficult, they may not master it. Still, they could learn other lessons such as perseverance and discipline, and the ability to understand complex concepts.

To motivate kids, Garcia follows three critical principles. Garcia tells kids to find their superpower. Next, he tells children to find their stories. “It doesn’t matter what’s happening in the world; it matters what’s happening in your world,” Garcia said. And the third thing is for kids to find their team.

Mielke encourages educators to be in a space of happiness and purpose. “Every time I speak on a topic, I get to not only apply it to myself but see the shifts in people where they're not only thinking about their role as a student or a teacher, they’re looking at it through the lens of how does this impact my entire world view and it's a really and empowering thing,” he said.

The challenges teachers often face that causes a burnout stem from emotional exhaustion, to where the job demands and job resources don’t line up, or cynicism which is an extension of learned helplessness; much like teachers having goals or taking on initiatives that will eventually end. The third challenge comes from inefficacy, where a teacher's current skill sets don’t match up to their desired goals.

“When I reflect to the moments when I was burned out, all three categories I experienced. And when I thought about quitting, I told myself to apply the same rules I was teaching to myself and I did the research on the strategies to guide my thinking,” Mielke said.

Mielke’s book breaks down into ten different chapters with takeaways into different divisions such as awareness, attitudes and actions. “The most important key is that there is no quick and easy fix. There is no fantasy that you do this one strategy one-time, and you're set for life. We must habituate these actions, once you change your attitude and awareness then more motivation comes that can help change long term habits,” he said.

Within the chapters, Mielke teaches how to shift negative thinking, focus on forgiving and letting go of resentment towards things that won't matter in the long run and adapting to gratitude in different scenarios. “One of the last categories is around the findings of actions that impact our well-being, like intentional acts of kindness or having goals that are outside of education.”

These active continual habits towards positive thinking and acts of kindness Mielke suggest goes a long way into battling the burnouts and falling in love with teaching again.

Working within a positive culture creates optimal results in any setting, and that is especially true for those in K12 educational settings. Juan Bendaña, top youth motivational speaker, joined Host Dustin Odham to dive more into how to create and define a positive culture in the classroom.

Bendaña believes the first step to understanding students is to take a step back. “The most important thing is meeting them where they are, not where you think they should be,” he stated. He also emphasized the role emotion plays in understanding students. “We approach an emotional challenge with a logical solution,” he explained. “People don’t remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel,” Bendaña continued.

Once educators take a step back to understand their students, they can start to build a culture in which they can thrive. “Educators oftentimes focus solely or mostly on the information that they are trying to give students as opposed to the energy they are trying to show up with,” Bendaña said. This energy includes what educators are bringing to their building each day, which is directly controlled by the things they do to raise their own energy level daily. He added, “Energy is a choice…energy is a decision you make.”

The trust component of a culture is often missed but is one of the easiest components to build. Bendaña cited a UC Berkeley study that looked at preseason characteristics of NBA teams. They determined the strongest correlation with who won the championship was teams with the most touches—such as fist bumps and high fives—because it built trust. Bendaña used this to suggest that high-fiving students is one easy way to build trust. Building a culture of collective goals in the classroom and getting student input for accountability of culture is another necessary tactic.

It is not uncommon for educators to feel drained like they have an empty cup, which Bendaña touched upon. He suggested educators start filling their own cups by practicing saying “no.” “When you’re saying ‘yes’ to something, you’re also saying ‘no’ to something else,” he explained. “The process of avoiding burnout is being able to create space so it doesn’t have a way in,” he continued.”

Bendaña touched on several other topics throughout the podcast, including how to prevent bullying, fear of failure, and more. For more on building educational culture from Franklin Covey, visit Spotify, Apple iTunes, YouTube, or www.marketscale.com.

Who takes care of the teachers?

In the “Change Starts Here” podcast, host Dustin Odham chatted with author and associate at Marzano Resources and Solution Tree, Dr. Tina Boogren. As an advocate for the well-being and needs of educators, Boogren talked about a new shift towards emphasizing the wellness needs of teachers.

In her prior studies of educators, Dr. Boogren came to the conclusion that there was a link between efficiency in teachers and their wellness.

“One of the things that I found in doing that study … the most effective teachers are effective at the sacrifice of something else in their lives. So every single one of them had health issues and personal things going on,” said Boogren.

This realization offered an explanation to Boogren about going back to the drawing board. She stated that much of student achievement goals place a lot of importance on teachers and the instructional strategy. However, she added that teachers are also human beings who need to be well and healthy to provide the best education to their students. Because without that, strategy is ineffective.

