[00:00:00] Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neigh-borhood talent strategy nerd, Dr. Jim, everyone's talking about the future of work and what that means for employers. All of those considerations are im-portant but there's one consideration that's flying way under the radar, and it re-ally should be top of mind.
And that consideration is how should school be structured to serve the needs of the future labor landscape? We often hear. About how today's new employees aren't ready for the workforce. If that's really the case, what can we do as educa-tors and leaders to prepare the workforce of tomorrow? It requires innovating in our districts and being laser focused on building the next gen workforce.
Those are the considerations and practices that we're going to tackle in today's conversation. So who's going to lead us through that discussion? Today we have Robert Hunt. And Ohio native joining us to share his insights. And he's been a superintendent at the upper Arlington schools for quite some time.
He joined the district in July of 2023, after spending much of his career in [00:01:00] high achieving school districts in Ohio and Illinois. He most recently was a superintendent of the Barrington 220 community school district in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Previously, he served as the superintendent of Chagrin Falls exempted village school district in Chagrin Falls, Ohio for nine years.
And during that time, he was named the Ohio superintendent of the year in Oc-tober of 2020. Dr. Hunt believes that a successful public school is a reflection of the expectations of community. And with that in mind, he believes that he has a responsibility to take time to listen and learn from all the stakeholders of the up-per Arlington schools and then focus on how to continuously improve. Wel-come to the show.
[00:01:37] Bob Hunt: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:38] Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation. Now, if we were doing a sports talk radio show, I would ask you what the difference in atmos-phere is between Ohio and in Chicago, and especially from a sports team or even collegiate teams perspective.
But that's not this kind of show. So it's a big adjustment going from the North-west Burbs in in Illinois and being a Bears [00:02:00] fan or Cubs fan or Sox fan to basically Ohio, where every team is good. With that being said let's dig into the conversation. And before we actually dive into it, I think one of the things that's going to be helpful is for you to share with the listeners.
What were some of those key moments in your career that shaped how you lead and how you show up within the districts that you've worked at?
[00:02:24] Bob Hunt: Thanks, Jim. And first of all, I don't want to correct you out of the gate, but I'm a Cleveland fan, so I know all about despair from the sports fan standpoint. But yeah, I've, I've had the good fortune of leading in. Very high performance school districts throughout my career and I had the good fortune of interacting with a gentleman really when I was getting my graduate degree who really focused on relationships, people, and trust.
And this really served as the foundation for everything I've done. So you talked about we continue to have a commitment to, to listen to folks, engage in conver-sations and build from there. So really at the foundation of. My leadership is understanding people, understanding problems, [00:03:00] and working collab-oratively to move forward.
[00:03:01] Dr. Jim: That's a good foundation to work from. One of the things that I'm curious about when I think about your career trajectory, you came from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago in your last district and you were there for quite a while. And then you're in this new district for a little over a year.
So what were some of the major adjustments that you had to make? When you're moving across a number of different states and potentially even socioec-onomic footprints that you had to deal with.
[00:03:26] Bob Hunt: Yeah, so at the end of the day, teaching and learning is teaching and learning when you get to the classroom level and what you're try-ing to do with kids. That maybe is the most consistent part when you think about it from a leadership perspective, you really have to understand the dynam-ics of everything in the organization from facilities to finance.
And crossing states when you have completely different funding models and how schools receive revenues and different laws and requirements that becomes the most challenging part because you need to spend some time building rela-tionships on the front end and that really needs to be your focus early in any leadership position but [00:04:00] all of those nuances and change, you also have to be really careful that you're operating appropriately and for me, it was a, it's just keeping my mind.
Okay. I'm in Illinois. I'm in Ohio. And which set of circumstances are we deal-ing with at a given time? So that was certainly the most challenging part, but, at the end of the day, walking into classrooms, it was really about the magic that's happening between teachers and students.
[00:04:22] Dr. Jim: So you said one of the things that you had to get up to speed on was the differences in funding models between when you're moving across different states. How did you get yourself up to speed so that it wouldn't trip you up?
