Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 333: Leading South Carolina's Largest School District with Dr. Burke Royster

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Episode 333: Leading South Carolina's Largest School District with Dr. Burke Royster · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  You.
• 0:03
  Welcome to the Growth project. This is Doctor Miller. Louder. And if you are new joining our podcast The Growth Project is a podcast produced by employees, a performance psychology practice in Greenville, South Carolina, where our goal, we exist to help you be better and pursue better.
• 0:18
  And the purpose of this podcast is to bring relevant topics. Relevant experiences are relevant people to you to learn some lessons around growth, around leadership, around personal develop about optimizing who you are and what you do. And so thrilled today, please today to have Doctor Burke Royster, the Greenville County School superintendent, the CEO of. I just learned of a $1.3 billion organization.
• 0:47
  And so also maybe probably of lesser fame, a neighbor of mine. And so thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Milton. I'm pleased to be here and, share a little bit of time with you this morning and hopefully, maybe provide some insight into what we do in the school district and, and, look forward to having this conversation.
• 1:05
  Awesome. Well, we just wrapped up the school year, and so you seem a little bit more relaxed, I think. But you got a budget meeting, so maybe a little bit of stress coming up. You know, it's always good to get through, the process of graduation week. And we had more than 5000, students walk across and receive their diplomas last week.
• 1:25
  In the in within a week's time, we take our budget to our board for final approval for the coming fiscal year. So always look forward to accomplishing that. And then, we have a little different schedule in the summer. But, you know, some people think we are we're all like the students. It just looks a little different in the summer.
• 1:43
  It pretty much takes one summer to get ready to start the next year and get all the projects done that need to be done and everything lined up. So we have a smooth start to the new school year
• 1:54
  on that, like we got a game plan for the podcast. But I just thought about this. Burke, you just wrapped up grad with 5000 students.
• 2:01
  I don't know how many students are in the Greenville County school system, right? At 78,000 students. Wow. And so the largest school district in South Carolina, the 43rd or 44th largest in the country. How do you evaluate a year? How how do you guys reflect and say on the whole year as a whole, from your perspective, you know, we would really have come down to as far as student achievement and student attainment, quite simply, what we want our students to graduate from high school, obviously.
• 2:31
  And our graduation rate this past year was the highest it's ever been in the history of the district. So 88%. Well, we also want them to leave us having really already taken the next step in their lifelong journey, as evidenced by the either have college credit or career industry certification, or they have both. Yeah, this past year, not the graduating class that just came across last week.
• 3:01
  We won't have those numbers finalized until later in the summer, but the class before them, 83% of those students were college or career ready. They had college credit or industry certification. We really judged that as being the success for our year. Yeah, if you look back about 4 or 5 years ago, that percent was about 52%. Now, ultimately, our goal is for it to be 100%, so we have students that leave us some of them ready to go directly into their sophomore year in college, others with certifications that will take them directly into jobs that pay not the minimum wage, but pay a living wage, whether that be welding or going in, is,
• 3:51
  going to work as a firefighter or machine to or building trades, any of a number of certifications that will that will prepare them to immediately begin work and or to go on to higher certification.
• 4:06
  52% to 88%. How what would you think was the biggest reason for that, that grant growth?
• 4:13
  We've tried to make sure that just the primary focus of everything that we're doing. So that we're truly graduating students that are well prepared. So whether you're a pre-K teacher, because obviously you're not getting certifications in four year old or five year old, but you're building the skills necessary, the academic core knowledge, the academic skills, the understanding of, of what life and work is like through your schoolwork.
• 4:46
  No worries. Getting along with your peers, learning to work cooperatively together with your peers. Being on time, being prepared. All those lessons go directly to core academics, and they also go to helping ensure we're preparing young people to take their place in in our society at work and hopefully, making perhaps them even better members of their own family.
• 5:13
  Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. That's one of the things I've learned in the work that we do when I say it often, the mental skills that make you successful in sport make you successful in business, make it successful in life. And I hear that theme running through. And so when you realize when you're graduating or a career, ready is a language, I think you said if any 2%, where did you refocus?
• 5:36
  How did you kind of capture this is our primary goal all the way through the district. We really began to refocus about 2013, 2014. Wow. So it's taken, you know, obviously taken a while. But you know, if you think about our system as a system, that's what if they start with us in pre-K, it's a 14 year process with a start starting kindergarten.
• 5:59
  That's a that's a 13 year process. So we have to influence that process at every level. So what I think you begin to see several years ago was incremental improvement in students that we were turning out as far as having already gotten college credit, either through AP or dual credit or gotten industry recognized certifications. So it began with that focus back then and really taking everything we do and talking about the end result.
• 6:35
  Obviously, we're a large organization. It's easy for any large organization. Well, it's really easy for any organization, but maybe more so a large one to get off point, to not be focused on the outcome you're trying to achieve because there's so many moving parts that affect that outcome, that sometimes you can become focused on the moving parts and and not focused on the outcome.
