[00:00:00] Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd. Dr. Jim, once you get into the big chair and understand the landscape of what's in front of you, how do you get broad buy in for what you want to move forward?
The first part of that process involves being at peace with understanding that your top priority might not be what the staff or community wants. And once you recognize that, you can begin the work of understanding what are the top priorities that the community has and how staff, students, and community can work together to raise the bar for an entire district.
Through it all, the focus needs to be on building a culture of high expectations. And in order to do that, you need to have grassroots support and commitment for that transformation. That's the story that we're going to tell today. And who's joining us to help share that story? Today we have Antonio Santana, who serves as the superintendent of schools for the South Country Central School District, joining us today.
He brings more than 20 years of educational leadership experience, and prior to his current role, Antonio worked as a high school [00:01:00] and middle school principal, where he led efforts in strategic planning, curriculum development and fostering student success. Antonio is committed to equity and inclusion in education, having implemented restorative practices and social emotional learning programs across the district.
His leadership is driven by a focus on creating supportive environments where students and staff can thrive. Thank you. In addition to his administrative work, Antonio is a keynote speaker and is actively engaged in various professional education organizations. His dedication to student achievement, school improvement, and community color collaboration continues to shape the future of South Country central school district.
Antonio, welcome to the show.
[00:01:39] Dr. Antonio Santana: Thank you, Dr. Jim. Happy to be here.
[00:01:41] Dr. Jim: Looking forward to having this conversation, because I think it brings an interesting wrinkle into our overall discussions, you're one of the first people that we've had on the show that has an East coast.
Point of view. Most of our conversations have been Midwest and and West coast. So that's going to be interesting in and of itself. But before [00:02:00] we dive into the main part of what we want to talk about, I think it's important for you to get the listeners connected to who you are and particularly some of those key moments in your career and life that helps shape your leadership philosophy.
[00:02:13] Dr. Antonio Santana: I'm a son of an immigrant born and raised in New York City. I pretty much all my life to public schools. And, I think from early on, that basically was the sort of motivation I had to pursue this career.
Ironically, I didn't go to undergrad to be an educator. I went to undergrad to be a veterinarian. That didn't work out for me, and I had multiple different sort of career paths from public relations to accounting. Until ultimately I found myself unemployed and New York City had a teacher shortage and I stumbled upon teaching and fell in love with it.
And I've had great mentors throughout my career. I think for me, one of the things that drives me is to be an impactful person, a contributor. Because I do, love our country and our communities. And I think what we need best is leadership that's going to be inspirational not just to your students, but to your [00:03:00] staff and to your community members so that they can have faith in our public schools.
And basically the difference that public schools can make in the lives of, students. Americans.
[00:03:07] Dr. Jim: There's a couple of things that caught my attention in just that little backstory that you shared with us. First and foremost, it's your immigrant background and also your experience having grown up in public schools. How does that shape your perspective as a district leader and how does that influence some of the things that you advocate for within the communities that you serve?
[00:03:28] Dr. Antonio Santana: Sure. So a little point of clarification. I was born here in New York. My mother was an immigrant. So she basically came to America for the American promise and basically instilled in us just a work ethic, a simple humbleness and certainly an appreciation for people's generosity. Because, I had the good fortune to have many great mentors and people who are influential in my life as a boy who had really no resources.
My mom does not speak English. She was illiterate. My father was not in the picture. And that's why when I talk about public schools and the teachers I [00:04:00] had in my life and the impact they had on my education and just in my growth it's pretty remarkable in terms of how that influences me and my role now.
I just think that People need to appreciate how public schools can be a conduit to, good citizenship. We promote civic engagement. We try to get students involved. And ultimately, we want to serve entire communities. One of the things we emphasize as a Public school people is that, politically, we're neutral.
We try to create safe spaces for kids to think critically and staff which is very liberating because it allows you to hear different perspectives and be supportive of an entire community. So sure. I can talk about our students that come from immigrant backgrounds, but really that support transcends, our entire sort of demographic.
[00:04:40] Dr. Jim: I appreciate you sharing that. One of the other areas that I think was pretty interesting about your background was how you mentioned that you started out your career, professional career in the private sector. You started you wanted to go the veterinary route, and then you spent some time in PR and.
