Who would want to become a school superintendent during the pandemic? Dr. Chris Delgado, Superintendent of Farmington Public Schools, reflects on his experiences as he completes his first year in this position. He discusses building school board and community relationships, responding to social media, fostering distributed leadership, the challenges of teacher recruitment and retention, and the steps taken in his district to re-imagine education moving forward. Dr Delgado concludes the podcast with his advice to aspiring superintendents and a personal testament to the power of public education.
Bob Maxfield and Suzanne Klein continue the series of conversations with educational leaders about the issues facing public schools, emerging from the pandemic. Their guest, Dr. Chris Delgado, reflects on his experience completing his first year as Superintendent of Farmington Public Schools, having spent more than a decade as Deputy Superintendent in the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools.
The Fit
“Farmington has always had a very special place in my heart. I've looked at Farmington as very reminiscent of my wonderfully diverse childhood growing up in the city of Southfield. I’ve always kept my eye on Farmington and when the opportunity arose, I threw my hat in the ring and was fortunate enough to be given the position. In my interview, I articulated my desire to finish my career in Farmington and commit fully to the community to make a difference in the lives of children in this community, and to support families.” The diversity of the districts in which Dr. Delgado previously held positions enables him to navigate different worlds and to help bring people together, was another facet that made him an attractive candidate for this superintendency.
Building Relationships
Dr. Delgado noted with pride being able to live into “the vision of the superintendent that I wanted to be and envisioned being. It's very rewarding to get to know so many people personally, not only in schools but in the community. I've been able to be in schools, in every classroom and supporting children and supporting families, and really showing my commitment to everyone in the organization. In my first state of the city speech with over a hundred community members in attendance, I knew almost every individual and organization. In a very short time, we've really been able to establish some pretty solid relationships, both in the community, in the schools, and in the community at broad and so that's very satisfying for me."
Reflections on his first year
"I actually haven't been surprised by anything procedurally or managerially, and I attribute that to my time as a deputy superintendent, where essentially I ran the day-to-day operations of the entire district. Because I had so much experience as a deputy superintendent, leading others, implementing systems, collaborating with a board, with the community, that aspect of the job has made for a very smooth transition.”
“I am surprised at how difficult it's been for me to find a balance in how to contribute when people are asking for my ideas and help, and needing them to develop as well in the same way that I was given the opportunity to develop as a deputy. I have a lot of knowledge and expertise that I want to offer to people but the art of leadership is very tricky in trying to listen more and be silent, and not introduce my ideas and allow people to develop their own ideas.”
“One of the challenges and the things that keep me up at night is the whole dynamic of social media in our lives and the amount of falsehoods and vitriol that can happen very quickly on social media, the judgment out in the community over a school issue without the context. Things are taken out of context and it starts to gain some traction on social media. The damage control is something that you really have to work hard to get out ahead of so that's a unique challenge for modern administrators in general, but certainly a first superintendent.”
Distributing Leadership
“In my first leadership team meeting, I talked about the theoretical framework behind distributed leadership and shared a clip from Dr. Alma Harris, talking about the difference between delegation and distributed leadership. Distributed leadership starts with the belief in other people and a belief that other people have something to contribute. Your status, whether you're a teacher, paraprofessional, secretary, or assistant principal, is irrelevant to leaderful schools. You can distribute leadership by tapping into the expertise and the interest of people and then supporting them.”
“Distributed leadership is modeled in strategic planning work or other committee work. When you as a parent or a teacher or a secretary can contribute in a meaningful way, where your ideas are valued and they turn into action steps or action plans, then you're more committed organizationally. We have five overarching goals, eight subcommittees, and over a hundred community members including teachers, parents, paras, custodians, and secretaries, on these committees working towards our vision and our profile of a learner in Farmington Public Schools.”