[00:04:34] Bob Hunt: Yeah. So probably the biggest difference in the two states, Ohio and Illinois and Ohio. We have to take every every operating levy to our full community for a vote. So if we want to increase our revenue we have to go to the community and make our case and let them tell us whether They're go-ing to improve operation, operational funding or not.
In Illinois, that's a seven person decision as the board of education makes that decision on an [00:05:00] annual basis on how much they can or would ap-prove in terms of increasing revenue up to the, the annual CPI, up to 5%. You pretty much did that with your board of education.
So just a much different strategy and how you approach that and how you look at the financial side. Both are very Reliant on local taxes, local property taxes still is the main driver in both systems. But that nuance was very different for me. And I wouldn't say one is easier or better.
It just is a different strategy and how you work through that.
[00:05:29] Dr. Jim: looking at that, what you just said from an outsider's per-spective, I would think that it would be a much heavier lift to. Take that to the community every single time versus working through the board. Is that what your experience was? Or am I? Am I reading too much into it?
[00:05:43] Bob Hunt: No, I think, I think that's accurate. And a lot has even changed in Ohio in terms of what we can do from a campaign, standpoint that, that blend between, as a as a public servant, what you're allowed to do in terms of those campaigns, but it's a much more comprehensive [00:06:00] lift.
To approach the community with a ballot issue and you're really at the mercy of how that plays out in Illinois, it is just a more of an ongoing conversation about expenses with your board. And, I always say, it's my job to make sure boards of educations aren't surprised by things.
So if you do a good job, hopefully by the time you get to that approval date the board understands the why behind you, the increase that you're recommending.
[00:06:25] Dr. Jim: So once you actually started getting your feet underneath you within your current district what were some of the observations that you made that informed some of the strategic initiatives and directions that you were going to take once you started getting up and running?
[00:06:39] Bob Hunt: Yeah, so I spent the pretty much the majority of the first year just engaging with our constituents. And that was every, everyone from classroom teachers to students to classified staff and then really did. A lot of community engagement as well to just try to get an understanding of not only by being out and about [00:07:00] what I think is going really well with the data is telling me that it's good, it's going well to also hear from our constituents on their perceptions of the school district.
And, we spent all of that time gathering that data. I literally had. Our communi-cations director followed me everywhere I went in every one of those conversa-tions, so we documented everything we heard and we use that as the basis to launch into strategic planning. It was a very authentic way to engage in conver-sation and I think what our community is starting to see now, because we're just about to roll out a new strategic plan is Their voice is representative in the initia-tives in the work moving forward, but also as professionals inside the organiza-tion, we have to understand the data.
We have to bring our expertise to the table and identify those things that really require attention. And like every, I think every school district. Recruitment, re-tention. That's a biggie right now and how we acquire our staff and retain them. We're in this national crisis of of competing [00:08:00] for and retaining quality educators.
And that is one of those, what keeps you up at night items. That's a big one for me.
[00:08:06] Dr. Jim: One of the things that caught my attention about what you just described was the The year long listening tour that you went on And i've had this come up in a number of different conversations, but i've never really dug into it Usually when you're a new superintendent within a district It's be-cause the person prior to you either did something wrong or retired or whatever So there's a set of things that needs to be solved in a relatively quick fashion But I always hear about superintendents taking A reasonably methodical approach to figuring out what's going on.
So I guess. Were you coming into a baked in set of initiatives that you had line of sight to or did you have to build that on the fly and that's why you went on basically that year long listening tour
[00:08:52] Bob Hunt: Yeah, I had the good fortune of coming into a district that had a very strong direction. Very clear mission and vision, [00:09:00] and it was really clear from the Board of Education that they wanted me to take the time to understand the organization, get to know the community, and then work collaboratively on what the next steps would be.
I didn't have that. Here's a list of things that are on fire that you need to address right now. I had the luxury of really spending some time and trying to under-stand what is going well and what are the next things that we need to address as a school.