I'm curious how that experience in the private [00:05:00] sector maybe helped prepare you or maybe didn't help prepare you for life in the K through 12 space. What was that experience like?
[00:05:08] Dr. Antonio Santana: That's a great question. And it reminds me of the movie Slumdog Millionaire and how these random events in a child's life suddenly led to meaningful events later in life. I feel like all of my experiences have fed, my skill set and the tool belt I carry for to effectively lead a school district.
So when we talk about, going to vet school and knowing the rigors of such a program, I could certainly understand, the benefits of just working hard and Taking challenging coursework. But also the benefits of realizing that, we should really do something you're really passionate about.
And I wasn't passionate about being a veterinarian. When I switched to a communication major, the amount of writing instruction I got, public speaking Persuasive speaking. Those skills were invaluable to me in terms of my ability to, address a crowd to speak a community of people to engage in difficult conversations and also to be an active listener.
So I think that played a role. [00:06:00] I also worked in accounting and business, which also taught me, Fiscal responsibility. The ins and outs of just being a fiduciary and doing those types of things in the community. And ultimately, what I left out, I did stand up comedy and acting as well.
I think being an educator and being a teacher is certainly a role you play. And, sometimes our roles get very difficult and challenging. But, I try not to personalize the challenging and I really frame it as a role you play and how best You should play that role.
So I often tell myself and during tough times, like what is the script calling me to do? And what would the ideal superintendent in my case do? And so I feel like all these little things together have helped shaped, the person I am today.
[00:06:38] Dr. Jim: Now, that's great insight. And I want to dig a little bit deeper in something that you said, and that was when you're going through the process of veterinary school and even in your PR track, you mentioned passion. You wanted to do something that you're passionate about, and you eventually ended up, in the K through 12 space, what is it about that space that [00:07:00] helped answer your why?
And that's given you the staying power to stay within it and continue progressing?
[00:07:06] Dr. Antonio Santana: one of the things I mentioned about my upbringing was not having a father in my life. And one of the things I'll never feel is a validation from a father and getting a little deep. But what that means for me as an educator is I do feel like people have voids, and I feel like one of the things I can do is feel people fill people's voids.
And I simply put, and this is a little East Coast for you, but spreading love is a Brooklyn way. Yes, I am quoting the notorious B. I. G. But I feel like that's like my ultimate purpose is to spread love and support. to be, the person that fills people's cups so that they can really aspire and have fulfillment in their lives.
Because you can never imagine what, our students or even staff members are going through or the type of experiences they have. And I feel that in my capacity as a school district leader, I could certainly provide that support to a whole community of people. And that's extremely gratifying to me because, in turn, I'm [00:08:00] filling my sort of void that I have for myself.
[00:08:02] Dr. Jim: Now, I really like how you put that into perspective, and especially the your comment about The gap in yourself as far as having that father figure in your life. I think I can definitely relate to that. I think a lot of people can relate to it, even if they did have a dad in their life, maybe that dad wasn't present or available and that and that's a different level of of emptiness as well.
So I appreciate you sharing that switching gears a little bit. I'd like you to paint us a picture of the landscape of the district that you're currently in.
[00:08:29] Dr. Antonio Santana: South country is located on the south shore of Long Island, New York. We're a moderately sized district for New York State. We have 4000 students, K to 12. We do have a pre case center as well. We are very diverse in terms of socioeconomic status and, back the different ethnicities and backgrounds of our students, which is pretty special in our district.
And it reminds me of my upbringing in New York City, which is You know, a very diverse place. And I think it's a it's an amazing sort of dynamic because also politically we're very diverse. I think that sort of [00:09:00] enables us to speak to one another and try to sort of define our commonalities.
Over close to 60 percent of our kids have free and reduced lunch in our school district. 17 percent of our kids are English language learners, so they're new sort of entrance to our country. And we also have kids who come from high affluence. And the idea is how do you serve an entire community of people so that everybody feels like their needs are being met.
And that's from kids who live in gated mansions to kids who live in poverty. And I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to be the commonality that all of my students and staff members have.