• 7:04
  Truth is, you have to be focused on both of them, but it helps to make sure that every time you're focused on the moving part, you're focused on how that relates to the desired outcome.
• 7:16
  And so, you know, you became superintend around 2012. Is that about right? Yeah. So March of March, April 2012. And so you realized early on maybe we had gotten to move away from our primary focus?
• 7:30
  Well, I think we were focused on the right things, but we weren't allowing that focus to permeate the entire organization.
• 7:38
  How did you communicate that goal, that vision? Because Coach Swinney says the greatest job he has at Clemson. Yeah. Or he used to say it's set vision and maintain culture. And so how did you get that message across to really narrow the focus of here's why we exist and here's why we do what we do.
• 7:55
  So we translated the outcomes into and I guess you would I think you'd call this the in that analogy, the vision, we call it G plus graduation plus, good. So obviously graduation goes back to we want them to get their diploma graduate to meet the standards and requirements for graduation. The plus is we want you to have either college credit or industry certification or both.
• 8:22
  So we termed that graduation plus or G plus, you know, kind of fits nicely. Everybody in Greenville's got a G in or low good. But if you look at our logo it's got a it's got a G in there, kind of a flaming G the lamp of knowledge. But it's a G. So obviously graduation is a G.
• 8:40
  We talked a little bit more first kind of throwing things around about diploma plus, but D plus didn't sounds very aspirational. So so we settled on G plus.
• 8:51
  How do you keep that flame lit to keep that going. How do you what's your job in terms of making sure everybody's on the same page.
• 8:58
  when we talk about the success or the challenges of the district to the community, every year I do, a state of the district report, deliver it, invite people from all over the community. Do we hold six breakfast meetings for constituent areas in the district? But if we're speaking to the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, economic recruiters, any, any group like that, we're going to deliver some version of the state of the district might be a little longer, a little shorter, might be geared one way or another, depending on the audience.
• 9:32
  But what it always focuses on is that outcome on how are we doing towards G plus? How many, how many students are we graduating? How many students have, attained college credit? How many students have attained industry certification? So that that becomes our message to the community when we meet with all our principals once a month. So that's that's around 100 people.
• 9:57
  Well, in the room and a focus of every one of those meetings goes back to the things that we need to do to ensure we're preparing students to take advantage of those opportunities. That measure occurs as they're 11th and 12th graders. I mean, that's that's when you generally you're in college credit. And then that's generally when you're getting the certifications.
• 10:24
  But it is important at every level, whether you're the pre-K center or elementary, middle, high school, career centers, whatever, part of our operation you lead as a principal, you have important work to prepare those students, to be ready to take advantage of those opportunities and to succeed in those opportunities. Yeah. You know what I think in terms of driving an engaged organization and creating engage to know that everybody here's a worthy goal that we're pursuing, right?
• 10:56
  That's what success is. We can't control it. But a worthy goal is 100%. One of my favorite quote people know is from Henry David Thoreau. Success usually comes to those who are too busy be looking for. Those are the moving parts. But what I hear is everybody in the organization, you said almost 11 or 12,000 employees or independent contractors, understand here's I have a chance to impact glass.
• 11:22
  You know, that's that's part of, that's part of the mission that we have is to try to make certain that every one of those 11,000 and, you know, that that number changes because we have some retire, we have some that move away. So every year there's a new group which may be and we have growth. So we're adding teachers.
• 11:40
  So every year we may have a turnover of 700 800 teachers and a like number turnover of other employees. And so it's always a challenge to try to keep that focus in the forefront of a new group of employees. So we have to make certain that we're constantly sending that message bus to reinforce it with employees that have been here since we began doing this, but most importantly to get new people on board.
• 12:11
  And we would hope that anybody in the organization would be able to talk about that. Now, can you go out there and find somebody that can help? Well, probably there's 11,000 of them, but we want to come to your point earlier. We want to come as close to 100% as we possibly can. Yeah. And especially that is working directly with our students in the classroom.
• 12:32
  But it's also important for everybody in the organization to know what our outcomes, what outcomes we're looking for. So whether you work in finance, making sure people get paid correctly and on time or you're part of the hiring process, or you're making sure the Hvac systems are functioning like they should to understand what you're a part of, the bigger thing that you're a part of.
• 12:57
  So we try to deliver that message to all of our employees, because every position in our district is important to the success of what we're trying to do. But they may not be directly delivering instruction to a student, on a school day, but they're making it possible for it to be delivered. Yeah. For those people that listen to the podcast or who have study Project Aristotle, that was Google's big research on high performing teams within Google.
• 13:25
  And there's five stages. And I hear you talking about each one. The foundation of psychological safety. The second level in the pyramid is dependability. Like, you can count on me the third Burke, which you just reference so beautifully, not even knowing it was role clarity, meaning, meaning I have a job and it impacts the organization in a meaningful way that I value the people and I value the position that everybody plays.
