Transcript generated via AI - Not 100% accurate

Justin: 1:01

Welcome back everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to listen today. Don't forget to check out amplified whole health.com as well as liking subscribing and all of that good stuff on Facebook and Instagram. And so on today, I'm joined by Dr. Catherine Nichols, who is a former superintendent and Southern California. Is that right?

Catherine: 1:20

Yes, that is

Justin: 1:21

All right. And how long were you? A superintendent?

Catherine: 1:23

for 10 years,

Justin: 1:24

years as a superintendent, but you don't just go to straight being a superintendent. So how'd you get started in education?

Catherine: 1:31

No, you don't. I actually began as a teacher. I actually have a fairly unique journey to superintendency because I started my career as a kindergarten teacher. And that's very unusual for someone who taught kindergarten to actually become a superintendent. And yeah, I taught for eight years and then I was a teacher on special assignment. Became a principal of a K six school of a thousand students, which is a very large K six school. And then from there went into the district office and really focused on curriculum instruction and was there for six or seven years and then became a superintendent and superintendent for 10.

Justin: 2:17

Wow.

Catherine: 2:17

So yeah,

Justin: 2:18

how did you, no, you want it to be a superintendent? Did you always know, Hey, I really want to get into this. You started off in as a kindergarten teacher. So how did how'd you make that transition?

Catherine: 2:27

I really didn't. Went into my career. Relatively later I was 30 years old when I became a teacher because I had stayed home with my children for several years. And when I became a teacher, I think, I thought someday I'd like to be a principal because I think that'd be kinda cool. But then the longer I was in my career and the more I learned about what was possible in the educational system and what my, where my interests lie lay, which is really an in curriculum instruction. And when I went to the district office, I was so excited about that. And then I was watching the superintendency and working with superintendents at that. Wow. That would be a remarkable opportunity to really impact kids and a whole system from a whole system level that would be impossible to do within another position. That's what I really got excited about.

Justin: 3:24

Wow. That's a heck of a story, a lot of background. And did you find, after you got into that role that you missed teaching or did you ever go back and teach occasionally as a superintendent? Like.

Catherine: 3:37

No, I really didn't teach as a superintendent. However, I think my greatest thing was leaving the classroom, leaving the cross classroom. The first time was I went through like a grieving experience because you miss those kids, the 30 kids that you're responsible for you miss so much. And then at least I did. And then you went, I went through a transition as is. Principal and saying, okay, now all these kids are my kids, all the thousand kids I'm responsible for are my kids. And then as a superintendent, all the 12,000 kids I'm responsible for are my kids. But really when you leave the classroom, those for 30 children that you have such an impact with and the families. Yeah. There is a grieving process.

Justin: 4:22

Cause you really get to know each of them more on a personal level. Yeah. So how big district generally? You said you've had 12,000 students. How many employees would be.

Catherine: 4:36

That 1500,

Justin: 4:37

1500 employees. That's a size of a pretty good organization company. That's a big group of folks that you're responsible

Catherine: 4:45

Yes. Over a hundred million dollar budget and 1500 about approximately 1500 employees. So yes, but you have a lot of good PR folks working with you, but yeah, there's a tremendous responsibility.

Justin: 4:59

So how did you, I guess maybe build a culture. Within your organization of an organization of that size, how did you build a positive culture where people were able to communicate effectively? And what was that, what did that look like for you?

Catherine: 5:19

For me with large, the last school district I was in was a large school district. It had 17 schools. And what I found. Just because it was getting it's larger. I was working more with the assistant supe, for example of educational services, the directors, the assistant super personnel, the assistant supe of business services and developed, close relationships with them. And then we would have principals meetings Very frequently and would be part of all of the principals meetings. And then I would go out to visit with all the principals and walk the schools on a regular basis. So that way I was in the classrooms and got to see what was happening in the schools, have individual conversations with administrators, the principals, and assistant principals doing walkthroughs and visits to keep my So that I was really aware of what was happening in the school district. But one way we really did formulate our thinking was we really branded ourselves as saying, creating extraordinary futures. And what I found as a superintendent, it was really important to set the tone or the direction of the school district and the children we were serving. We had more than 65% of the children on free and reduced lunch primarily students of color. And I felt this really burning. Desire, passion, hope that we would be creating extraordinary futures for every child we served. And that just because their parents may have not had re means or educational levels, that was not going to be a ceiling for our kids, that we served, that they had a possibility of having an extraordinary future when we were responsible for creating those pathways for them and with them.