[00:09:25] Dr. Jim: the other thing that I'm I'm curious about, You did this lis-tening tour, and you talked to all of the different stakeholders that are involved within your district.
What were some of the common themes or challenges that started getting sur-faced as you're going through this through this listening exercise?
[00:09:42] Bob Hunt: Yeah it, what became very interesting. So it's a, we have a district about 6, 700 students. So not real large but, five elementaries, two middle schools and a high school. And it would, what becomes interesting is you identify that each, building has its own unique culture and differences.
But with the ability to transcend and go beyond the [00:10:00] board, the boundaries of those schools, you do start to see these themes that emerge in the district and, some of them could be even specific to certain subsets of the folks you're talking to, with teachers our teachers are dealing with increasing behavior issues in classrooms that the mental health crisis is real in terms of needing stu-dent supports.
The stress of teaching post COVID is just a much a different place. And the idea of both student and staff wellbeing, although a focus that has been here in the past really emerged as an, as something that this, that we needed to continue to focus our efforts on moving forward. So that was really apparent. What came out from students was this idea of engagement and relevance that, we've talked about how do we create environments that engage students and relevant, authen-tic learning experiences. And those are really nice words. But what does that look like? What does it feel like?
And how do we [00:11:00] engage students in content in meaningful ways as we move forward? I think that one emerged and then, from a community per-spective, I don't care where you are there is some level of divide in, in every community across our country right now and COVID, can be pointed to as maybe responsible for some of that, but acknowledging that divide and trying to recenter people on What is the common good of schools and improving the stu-dent experience for every student?
I think that emerged as something that that we needed to kind of address and shepherd and lead a conversation about what we do with students every single day and making that the focus and the conversation we have administratively with our staff and with our school board as well.
[00:11:47] Dr. Jim: So there's a lot in what you said that that was interesting, but I want to zone in on one particular thing. A bit of feedback that you got from your students, and that was their comment that there needs to be an emphasis on [00:12:00] engagement and relevance. So how did that inform like I opened the show? With the idea of, how are we getting today's students ready for tomor-row's workforce?
So what was the relationship between That feedback that you got from your stu-dents that there needs to be more of an emphasis on engagement And and rele-vance and how that shaped what you're doing from an education delivery per-spective
[00:12:23] Bob Hunt: Yeah, I would say that a large part of our new strategic plan that we're going to roll out. It really focuses on this point. A lot of districts over the last eight or 10 years have created what are called profile of graduates or profile of an engaged learner. And I know you've talked to a lot of educators, so I'm sure you've heard that term before, but essentially it's.
Working collaboratively with your staff, with your broader community, with your business community and identifying skills and competencies that we know we need to develop in young people. Things like empathy and teamwork and communication, things that aren't necessarily in a standard under algebra, but we know we have to develop those in young people.
[00:13:00] And I think school districts go one of two ways with that. They cre-ate a nice document. They put it online. It's a nice PR tool, and that's what we aspire to do in our classrooms, but there are schools, and I hope I think we are one of them that are trying to be more thoughtful and strategic about how do we create learning experiences that promote and engage in students and developing those skills.
And when I look at engagement, when students are collaborating, working to-gether, they're problem solving, when it's okay to fail that is an engaging learn-ing environment. So those two things are really important in the work that we are doing now and going forward. And, these learning experiences have been in place for a long time.
It's just how do we make them more systemic and more frequent that's really important.
[00:13:42] Dr. Jim: So when you talk about creating a different set of learning experiences that engages your students What was the, the old model that was in place and why wasn't it working?
[00:13:53] Bob Hunt: I think the old model in place is when we all shut our eyes and we think about how school was when we were there, 30 kids in a [00:14:00] classroom, desks in rows, teachers at the front delivering a set of content for a amount of time and then you take a test and you let all of that out and move on to the next.
And engaging in authentic learning is taking that content and making students apply it and problem solve with it. It certainly teaches mastery at a deeper level, but it also engages students in the content and makes that tie to relevance. And then we can, we can talk all kind, to different career paths and opportunities that you can create for students, especially in that middle school and high school years to really make sure that connection and that relevance is there.