• 13:51
  People being a part of Greenville County School District that gives them meaning in their life. And then at the highest level, our purpose and people are willing to sacrifice themselves to be a part of something greater when the purpose is clearly defined and it's a worthy goal and it's leaving a legacy. Yeah. So good one. Truly, we have an opportunity with what we do every day to leave a legacy.
• 14:16
  Yeah. Now, if you're in the classroom, you more directly perhaps see that. And you'll also hear from students that you used to teach a number of years ago. And on occasion, they'll they'll express gratitude for what they learned and generally what they learn and what they're most appreciative of doesn't have anything to do with teaching them a formula in chemistry or how to solve a math problem.
• 14:38
  It has more to do with, somebody's evidence caring about them. They knew you took an interest in them. You made some difference in their life by what you said to them, probably more so than the subject matter that you taught them. Sometimes it's a little more difficult for some of our other employees, because a student might pass him in the hallway or see them in the office, or we have people at the district level that they would never see that make sure things happen so their teachers can be successful, sometimes a little harder for those employees to see the results or to hear from a student.
• 15:14
  Oh yeah, I'm really glad that, you know, my teacher got paid on time and got the right amount of money in their check and their benefits were taken care of. So it's very important that we let our employees that handle things like that. No, what a difference they're making.
• 15:32
  think about a sales organization who gets the glory and the benefit of the sale.
• 15:36
  It's the sales person, right. And the back office, the administration, the finance, the accounting, the purchasing. They don't get that. Thanking a sports organization. The coaches and the players get the glory, versus all the back office tie up, all the support doesn't kind of necessarily feel that. So it's so important for leadership to demonstrate gratitude and and to make people understand how important they are.
• 16:02
  So what's something that you do or what's something that you do for your leaders?
• 16:06
  Well, to let them know they're important, to make sure every time that we're talking to them, you know, talk to you about delivering the state of the district. We do that for employee groups as well. But any time we're addressing an employee group to make sure they see the connection between what they do and the outcomes we're achieving, you know, we've got to to your earlier point about all the people you don't necessarily think about, we've got maintenance people that, yeah, you know, some system worn out overnight and they're out there at 430 in the morning making sure the
• 16:39
  building is appropriately cool or hot, depending on whether it's winter or summer, to make sure that nothing disrupts the ability of teachers to teach that day. No, nobody sees them out there at 430 in the morning that when the people come into the building, most of them will never realize it was ever a problem overnight. But it's important for for that Hvac tech, for that master foreman to respond to that, to understand what you did, made it possible for that teacher to go in and teach uninterrupted.
• 17:09
  but part of leadership is obviously you can't reach out to 11,000 people. And so how do you coach your leaders?
• 17:16
  How do you coach or principals. How do you coach your main supervisory, your, custodial services? How do you coach them to make sure they're rewarding that effort and demonstrating gratitude? We try to make sure that they understand the importance of what they do as an individual, so that that leader understands you, what you do, the part of the organization for which you're responsible is extremely important.
• 17:39
  Well, that's transportation or facilities or finance or H.R or obviously security and safety, whatever aspect it might be, food, nutrition services that you're part of the organization that you lead is extremely important. And here's why it's important it. And so that they will by example, translate that down when they're talking to their people. And and I think they do a very good job of making sure their employees know how important they are to the total organization.
• 18:13
  You know, we have our budget coming up next week, the final reading of our budget. And one of the things that we always make a point of in that budget, obviously, it's important for us to pay teachers and to pay them well to get well qualified teachers, because that has a single greatest impact on student achievement. A quality teacher in the classroom, all kinds of research to support that.
• 18:36
  The second greatest impact quality principal in the school. But we have to have quality people in all these jobs. So we've not had any circumstance where we've gone to our board and recommended a budget that did not include a salary increase for teachers, but for non-teaching staff, because if everybody is important to the organization, the goal of the clearest, cleanest message is to show that you're important is to recognize that through some increase in salary.
• 19:08
  Now, obviously, we're a public entity funded by the public, that we have to temper what we recommend with that, with the understanding the of the limited nature of our resources. But it's important that every time we go in there, we're talking about the importance of everybody to our successful student outcomes. And we're showing that in a real way by here's the recommendation for non-teaching personnel, in addition to to teaching personnel.
• 19:38
  Yeah. And I think, what's the like? They pay more attention to what you do than what you say, except for saying, hey, you matter. But then going and showing it that I'm going to fight for you. Whether I can get that or not. But you're important enough for me to fight for you around the compensation,
• 19:53
  to make sure that they have excellent working conditions as well, outside of salary.
• 19:58
  Yeah. So that they have if they're in a job that focuses on technology, the appropriate, technology to use our facilities, people, the appropriate up to date equipment to carry out their responsibilities, that two evidence is unimportant in their role and in a lot of cases, for what some of those employees do, it's important to their their safety as well.