[00:09:31] Dr. Jim: So you're going to get a little bit of my Flatlander armchair quarterbacking when I asked this question. So I'm a Midwest guy. And even though my best friend is out in New York, he lives in in Hell's Kitchen, I think my concept of New York. Manhattan and Long Island are two different things in terms of how that operates.
That's just my perspective. Now when you look at the dynamics within Long Island, especially when you're dealing with that socioeconomic [00:10:00] diversity or differences within within that district. It's a tough act to pull together where you can have a unifying message or goal for the district. So I'm curious how you tied all of that together when you have so many differences within the community that you serve.
[00:10:16] Dr. Antonio Santana: So that's a great sort of question, and that is one of the biggest challenges. Because basically, we want all of our students to be successful. When we talk about student achievement and certainly closing achievement gaps among our different demographic groups. I think ultimately, I've always seen like a school community and assigned.
of a hierarchy of needs based on like Maslow's hierarchy. It's a five prong pyramid at the bottom of the pyramid. I feel like the school spirit and culture and that's how the community feels about the school district. And so our mascot here in South country is a clipper because there's a lot of shipping and whaling back in the day in Long Island.
And so how do we feel about being a clipper? And that's basically an identity that we can all identify with. Regardless of where you grew up in the community, we're all clippers. And so when people feel good about the school district, they tend to want to work [00:11:00] towards its success. Above and beyond that is student and staff decorum.
And it's really important that we have a positive and supportive culture. We profess to have a culture of care and belonging for all of our community members. And when I say community members, I'm inclusive of our staff and students because sometimes educators focus all their energy on students. And of course, That's why we do what we're doing.
That's basically the community we're really serving. But you gotta be mindful that you have to be supportive of everyone who plays a role in this dynamic. So student and staff to quorum and understanding boundaries and forging positive relationships that are supportive is important.
And then above those two levels is quality instruction. And I feel like you can't really start focusing on instruction until you have those two. Those needs met after quality instruction is community involvement. You have to really reach out. And one of the things I learned as a poor kid growing up in Manhattan is be open to people's generosity and reach out and don't be afraid to ask.
A student once told me, if you don't ask, the answer is always no. I apply that philosophy in my interactions where our [00:12:00] education foundation that raises money for our school district, the different civics groups that we work with, law enforcement elected officials that's really important to have community involvement.
And ultimately, at the top of the pyramid is school success. And that's when people feel a certain sense of pride in their school community.
[00:12:15] Dr. Jim: So I like how you broke that down in terms of the school values or mission and purpose into that hierarchy format. I think one of the things that I'm curious about is when you look at that hierarchy and you look at those foundational needs. Oftentimes, it's difficult for people who never had to do that kind of struggle to understand.
The need for those foundational elements that provide the supports for future success. So how did you close that gap of understanding, especially in an environment where you have a segment of yours, of your population that probably never experienced anything like the the other folks that are in the community that are on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder.
[00:12:56] Dr. Antonio Santana: I'm a lifelong learner. I think when I've worked in education at different levels, whether it's [00:13:00] my time as a teacher, as a building administrator, you learn these things. You learn what's important and school buildings are very organic. And I think that's my takeaway.
And so when, I saw students struggling academically, for example, you have to figure out what need is not being fulfilled. And it's not as simple as, extra math instruction or after extra sort of literacy instruction. It's, fundamentally, we're human and the human needs.
Are universal, regardless of what your circumstances. So one of the things you know, I developed with the help of teachers is, we call it Clipper Pride. Pride is an acronym. The acronym is universal. So the pride stands for P being prepared. Then I tell my students, you always need to be prepared for when opportunity comes.
The R is for respectful. Always be respectful to your peers and your community because when you're respectful and you have good relationships, opportunities will come your way. The I is being involved. You should be involved in your school community and your communities because unless you're in it, there's no opportunities for you to succeed.
The D is for diligent. Always put your best [00:14:00] foot forward. And and when you come across failure or adversity, it's a time to rise up and reflect upon what your role in that is and be motivated by it. And most important is the E, which is to be ethical, because you could be great and talented.
But that's not enough. You have to be great and good. That pride sort of mindset and those values are universal, regardless of what your circumstances. Because what I learned in my career is when kids have needs, their sort of life circumstance is inconsequential. If you grew up in poverty and you have a loving home, you're good.