Justin: 7:22

Do you have a story of a student that might come to mind? That went through that process or that you knew grew up in your school district or whatever. Maybe they were, I don't know, in high school. And you got to know

Catherine: 7:34

A lot of kids who actually went through our schools and came back as teachers and stayed as teachers. We even had principal come back and assistant principal come back, who went through the schools and came back as, and became teacher and then assistant principal and principals. So that was really neat. That is really neat when that happens, because then you're going deep into the community and you're making significant changes. But however, I think what strikes me as a memory is also is taking a little girl. Once I was a Rotarian and taking a little girl once to target. And every year we took us some children and she was 16 years old and she told me she had never been to a store before to get. New clothing. And so we got her she got a new outfit, she got new shoes and such and her brother came with us and her brother had graduated the previous year from one of our high schools. There was three comprehensive high schools and in one of the high, from one of the high schools and he was so excited, but he was a little jealous because he never had that opportunity and he wound up. Busing tables when he came out of high school and I thought, you know what? We need to be doing better with making sure the kids have skillsets that will make them employable when they graduate. And so from there, we really focused on creating alternative pathways for the kids so that they could, for example get The preliminary skillset, for example, it'd be welders carpenters. And so we created those pathways for the kids so that they could have something marketable when they graduated and even work as a welder, if they want to get go to college. But at least they would have a skill set rather than just a high school teacher.

Justin: 9:26

So that's really fascinating that one experience for you in some ways shaped, it sounds like your leadership style and your strategy for what the school district would look like is as you saw this opportunity or this need that people Needed to have an opportunity to have a specific skillset outside of just, Hey, I've got this diploma. I can actually go and be employed somewhere. That's pretty well. Wow.

Catherine: 9:52

Yeah, it was exciting. Really exciting. We actually created a school within the school district that provided four pathways for skills and then students could go and be part of comprehensive high schools, but still get those skills. So it was pretty good.

Justin: 10:09

Yeah. Wow. Thanks for that story. I would like to come back maybe to a culture for just a moment. You mentioned that you've got, This large district. How many schools total, did you say 17 schools? I think about that as having 17 very unique individual locations that are probably all very different. And I don't want to say that the way that they're run, but maybe in the way that they operate or think, I don't know. How does that look from a district perspective when you have 17 schools and how do you keep everybody aligned.

Catherine: 10:47

question. Each of the schools are unique Amin and one of our schools. We had a pre schoolers, we have 300 preschoolers and some of the children were deaf and hard of hearing. And so that was a very unique school. And then we had our elementeries, we had three middles and three high schools and an alternative high school as well. And so each school had a unique culture. That's really positive. And you want that? You want to have each school to have a unique culture and to To love their school and to love their CA their own little micro community within the macro community. So that was really important. However, there was overarching goals that we all believed in, and that was where we really use the branding of creating extraordinary futures, because no matter where you were and in what school you were, what do you believe in. What do you think is possible for the kids? What are you going to ensure happens for your children in that particular school that will create opportunities for them to be successful adults? Because even those schools, districts are rated. If you will, based on student achievement levels, when you have them, my perspective was always. What do they do as adults and what are our long range, successes or failures with the kids as adults. And so that was always overarching for me personally. And fortunately as a superintendent, one of the. Big things that folks don't really understand, don't understand, don't know whatever is when you get hired as a superintendent, you're really a guest in that community. So I was a superintendent in my last school district for five years. I was a guest there for five years. That school district was in place a hundred years before I got there. Probably we'll be in a place a hundred years after I leave. And so it's my relationship with the board of education who hires me or lets me go. And and the influence that I can have on school district in order to achieve those kinds of goals that are most beneficial to students.

Justin: 13:10

Wow. I think that's a great way to look at it that you're a guest you're there. At their invitation.

Catherine: 13:16

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's for a period of time.

Justin: 13:21

That's a great perspective. I think one that many leaders could learn that we're all in some ways a guest. I think that's a really word. Let's maybe talk a little about employee development. You have. All of these employees that range in skill sets, right? You've got these elementary school teachers you know, in high school teachers. And then you have employees that are doing maintenance and any number of different things. How do you effectively develop them to further their education or capabilities?