• 20:22
  Yeah. I'm working with, we're discussing and building a program for a local hospital here, system around well-being, for the whole hospital system. And the research suggests that to drive engagement, you have to balance well-being and performance. And I love how they're looking at it. Not only individual well-being at the physician level, but but throughout the organization.
• 20:44
  But systemic well-being, meaning we have the resources. We're removing the bureaucracy. We're making it easier to come to work. And both of those things play a huge impact, not only the performance of an individual, of the team, but the well-being as well. Yeah, we are only as good as our people. And and there's a strong parallel, I think, with the health care industry.
• 21:07
  They also were people intensive business. You were talking about our the size of our, our fiscal size or our size of our budget and our, our general fund budget, which is the kind of the driving budget of the whole thing. It's over $900 million, more than 92% of that budget, people. Wow. We are a people intensive organization.
• 21:31
  Everything, everything. When we do focus is on doing it for people, two people, but it's done with people and by people. And so that's that is our single most significant investment. And that would be true of any school district that wherever you go in the country, that percentage, it might be upper 80s to low 90s, but it's going to be right in that range of people because that's that is the focus of how we do what we did.
• 21:59
  So did you have to have a grasp of that? We dove right in. What I love about your story and I don't I don't know it well, but your father was a superintendent, in Anderson County, South Carolina. If I if I understand that. Correct. That's right.
• 22:11
  And so did you have an idea that it was going to be all about people when you were younger?
• 22:15
  What kind of sparked this interest in a public service? What sparked this interest in education for you? You know, I did see that, when I was younger, I wasn't real sure. My finish. Clemson. I had a, my undergraduate in, secondary here, but also in political science. So I thought about different routes I might take. But I'd seen the example of my dad, who, who started out in school work.
• 22:39
  He taught and coached for a couple of years and then was a high school principal and did various jobs at district level, worked at the state Department of Education at one time. But then he was superintendent for 16 years. So really from the time I was in the third grade until, finished college, he was a superintendent. And, certainly I saw the importance of people to him and how it reflected in his work.
• 23:06
  And he was a superintendent, a pretty difficult time. If you think about the years, it would've been from 66 to 1283. Wow. So he lived, Anderson? Five through the period of desegregation. Wow. Voluntary desegregation, not a court ordered one. And so that was, very obviously a unique time. And in our history, in a very challenging time for anybody in that kind of work.
• 23:32
  So I saw certainly that which was probably the most challenging. Portion of his career that he would have gone through. And whether it was that time or a less challenging time, he focused very much so on the people and understanding. And I could just see that through his example. That's how we get things done. That's how we accomplish what we want to accomplish.
• 23:59
  Through those relationships, through that leadership, through understanding. And that's huge part of it, too, through understanding what they do and how that contributes to the overall success of everybody in the system. Yeah, yeah. I got stuck on on your father leading them through the desegregation, especially in the South, especially in South Carolina, voluntary versus court order. And, and ugly time.
• 24:25
  And you were young. What what do you remember about that? That memory, that experience? What do you remember learning from your father during leading in that challenging time?
• 24:34
  So I was in junior, I went through the model of elementary. Junior high school was a lot of people my generation did. So I was in junior high, Observed him during that time, you know, listened obviously right there at home.
• 24:52
  A lot of what he did, he did did from home after hours because there really were no hours. I think, during, during that period of time. But but what I saw was his ability to cultivate relationships among all different aspects of the community, and to cultivate relationships with other entities and agencies in the community. They could not have successfully done what they did without having done so.
• 25:22
  So whatever part of the community it was, he had built a good relationship with each segment in the community. They certainly couldn't have done what they did without having established good working relationships with, local government, local and, county and state law enforcement because they had to prepare for the threat of violence. And fortunately, very little of that occurred.
• 25:49
  But he had to build relationship and stay in constant communication with those parts of the community and with the local sheriff, local police chief, and, at that time, chief strongman. And so it and so I saw how he, he moved back and forth between and among all those entities to try to coordinate what they needed to have in order to successfully do what was extremely difficult to be done, not just in the South, but throughout this country.
• 26:21
  We tend to focus sometimes on looking at the past of the desegregation in the South. Some of the most, disturbing, incidents around desegregation actually occurred. Some of the places in the northeast, as you look, if you look back in the history, we do carry, such a bad rap around it. And nobody did it really gracefully.
• 26:42
  It was difficult. It was challenging. But it was it was done, I think, as as best people could do it. Yes. That were committed to to doing the right thing for everybody involved. Yeah. And I think if you, if you focus on trying to do the right thing for everybody involved without compromising your principles, then you're in the right place.
• 27:03
  Yeah, there's freedom and peace of mind, and I and just, you know, talking to you as you and I talked the other day, just talking about the challenges of leading a, a public school system this large in this political climate, with these challenging times, very challenging, very difficult. And what you just said sparked a little bit what you said yesterday, our job, whether it's G plus, we're going to do the right thing by everybody involved.