“If the person providing that strategy is totally burned out, worn out, exhausted, compassion fatigued, that strategy is not going have the impact, and as schools move towards the incredible important work for social-emotional learning for students, all the research says... that work starts with the adults,” said Boogren.

She added that too often educators' needs are not prioritized nor considered because the system normally favors students' needs over theirs.

But the COVID-19 pandemic helped people see a new perspective as everyone faced lockdowns, and worried about their well-being away from socializing. That is when Boogren and a partner got to work on creating a wellness and self-care framework for educators.

Much of it includes ensuring educators get adequate sleep, make movement, be it in the classroom or exercising, and drinking water. But as simple as it may seem, the busy lives of educators can interfere with even some of the most basic daily functions. Boogren mentioned that self-awareness plays an important role in how they can incorporate Boogren’s four dimensions of wellness.

Boogren said there has never been a time where education wellness has focused on educators. But with the current work that is being done now to combat that, she believes future educators will change gears and said that change will start sooner than later.

“The next generation is going to force us to. They’re not going to work the way we do and did,” said Boogren.

Facing adversity from a young age, Dr. John “Push” Gaines, a professional speaker and leadership consultant, was not sure where his life would end up - but he was sure of one thing: he would persevere. On this, Dr. Gaines speaks to host Dustin Odham about his experience in persevering and the importance of leaning into the present.

“Persevere until something happens,” said Dr. Gaines. Dr. Gaines grew up in the Hilltop community in Tacoma, WA, a community notorious, at the time, for the crime. Now a mentorship advocate, Dr. Gaines’ childhood was unfortunately filled with traumatizing experiences, including finding his deceased mother, who passed away from a crack-cocaine overdose.

Despite this, Dr. Gaines continued to push through the pain to persevere. Although born with drugs in his system, he found an educator who helped him change his life. Decorated with pictures of inspirational changemakers, his childhood classroom teacher asked the class to write out their dreams. Seeing a picture of a man who looked like him, Dr. Martin Luther King, Dr. Gaines knew two things: He wanted to be like the man he saw on the wall and a football player. He said, “I remember looking up on the wall and I saw a man that kind of looked like me that was doing something great…and I said ‘I want to be like him’...I want to change and inspire the world…” Dr. Gaines teacher told him that she believed in him. He reflected, “Her belief in me changed my life…that was the first time that I believed in myself.”

In addition to his goal to be like Dr. King, Dr. Gaines knew he also wanted to be what he never had: a present father. “I’m always thinking about my family. How am I elevating my family? How am I representing my family? How am I leaving a legacy for my family? So, who I am drives what I do,” said Dr. Gaines. As a husband and a father, everything else secondary, he said.

“Right now, I am in a season of perseverance until something happens and I believe that that is the core and the foundation of ‘push’ because I believe that perseverance is developed through pain,” reflected Dr. Gaines. While opportunities to continue or quit will come along, how you respond and who can support you in this response is key.

Every young person is one “I believe” away from changing their life, said Dr. Gaines.

Cathy Quiroz Moore is the Superintendent of the Wake County Public School System, NC, the 15th largest school system in the United States. Moore came to the U.S. from Ecuador when she was two years old. That dual culture influenced who Moore is as a person and her actions as a leader. Her roots in the Wake County Public School Stem stretch back to 1988 when she entered as a French teacher. Being engaged and seeking out leadership opportunities are traits that Moore always fostered.

“Even as a beginning teacher, I looked for and had opportunities to take on small leadership roles within our regular school community setting, and those were exciting to me when I came to Wake County in ’88,” Moore said. “After a couple of years in the classroom, I had the opportunity to take on a student teacher from a local university.” This situation helped Moore realize there were more ways to influence education than teaching students; passing along knowledge and craft to others was equally essential. And soon, the organizational side of education opened to Moore, a role she could play an integral part in its success.

Moore’s transition to superintendent didn’t happen overnight. It took several decades, a lot of work, and until a few years ago, Moore wasn’t thinking about such a role. But her continued leadership persistence, hard work, and dedication to making a difference in education continued to narrow the path towards her destiny. “For me, it is about being invested where you are, learning as much as you can, growing your profession, and growing with colleagues,” Moore said.

Some of Moore’s experiences growing up led her to discover that teachers who recognize a student’s potential can positively impact those students’ lives. “Those experiences, at an early age, and those who, during the course of my elementary, middle school, and high school teacher administrators who believed in me, helped me understand that I had worth, value, and something to contribute."