[00:14:34] Dr. Jim: Digging in a little bit deeper in this area, one of the things that you mentioned was, there are a lot of schools out there that will create these strategic plans and just throw them up on the website and it doesn't really come to life in the district. It's just more of a PR document than anything else.
How did you structure your strategic plan so that it's embedded At all of your schools versus just something that's embedded on your website in an iframe
[00:14:59] Bob Hunt: So I'm not there [00:15:00] yet. We're just finalizing this thing and it'll be approved by the board in January. I have always said that if something's important, you will measure it. So we tie performance targets to our strategic plan. And it's not only, checking the box we did, we formed X commit-tee, but there will be things that we're monitoring along the way.
To bring accountability to. Our organization. We need to understand what those measures are going to be. And we're actually going to work with our board of education this week on getting some feedback on the things that they would value and they think are important that we're measuring going forward.
And then also, we are an industry that often likes to chase the next great thing. For me, it's my job as a leader To, to put ourselves through a very inclusive, deep process that identifies priorities. But then once those priorities are set, that becomes the focus. That is the work and that, that's what we'll continue to do.
So that's a large part, I think, of my responsibility to ensure that work gets done in a [00:16:00] meaningful, deep way and that we are holding ourselves ac-countable to making progress towards the attainment of our mission and vision.
[00:16:06] Dr. Jim: So when you talk about where you are in terms of a launch stage perspective, this is going to get launched relatively soon And put into prac-tice but from the time that you got in to the ready to launch stage There's a big gap in between And this might be a new way of thinking for a lot of The people that exist within the district.
So what were the things that you did to build consensus?
[00:16:32] Bob Hunt: Yeah, so when it came to year one, the board asked that we launch into strategic planning, and I was really concerned that that is a pro-cess that really requires a level of trust in the person standing out front and lead-ing it. And I was concerned at how I would be able to pull that off. So I did ask for time in that first semester.
Just take that first semester to get out and start to build relationships, collect data, understand the organization. So we did that [00:17:00] all last fall, first semester. That data and that information informed kind of what I call this phase one of our strategic plan, where we formed three inquiry teams around three core areas, and those inquiry teams involve staff members, administrators and teachers, stu-dents, community experts within those areas, and we charge those groups with understanding what kind of benchmarking where we were at in a current area and how we were Researching what is best practice and where do we aspire to be?
So hopefully painting the picture of where we aspire to be in those in that area So that's the work we did all last fall there's over 4 000 people engaged in the fall with those focus groups and implementation And then we had about 60 people in those inquiry teams the board of education approved that last june and it really that's a real a directional, this is where we're headed.
And this fall we've spent with our internal teams saying, okay, if these are the important areas what are the actions? What are the things we're going to do in the [00:18:00] organization over the next two to three years? I think when you look out five years, it's great from a strategic vision standpoint, but the reality is everything is changing so quick.
You got to look at almost like these two to three year segments, like what ac-tions, what are we actually going to. Do within these areas. And that's what we're working on now. And we'll present to the board, toe as a final plan. So that has engaged every teacher in our school district.
We've gone to every staff meeting. We've showed them the work that the inquiry teams to have. has completed. We asked for their input and action steps. We formed a teaching and learning team of about 50 individuals that took all of that input from our staffs to create the action plans and just really excited about the direction that's going due to the level of engagement.
I always, I always say that when you say strategic planning in a meeting, when people start to roll their eyes and they're tired of hearing it, now you've exhaust-ed involvement. Now it's time to do the work. And we're just about there.
[00:18:55] Dr. Jim: When I think about what you just described and you know building [00:19:00] Consensus across all of those stakeholder groups and also getting feedback from all of those stakeholder groups. I want to zone in on the feedback that you got from you called it the community experts, and maybe that involves the business community in that bucket as well.
Part of what we're talking about is building the workforce for tomorrow. So what did you hear from those community experts, particularly those that might've been in the business sector that helped inform how you're going to structure. Curriculum and student learning and experiential learning and all that stuff.