If you grow up in affluence and there's Things lacking emotionally at home. You're going to struggle. And I think having worked in different school districts, just to give you some sort of a point of reference, Long Island by itself. This is not New York State has 124 school districts. Some of our school districts are extremely small.
And they're very diverse, and they're very different. And I've had the opportunity to work, I think, in five different school districts that were very different. And I learned that kids have a lot more in common than they have differences, regardless of what their backgrounds are. And so you [00:15:00] need to apply a generalized approach to your school community.
[00:15:03] Dr. Jim: Now that makes a lot of sense. I want to have you take a step back and think about when you joined the district . What did you walk into when you first started and how did that inform some of the priorities that you wanted to tackle?
[00:15:15] Dr. Antonio Santana: Yeah, walking into a superintendency is always nerve wracking and it's not a reflection of the community. It's just it's a monumental job and a great responsibility. I looked at our student achievement. Our student achievement, it wasn't and isn't where it should be. It's not a criticism of my staff.
It's an observation of things that we have to work on and to grow. There was a lot of unique sort of dynamics in our community in terms of where, People live and how the community is broken up, that's the proverbial one side of the tracks versus the others. So that was something I was very mindful of.
And then growing up in New York City, despite its diversity, I grew up in Manhattan. There were neighborhoods that had clear boundaries, and so there weren't physical boundaries, but certainly certain neighborhoods had their flavors, and we certainly had a little bit about that [00:16:00] here. So really, my emphasis was how do I create a sort of culture within our school buildings where those boundaries evaporate?
Where we all have one identity. And when we all can feel good about our role and our and our importance and our value in that community. So that's really like a sort of philosophical sort of mindset. And then you can address everything else. Because as much as I want to generalize and say we're all Clippers.
You also have to address the fact that we do have different perspectives, different experiences, and we also have to be appreciative of those things. And that's where our responsiveness comes in. It's a balance between you We're all Clippers. We're all, if we all abide by our Clipper pride, you could pretty much pave the way to a great life.
But we also have to acknowledge the different challenges that our community has. And again, those challenges come from students of all walks of life.
[00:16:46] Dr. Jim: So when you take all of that and you're working on removing these boundaries and creating a unified district or a unified purpose, where did you start?
[00:16:54] Dr. Antonio Santana: So I started by just being involved, going to different community events. I have the good fortune of being bilingual. So we have [00:17:00] a large, 50 percent of our students are Latino and we have a lot of Spanish speaking homes. So those, an edge I had so I can communicate in those, with those families and our native.
language, visiting different parts of the community and just making myself known and accessible. One of the things I learned from one of my bosses when I was a kid was the lazy man works twice as hard. And for me, putting that effort in getting to know your community and being accessible was instrumental because people felt a certain comfort level sort of sharing their concerns and what they felt.
We're, important areas of growth. In my third year, we're taking a much more sort of pragmatic approach and engaging in a strategic planning process that's gonna engage our entire community, including community members that don't have Children in our school district. And so in working in collaboration with my school board, we're about to launch this in my third year because after two years of making an assessment and making some changes like adding, really focusing on restorative practices because kids belong in school.
And so one of the things I keep emphasizing is that the world is different and people often get nostalgic about their experiences in public school or whatever school [00:18:00] experience you have, not appreciating that kids are growing up in a different world. And so we have to let go of the past and focus on the present and plan for the future.
So what we're doing is we're really soliciting input from our entire community through a consulting firm where we're gonna actually start rewriting our mission and vision statements coming up with values that are gonna be generated by all stakeholders. And some people think that is that like a risky sort of endeavor to undertake.
And I don't think it is because ultimately, when we come to our final product and we come to something that, really was driven by the entire community of people, then we can really focus on the things that need to happen here in South Country.
[00:18:37] Dr. Jim: So there's a little bit more that I want to dig into. So you talked about, you got into the community, you started talking to families, but that only gives you one element of perspective within the community. So when you think about the role a district potentially plays within You have business stakeholders.
You have you obviously have the family components. [00:19:00] What were what other things did you do to make sure that you're getting a holistic view of what the district needs and what's important to the district?