• 27:31
  Right. And we've got a certain set of values that we live by. How do you stay true to that in these challenging times of public school, of public life, politics, everybody seems to be, at odds, based on their beliefs, based on the color of their skin, based on their values. How do you, as a leader of such a large organization, manage that?
• 27:54
  This issue is extremely challenging right now. And but I think if we stay true to the core principles that we should have, we should always have possessed. Well, we don't need to be driven by political opinion or ideology. Our our path is straight down the middle to talk factually, talk about history. You know, this shouldn't affect the teaching of math or or chemistry or physics or, or other things that are these are straightforward.
• 28:28
  You know, this is a principle of physics. This is how you solve this math problem, where it comes more into play, social studies, U.S history. Yeah, the American government. But we need to be talking about facts. We need to put students, when they're looking at history, when we teach them to look at source documents, we need to work with them to help them understand opinion from fact.
• 28:51
  It's for you. Develop your opinion. We don't need to try to. Or whatever our personal opinion is. We don't need to be imposing our personal opinion on a student. They do need to be when they reach a certain age, probably generally in high school, but maybe a little bit earlier than that. They need to understand there are different opinions about these subjects, and they need to hear the different opinions without favoring one over the other.
• 29:16
  And that becomes very challenging. Yes. So in a in a government class, you know, you talk about differences of opinions between, this particular political group or this political particular political group, but not all for, what your opinion about it is because that's that's not of consequence. Yeah. They need to develop their own opinions. And when you talk about factual evidence, historical events, look at source documents.
• 29:44
  The Constitution, the bill rights, all those sorts of things so that we're teaching students and helping them understand where to go to find factual information, try to help them learn to discern between fact and opinion, and then work with them on developing some critical thinking skills, able to work through this in whatever lens you have from looking in.
• 30:10
  And everybody has a different lens depending on how they grew up, where they grew up, who influences are in their lives. Then you decide what your opinion is. Don't just accept. Yes, an opinion from a teacher who shouldn't be giving it to you. But develop your own. And it's very challenging. Now, when you have all this, you know, you can pull out your phone and you have access to you all.
• 30:39
  But one time would have been all the information in the Library of Congress, which is, you know, every virtually every published document in the country. So you have that access and more, and you also have access to all the disinformation and misinformation. How do you separate? Yes. Two, that's so much more challenging. Now, that wasn't a challenge really, when I was in school because you you had like the encyclopedia, then you had textbooks.
• 31:06
  And course there was, you know, whoever wrote those things. Yes. They approached things from a certain, viewpoint. Yes. Based on who wrote it. So, you know, you learn particularly learn in probably an upper grades in high school to go back and look at source documents. And that's still extremely important. But now there's just so much more bad information out there.
• 31:30
  Yeah. If you can develop and I think one knock that we have that this younger generation gets and it's nobody's fault for ours is parents and teachers of this younger generation is a lack of critical thinking skills. You know, they they, they take they they don't separate fact from opinion. The brain's not fully developed until around 25 or 26 anyway.
• 31:50
  And so that's a constant challenge. So speaking to this younger generation, they get a lot of, you know, old school people love to put down these generations. But but there's some hope, obviously. Talk to me about what you see in the future of our future leaders, future, members of our community and beyond. In your interactions with these students on a on a daily basis.
• 32:14
  So I don't get near as much interaction with them, obviously, as I did when I was a high school principal for ten years. So real interaction, the hourly, then now the probably the single largest interaction I have other than, you know, go round visit in schools and having a short conversation with a student. We have a group of high school students that we meet with once a month, our high council.
• 32:38
  So it's the top elected students from each of the 15 high schools. So that's going to be around 40 students. We meet with them, get their input on policies. We might be considering food nutrition services or try out some new recipe, give it to them for lunch and get their feedback on, hey, should that be on a menu or not?
• 33:01
  We'll talk to them about their experience in school. What what's been positive about it? What could be improved for there? Probably not. So much for them because they're about to graduate, but for students succeeding them, following them. So I get that opportunity to interact with them one Friday a month during the school year. That's honestly one of my favorite things to get to do is to go and listen to them and talk to them.
• 33:28
  When you do that, you leave their feeling extremely positive about the future direction they or, they're intelligent. They've learned a lot more than, I'm old. I'm also my classmates. And I learned when we were in the 11th or 12th grade, they just know far more content. I mean, they're they're taking courses, as are students throughout our district.
• 33:56
  Not just this group of students. They're taking courses that most people didn't take until college. Or they're taking courses that people wouldn't have taken until they got out, went to work and went back to some sort of technical training. They're doing all that now? Yes. So they're advanced academically, but they get along well with each other. You watch them in interaction.