[00:19:31] Bob Hunt: Yeah, probably the biggest The biggest feedback on the business side was really around the skills and competencies and what we call our profile of an engaged learner, which, I referenced as many people call pro-file of a graduate. It was just a reaffirmation that, yeah, these things are equally or more important than content and we have got to.
Systemize how we're creating learning experiences tied to that profile of an en-gaged learner. So I think that was the [00:20:00] biggest biggest element of feedback. The other thing, just to, based on our proximity and what's going on in Columbus, the idea of partnering with local universities, partnering with businesses, understanding where the workforce is going and the needs of the workforce and then mapping that back to the educational experience and what kind of programs are we exposing our students to, to keep our talent here in Ohio to support the workforce needs.
That conversation got more traction and was deeper than I've ever seen it in a process similar to this in the past.
[00:20:35] Dr. Jim: So it's interesting when you describe the things that you did with the local universities as well as some of the local businesses. And one of the intentions was to keep talent in Ohio. And I think any district that is doing any sort of economic development, that's a consideration in why they actually do it.
So tell us a little bit more about some of those strategies that came out of those [00:21:00] conversations that is, that are focused on retaining those students and keeping them within the local or regional community.
[00:21:07] Bob Hunt: So we have, one of the things that we have here is Intel is Putting in a major a major hub and when we look at what we offer with our computer sciences and preparing our students for those things we, one of the things we did was we reached out to the University of Cincinnati because they have a program where students can get training.
Significant amount of university credit, but also develop their I. T. backgrounds called the U. C. I. T. Program. So we made the decision that we would have fast forward the implementation of that program and bringing in. And I think that's just one example of what is the workforce need? Who has a program?
How can we align and partner with them and make this a reality for our stu-dents? So in that environment, our students, when they go through that pro-gram, they'll have over 36 college credits as well as [00:22:00] in the area of IT that prepares them for what our workforce is demanding locally.
[00:22:05] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you describe that university partnership in that one program. And what caught my attention about that is that, this is something that you're describing. If I'm understanding it correctly, that happens at the high school level. One of the things that I'm curious about is there is a line of thought.
That I've heard from the broader education community that if you're starting thinking about this stuff at the high school level, it's often too late. So how are you working backwards into maybe the junior high school level and even earlier on exposing students to different types of career paths and embedding that into your programming that you have throughout various grade levels.
[00:22:44] Bob Hunt: Yeah, so a bit a bit in my, in infancy here in upper Ar-lington, but I think the reality of exposing students to both from a content and experience standpoint at an early age is really important. One of the things Ohio's looking at [00:23:00] is. Some requirements around career planning and career development, even in the middle schools.
And, I'm assuming that will continue to move forward, but it's engaging and ap-propriate conversation with students on what their skills and competencies are, what their interests are, and starting to think about pathways to. Career at a much younger age. I also, we have, if you take that I.
T. pathway, for example, the district before I came here implemented a block of time in every one of our elementary schools that was dedicated to just to. It's called Explorations, but it's essentially just STEM technology, engaging activi-ties to get students to start to think and problem solve at a deeper level.
I think that from a pathway standpoint builds, across the district.
[00:23:49] Dr. Jim: So when you describe all of this stuff that you've. Put it in-to place and you're right before the launch stage. It's a pretty big elephant that you're trying to eat. [00:24:00] So how did you structure this so that it's a man-ageable launch because this sounds really big. And if you're trying to launch something this big all at once, there's a pretty solid likelihood that parts of it will fall over.
So how did you structure this so that it's a tight launch?
[00:24:16] Bob Hunt: Yeah, so a couple of things on what we've already launched. Sometimes you just have to take. Take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself. Like that UCIT program we, there was a state grant that was released last year and we literally had two months to decide we were going to jump into this.
So we applied for and received this grant to build this program out, renovate a facility. So we opened a facility that we're calling the hub where we want to. Provide an opportunity for any program that we think it would be innovative. We wanted to create a space for it to launch and hopefully build and grow.