[00:19:07] Dr. Antonio Santana: We also have our staff. We have our different collective bargaining units, which we, it plays an important part, so you have to get their input and be accessible to them. And again, I think active listening is really the key. The fundamental skill you need to have what I mean by active listening is not listening to respond, but literally opening up your mind and being passive and listening to people.
I think in our roles and leadership roles, you always want to provide answers or solutions, but that's not really always the best course. And so you have to listen outside and talking, making myself accessible to staff members. Also working with our local law enforcement meeting with them on a regular basis to talk about, those things.
Like I said, our civics organizations are elected officials. And I said it before, one of the things that I love about my position is that I get to be politically neutral. Which allows me to talk to everyone and people feel open talking to me. And what I've learned in talking, to people who have different sort of [00:20:00] political philosophies or on opposite ends of the political spectrum is ultimately we have a lot more in common than we suspect.
We all want the same things for our communities. And so once you have that buy in and people feel like they're heard and their concerns are validated, I think that's the first step in eliciting change.
[00:20:14] Dr. Jim: If I'm thinking about your ramp up plan. So you have the community as one stakeholder that you're going on a listening tour with, then you have your internal staff, as well as the union leadership that you need to account for you incorporated law enforcement, business and elected officials.
So there's six pillars that you're gathering information from. And you just mentioned that as you're. Having these conversations, you start realizing that there's a lot more in common than we than separates all of these constituencies. So when you look at that listening exercise that you went through, what were the major themes that came out of that conversation that informed kind of the direction that you wanted to move the district [00:21:00] towards?
[00:21:00] Dr. Antonio Santana: I think there was a big push for equity and access. And again, it's it's the hardest part was balancing the needs of all the different sort of demographic groups in our community. And I left one group that I listened to, which is our students. Their voices are extremely important.
So I feel badly that I didn't mention them, but yeah, you have to be accessible to students too. And I've done that, just to digress really quickly, but I did assembly programs in each of our buildings, K 12. And in my first year, I spoke pretty much to every student in our school district about careers and ambition.
Shared my story, so they had it. Immediately forged a relationship with me. I also put out like a weekly blog to our community as well. Which is basically a stream of consciousness. I touch upon things that might be on people's minds. But ultimately it's, I think, if if you're a child that's growing up in poverty, how do I have access to some of these more glamorous things that school districts Have like opportunities to travel or trips.
And how do we close that gap? So those kids could have access and be rewarded for their hard work. If you're a family that comes from affluence, how do I keep those [00:22:00] families from making the choice to send their kids to public school when they have the option or they can certainly afford to go to private school?
And I think what's important is to eliminate this whole idea of the zero sum theory that where if you support one group, You have to take away from another. The idea is to be available to everyone which can be challenging sometimes, especially if you're given my background, I want to make sure that people see me as an advocate for all of our constituent groups.
[00:22:25] Dr. Jim: So you mentioned something that's really interesting in your answer, and that is. You have to get people, and I'm paraphrasing, you have to get people out of zero sum thinking. And that's a big problem across a lot of different contexts. When you look at the work that you needed to do in that space, was there anything in particular that stood out as something that really worked well in getting people out of that mindset as you were working through this process?
[00:22:49] Dr. Antonio Santana: Something I can't take credit for, but is really successful in our school district is we have a dual language program that goes K to 7. And like I mentioned before, a large portion of our population, about 17 percent of [00:23:00] our kids, are English language learners. Prior to me coming here, they started a magnet school that was dual language.
All of our students in the dual language program are given instruction in both Spanish and English. Everyday benefits. If you're an American born student who speaks English at home, you're basically getting an education that's prepared to be a fluent bilingual person in adulthood. Thanks a lot.
So that's one way we manage addressing the needs of our English language learners in a way that everybody benefits and, and also communicating that the success of all of our students is the success of our community. We all know that property values are tied to the success of school districts, and so you have to sell that conclusion.
Piece of the puzzle, too. And we want to make sure that we close the gaps for all of our demographic groups while still, meeting the needs of our entire community. But the idea is that our collective success is what's important. And the success of the individual student feeds that collective success.