• 34:18
  They are respectful of each other. They respect the differences that they possess and the commonalities the that I possess. One of the most interesting things is we did a school visit, so they go visit a school other than the one they attend. We pair them up, so they go visit, stay, you know, maybe half a day or so and before they go, we have them give us feedback on what they think of the other schools.
• 34:52
  So what what's that school's reputation? What do you believe about that school? Then they go visit that school and they come back in. Sometimes it's completely, totally different perspective. But what's interesting about that is they acknowledge that they're not still holding on to what I thought it was going to look like this. They come back and they are not well, you know, I thought it was going to look like this, but that's not what I saw it.
• 35:21
  But their observations about things are insightful. Now, obviously they're they don't have the maturity they'll have when they're 25 or 20 6 or 30. But they they're responsible. They are respectful. They're polite with one another. They have the similarly the ability to disagree with one another without it becoming a personal. Yes, a for or a personal attack on the other person.
• 35:51
  And that's currently absent. Not maybe not totally absent, but it's absent to a great degree from adults society right now, the ability to just say that we don't agree about something, but I don't have to dis dislike you because you and I don't agree on some particular point to be able to see beyond this one area, which we disagree.
• 36:17
  Well, what areas might we agree on? And they seem to naturally gravitate that way. And we we tend to mess it up for them. You know, you want your watch kids just young when they're playing in kindergarten or when they're young. And then we constantly shape their ideas, their opinions, their biases, their tendencies. And I think my utopian view of the world is how great it would be.
• 36:40
  Instead of finding and focusing on what divides us, imagine if we create a world in a community where we focus on what connects us, and they seem to to do that, they seem to be able to do that. So hopefully that will change dramatically as they get older. But I always feel a lot better after I go in there and and listen to them and talk to them.
• 37:05
  And I noticed, at the last one earlier this month, the last meeting for this year, so that they're sitting at tables with about 4 to 5 students over it, M.T. Anderson and I looked over in one particular table for students at that table, and their phones were stacked in the middle of the table, while one on top of the other face down.
• 37:31
  When I ask, I said, well, I just noticed that they were they were eating right before we got started. What we're going to do that? I said, well, what's what's the point of your phones? Well, why don't you haven't turned face down? And then I said, why are you doing that? And I said, oh, we're, we're playing Hello Buffalo.
• 37:54
  I said, what was that nerd? Oh, so tell me what that is some kind of game. Well, you spell you do. That said, well, we want to talk to one another. So we put our phones face down, focus on each other and each person at the table supposed to sell something that's a ha something that's a low in the buffalo thing.
• 38:15
  It's just something random. It's whatever you want to. And so they kept their phones in the center of the table and all they did the whole time, the whole the whole meeting time. And I looked over there one time and one of them had picked your phone up after he looked at it and was immediately chastised by the other three, and the girl said, well, I got to go, because sometimes they have other stuff they have to go to know.
• 38:37
  I got to be like, they were in a playoff game for something that afternoon, and I and I'll have a watch or anything. I know what time it is. So, they monitored themselves. But what I also have to say is when you look around that room, because you get this idea that that students stay on their device and won't to all the time.
• 38:55
  But pretty generally throughout that whole room, their devices are put up there. They're focused on the conversation between them, but they had structured their own. We wanted this time to socialize with each other in person, unless be fully present. And that that is rare. These days, one of the, one of the persons who recommend is like, you know what you need to have Burke Royster, on the podcast.
• 39:20
  He works with you, and he described your leadership style as, and the two traits that I love as very curious. And very humble. So curiosity and humility to me are two traits that I'm drawn to when people possess them. But I hear you, even in these students not telling them what to do, but asking their a, what are you doing?
• 39:42
  What are you thinking? What do you see? What do you believe and how do you how do you break down biases and stereotypes? You spend time together and you open their mind to new experiences. But also he described your leadership style in your staff meetings as as very curious and not front and center. And you said to me is one of the things I do.
• 40:02
  How do they know I care about the work is I just ask them questions, not in a way that makes them defensive, not in a way that invokes shame or guilt that you know better. But but did you learn this style of just asking questions, being interested, being invested? You know, I don't know, particularly where I learned it, but it's a way I better understand what's going on.
• 40:22
  And I'm gonna ask them sometimes some pretty hard questions, but I don't ask a lot of questions that way. I feel it helps me develop a more full picture. It also particularly if we're considering doing something, asking them questions in in. And I think you talking about describing I'll do that in district leadership team where there are a large number of people around the table.
• 40:47
  So if we're all considering something, but this might be is the department or part of the organization that's going to be primarily responsible. It affects all other parts of the organization. So a lot of times asking those questions is to is to prompt that person to whom the question is directed to think about. When I ask the question about also, sometimes to prompt other people in the room to think about how that might impact them and to get them to ask some questions.
• 41:19
  Truly, you know, I mean, there's not some in necessarily intent behind this part of it, though I think it's a good byproduct. If if all of us ask questions, then we're evidencing to our students what we say we aspire for them to be, to be a lifelong learner. Yeah. Now, that wasn't some part of some grand design that I said.