Re-imagining Education
“We have a board of education goal for innovation in education. Our vision for what we call our RVPR (Remote and Virtual Program) includes: flexibility of things like hybrid classes in the future; rethinking how we do high school; FLEX and hybrid schedules. We're maintaining our K-12 virtual program as well as a remote program; one being a live synchronous daily schedule and then asynchronous ‘learn at your own pace’ for those learners in those subjects where they may be able to pursue that on their own. When given the options students may choose to do an asynchronous class for history or an English class, but for some of the hard sciences, like math and science, prefer a synchronous model.”
“There's no reason that we can't rethink education and now that we have the skill set, the ability, the infrastructure with the Chromebooks and the technology, we can really start to re-imagine this. That's exactly what our strategic plan in Farmington is doing, rethinking that. A board of education subcommittee exploring pupil accounting flexibility met with state officials on how we might be able to provide flexibility to get us away from the 1098 hours that we all had to fit the box in. So we're very excited about those possibilities and we're better instructionally I think, having gone through the pandemic. We have a broader and deeper skill set.”
Recruitment and Retainment
“I think that some of the efforts that we've heard from the state as well as on regional level on loan forgiveness could be a huge incentive in young people being able to go into the public professions.
I think we need to do our best to re-change that narrative to promote to young people that it's a wonderful profession, a wonderful career. We should encourage teacher leaders to look at administrative leadership because we need good people in every single position along the chain.”
“If you look at the research on incentives and merit pay, salary alone doesn't validate people; it's recognition, acknowledgment, involvement in their organization, and being able to contribute in a meaningful way. At every school and district building, Dr. Delgado met face-to-face with staff to learn about their experience and asked the question, why would anyone want to work in Farmington Public Schools, and why would you want to stay here? That feedback will be shared with the Assistant Superintendent of Talent Development to talk about recruitment and retainment.”
Advice to aspiring superintendents
“The first piece of advice I would give them is to experience central office before you jump into a superintendency. It's not that you can't come from a building level leadership and go to a superintendency, but the value you will gain from being in central office from being able to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the board of education, to have kind of a broader 10,000 or 50,000-foot view, to make connections with the community members; you will better understand the position before you assume the position.”
“Second, research the districts that you think match your skill set. How do your skill set and experience align with what you know about the district that you're applying to? Your fit is so very important. Research the philosophy of the district, and the individual perspectives of the board members. Before I applied for Farmington I watched hours of board meetings to understand who the people are, where their hearts were, where their minds were. Pick a district where you think you can make a meaningful contribution. Just don't run quickly to the role.”
Personal testimony to the power of public education
“My wife and I are both first-generation college students. Our parents were wonderful blue-collar workers and didn't have the opportunity to go to college. When we moved into our home we took our dining room and made it into the office. Around all four walls, we have hung not only our diplomas but also our children's diplomas. Ever since they were little kids in order to walk to the kitchen they had to come through this office. In as little as one generation we changed the narrative from poverty to opportunity and the perspective about not just university pursuits but post-secondary pursuits. So public education changed our lives and changed the trajectory of our children's lives. That's why I think it's so important for people to go into this field as teachers, as leaders, and as superintendents. I wanted to share that story just to highlight the power in my mind and in my heart of public education.”
Bob Maxfield:
Welcome to Podcast for Leaderful Schools coming to you almost live from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, actually coming from Pawley Hall at the Galileo Institute, which is the Teacher Institute Center at Oakland University. Today we're continuing our series of conversations with education leaders about issues that are facing public schools today as we've come out of the pandemic, and are coming into a whole new set of circumstances. Our guest is Dr. Chris Delgado, who is completing his first year as Superintendent in the Farmington Public Schools and prior to that he spent more than a decade as Deputy Superintendent in the Walled Lake Schools.
Suzanne and I have known Chris for a long time as a building and central office administrator and we're delighted he's working in Farmington now.So Chris, and my co-host today, of course, is the ever wonderful Dr. Sue Klein, and so in fact we're going to begin with a series of questions that Sue’s going to pose. Chris welcome we're just thrilled you could be with us today.
01:04 --> 01:05
Chris Delgado:
Thank you, it's my pleasure to be here.