[00:23:52] Dr. Jim: You've taken the time to engage with all of these different stakeholder communities and get a full picture of [00:24:00] what the need is and what the action plan should be. How did that feed into the conversations that you had internally about what should be the key elements of the strategic plan that you're going to be putting together to move forward with?
[00:24:13] Dr. Antonio Santana: So ultimately, I think people resist change. I think that's just human nature. It's not a sort of a statement about my community here. And so the idea is to help people embrace change. And you have to be slow and steady because the work to shift a culture of a school district really is a law. It's a marathon.
I remember one of my mentors saying, we're not in a sprint. We're in a marathon. And you have to be patient. For me the magic number, 5 to 10 years really to see the sort of the fruits of your labor. And I'm only in my third year. So it's you have to help people appreciate the sort of the the time it takes for these things to start happening because, people want sort of immediate gratification.
Sometimes, our assessment scores are going to change in a year. They're going to change over time. And I think staying the course is really the biggest challenge, and I think in your leadership role, you [00:25:00] have to really be the perpetual optimist, but you don't want, had to have that sort of the toxic positivity.
It's like when things aren't going right, you have to be reflective and change course and taking a step back when you feel like you've made a mistake is a step in the right direction, and that's something people need to appreciate. But I think really to get people to buy in is an appreciation of how it's a process and it takes time and it takes input.
It takes reflection. And we're not always gonna get it right. We're not. And so what's important is to reflect and grow. And again, it's about perpetual growth. And that's what I lead by. It's it's trying to be that support and being that constant source of positivity for my community.
[00:25:38] Dr. Jim: You mentioned something that's really interesting, and I think it presents a potential third rail for people that are listening to this conversation. And that's this idea that, a lot of the work that you're doing, you're not going to see the impact in 5 or 10 years.
That's really when it starts bearing fruit. And when I think about that, there's probably a superintendent that's sitting out there saying I don't have [00:26:00] five to 10 years, my contracts for three. And I'm sure you had that thought in your head too. So tell us how you actually reconciled both of those realities and demonstrated progress to justify, okay, you're getting re upped, because that, that can be.
Anxiety inducing. So I'm curious how you navigated that.
[00:26:20] Dr. Antonio Santana: That's a great point. So that's not to say we haven't made gains that are immediate. There are certain things that you can do that are illicit, like immediate changes. So one of the things I did is and this is a an example that I think merits conversation is, basically a lot of community members get their information from social media.
So there's Facebook pages that tend to gravitate toward, negativity or the, perpetuating rumors or things that may not be entirely true. So one of the first things I did in speaking to that first level of my hierarchy of school is how do I Address the school spirit part. And so basically, I empowered our schools to get on social media and start marketing our district.
And that was really important to me because [00:27:00] what immediately changed is people started feeling different about the school district pretty quickly because all of a sudden I didn't do anything different. I just started. Advertising all the things we were doing by being a social media presence on three different platforms.
A lot of my followers are students, which is it becomes somewhat of a Instagram influencer here locally. But I think that's those are the small gains you can make. And I think when you have a strategic sort of approach to it that's what works. So really my first goal was to get, People feeling really good about the district.
I also came in when there was some sort of challenges with our school budget and I had to make sure that people gain faith in the way we presented our budget and sold it to our community before our budget vote. So those things happen just within a year because there are certain things you can do immediately to address concerns that can be addressed with just immediate decision making and a deliberate sort of approach.
But what I'm talking about is really systemic change where it's like it transcends everything. That's where you have to focus or you have to emphasize. [00:28:00] That's what's slow and deliberate. But you can make immediately changes to where we do things. For example, the branding of the hashtag Clipper Pride was something I brought in, which people started embracing.
Now kids are wearing T shirts and having bracelets. I say Clipper Pride. It sounds silly, but it's not because it creates a sort of motivation, and it's a mindset about how we feel about our community. But yeah, it's a balance between 12 both because, yeah, we have three year contracts. And so and we're beholden to our school boards and have a fantastic school board.
But yeah, that to say, Yeah, we have anxiety, and it's but you have to push through it, and you have to believe in your long term goals. But you have to make small gains. So whether or not it's changing some procedures in a school building that's gonna help alleviate perhaps some concerns. Those things happen along with the long term planning.