Catherine: 14:05

That is always a challenge. When we talk about the folks who are provided all the support services then we're really talking then, sorry, but we would be calling our classified personnel. Then you would be looking at the different leaders within the personnel, the classified personnel division to ensuring that those. Whether they're school secretaries, if they're doing accounting, if they're custodial support, if they're doing the yards, then you're looking at the individual supervisors for those different components of the district to ensure that those folks are getting the skills that they need. And so sometimes what we would do is when we were doing training for the certificate of personnel, we would provide opportunities for classified as well to do training that way. The certificate of personnel would be our principals and our assistant principals and our PR and our principal or administrators. And so with those folks what we usually did and it varied depending upon what the needs were and what we saw in terms of the data of student achievement we would identify particular areas that needed will support, for example. So perhaps we're looking at his lessons and our lesson development and how we were really teaching where we're giving the kids Information beforehand to set up lessons where we summarizing at the end, where we actually giving them opportunities to practice the skillsets. And sometimes we just focused on lessons and lesson development to make sure that we really were delivering good solid lessons to the kids. And we were just, weren't lecturing them to death. Or just having them do worksheets or not asking questions or asking open-ended questions that would provoke different kinds of thinking and responses. So it would depend upon what we were seeing in the classrooms and what the needs were, and what we saw would D would drive the professional development in any given time.

Justin: 16:14

Did a lot of that development, would I, maybe a principal would come to you and say, Hey, we're really struggling in this area. Or we need some additional skill sets in this particular area. And that's how that would be communicated or. Is it because you were there and touring a school as an example that you would pick up on it.

Catherine: 16:30

Some you sometimes see administrators saying, gosh, we're really struggling with, or we had a new adoption of the mathematical mathemat. Math program, for example, and folks are going, Holy Crow, I have no clue. Like what, how am I supposed to be teaching this? This is totally different than what we've ever taught before. So we would do something like that. And then some of it's observational, when you're going through walkthroughs and you're seeing things, and then other could be just student achievement data, and the kids are really struggling with reading comprehension. And so what can we do differently with reading comprehension, the schools to help the kids. To that they're when they're reading, they're actually learning internalizing what they're learning about and can respond effectively to it. So it was probably a myriad of indicators.

Justin: 17:18

How important is measurement in your role as a superintendent, being able to measure something and then be able to make decisions based off of that data. And I don't mean specifically the kids. Grades or scores on tests, maybe I think that probably pays a part of it. But what other data would you maybe collect that would help you and have informed decision?

Catherine: 17:38

That's a good question too. Student achievement data was definitely a vehicle because again, particularly in the state of California and in the nation, when I was a superintendent, no child left behind. And so you could actually go into program improvement depending upon your student achievement data. So that was absolutely an indicator and something we looked at. But then for example At one time, we did an assessment and analyzed how many students of color were actually in our AP classes, advanced placement classes. And we found that there was a disproportionate number of students of color in our AP classes. And that's not okay because we had, Oh, probably. Oh, 80%, 85% of our kids are students of color. Our AP classes were not reflective of that. And so we said, okay, so what can we do differently? Where are those kids? Why are there's predominantly Asian kids and white kids in our AP classes? What can we do differently? And where are our pathways for the kids of color, where our ears, our encouragement, where our opportunities. So we're getting a more proportional representation of students in color in advanced placement. Because again, that becomes potential gateway for college,

Justin: 19:06

Yeah, that's really interesting. Cause you're not going to find that in the test. Like as far as the data, you've got to be intentional and strategic about making decisions to go look for that data in specific places. That's fascinating. Speaking a little bit about. Finding those opportunities and advancing students. What services were you offering as a community, right? As a district, it's not just about education, right? There's all kinds of other things that are going on there, sports and activities. And there's any number of things that are happening from a services perspective that are offered within the community. What can you tell me a little bit about that?

