S05E04 - Galvanizing Community Around a Shared Vision | Dr. Sandy Husk, Superintendent Emeritus

In this episode of Build Momentum, we are joined by Dr. Sandy Husk. During her remarkable 48-year career, she has served at every level, from classroom teacher and school counselor to superintendent to  interim CEO and executive director for ACSD (the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a nonprofit with more than 125,000 members in 128 countries). She is currently the advisor to the CEO for MindPrint Learning; a member of the board of directors at Wayfinder and at Abl; and a board member and advisor for Husk Consulting. As a district leader, she has helped prepare students for graduation all across the U.S., including Oregon, Tennessee, and Colorado, learning each state’s idiosyncrasies.

Some Questions We Ask:

• Tell us more about your career. (01:22)
• What have been the most rewarding aspects of your work in education? (02:47)
• Do you agree with the RAND research showing that superintendents have one of the most stressful jobs in America, and how did you cope with stress in your own career? (04:05)
• How has scrutiny of the superintendency changed over the years? (06:03)
• How did you unify communities to see your vision for the district–especially during times of budget cuts? (06:51)
• How did your experiences compare with other superintendents across the nation? (09:28)
• How are you able to rally people around storytelling and communications opportunities? (11:05)
• What advice can you give to superintendents having difficulties building relationships within a divisive community? (12:21)
• Why is it important for the community to see superintendents as real human beings? (14:53)
• What can community advocates do better in supporting K-12 leaders? (16:25)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• About Dr. Husk’s career (01:31)
• Rewarding aspects of her career serving districts in multiple states (03:01)
• Her perspective on stress and coping strategies (04:30)
• Changes in scrutiny of the superintendency (06:12)
• How to promote a unifying vision for a district (07:12)
• Her personal experiences as a superintendent as compared to others (09:45)
• Different ways of rallying a community (11:24)
• Advice for superintendents today (12:29)
• The importance of communities’ viewing superintendents as real human beings (15:03)
• Suggestions on advocating for K-12 leaders (16:46)

Quotes:

“Every employee and every connected leader needs to be working towards the same communications so that you can get that confidence and the belief up. I have said this many, many times: I can get up and make a speech, and a whole bunch of people aren't going to believe it—but if the teacher and the bus driver and the secretary are saying it, now you've got momentum.”

“One thing I learned over the many years is I had to get some rules for myself on work-life balance.”

“You have to keep focusing on the vision. We want to feel good about each other even when we're making really, really tough decisions.”

“What I did with employees … was to try to get them to equate [the cuts] to something that they understand in their househ

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Transcript

Sarah Williamson: 0:05

Hello and welcome to Build Momentum for Education, a Podcast where we explore thought leadership and education. I'm Sarah Williamson, the founder of SWPR Group, an agency that supports public relations, communication strategies and thought leadership support for school districts, education companies and nonprofit organizations.

Chad Bolser: 0:23

And I'm Chad Bolser, Chancellor at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. This season, we explore a particularly unique perspective in K 12 thought leadership, humanizing the role of the superintendent.

Sarah Williamson: 0:36

Throughout the many conversations we continue to have with superintendents, a clear theme has emerged about the need to bring more humanity into the role of the superintendency. In this special series, we interview current and former superintendents and researchers to pursue the core question, how can we better see superintendents as real people navigating complex challenges to provide the best possible education for K 12 students?

Chad Bolser: 0:58

We dig deeper into how this important work can help build community, invite collaboration and increase widespread engagement.

Sarah Williamson: 1:08

We can't wait to get started. So let's dive in. We are so fortunate today we have Dr. Sandy Husk on the show with us. Welcome Sandy. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Sandy Husk: 1:20

Thank you, Sarah and Chad.

Sarah Williamson: 1:22

Will you start by telling us a little bit about your career as a superintendent, your long career as a superintendent, all the districts you've worked and what you're doing now?

Dr. Sandy Husk: 1:31

Sure. So I came up the fairly traditional trajectory, started as a teacher, was a counselor, and then worked my way up through central office. The first superintendency was in Adams County, one in Colorado. And then I ended up going to Clarksville, Montgomery County as superintendent in Tennessee. And then I ended up in Salem, Oregon as the superintendent. And I was wrapping that up and trying to figure out what I was going to do next, and ended up becoming the CEO of avid, which is a large nonprofit fee for service professional development system in the US. Was wrapping that up, and ended up doing the interim CEO position for ASCD. And had nine months of doing some board work and some consulting work when Portland, Oregon called and asked me to come in and do the interim and I finished that in June. All wonderful adventures, all really rewarding, but I will say the interim in Portland did finally convince me, after 48 years that that's enough of full time work. So I'm currently serving on a couple of boards. I'm advising a couple of CEOs and taking more walks and don't have to go to the gym so early. So life's pretty good.