[00:28:44] Dr. Jim: Now that makes sense. I think the, I think one of the aspects of what you're describing that are like, is that you seem to be laser focused at every opportunity to build various levels of community across the district. So I think that's important, especially when you consider the stuff that you [00:29:00] did with the hashtag stuff as well.
But I want to I want to dig in a little bit deeper on some of the more long term stuff. You can do short term and long term at the same time. You can do more than one thing at a time. One of the things that I'm curious about is how did you demonstrate progress towards those long term goals for people that might not necessarily have visibility into into the overall trajectory?
[00:29:21] Dr. Antonio Santana: So right now it's like we haven't demonstrated a lot of growth in the last two years, especially when it comes to our assessment score. I still think we're reeling from the effects of the pandemic. And but what you demonstrate is a work that you're doing towards addressing that need for growth.
And when we look at our student achievement and our literacy rates, you have to start making an analysis of what your practices have been and what we need to do different. And, that's a fine line because you have to be really careful not to be critical of your staff. It's not often a reflection of how hard staff is working.
It's the fact that we have to work differently. One of the things I'm pondering now is, the amount of which schools differentiate their instruction. And so when we were kids, we basically all [00:30:00] worked off, off of one text. And regardless where you're at academically, we all challenges one text.
And so we moved away and we differentiate it. But I feel like now we need to reflect on our instructional practices. And how do we get engaged in close reading moving away from some of those models. And I think when people see the work and the deliberate decision making, That helps you get past some of these challenges.
Our student achievement isn't where it should be. And I still say that feeling a great sense of pride for our community. But I think you need to demonstrate the sort of things you're doing to address those needs. Like we added more literacy support in the earlier grades cater three because you have to catch the kids when they're young, by the time they get to middle school and high school, sure, you can make some gains, but really the interventions have to happen in early childhood.
So you have to demonstrate that. Regardless of whether or not we're showing the growth in the present, here are the decisions we're making to hopefully get, see some of the results of our efforts. And if not, again, you have to reassess and move forward. But it's a [00:31:00] continual process.
[00:31:00] Dr. Jim: Really great conversation so far. Antonio, I think I think your walk through of the groundwork that you did within the district when you started and some of the things that you identified and how you gathered that information is really strong.
I think what I'm curious about is after you did all of that work. And you already made progress towards some of the things that you had on your radar. How does this set you up for the future?
[00:31:21] Dr. Antonio Santana: So basically, the next step is to create structures and develop like measurable sort of goals. And the key to school district success, what research shows is basically number one, the strategic use of data. But you need appropriate structures because if the, we had to make sure the data is valuable and it's useful to meet our goals.
So we developed structures for MTSS, which is the multi tiered systems for student support, which is basically a response for intervention, RTI interventions. But we added a social emotional component to it. We are periodically gathering data from our students. One of the challenges here in New York is there's a big opt out movement with testing.
So we're encouraging more [00:32:00] families to opt in for the test because we need data points. And so we need to, emphasize that piece, but you need to have the structures in place for you to have that process. And that is where we can have evidence of our work and success, even if we are not where we want to be in terms of our achievement scores.
So once that Those structures are in place. The structures in a way guide the trajectory moving forward. And also this idea that we have high standards and high expectations for all of our students. And so a piece of it is also mindset. And so it's two things. It's number one strategic use of data and creating structures that are tangible and for our staff and for our community to see.
And secondly, is having this mindset that yeah, our students can achieve. Because part of the challenges sometimes we have is, people are very satisfied with the status quo. Or say we have a challenging population or a certain population of students aren't able to achieve because of the struggles or challenges they have or lack of resources.
And you have to exercise that from your thinking and have a growth mindset. But I'll say it's just in summary, you have to [00:33:00] establish structures. And I'm not going to take credit for the structures that we have here. It's basically have a great team of. Educators and teachers who provide input.
And basically, you just have to be a steward in that sort of work.
[00:33:11] Dr. Jim: Great stuff. So I want you to take a look back at the conversation that we had. And really the bulk of the discussion that we had was really about setting the stage. For you to make an informed decision on what should the future priorities be? How should that be informed? And really when we drill down even further from that, it's how do you build a grassroots momentum for a district transformation?