• 41:41
  Well, this was a way to do that. It's just like, as you were talking about that, it occurred to me, well, you know, if if our folks are going back and doing this where students can say yes, then then you're showing by example, we want you to ask questions. You learn far more when you ask questions than if you just sit there and listen.
• 42:02
  Because the other thing that's very challenging for us, and I think it's challenging for any organization, no matter what size it is, no matter how clearly you think you communicate something. Yeah, some body heard it a way that you will scratch your head to try to figure out why did I hear that? Out of this? So if you're asking questions, either you're if you're the communicator or you're asking questions, you're getting back.
• 42:33
  You're seeing if their level of understanding is what you believe it should be. And then if they're asking you questions, you you can kind of get the idea. Well, maybe, maybe we didn't clearly communicate that in long times. We've not clearly communicated it to everybody. And that that's a huge challenge in being large. Yeah. And yeah, in any way it just it you take two people in any relationship.
• 42:57
  But so how do you create that alignment as you make sure we're on the same page and we're speaking the same language. And one of the things I think is is easy to do, especially if you're leading a team or even young people, is I see us do it. I do it all the time is do what I say, not as I do.
• 43:14
  And if lifelong learning is important, then I got a model of that and we talk about vicarious self-efficacy and how do I build that. And so we don't want to ask them to do things that we aren't capable of doing or we aren't willing to do. And I hear that, throughout your leadership, you know, to two things.
• 43:31
  And they're really interrelated that that cause people to, to get in, getting trouble, getting difficulty is not being honest and leading in a way that's hypocritical. And they're really they're kind of two sides of the same coin. The hypocrisy relates to honesty. So if you if you set a standard for the people that report to you, you need to bear that same standard.
• 44:01
  Yeah. So you can't expect them to come to work on time. And you come in light every day. And on the other side, as far as honesty, if something happens, you make a mistake like a bad decision. You need to say, I made a mistake. I made this bad decision. Sometimes people will be honest about that and they start to say things to cover that up.
• 44:26
  That gets them in difficulty. Where the difficulty they'd be in for the bad decision of the mistake is nowhere near the difficulty. They're going to be in for the cover, for for covering that up. Now, fortunately, that's not a lot of people, but those are two things that get people as leaders. Yeah, get them into difficulty and get them in difficulty as employees as well.
• 44:46
  And I think part of that, that pressure that they put on themselves or we put on ourselves as leaders, like not giving yourself permission to be human, to know you're going to make mistakes, to know, that you're fallible. Why, that you're going to make mistakes. But being able to own that, in that peace of mind of that, that's a life lesson in of itself.
• 45:05
  You know, if you're if you're getting things done, if you're accomplishing things, if you're moving forward, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to make some bad decisions. Now, you don't want the number of bad decisions to outweigh the number of good decisions, but you're going to do both. If you if you hadn't made some mistake and you hadn't made some wrong decision, you're probably not stretching yourself as far as you should or stretching your part of the organization as far as you should to do a better job.
• 45:37
  Yeah, my coaches do not like this quote from John Wooden. He said the team that makes the most mistakes usually wins well, and the stats maybe don't back it up, but his mindset is you're playing to win instead of playing not to lose. And as you just said, if you weren't making mistakes, you probably aren't challenging yourself to grow as much or pushing the limits of what is possible in your own life or in the organization.
• 46:00
  You know, we got a few more minutes here and I'd, you know, when I'm thinking about all the wisdom you've shared or to two questions, what advice would you give to our students? But more importantly, and maybe this is a second question, what advice would you give to parents of these students these days? So let's start with the students.
• 46:20
  What's what's your advice to these students of today's world? The the first thing is take advantage of the opportunities that that are presented for you now as it directly relates to school. I don't mean to sign up for the more difficult class. Sign up for the courses that will advance you in what you're going to do next.
• 46:42
  Don't don't go out there. Take something you're not prepared to do, but stretch yourself a little bit. The other opportunities. So if you think about as in the these opportunities grow as they move through our system from elementary to middle to high, take advantage of the extracurricular offerings, take advantage of the elective courses. More pointedly, when you get to high school, you know when you get to middle school, you begin to get the opportunity to play in the band, sing in the chorus to participate in athletics.
• 47:17
  When you get to high school, those opportunities expand. You have the opportunity in many of our schools for JROTC, for band, for course, for orchestra, for dance, all kind of athletics, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, basketball, football, golf. But in anything you might imagine whether you're ever going to play that at the college level or not, it's not the athletic outcome that so benefits you.
• 47:46
  It's the it's the discipline, the structure and the organization. That's true whether you're a member of the marching band, a member of the ROTC, a member of the baseball team or the Model United Nations or youth and government, it's the things that are part of that. You're part of something bigger than yourself. You're part of a team. You learn how to work with other people.