Catherine: 19:54

We were goal district in terms of what we provided for the students. They had all of the sports that That you would want the kids to have for boys and for girls. So we had all the boys sports that you would typically have. All the girls sports you would have typically have we provided music lessons to the students particularly in middle school and high school, we had created a pathway for international baccalaureate. Pathway for the kids starting in middle school and high school, and one of our tracks and we were drilling down to the elementary so that they would have exposure to a different way of thinking a different way of learning, but also a second language. So we were doing Mandarin. For example, we started doing Mandarin and our, one of our elementeries. One of our middles and going into the high school, not track, which was pretty cool because typically we've offered the typical second languages, which would be Spanish, German, and some French. But then we were looking at the Mandarin, which was really neat and really appropriate. Being on the Pacific rim where we were in California. So I was excited about that. We definitely had theater and art for the students and we actually provided. And we started working on that towards the end of my superintendency was working with parents and families on literacy skills. So we would have parents come in and work on literacy with their computer literacy, with their kids and with the families, because a lot of the families didn't have computer literacy. So we did a lot of that work as well.

Justin: 21:42

You know, there's a lot that goes into obviously being a superintendent and managing a district. It sounds and, but it's not always an easy process. I'm sure. And so when you think about the services that you're offering, you're, you're running. Accompany really? And so you have a budget and you have to stick within that budget. And how do you make decisions about the services maybe that you would keep or maybe have to get rid of, or maybe add? So what would that process look like for you?

Catherine: 22:15

Yeah, it's different because we we're, we're a nonprofit, we are not a rep. We were never revenue generating, which is different because we were really dependent on the state and the federal governments for our financing. And and in the state of California, if you are a losing enrollment. So for example, if you have an aging community and you're the students. Are graduating and the families are still there, but they're empty nesters. You could be losing population, which means you lose funding based on your enrollment numbers. And so you could be in decline in enrollment that way and have less funding every year. And so we were always monitoring our funding and you can, if you're in a fairly wealthy community, you can do an educational foundations and. Some school districts were generating multi-million dollars through their foundations. My school district didn't have that kind of capacity, so that was not an option for us. So we were really more dependent on federal and state funding. So we would look at it and say, okay, so where can we, if we had to make reductions in services? Where could we with trying to preserve our services to the students as much as possible. And so class sizes would go up sometimes. We would make reductions in classified staff if we had to. So we did those kinds of things in order to maintain a balanced budget. And we had to go, we had to do projections three years out on a budget that would show that we would be solvent three years out as well. So you had to make. Adjustments for the current school year. And for the years out while you were doing that, you're balancing to for example, people's races because you, you can't have everybody in decline in salaries either, so it's like, okay, so how do we take care of our employees? Balance our budgets and maintain fiscal solvency. That's always a balancing act and I'll tell you that was one of the most difficult things that I had to do when I had to make cuts. That was one of the most Those are the, one of the most difficult decisions you make, because these are, it's always easier to release someone. Who's not a good employee because you figure you've got a responsible ability to the kids first. But when you have to cut people because you just don't have enough money to pay for them anymore. And they're really good people and they're really good employees, that's pretty dreadful. It's dreadful and that's what you leave. So at least I'd lose sleep over that.

Justin: 25:02

yeah. Maybe a little more of a personal question. How did you manage the stress? You did this for 10 years, basically. You're the CEO for 10 years. And how do you manage that?

Catherine: 25:17

You know what, I, when I look back on it, my husband and I talk about it and it was almost like you took a deep breath and went underwater and you just kept your nose down and you just. Kept plowing through it. Never look at you just don't look up when we were we're on vacations. Whenever we took vacations. For those 10 years, you, we always had our cell phones. There were always responding to anything that cropped up. We were taught, responding to board members and any issues. I remember one of my school districts, we lost two kids in a car accident and had to deal with that. And it was dreadful. Just, you just You're always a part of the school district. You're always a part of what's happening and Oh, I always felt totally responsible for the children I was serving. And in that situation where we lost those two kids, they were actually trunking in the back of a car and flew out of the back of the car. It was dreadful. And so I think what I would say is Probably didn't handle the stress very well. And now I'll tell my my family I'm pretty stressed, brutal. I don't want any stress in my life right now. I really want to live in peace

Justin: 26:38

Sure.