01:07 -->01:36
Suzanne Klein:
And again I'll add to the welcome, we're thrilled to have a chance to talk with you and give you a chance to reflect on your first year in Farmington, and I would also invite you to go back further than that if that helps, because we become who we are today by what we did yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. So as you think about where you are now, why did you decide to pursue the position of superintendent in Farmington? What was it that was going through your head saying this is a match for me?
01:37--> 01:44
Chris Delgado:
I've been asked that question, that in the middle of a pandemic who would raise their hand to take on the superintendency.
01:45-->01:46
Suzanne Klein: Exactly.
01:47 -->02:51
Chris Delgado:
And for me Farmington has always had a very special place in my heart. I'm a resident here in the school district, but I have always looked to Farmington as very reminiscent of where I grew up. I grew up just down the street in Southfield and went to Southfield Public Schools and in the ‘70s in Southfield it was just a wonderfully diverse childhood, a wonderfully diverse area to grow up with. To this day I have friends from all different races and religions, from all different corners of the world. We were kind of a microcosm of the entire world in just the city of Southfield. And so when I've looked at Farmington, and one of the reasons that my wife and I chose to move to the Farmington area was because of that similarity; we wanted our children to grow up in such a wonderfully rich diverse area. And so I’ve always kept my eye on Farmington and when the opportunity arose, I threw my hat in the ring and was fortunate enough to be given the position.
02:53 -->03:10
Suzanne Klein:
Well it's always interesting when you talk to people that have taken a position or even reflecting on why they took a position. It's a two way fit, and you've talked about just now why Farmington was attractive to you; what do you think were some of the reasons the Board of Education might have selected you for this very important role?
03:11 -->04:53
Chris Delgado:
I think there are a couple things and this came through not only in my interview, but in my individual conversations with board members as we kind of walked the halls on one of the day long interviews, is my desire to have a commitment to this particular school district for a very long time. I'm interested in not only kind of loyalty to a district, but investing in the people in the district, and then in the broader community. And so, when I was able to articulate that I wanted to finish, essentially, I want to finish my career in Farmington Schools and commit fully to the community to make a difference in the lives of children in this community and support families, I think that was very attractive for them. They had previously went through a couple different superintendents and were looking for someone who was committed to them and was going to bring that stability, so I think that part was very, very attractive. I think also not only my personal but professional background and the diverse experiences that I've had both working in… I worked in Birmingham Schools, Bloomfield schools, Walled Lake Schools, and then in Colorado Springs in very, very diverse in each of their own ways, were very diverse school districts. I think that was very attractive to them, to understand that I was able to kind of navigate different worlds and help bring people together, which was some of what Farmington is looking for, is really kind of healing and having the community come together. So I think those two factors, that long term commitment and then my past experience with diverse school districts made me a pretty attractive candidate.
04:54 --> 05:35
Suzanne Klein:
All those factors certainly set the stage for positive impact for the children and families in the schools, as you were speaking, and we also know from research that that kind of profile when you have people in place that can not only develop but share a vision and cultivate it with the folks that are in that community, allows things to not only start to happen, but to get fully seated and expressed in a way that's very successful. With that in mind you're closing in on the end of the first year already, hard to believe, when you think about what you had in mind as you began and are seated now here in early April, what are the things that you're most proud of?
05:37 -->07:39
Chris Delgado:
You know, I am very validated by the fact that the vision of the superintendent that I wanted to be, that I envisioned being, I've been able to live into that. And what I mean by that is I have taken from the wonderful mentors that I've had, including the two of you on this podcast and many others; I've taken different attributes of the positive aspects of leadership and try to live into those. I've been incredibly visible and at pretty much every event. I was at a music concert the other night and in the director shared you know, ‘our superintendent is here, Dr. Delgado. He wins the award for attending the most music concerts in history’ or something like that. I've been able to be in schools, in every classroom and supporting children and supporting families, and really showing my commitment to everyone in the organization, and so it's been very, very validating to be able to do that. I think living so close to the district, in the district allows me the opportunity to do that, as well as the stage in my life right now, I have three grown children and so we're almost empty nesters, but I have the flexibility to do that.