Chad Bolser: 2:47

Sandy, that's awesome, and we're so appreciative of folks who take on those leadership roles. What have you found to be the most rewarding aspect of serving as a leader of multiple school districts throughout your career?

Dr. Sandy Husk: 3:01

Well, I think the obvious biggest reward is knowing that you're preparing students to walk across those graduation stages fully equipped, emotionally and intellectually for the world ahead of them, for whatever post secondary pathway that they pick. And so watching the achievement scores go up. Graduation scores go up is very, very rewarding. But the other thing that I didn't know when I got into the leadership position is how rewarding it would be to build a whole community from employees and parents, business leaders, faith based leaders, elected officials around supporting mission, public education. And I learned that probably throughout my trajectory, but particularly in my second superintendency. For a variety of reasons, the way that Tennessee funds their school districts is different than Colorado and Oregon, and so getting community support and understanding behind what you're doing became even more important. And I really I liked that. I liked working with the leaders and the employees of the whole crew, the whole community.

Sarah Williamson: 4:05

Yeah, I'm curious, Sandy, I know you've probably seen this study, the RAND study in 2023 where researchers discovered that superintendents have one of the very most stressful jobs in America, citing the intrusion of political issues and opinions into schools as a source of that stress. Do you agree with this perspective, and how have you been able to cope with that stress throughout your different superintendent roles in your career?

Dr. Sandy Husk: 4:32

the 90s. I was superintendent and chair of the Denver area superintendent Council. Roy Romer was a two term governor, very successful rancher, businessman, and in his 70s, he agreed to take the LA Unified School District Superintendent job. He happened to be back in town when we were meeting, and so he came to our meeting to talk with us about what it was like. And he started by saying, before he even started, he had negative editorials from both big newspapers. He talked about the number of empty teaching positions that he had, you know, positions he couldn't fill, the number of kids, just all the problems. And he said something that was very comforting to all of us. He said, all the things I've done in my career, including being a governor, this is by far the hardest thing that I've ever done, because the complexities of it is you're kind of combining a CEO role with being a mayor or some other elected official where there's a lot of politics and public opinion. I run the business, and that's not the only story, but there's several generals and some other folks that have done the same thing and come into the seat and said, it's just it's amazingly challenging to do this role, and I think for obvious reasons, political divisiveness of the pandemic expectations from the community. It just gets harder and harder.

Chad Bolser: 6:03

Sandy, you kind of touched on this that there's a lot of scrutiny on that role of the superintendent. How has that changed for that position over the years?

Unknown: 6:12

I don't know that it's changed. I think the way the scrutiny comes to you has changed. I think, you know, letters to the editor used to be, you know, the place where you got the harshest review on the editorial page, maybe an editorial board review. And then the faster the social media roles that the more that you just get inundated with what can be perceived as fairly negative feedback. So my goal was always to try to meet people, because I find if I could sit with them face to face, we still may disagree, but we could get that civil discourse of trying to understand why we were in different places with our opinions.

Sarah Williamson: 6:51

Yeah, that's a good approach. I'm curious, when you served as an interim superintendent for Portland Public Schools, where you cut the budget by $30 million how are you able to build community and bring people together to see your vision for the district and unify them in a positive way, in what could probably be a really contentious situation?

Unknown: 7:12

Well, and that was also following a week or more of school closures, we had a month long strike, and I will say, Guadalupe Guerrero, the superintendent that left he had done a lot of the hard, hard lifting. He'd worked with the board to get them through the strike, get teachers and employees back in school buildings with students, and he'd done a really nice job laying out recommendations on the budget reductions. But it just takes a lot of communicating, a lot of going and meeting with a variety of groups so they understand why you're going through it. And there were really three factors coming at Portland Public and it's not the only state, the only district, excuse me, in Oregon, or the only district in the nation that's facing this level of budget scrutiny. One is declining enrollment. Two was the ending of the Esser funds, which was the federal funding to support schools during pandemic. And then three, the expectations from what parents and business leaders want from the school district in terms of student accomplishments. Portland has a very robust curriculum with lots of highly specialized offerings that are wonderful, but they're just not funded at the level that the state funding formula comes to you with, and so you really have to work hard with people to get them to understand that. And part of the thing that's so hard, and I've probably been doing this talk now for about 15 years or more, is that when you're trying to communicate to the public, and you're sitting on a $2.3 billion budget, and you're short 30 million. Well actually with 70 million over two years, so the new superintendent now will have to cut another 40 million. The numbers are so big that it's hard to get the general public to understand it. And so what I did with employees, in particular in Salem and also in Clarksville, was to try to get them to equate it to something that they understand in their household budget, right? That if you were using your savings account to pay for your rent or your mortgage, you're in deep trouble. And when you use your reserves in school districts to pay for your operating costs. It's the same thing. So it takes a lot of communicating. It takes a lot of trying to break it down into terms that you can actually relate to.