So it actually grows outside of the space and comes into our high school or into our middle school. But so I think we've pushed a lot early, maybe some would say maybe too much, too quick. But you're [00:25:00] pointing to the struggle we have right now. So we've got this great strategic plan. We've got all of these great ideas and implementation and everybody wants to do everything next year.
And so we're, that's the you're right in the wheelhouse of what we're, we're wrestling with we can't do everything. So what is the biggest bang for the book for our students? The, that will certainly take priority or, what is foundational for us to get to, to the, to this end game.
[00:25:25] Dr. Jim: There are a few things, foundational maybe that have to come first, but that is the struggle because you build all kinds of excitement and want to do all of this, but the reality is you can only do so much in institutions and organizations that are not built on the, the, their reputation is not let's change quickly.
Really interesting stuff. And I appreciate you sharing that with us. I want you to take a step back. Now you're getting ready to launch this.
[00:25:50] Dr. Jim: So there's a whole nother segment of the story that we'll probably need to tell a year from now. But for those folks who are in districts and are at a similar [00:26:00] stage as you are, they want to develop a program like yours and really get their students in their district ready for the workplace of tomorrow, what are the key things that those district leaders need to keep in mind to successfully build a program like this and get it ready to launch?
[00:26:17] Bob Hunt: I think, always in leadership, being able to lay out and explain the why is really important. So if you're going to go through or engage in a process, making, you a case for that process and bring, being able to tell the story on why change is necessary is I think probably the first and most im-portant piece of this the second, I think if, looking at our process you cannot create and do this.
From your office as the superintendent or go into a boardroom and create this you mentioned a quote, I've said it a thousand times, communities should be re-flections of, or schools should be a reflection of the priorities of the community. So if you believe in that, you have to engage them in a [00:27:00] really thoughtful conversation about the realities of where the school is now and where.
The community wants to take these schools. We talked about funding both in Illinois and Ohio, local property taxes are what fund schools. They're what keep them going. So you cannot just in isolation create the educational experience and think you're going to have buy in and support for that going forward.
That, that engagement and involvement of community is really important. And then I've always believed that you can only move at the speed of trust, like building trust along the way and credibility along the way that you mean what you say, and you're going to, you're going to do what you say you're going to do is really important.
Building that trust and using the process to build trust in you as the leader I think is also critically important. So those are the things that come off the top of my head.
[00:27:52] Dr. Jim: If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[00:27:56] Bob Hunt: Certainly, going through our district website and email me, happy to continue that [00:28:00] conversation.
[00:28:00] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us, Bob. When I think about this conversation that we had, one of the big things that stood out to me, which I think is important when we think about building that workforce tomorrow for tomorrow is your point or your emphasis on building relevant skills that engage students in the classroom.
And the way that I understood that. And the reason why I think it's important is that you can never really learn how to build a car By reading a book so in a sim-ilar way you can never really learn how to computer program by just simply reading a book and. What makes a lot of sense to me is by working through those community partnerships and those business partnerships to bring work in-to the classroom so that people actually get some hands on experience and start on the path of getting the skills.
That they need to be effective in the workplace at some point immediately after graduation, whether that's graduation, high school or graduation in college doesn't matter. You're already [00:29:00] getting exposed to what those skills are, and I think that represents one of the big gaps that exists within the work-place is that many students nowadays are coming out with all sorts of theoretical knowledge, but.
Theory goes and flying out the window. As soon as you hit the real world and find out, Oh, this didn't work the way that it's described in the book. So I think that's an important lesson for a lot of folks to take away from is that it can't just be purely theoretical. There's got to be a practical element.
And if you're in embedding that practical element. into the classroom. That's how you're making it relevant and engaging for the students. So appreciate you sharing that. And I think that's a good foundation to build from. For those of you who've been listening to our conversation, if you like the show and you like the discussion, make sure you leave us a review.
If you haven't already done so, make sure you join our community and then tune in next time where we'll have another great leader who's hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.