So you know, I think eight, nine months in, it's very rewarding to be able to be the type of leader, the hands-on leader and get to know as many people personally, not only in the schools, but in the community as well. I had the unique opportunity to give my first state of the city's speech not too long ago with you know over 100 Community members in the room, and as I looked around the room I knew almost every individual and organization, because of the ability to meet in July and August and September with folks around the community. I think in a very short time we've really been able to establish some pretty solid relationships, both in the community, in the schools and in the community at broad and so that's very satisfying for me.
07:40 -->08:19
Suzanne Klein:
Well, and I could see why it would feel that way, and also that's probably something that is feeling very much the same with the community because you're very much engaged, and very much engaged not just only what's happening in the schools but with the community at large sets the stage nicely for more success ahead.
As you sit at this moment there's probably a few things that might have come as a surprise; there typically are when we take on something even if we know it well, there's something that appears out of left field, all the sudden we have to hold up our catcher's mitt and say, okay got this one. What might have been some of the surprises that have made their way to your baseball glove this year?
08:20 -->10:51
Chris Delgado:
Well, you know I've been asked this question before, and I want to answer it in two ways so the first way is: I actually haven't been surprised by anything procedurally, if you will, managerially, and I attribute that to the duration of my time as a deputy superintendent. I was the Deputy Superintendent of Walled Lake for 10 years and essentially ran the day-to-day operations of the entire district.
And so you see sometimes people who aspire to the superintendency a little too quickly than maybe they're ready to do so, and the fit may not be there, the experience may not be there and they end up running into some challenges. You don't know what you don't know until you're in a job, and so I think 10 years is a long time as a deputy superintendent, and so leading others, implementing systems, collaborating with a board, with the Community. Because I had so much experience as a deputy superintendent, that aspect of the job has made for a very smooth transition and, obviously, that the learning curve wasn't as steep for me as it may have been for other individuals, so in the first way I haven't been surprised.
The second way I'll answer that question though is: I am surprised at how difficult it's been for me to find a balance between offering suggestions at my own cabinet or leadership team about systems or models or practices that might work, without them becoming an edict from the superintendent, if you will. And so, because I have so much experience and as deputy I worked with so many different areas of from master scheduling to strategic planning to fill in the blank, I have a lot of knowledge and expertise that I want to offer to people but it's been very tricky kind of this art of leadership of trying to listen more and be silent, and not introduce my ideas and allow people to develop their own ideas. I guess that would be the most surprising aspect of the job is how to balance that, how to contribute when people are asking for my ideas and help, but I need them to develop as well in the same way that I was given the opportunity to develop as a deputy. So if that makes sense, that's probably been my biggest challenge.
10:52 --> 11:36
Suzanne Klein:
It makes great sense, and I think back about my own experience as a deputy superintendent and superintendent, and it mirrored some of the things you’ve just said, and the notion of distributing leadership between and among others, is indeed an art all to itself, which leads me to the next question.
How do you as a superintendent effectively support that distributed leadership, particularly when you think about principal and teacher leadership, and people leading from the middle of the organization, so it's not just a central office idea that we have to do, but you're building again shared mission, vision and developing systems together. How does the superintendent strike that balance and make it happen?
11:37 --> 14:13
Chris Delgado:
That's a wonderful question and ironically, in my very first leadership team meeting; we have a monthly leadership team meeting with all 60 of our leaders: principals, assistant principals, directors, supervisors both instructional and non-instructional. My very first presentation that I gave was on distributive leadership. I talked to them about the theories, and this actually comes from the course that I teach at O.U. in our principal prep program, and it's the theoretical leadership, the theories and techniques of leadership, but the theoretical framework behind distributive leadership and I shared a clip from Dr. Alma Harris, who talks about the difference between delegation and distributive leadership. And really the idea really at the nexus of distributive leadership starts with the belief in other people and a belief that other people have something to contribute. And that your status, whether you're a teacher, a para professional, secretary, an assistant principal, that's irrelevant to leaderful schools if you will, that you can distribute leadership by tapping into the expertise and the interest of people and then supporting them. So that was a wonderful way for me to open this school year of teaching this idea of distributive leadership.