Chad Bolser: 9:29

Those numbers are overwhelming, and it's amazing when you say it out loud to imagine going through that. So how representative Do you think your own experiences are compared to other superintendents in your local area, the state, maybe even in the nation as a whole?

Unknown: 9:45

I think it's pretty common. I think the only difference is how many media outlets or other places are the conversations have happening. You know, if something is going to be on the nightly. News in Oregon, and you live where there's a local news station, you know, you stand a good chance of being there. I used to get up at four or 4:30 in the morning to get that newspaper out of the driveway. Now I don't have to do that. I can just pick up my phone, but because I wanted to see what was the news, and they're going to report good and bad news, but the bad news is going to draw a headline, right? And people are going to remember that. And so figuring out, how do you build a trusting system with literally hundreds of 1000s of people so that you can continue trying to raise the confidence level. And a lot of times, I'll say, people might think, well, that's what the communications department does. They may be experts at helping you, but it is every employee and every connected leader needs to be working towards the same communications so that you can get that confidence and the belief up. I also have said this many, many times, I can get up and make a speech and a whole bunch of people aren't going to believe it, but if the teacher and the bus driver and the Secretary are saying it now you've got momentum.

Sarah Williamson: 11:05

Yeah, so in line with that, Sandy, I'm curious how you've been able to do that. How have you been able to rally people around those communications and storytelling opportunities, to get the educators and families so that on the Facebook page that angry mom, someone else is responding to her with the messaging that you want to see. Like, how did you build that?

Unknown: 11:24

Well, first, I think you've got to be really clear on what the mission and the vision for the school district is, and it needs to be specific to the environment that you're in, right? And once you get that clarity, and again, keeping that messaging at a very high level, you'll have the backup. You'll have the details behind it, but you've got to get people motivated. And so my first style is to make sure the board and I are in agreement that that's job one, and then the next is to work through all the administrators, and particularly through principals. They carry a very strong voice of confidence in the community, and they touch almost all of the employees that are associated with the school itself. You know, there are other departments and things where you'll be working with different administrators, but if you can get those principals and those key district administrators and your board on point, they will help pull the community forward.

Sarah Williamson: 12:17

Politics is local. Every

Dr. Sandy Husk: 12:19

Yes,

Sarah Williamson: 12:19

yeah, very local.

Chad Bolser: 12:21

So what advice do you have who are other superintendents who might be struggling to build a community within divisive communities?

Unknown: 12:29

Well, one thing I did learn over the many years is I had to get some rules for myself on work life balance. When I got to Tennessee and I met my current husband, and we got married and and we realized that if we stayed in town every weekend, it was all going to be about work, because that's what people saw me as. So we had a little cabin we would go to on the weekend, and that was my time to kind of put some blocks up and try not to think about it so much. You can't get rid of all of it, but I think finding some ways to trigger into your happy place, whether it's exercise or gardening or whatever it is that gives you a chance just to be who you are. And then I also think it's really easy to be so concerned about the negative things that happen that you kind of get drawn down instead of lifting up. And so finding ways to use humor, finding ways to highlight the positives of what's going on on a daily basis, and continuing to describe that. And I don't always have to feel it every second. I just have to be the key person that says we're going to get through this. I remember back in 2009 and 10 when we were all slashing budgets and the only difference between what I was doing in 2009 is I had a whole year to talk about it before I cut 50, 60 million out of the budget. So by the time the cuts happened, everybody had been hearing about it for 12 months in Portland. We didn't have that luxury. But I remember saying, you know, we are going to get through this, we're going to reduce budgets. It's going to have an impact on employees. Then the only thing we need to focus on is, how are we going to feel about each other on the other side? Because that's important. You have to keep focusing on what is the vision and we want to feel good about each other even when we're making really, really tough decisions.

