Bridging Tradition and Innovation in Education

Joelle Magyar x CT

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CT: Hi, once aGain, everyone, and welcome to the engaging leadership show where we talk about how to grow leaders and drive impact for your people. I'm your host, Dae Chi Tong, or C. T., and it's a great privilege to have with me in the studio today, Joelle Maguire.

CT: She's the superintendent of Avon Lake City Schools. Joelle, thank you so much for joining us in the studio today. Welcome to the show.

Joelle: Thanks for having me.

CT: So tell us a little bit more about Avon Lake City Schools and what is it that you find most special about it?

, Comparison to other school [: 00:01:00

Joelle: So we're considered a medium sized district in terms of how many kids we have here. This is a great community. We have great students that attend Amon Lake City schools. We are. A higher performing district. We offer over 26 AP classes at our high school. Our high school is always ranked in U.

Joelle: S. News and World Report. We are the highest performing school district in our county. Out of the 88 counties, we have about 15 school districts in our county. We pride ourselves on that a lot of tradition in our school districts. When in terms of, friday night football games, everybody in the community is at our stadium watching the football game and it's a full community event.

Joelle: And so very proud of a lot of the traditions here in the school district. We run about a 46 million dollar budget each year and employ a little under 500 people in our

t, Joelle. want to pull on a [: 00:02:00

Joelle: It is unusual for how deeply rooted they are here in this community. It's one of the things that I was like very surprised by when I first started here of how rooted some of these traditions are. And you don't mess with them. Don't mess with tradition.

Joelle: And It is. It's there are things that you just learn very quickly that you better not touch. We just had one specific example. Our football team, and I'm going to go back to football, but our football team has had the same type of logo on the side of their helmet for years and years.

ted here. And we try to make [: 00:03:00

Joelle: Because not every tradition in terms of how we interact with our students is always the best tradition. We sometimes have to reset those and start new traditions so that we stay on the forefront of our students education and make sure that we're making good decisions.

CT: Yeah, I love that concept where you're respecting and honoring what's worked for the community, that tradition, but at the same time maintaining an open mind. To some changes that could make a real impact on the kids. And as you've gone through your tenure, and I know you're coming into the second year as a superintendent, what are some of these things that you've noticed after listening for a year and paying attention, what are some of these things that you feel that you want to move forward with , in this coming years in your leadership journey?

is year engaged or last year [: 00:04:00

Joelle: So we felt it was very important as we went down that journey. To make sure that we were hearing all voices, even voices of people that don't necessarily have students in our schools because this is a, we are community buildings and they are open to the public and we want this to be a place that people who call their home here that they're proud of the schools.

he school district going and [: 00:05:00

Joelle: And so we engage in that process. And like I said, we had over 100 people. And through those conversations and through their ideas and talking, doing tabletop exercises and discussions, we were able to come up with a strategic plan to sit and create what we call a portrait of an Avon Lake student, and it has.

Joelle: For areas that we said, we are going to ensure that every student that graduates from our school district will have these attributes. And that was the work that came out of involving the community and the community had very strong opinions on what they wanted to see our kids who graduate from here.

e these attributes when they [: 00:06:00

Joelle: And that has been a great process for us. To get all of those different perspectives because there are some things that you, we probably wouldn't have thought of if we did it in isolation, and it really gave some ownership to people outside to say, yeah, the school really does, is listening to us as a community at large and that's really important to me that people feel like they've been heard.

CT: Yeah, that sounds incredible that you reached out to so many and were able to process all of that information. It's like drinking from a fire hose almost. And when you think about it as you reflect on all that input, what were some of the surprising themes to you? That. That emerged because, the portrait of a graduate you always talk a little bit about, the academic side of things, the social, emotional learning what, was there anything that stood out to you as surprising from that exercise?

. I think it's, I think it's [: 00:07:00

Joelle: Look at me, what technology has done to our Children, and my own personal Children, they were born basically with a device in their hands has caused our brains to be wired differently. And so because of that, and because of how our brains are wired differently, our kids brains are wired differently.

Joelle: Doing the same old is not enough to prepare them. for the skills that they're going to need when they graduate or when they're older. And so we know that as educators, we know that we have to instruct differently. We have to engage them in different ways. We have to make sure that we're supporting them in different ways.

people don't have that same [: 00:08:00

Joelle: And I think it, it did help build some credibility within the community to say, yeah, you're right. We probably shouldn't be doing the same things that we were doing when we were in school. I think I used the example with you when we spoke before about, Curse of writing. You go somewhere.