So back to the question of how does the superintendent do that, I think you do that by modeling that distributive leadership when you have committee work, when we have strategic planning work, that you not only proactively seek out individuals, both from the teacher ranks, from your parental ranks and invite them into it, but then you share this model with them of what distributed leadership really could mean.
And I think that as people get into, for example, we have, we're very, very proud of our strategic planning work as you get into strategic planning work or other committee work where you as a parent or you as a teacher or as a secretary can contribute in a meaningful way, where your ideas are valued and they turn into action steps or action plans then you're more committed organizationally.
I inherited a wonderful cabinet and Dr. Kelly Coffin helps lead our strategic planning effort, but we're very proud of the fact that we have five overarching goals, eight subcommittees, and over 100 community members, including teachers and parents and paras and custodians and secretaries, who are all on these committees, who are working towards our vision and our profile of a learner in Farmington Public Schools so we're very proud of that work.
14:15 -->15:08
Suzanne Klein: I can see why and well the whole community should be, because they are very much invested in the success of the district, and the district has done a lot historically to engage, which you certainly are amplifying as you step in your new role.
I'm pausing for a moment, full stop, new paragraph because despite the fact that you came in very well prepared you know the community and you've engaged the community and they with you. The strategic plan is in place. Every once in a while there might be a time in the middle of the night when you wake up and say, ‘Oh my goodness’ or something comes in that you say, ‘Oh, how about this. It's different than a surprise; it's something that you work on and you're kind of grinding away on. Are there any issues that are causing you to wake up in the middle of the night, or are you sleeping pretty soundly these days, or does it depend?
15:09 --> 17:42
Chris Delgado:
Well, I you know, after almost I think over 20 years as an administrator we all develop kind of a thick skin and it's not that we're desensitized to issues but we don't personalize them as much. So over the years I've gotten better at not taking things so personally, but I am human and so one of the challenges and the things that keeps me up at night is the whole dynamic of social media in our lives and the amount of falsehoods and vitriol that can happen very quickly on social media, the judgment out in the community over a school issue without the context. And that's not unique to the superintendency but, it is obviously, people are looking to me to address it; our board is looking to me to address it. And so you know when things are taken out of context and it starts to gain some traction on social media, the damage control is something that you really have to work hard to get out ahead of. And so there are things that concern me. I respect so much what our current board of education has tried to do. We've worked very hard together to form a relationship and the eight of us to show a model of decorum and positivity in our board moving forward. The board has had some bumpy years in the past few years and they really want to show a good organized front and a good face forward. And it's difficult when things on social media are accusatory towards them or believe that they have some nefarious objective particularly when it comes to some of our diversity, equity, and inclusion work. There have been some unfair accusations cast at them, and at me and others, and so that dynamic keeps me up a little bit about just keeping them, helping to remind them that that that they're doing the right things for the right reasons, that they're good people who are showing a vision, who care for all children and just kind of monitoring those relationships. I don't know that I have the answer but there needs to be more dialogue rather than just posting in our society in general, and so that's a unique challenge for modern administrators in general, but certainly a first superintendent.
17:44 --> 17:48
Bob Maxfield:
You know Chris, you might not have the answer, but you certainly have the attitude in terms of how to do it.
17:49 ->17:50
Chris Delgado:
Appreciate that.
17:51 -->18:36
Bob Maxfield:
As I listened to the response to that last series of questions that Sue posed, there's an article waiting to be written there about reflections of a first year superintendent that is very good, you might want to think about that. The series, to change the subject a little bit, the theme of this series of podcasts has been re-imagining and resetting education after the pandemic and a lot of folks feel like many of our flaws were revealed during the past two years that were perhaps swept under the rug before, and now we have to deal with them, and I think superintendents like you were fighting how hard it is to do that. So from your perspective, what are some of the issues that have been revealed in recent years, and how's the Farmington Public School District trying to deal with those?