• 48:11
  You're part of a dish. If if we're doing things the right way, a disciplined, structured framework, all of which is good to help develop those skills that, you know, employers I think in we sometimes like refer to them as soft skills, but skills that help to make you a successful person in whatever endeavor you choose for your career or in life, be able to get along well with other people.
• 48:36
  Yeah, our philosophy is better people make better leaders, better, parents better partners, better friends, all the better employees. That's that that mindset, these life skills that are so important. So, you know, it's hard to give advice to a parent that's not really this this, this is the your platform. This is the place to do so. But, you know, I guess I'd get back to you make kind of a point of, you know, I ask a lot of questions.
• 49:06
  I think that would be my advice to parents is, as a master student, what questions? No, you don't want to come across as you don't have a level of trust for them because you have to establish a level of trust, too. I think some of that comes from what I've observed over the years, allowing students, oh, well, and young people, as they get a little bit older, starting when they're very young, to make decisions on their own.
• 49:31
  Yeah. With from very limited choices when they're young to kind of an expand, adding of choices as they're older and then listening to them. Well, you know what what what do you enjoy most about school? Like you know, not necessarily. What did you learn today? What did you enjoy most about school today? Why just conversation with them. And that's hard to think.
• 49:56
  I mean, it's busy, parents are busy. They've got to if they have more than one child, they got them going here going there. But it's important to talk to them, to listen to them and to help them begin to make good decisions on their own. And I think then when they're out there on their own, I believe they'll make better decisions.
• 50:17
  Yeah, yeah. So good. I see so many young people that can't make decisions, are scared of making their own decision. They have never learned or had the opportunity. They've been enabled, not empowered. Yeah. And I think that that's a great way to look at it. But that empowering is so important to put those guardrails around that you kind of slowly retract.
• 50:38
  Yeah. As they evidence. Well, they are making good decisions. Yeah. One of the things I talk about for athletes especially or even all of us, that maturity has to match talent. And so, there was a book called Baby Wives or Girl and Kids God's Way that we studied, the ESAs, and they talked about the freedom we give our children have to be equal to their self-control, to too much freedom beyond their self-control, or at least to chaos and confusion, to little leads to frustration.
• 51:07
  And so I think, is your highlighting. That's what I'm thinking, my mind. How do we kind of meet them where they are, how do we understand their developmental journey, and how do we give them the opportunities to make decisions along the way? You know, almost all young people, almost all, they want framework structure. Yeah. And discipline. They want they really want those things.
• 51:29
  They may not say they wanted something, but they want those things because that provides them a sense of security. Yes. Now, not in an overbearing way, were they to the earlier discussion where they can't make some decisions on their own or you don't allow them some freedom, but they like framework and discipline and structure. Okay, now I got one more tough question for you.
• 51:53
  What can the parents do to be a better part of the school, of the school system, of their school? How can they partner better with the teachers? With, with the school to really facilitate their child's growth? I would simply say to get it to be involved. Yeah. We're very fortunate. We have a large group of parents that were that are very actively involved.
• 52:17
  Now, sometimes that starts off with a greater degree of involvement at the elementary level, tapers a little bit at middle school and a little bit at high school. But stay involved through all those levels and and talk to your child's teacher, talk to the principals. Go how how can I help? It's a it's a partnership. Everything that we do in our system, we do better in partnership with others, whether that's nonprofits in the community or other government entities or posts, secondary education.
• 52:49
  I mean, one of our largest partnerships with Greenville Technical College, because that's where we do a lot of our dual credit courses and our dual credit technical courses. But our primary partnership should be with the home and with parents. So what might you do as a parent to help facilitate your side? And our side of that partnership? Yeah, because we benefit from from parental involvement.
• 53:12
  And I think that just my observation over the years, I know growing up, if I got in trouble at school, that I was in deeply more trouble at home, that that would be the last thing, you know, we talked about it, the home I grew up in, the last thing I would want my dad or my mom to know is I got in trouble at school.
• 53:32
  And so I would, on the occasion that I might have gotten in trouble at school, I would urge them to just exact whatever punishment they were going to exact and don't make that call. And I think that shifted. I think, it's become a little bit more adversarial that the child is defended, instead of partner with the school.
• 53:50
  And so you, you don't have to say that, but I'll say it. I think parents could be more supportive of the school and the discipline of the school, and be more involved in the parenting of that child versus trying to be that child's friend. I think that's that's certainly good advice for all of us. Yeah, but this has been a true pleasure.
• 54:09
  I love the the wisdom and the lessons you've shared. And, you know, the things that I'm going to take away or D but I love the idea of bearing the standard, of setting the stage of leading with curiosity, of whatever age, that we can learn something from everybody, and the humility to know that there's still more to learn and more to grow.
• 54:28
  And so I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate you leading our community. Well, thank you, Milt. I've enjoyed it. Appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit with you. I've learned a lot from what's so awesome. Thank you. Thank you.