You wanted to raise the bar, which was what what you wanted to do when you set foot in the district. So when you think about the conversation that we had, And you're speaking to that other superintendent who's hearing this and wants to do the same thing. They want to raise the bar for their district.
What are the key principles that you would recommend that they deploy in their districts so that they're setting themselves up [00:34:00] for success for that turnaround?
[00:34:01] Dr. Antonio Santana: So one of the biggest challenges is not to prioritize everything because when everything is a priority and nothing is a priority. And so what we're doing this year, that's a bit different. As I said before, is we're engaging input from our community and stakeholders, which includes staff, students, community members to re write our mission and vision statement.
Come up with core values for our district and come up with measurable goals as a community. Because once you have that framework and that road map, that's what you have to focus your energy on. So my advice is really engaged in real strategic planning to say that, you want it. Student achievement to be better.
What does that mean? And we could talk numbers. We want X number of kids be proficient in math and reading. But to me, that's meaningless. It's how do you get there? What's really measurable? And my philosophy is you have to be ambitious. Often we fall into the trap of creating goals that are safe.
For example, I want my, reading proficiency to go up by three percentage points in the next school year. I have adopted a mindset saying it's perpetual growth, and I want growth each year. And [00:35:00] the idea is that each year should be a better year. And so whether it's 3 percent or 4 percent or 5%, it's inconsequential as long as we're showing progress in the right direction.
But really, my advice is really, you have to have structure and a sort of an easy not easy, but I'm saying the simpler your approach is, the more effective it's going to be. And often when you know, when you deal with a school district and we do with so many things and so many distractions and static focusing on tangible goals that are not You know, a huge number is really important.
And when the community participates in that process and they buy in, then we could all be on the same page because, we were easily distracted by a sort of happenings that happened in all communities. And I think being laser focus is what's most important.
[00:35:44] Dr. Jim: No, that's good stuff. And I think one of the things that that stands out about what you just mentioned is the importance of having concrete smaller goals versus shoot the moon goals. Because once once you look at those shoot the moon goals and you get at it and you see yourself falling behind, you tend to get [00:36:00] distracted about it it being insurmountable.
So really good advice there. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[00:36:08] Dr. Antonio Santana: They could reach out to me through LinkedIn. Antonio Santana. I'm easy to find. South country central school district. For sure. Send me the message. You can certainly reach out to me. At my email.
I feel like I'm a perpetual learner. And one of the things I want to emphasize for anyone who engages in this work is the work is never done. We jump in and we're part of the journey, and we try to steer the ship. And we're clippers, so I love using that analogy. But my role is to steer the ship.
And eventually I'm going to jump off the ship and hand the reins off to someone else. And really, my goal is to create the structures and sort of the practices That are gonna help us get to where we're going. And as a personality trait, I'm never gonna be satisfied. One of my colleagues, Dr Bossert, I'll say his name.
He said the road to excellence has no finish line. And so understanding that I don't think at any point in your career you're gonna feel like you're totally fulfilled or satisfied. And that's the mindset you have to keep forging ahead.
[00:36:57] Dr. Jim: That's really good perspective, Antonio. And I appreciate you [00:37:00] sharing that. Definitely appreciate you hanging out with us and chatting a little bit about your transformation effort within your district. When I think through this conversation, there's a couple of threads that I want to tie together.
One of the things that you mentioned early on in the conversation is, you often asked yourself, how can I fill the void? When I look at the conversation that we had, I think one of the important aspects of what you did to help answer that question is that you got a broad perspective from all of the different stakeholders in the community.
And I think when you're looking at. Your role as a leader within the district, that question is central. How can I fill the void? But before you can answer it, you need to understand what is the void you're trying to fill. What does it look like? What does it feel like? And what does that void look like from the perspective of many different people?
And that's what I thought was particularly interesting about the conversation that we had is how you integrated the voices and perspectives of all of these different stakeholder [00:38:00] groups to get a real concept of what is the. Problem or the void that you're trying to solve and then you put the plan together and I think that effort on the front end really helps help you probably set yourself up for success So I think that's one of the areas that I think is worth calling out And I appreciate you sharing that with us for those of you who've been listening to this conversation.
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