Catherine: 26:38

does to enjoy my family, enjoy my grandchildren. And just to live yeah, just a peace because I feel like we did a good job. I feel like. One of the reasons when you asked me earlier about being a superintendent, one of the reasons why I felt I would be a good superintendent honestly, is because I felt like I would really put the kids first and that my heart was there for the children. And so I've always felt good about that. So leaving that and leaving that behind, I made mistakes. I made mistakes, obviously that if I had to do over again, of course I would change some things, but my heart was always. For the kids and my responsibility to make sure I'm serving them and the people I hired that that's where our heart was for the kids. So I feel good. Yeah.

Justin: 27:33

Yeah, you should. That's the priority. That's what you're there for. Wow.

Catherine: 27:41

ultimately

Justin: 27:43

when you reflect back, you talked about some of the challenges, obviously trying to balance the budget and manage through that process. What's the biggest high that you can think of? What was your, maybe, what was your favorite part?

Catherine: 28:05

I love the energy. What I loved when you're talking about the stress level there was an amazing. Amazing high of just being involved with every aspect of a school district every day and the hundreds of decisions that were made every single day. Was really exciting. Really a challenging, but super exciting. And when I look at it, if you look at a school district, you've got your personnel department, right? You've got your business department. So personnel like 1500 employees. Your business department, a hundred million dollar over a hundred dollars, million dollar budget that you're responsible for educational services, which is actually the delivery of instruction to the kids, the extracurricular activities. Counselors, how are we providing our counselors? Do we have enough ratios there? What's happening? What's happening with our graduation rates? What's happening with our facilities in both school districts? I passed, not, I, we pass major bonds. One was over a hundred million dollars in major bonds for facilities. So then we were working on facilities and crafting what we were going to do at each of the 17 schools to make a difference, and how do you leverage dollars? I loved all of that. I loved it. If anything, I missed that. I missed that, that energy of making a difference. And it was just neat. It was really neat.

Justin: 29:45

sitting here, being able to watch you and see you and your body language. And I noticed two things in a way. There's an excitement when you talk about that, and then there's this heartfelt Longing when you mentioned the children. And so it's very interesting to sit here and to notice the difference in how you talk about the two things. There's this deep sense of personal responsibility when it comes to the children. And then there is this euphoria, maybe of the excitement and being able to make a difference. And I think it's really fascinating to see, to watch you

Catherine: 30:19

Oh, interesting.

Justin: 30:20

and to hear your voice as you talk about those two things.

Catherine: 30:23

That's really interesting. Yeah. I wouldn't have known that, but but that is the truth. That is truth. And that's where I felt good about being a superintendent, because as I said, my heart was for the kids and if anything. One thing that I think was more difficult for me was first I was, I broke the glass ceiling if you will, in both school districts. So I was the first female superintendent in both the school districts I was superintendent in. So that was always a challenge for me. But I always felt I was doing right for the kids and sometimes at the detriment of being the political. A persona that more other superintendents did much more effectively than I did. And so that was probably an area of relative weakness for me, because I didn't have the political skillset that a lot of other successful superintendents had. And but that was where my heart was and that wasn't where my skills were. So you go with where your skills are, where your heart is. So yeah.

Justin: 31:32

Let's maybe talk a little bit more about your employees and. You have, and I don't know anything about school districts, so that's really why I'm asking this question, but what's the advancement for teachers and staff. What does that really look like?

Catherine: 31:48

It's if you're talking classified, which would be our support staff they have, tests that they take. For different positions. So they actually test into different positions and then they apply for them. And then they're, given them or not depending upon their skill sets and whether they've tested for them. So that's more of a I hesitate to use the word lock step, but at least it's more easily recognizable.

Justin: 32:25

defined. Yeah.

Catherine: 32:26

it is more defined for certificated staff, not. So if you're a teacher your pay is predicated on your teaching years of experience and your educational attainment levels. So you that's where you are. You don't become like a master teacher or there's not a career path for teachers, which I think is fairly unfortunate because we have excellent teachers and they voluntarily many times support other teachers and new teachers and really invest heavily in them because they're just great people. But there's not necessarily a career pathway for them. We might be able to give them a stipend sometimes, additional, but never, that would really be adequate for their time and their energy that they're giving to others. So if you really want to move up and you're in and there's certificate a realm, then you would go into a ministry. So that would be your pathway. Yeah.