Sarah Williamson: 14:19

Yeah. You know, it's interesting what you said about not really having a personal, work life balance. Because I heard from one superintendent how within the contract, it required 100% of her time. And she said, I'm a human being. How is that supposed to work? You know? So I think those are the expectations put placed upon superintendents today, I'm curious about really, the heart of the series that we're doing, where we're interviewing superintendents and former superintendents, is understanding how we need to illuminate the humanity of these leaders. Why do you think it's important for the community to see you as a real person who's navigating complex challenges to provide the besteducation for our kids. What do you think? You know, how do we do that?

Unknown: 15:03

Yeah, I'm not saying it's easy. And I think everybody has to work with life balance, right? You carry whatever you were worried about. It doesn't matter that you just switched your location. You still have a tendency to think about it. I think you just have to get better at having some habits. You know, I really enjoy walking, and one of the things I now do when I'm walking is I listen to books on tape, because it forces me to think about, you know, what I'm hearing, instead of chewing on whatever it is I'm worried about.

Sarah Williamson: 15:36

Yeah. Do you think it would elicit more compassion from communities and parents, and if they saw superintendents, if they understood the challenges they were up against, and they saw them as a human being,

Dr. Sandy Husk: 15:48

I think people do see you as a human being. I just think when you're really far away from the decision maker, it's much easier to be criticized if I don't know anything at all about a leader. I might think that the decision they made is poor, but if I'm closer to them, I've always had this theory that the closer you get to people, this is me, anyway, you start to like them, even if you don't agree with them, you can still have compassion for where they come from. And I really think, honestly, as a nation, that's what we need to get back to civil discourse.

Sarah Williamson: 16:24

Completely agree.

Chad Bolser: 16:25

Absolutely well we, Sarah and I, and lots of the folks that around here are in the community college world, the K 12 leaders are so important, and we want to be supporters of those k 12 leaders. How do we do a better job of supporting those folks in the roles that we have?

Unknown: 16:46

Well, I'll tell you, the number one thing is, you really need to have talented people running for those board seats. It is a very thankless job because it's an unpaid position. It's a lot of hours, it's a lot of community input, and it's so important to the school district. So taking a leadership position, being informed, even if you can't run for a board seat, but being informed enough that you can be a key communicator, volunteering, listening, asking questions before you you know come to a decision that something was a really bad decision, any way you can stay involved, just from an information standpoint, I think, is really helpful. And of course, if you have the ability to volunteer, getting inside schools and school district offices is, I think, is always valuable and very welcomed.

Sarah Williamson: 17:37

Yeah, this has been incredible. Sandy, it's so nice to have you on the show. We appreciate it. Where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about you?

Unknown: 17:45

Well, I have a LinkedIn page that's fairly easy to find. You know, I think that's the easiest way has reached out to me through LinkedIn, and that's where I primarily post things that have to do with belt work.

Sarah Williamson: 17:56

Perfect. Well, thank you again. We appreciate it and keep doing the great work.

Chad Bolser: 18:02

Sarah, can I ask one question?

Sarah Williamson: 18:03

Yeah. Go for it.

Chad Bolser: 18:05

What audiobook are you listening to?

Sarah Williamson: 18:07

Yes.

Chad Bolser: 18:08

Audio books. What is that book? Well, the one I'm listening to right now is the story about Lisa Marie Presley, the one her daughter Riley wrote, and I also just downloaded, literally, in the last half hour, The Undocumented Americans by Carla Cornejo, via vicencio. I kind of go back and forth between autobiographies and then things that tend to be a little bit more current about what's going on in the US. And you know, in terms of reaching me, Sarah, if you've got superintendents or up and coming superintendents in your network that would like a personal connection, encourage them. Feel free to give them my email. I'm happy to support wonderful colleagues across the nation.

Sarah Williamson: 18:54

Absolutely, that's generous of you. I appreciate that. We will pass anyone along that reaches out. Thank you again. Appreciate it.

Dr. Sandy Husk: 19:00

Yep, good to see you both.

Chad Bolser: 19:02

Thank you.

Dr. Sandy Husk: 19:03

Bye. Bye.

Chad Bolser: 19:04

Thanks for tuning into the Build Momentum for Education podcast. If you enjoyed listening today, we would love to hear your feedback, and we'd be grateful if you could leave us a review.

Sarah Williamson: 19:15

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