18:38 -->20:51
Chris Delgado:
Well I think one of the most immediate issues for not just Farmington but all school districts was the inequity with online access and learning. And many of us immediately looking at depending on our poverty rates and some of the demographics in our community, knew that if we're going to have to pivot to an online world that we needed to invest more heavily in technology and fortunately we had some funding that assisted with things like hot spots for those families who couldn't afford Internet, as well as Chromebooks, multiple Chromebooks for students in the schools. And so you know those are some of the most immediate challenges that we had. The other thing that made it very challenging… I'll go back a little bit to the time when we were in full online mode, both in Farmington then my last year in Walled Lake, is the disproportionate negative impact on our youngest learners, our K-1-2 learners, especially in literacy. It was very, very challenging to teach reading in an online setting as well as for our special education students, some of them, especially those in our self-contained classrooms, our cognitively impaired students or autistic spectrum disorder students.
They were it was it was very challenging for us to provide the proper level of service and then our ELL population, we have a huge English language learner population and to be able to have enough translators and to work with families to navigate that was very, very challenging. So in Walled Lake actually after the first marking period, noticing the significant discrepancies we ended up bringing those populations back to school in-person with social distancing first and kept everybody else online. And then obviously in all districts, we eventually moved back to that model. So I think some of the huge challenges were both economic as well as access, if you will, access to curriculum, access to learning for certain groups disproportionally over other groups. Those are some of the main challenges that we had.
20:52 --> 21:05
Bob Maxfield:
So, now that you're back and have been for a while, in what ways has the Farmington School System re-imagined and rethought how it does business considering those issues you just mentioned?
21:06-->24:28
Chris Delgado:
Well, the irony of living through this pandemic is that we've all gotten better at doing what we're doing right now. We're on a podcast, we're all familiar with zoom and Webex and the ability to teach in a hybrid fashion to engage students. Our teachers have become much more proficient on breakout groups online and back when it was 10-15 years ago, we called it the flipped classroom where you posted information online before and had students do activities before they came to class. So there have been significant in my mind, instructional gains in terms of the skill set, the knowledge of our teachers, our administrators, to monitor online classes. Farmington Public Schools specifically has maintained a remote and virtual program K-12, and we intend to continue that. So one of the things is that we didn't just do this for COVID; we did this to be a progressive district with the support of our board.
Going back to the superintendent role, you can't do this without a supportive board, and so we have a board, who is actually absolutely committed to innovation. As we've been able to describe our vision for what we call our RVPR (Remote and Virtual Program), it includes flexibility of things like hybrid classes in the future, rethinking how we do high school, FLEX schedules, hybrid schedules. You know I teach at the university level hybrid classes that work out just fine. Those are the kind of things that we're really excited about looking towards, so we're maintaining our K-12 virtual program, as well as a remote program, one of them being live synchronous daily schedule and then asynchronous kind of learn at your own pace for those learners in those subjects where they may be able to pursue that on their own.
Many of our students especially at the secondary level, when given the option they may choose to do an asynchronous class for say, a history class where they can read and they can do some analysis and submit some information, or maybe even an English class where they can analyze the novel, but for math, for some of the hard sciences, the math and science, they would prefer to have a synchronous model. There's no reason that we can't rethink education and now we have the skill set, we have the ability, we have the infrastructure with the Chromebooks and the technology, that we can really start to re=imagine this and that's exactly what our strategic plan in Farmington is doing, is rethinking that.
One of our subcommittees is specifically about innovation in education, we have a board goal for innovation in education, and we have actually a board subcommittee that is exploring pupil accounting flexibility. We met with state officials just a couple of weeks ago on how we might be able to provide flexibility to get us away from the 1098 hours that we all had to fit the box in. So we're very excited about those possibilities and we're better instructionally, I think having gone through the pandemic we have a broader skill set, a deeper skill set.