Justin: 33:34

I think I hate to bring up COVID but I'm going to just because I think it provides perspective. Effective for parents now as to what it looks like to be a teacher and as parents we're dealing with, one, two, three, four, five children, maybe, and as a teacher, you've got, in some cases, it sounds you know, 30 kids that you're responsible for at any given time. And I know just having conversations with teachers. No, that they're asking for supplies that and if they can't get those supplies and they're buying those supplies on their own. And it's like, they're really putting in a lot of extra effort. Far beyond what I would say in some ways, what people put in, in, in the corporate world. And I don't mean that in a bad way for folks in the corporate world, but we're not generally requested to buy our own pencils when we get to work and not the teachers are either, but if they don't have the right supplies, then a lot of times they'll go out of their way to make sure that they, I think that's really interesting.

Catherine: 34:35

because they love the kids. And because it's a service, it really is a service industry. If you're, if you're a good teacher, if you're a good administrator, if you're a good educator, It's really almost like you're on a mission field, you're on a mission for those kids that you're serving. Is it right? That the teachers feel like they need to go out and do that? No, that's ridiculous in a wealthy country, like United States for them to feel like they have to do that. That's one thing that I really tried to work hard on so that we could alleviate that pressure for teachers. But some teachers will do it no matter what, because they want their kids to have the Cadillacs, and maybe we can only afford Fords, but they were determined that their kids in those, their classroom was going to have Cadillacs. You know, and that was marvelous and marvelous for the children. But yeah, it's that when you're a good teacher or a good administrator, you go so far beyond what you would normally do so far beyond 40 hours. Yeah.

Justin: 35:44

They're taking it home. They're grading papers at night. They're definitely putting in the work for sure. Let's talk maybe a little bit about communication and obviously you have all of these different schools, 17 different schools that is 17 different campuses. You have to disseminate information out to these campuses. And obviously each one has a principal and I don't know the hierarchy of school districts. So I don't want to, I want to be careful about how I say it, but how do you take that information from yourself as a superintendent? It sounds like there's also a assistant superintendent. Then how does that filter down and how do you ensure that filters down effectively and clearly.

Catherine: 36:33

You in terms of communication, there's a concept of what's loosely held and what's tightly held and leadership. And That's where you want to make sure that if you're having priorities within a school district, they decided you want to have a very few numbers of priorities. Okay. And so when you're talking to folks, you're going to say, Oh, you know what our focus is. For example, increasing student achievement and shoring, more kids of color, get into assistant advanced placement classes and maybe. Maybe that just be those two. Okay. And so then when you're talking to your principals, that's what you're talking about. So how are you doing it? What are you doing in your school? How is that looking in your school? What kind of different support do you need? What do your teachers need? And so you're having those conversations with your principals. From my level as a superintendent, I wouldn't do that with the staffs, that those individual schools, because then you're actually could be usurping them. The authority the leadership of the site leader. So I'm more behind the scenes. And really, I might even be so far behind the scenes that I'm working with, the assistant supe of educational services and the directors. And typically we would have a director of elementary, a director of secondary and the assistant supe. So they are. Actually even closer to the individual schools than I am for those kinds of things. So I set the course. I said, we set the course, we set the direction, the principals are involved with that too. We all move together. And then the messaging hopefully is very specific and everybody gets it because everybody's messaging the same way.

Justin: 38:35

Yeah, but it's very small messages. Like there's not a lot of priorities. There aren't a lot of initiatives or aren't a lot of goals that get communicated down. It's very simple. These are the couple handful.

Catherine: 38:47

These are handful. You don't go more than five. You can't, if you can't count on the first five fingers, you're dead. You're dead. So

Justin: 38:55

then nobody knows what to do.

Catherine: 38:56

nobody knows what they're doing. Yeah. Did they forget? You know, if you're saying this is what we're about,

Justin: 39:02

how did you how did you take that message then? Did you know, plaster it on the walls at the school? Did you hang up signs in the hallways?