24:29 --> 24:49
Bob Maxfield:
It's really refreshing to hear you say that because for years back, since Sue and I were superintendents often the question would come up of what sense does it make for a 17 year old to have to a school day pretty much look like a six year olds; all the different things that they can be doing, and yet that's the way we've always done it.
24:50 -->24:59
Chris Delgado:
It’s from buses to baseball is what we used to call it, you know the bus schedule and the sports, there are so many convenient obstacles for why we can't, but asking how can we, you reframe the question.
25:00 -->25:37
Bob Maxfield:
Absolutely, well another question that we've been asking each of our guests is to comment on what has been a dramatic loss of talent of administrators, superintendents, principals, and teachers choosing during the pandemic to pursue retirement sooner than they would have otherwise, leaving pretty big holes. So what do you think needs to be done to encourage more young people to consider education as a career and encourage more teachers to consider formal leadership as a career?
25:38 --> 30:12
Chris Delgado:
That's an excellent question. I am concerned about the future of education in general. I think to my own children, the three of them, none of them chose to go into education. But I think about a young person going through four years of education now and the rising tuition costs at six figures of tuition just at a public university, to then go through the challenges of student teaching and to come in making the salaries that we have without you know, with no longer the social compact that we used to have of appreciating a pension and some of the other aspects, and the increased scrutiny on public education. I worry about that. I think that some of the efforts that we've heard from a governmental aspect on loan forgiveness could be a huge incentive in young people being able to go into the public professions. We've heard that both from a state level as well as a regional level.
When we get them in retention is a huge piece as well, and if you look at the research on incentives and merit pay, salary alone doesn't validate people; it's recognition, it's acknowledgment, it’s involvement in their organization and being able to contribute in a meaningful way. It goes back to your idea of leaderful schools, and so you know actually I'm doing a series right now of staff coffees so we did…I'll digress for a moment, but we did some formal staff coffees: we did about three of them in the first semester, and three of them in the second semester, as well as community coffees to try to get to meet as many people as we could. I noticed in the second semester here that at my first staff coffee, I only had about six or seven people. So I leaned over to Diane Bauman, who you know, our Director of School & Community Relations, and I said, “Diane,” I said, “Let's go to them, let's meet, let's schedule another 17 school coffees at every single school and every single building, maintenance, transportation, every single school, so we can meet with teachers face-to-face, and secretaries and paras and we can learn about their experience.” And so I have so enjoyed this opportunity. I do them almost daily now; we're trying to get them all in before the end of the year. Sitting down face-to-face with people and asking them about your experience and I asked the same question. I asked a series of questions, but the same question to them is why would anyone want to work in Farmington Public Schools? And why would you want to stay here? From that feedback we're going back to our Assistant Superintendent of Talent Development, formerly HR, to talk about recruitment and retainment.
Many of the things that they're saying is flexibility in schedule, choice in subcommittee work, professionalism, professional judgment in professional learning communities, and aspects along those lines, including a competitive salary and trying to have fringe benefits and low quality insurance. I go back to this notion that once upon a time there used to be this social compact that for individuals who went into a public sphere, whether it were police or fire or public education, the community-at-large knew that there was going to be kind of a ceiling on your earnings, but in exchange there was a viable pension at the end of your career, as well as quality health insurance for your family and you could have a nice middle class or upper middle class life.
And once upon a time, society was fine with that, and then something changed with the idea of this envy of pensions, or you know this change and the criticism of teachers, and this notion of greed and entitlement. I don't know how or why that changed necessarily, but I think we need to do our best to re-change that narrative to promote to young people that it's a wonderful profession, a wonderful career. And then to answer your second part of the question very quickly, once you get teacher leaders it's encouraging them to look at administrative leadership, because we need good people in every single position along the chain.
30:13--> 30:31
Bob Maxfield: What you’ve really said is that it's a systemic issue. There's no quick fix and so the attitudes and systems that have emerged in the last few years have really been detrimental. Sue, before we wrap it up, you want to take the last question, because I think it's an important one to conclude with today.