Catherine: 39:15

It depends like we wanted to create it again. A college going culture. And so that was pretty, very specific. It was creating a college going culture until actually I saw that young man and he was busing tables. And I said, we've got to expand this vision. We've got to do something different. But we never let go of creating college going cultures. Only because we didn't want to create ceilings for kids either. So it was that tension between not wanting to create sales. So anyway, I'm going back. So we would say, yeah, we're having college going cultures. What are we doing in our schools? Some of them named their different buildings, different colleges. Some of them would adopt different college songs, just so that the kids had a vision of what was possible, other than graduating and staying in their neighborhood, which is fine. But you want to make sure they have a vision of something different if they want to. So that was part of what we were doing. So anyway, college going culture. Creating extraordinary futures, future oriented. And then specifically, how are we going to raise student achievement? So we could stay at a program improvement with no child left behind and how are we going to keep all of the extracurriculars in place? Because we value that, that as well, but that wasn't really part of our messaging. That was just part of what we did. Yeah. Yeah.

Justin: 40:32

How important is it to message and communicate to the students and the parents?

Catherine: 40:40

From my vantage point, we communicated with the parents through via PTA. So I'd go to PTA meetings and talk with them there. Occasionally with With like newsletters and one of the school districts, I was superintendent in, we probably did four or five newsletters. A year. And it went out to every single parent and community member. What was up in our school district, what we were, what were we doing? And that was pretty effective. You want your parents to feel like they're part of the team because they are, this is their most precious being that you're taking care of. So you want your parents to be a part of it. Again, a lot of that came from individual schools, some of them from the district level, but a lot of it came from individual schools.

Justin: 41:31

You said some of those really, maybe I caught my attention, which is this element of sending the newsletter out to the community, because it's not just about the people that are currently going to the schools or people with children, those schools, there's a larger community that's at play. Whether those folks have already sent children to those schools or whether they might be having children coming to those schools in the future. Plus. A lot of people make decisions about where they're going to live based off of the quality of education that can be received in a particular area. So I think that communication sounds like it's pretty important.

Catherine: 42:10

Oh, it's very important. And it was very effective in that particular school district. It was a smaller school director district and they were very involved with the schools and that was a very powerful way. And also we had gone out for a bond. And you know, you're asking people who are seniors. Who have had their kids in and out or people who are young people who haven't don't have any children. When you're going out for a bond, you're asking for additional monies to support the schools. And so you want to be able to give feedback to them as to how you're being good stewards of the money they're providing you. Andy. And that specifically is with regard to facilities, but generally, and what are we doing in the schools because they are supporting us. And so they're part of us and we're part of them. So yeah, it was very effective.

Justin: 43:03

Wrap up maybe curious, what would you tell someone who is a, maybe just thinking about getting into. Teaching or into a school district. So serving students. So that's the first question. The second question is what would you tell someone who's thinking about administration? So advice for someone who just wants to get in

Catherine: 43:28

and Let me think if you were talking about wanting to become a teacher and one of our sons is just become a teacher and daughter-in-law just became one. We have another daughter-in-law who is a teacher. My advice is. If you want to become a teacher, do it because you love the kids and you love teaching. If you don't love kids and you don't love teaching don't, don't become a teacher because she'll, you won't excite the kids. You won't excite the kids nor will you be excited. You won't. Give them passion or transfer passion to the kids because you won't be passionate. And I think we just, the kids deserve the best. And so if you want to be a teacher, do it because you love it and you love the kids administration do it because you think you can do make a difference that the work you do in this classroom, you want to do at a different level. To most impact a system systemically like looking at it from a systemic perspective, you want to impact it for the betterment of the kids you serve. And that has to be where your heart is. And you have to know what you believe in because when your administrator, or if you're in superintendency, particularly superintendency your lightening rod and you'll get the good stuff and you'll get. The worst stuff, and you have to know what you believe in, and you have to know what you're standing on and why. And as you move through the system, it becomes. More magnified in terms of who you're about and what you're about. And so if you believe in, if you can believe that you can make that greatest difference on behalf of the kids and you want to use your skill and your time and your life, that way, it's really your life. 28 years of my life, I dedicated to kids and other people's children. If you want to do that, you feel like it's worthy. Go for it. Cause there's nothing more worthy than that.

Justin: 45:41

Wow. That's great. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for coming on the show. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to talk to you just about your experience and being responsible for a school district and all of these students and staff. So thank you for your time. I really enjoy.

Catherine: 45:57

Thank you. I appreciated it. And I appreciated your taking the time to listen. Cause it's it's a story and it's a lifetime, so thank you. Alrighty.