30:32 -->31:06
Suzanne Klein:
Absolutely and it's one that we typically ask Chris, when we're talking with folks either sitting in the superintendent's chair or in other roles, because of the change of leadership that's happening just naturally or by attrition for a variety of reasons, as you just suggested, there are new or newer superintendents. I'm curious, as you're sitting almost at the end of your first year what advice you would have for that next generation of superintendents who are going to be stepping into the role that you now occupy over the next year or so, what would you advise them over a cup of coffee?
31:08 -->33:40
Chris Delgado:
Absolutely, so the first piece of advice I would give them is experience central office before you jump into a superintendency. It's not that you can't come from say, a building level leadership and go to a superintendency, but the value you will gain from being in central office, from being able to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the board of education, to have kind of a broader 10,000 or 50,000 foot view, to make connections with the community members; you will better understand the position before you assume the position.
The second thing that I would say and this is the same thing that I advise my students in my principal prep program at O.U. is research the districts that you think match your skill set.I ask the question often, how does your skill set and experience align with what you know about the district that you're applying to? Your fit is so very important, and as you both know, fit with your Board is incredibly important. It makes or breaks the relationship, and so the more that they can research the philosophy of the district, the individual perspectives of the board members to watch. When I, for example, when I applied for, before I applied for Farmington I watched hours and hours of Board meetings. I think I went back about a year and watched the dynamics of the Board of Education to understand who the people are, where their hearts were, where their minds were, so there's a lot of research that would go into it. I would just recommend that pick a district that you think that you can make a meaningful contribution to. Just don't run quickly to the role. You know when I was deputy superintendent for 10 years is a long time, and I remember telling my superintendent, “I don't need to drive an hour or an hour and a half to say, I’m a superintendent. You know I'm impacting the lives of 15,000 students every day in my role here.” We can all be leaders and so it's not about the title or the role, it's about trying to influence the lives of children, and if you have a good fit, it can be a beautiful thing. I feel that's what I have in Farmington; I hope I have it for a long time.
33:41 --> 33:42
Suzanne Klein:
Very wise advice.
33:43 --> 33:55
Bob Maxfield:
And I think the community hopes that you have it for a very long time as well. As we wrap up this wonderful conversation Chris, is there anything we haven't talked about you wish that we had, any kind of final words of wisdom?
33:56 --> 35:31
Chris Delgado:
Well, the only thing I'll say is I didn't know if this was a an audio podcast or a video podcast, so I actually am conducting this from my home office and for those of you who can see on the screen I have behind me some diplomas, and I wanted to just very quickly tell us a story about that. My wife and I are both first generation college students, our parents were wonderful blue collar workers but didn't have the opportunity to go college. So many people when you get a diploma you see people who have their diplomas that are hung in their offices.
When we moved into our home we took our dining room and made it into this office, so around all four walls here we have diplomas of, not only our diplomas, but then our children's diplomas as they've gone through. So ever since they were little kids in order to walk to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal or a glass of juice, they had to come through this office. And in as little as one generation we changed the narrative from you know from poverty to opportunity and perspective about not just university pursuits but post-secondary pursuits. So public education changed our lives and changed the trajectory of our children's lives, and that's why I think it's so important for people to go into this field as teachers, as leaders, as superintendents. So I wanted to share that story just to highlight the power, I guess in my mind, in my heart of public education.
35:32 -->36:16
Bob Maxfield:
That's more than a metaphor; it's a wonderful, wonderful image you've created. And I think, even though we're not doing it via video, I think our listeners can visualize exactly what you're talking about. So Chris Delgado, thank you very, very much; it's been an excellent interview. It will be posted soon so everybody will be able to have the pleasure of hearing what you had to say. If people want more information about you, I'm sure that they can contact you through your district email, and so you may look forward to hearing that. To our listeners, thank you for being part of this installment of Podcast for Leaderful Schools; as always we're almost live from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.