Joelle: Why don't kids know how to sign their name anymore? And, my pushback question is why do they? They'll find me some cursive some of those things that are, those die hold traditions that people had about how they were educated in school, it was great to be able to have that conversation with people just to help them understand why we are not doing some of those same things that they did when they were in school.

supportive mental health not [: 00:09:00

Joelle: And then what we are actually doing to support kids that are struggling with some mental health issues.

CT: Yeah I really resonate a lot with what you're saying in some of the new practices that have to be adopted within education. And to do, to use a very trivial example, even just raising kids when they're infants we've seen the research kind of flip flop from, face down sleeping to worrying about Southern infant death syndrome and having to sleep that face up.

nd the World Economic Forum, [: 00:10:00

CT: So within two and a half to five years, your technical skills become. Half the technical skills that you're learning is becomes obsolete. And so your, that portrait of a graduate needs to look very different because the port, that student that, that emerges from Avon Lake needs to be able to navigate a workplace that is constantly shifting.

CT: And I love how you've done this and had that conversation. Did you get, did you find that You entered this process already with some hypotheses around what this portrait of a student should look like and tested these with the stakeholders, or do you feel like it emerged from those conversations and it was very open ended?

ids the same here? How might [: 00:11:00

Joelle: What are more struggles that I saw in a previous district that I'm seeing here? And you have your kind of thoughts on what you think kids need. I think the other Part of this process that I was very passionate about was making sure that kids were also in this focus group to determine what they need.

Joelle: These kids, they live in our walls for 180 days, 7 hours a day, and they, I'm a big believer in student voice, and they need to have a voice and say. We invited, we had about 20 kids, grades Three through twelve was part of the focus group and it was fantastic to hear and they were very brave because they're sitting in a room with a bunch of adults and they, raise their hand and they were very excited to participate and it was great to hear their perspectives on what they wanted to see in school and what they thought was important and what supports they needed to see in school.

that. Very rarely as adults, [: 00:12:00

Joelle: And we have to be more humble and know that, we're not the smartest person in the room. And sometimes really the best answer is by asking the kids, what is it that you need? They'll tell you if you ask them. And so that was, I think, very profound to that group to see how much kids actually had a say when given the opportunity to say kids the, one of the things, one of the big themes around our portrait of the graduate is really how do we build resiliency and kids?

I'm gonna blame it on those [: 00:13:00

Joelle: If you think about kids who download games and they play a game and they lose and it's okay, whatever, I'll go on to the next one or I'm not getting this game. I'll go. And so that it's that instant gratification part, right? Kids have lost the ability to battle through something that's difficult, to battle through that difficult class.

Joelle: And so it was really good to even hear the kids say, yeah, we don't do that. Like we don't have any resiliency. And they were upset by that, that, yeah, you're right. We don't, we just go on to the next thing. And so One of our focuses really this year is to, how do you build that resiliency in kids and really help them and support them battle through because as you and I know as adults, you don't get to just quit sometimes, you got to stick through it even in the hard times.

that resiliency back in kids [: 00:14:00

Joelle: They need to have that resiliency to keep going and battle through. And a theme this year that we're, part of our portrait of the graduate, but a theme that we're really concentrating on this

CT: Yeah, that's so great. And having, balancing that with the social emotional needs, it's two sides of the same coin, right? You're building resiliency not just like tough love all the time, right? You got to also have that safety, right? And that sense of I can try and I can fail and it's okay.

ducator in the classroom and [: 00:15:00

CT: Maybe, and this isn't your first rodeo either. You've been a superintendent before and You signed up for it again.

Joelle: took a very purposeful journey to where I'm sitting today. I was a teacher for a number of years and then got into administration. I was an elementary principal for six years and. I love that job. I think back at it now, I don't know why I ever left that job. It was my favorite job. You got to still work with kids.

Joelle: I love working with adults as well. And so that was like the perfect balance to be able to do both, like to still get to be with the kids. But I had a, I think a higher calling for me personally, I knew I always wanted to be a superintendent. I didn't know if I could do it. So I worked through all of my schooling to be able to do that.

o fix it. I didn't know if I [: 00:16:00

Joelle: And I was honored that he felt that I could do this. So I went into central office as a special ed director. And I look back at that part of my journey and I'm so glad I did that because typically the road to the superintendent is not through the special ed office. There's, a multitude of paths, but I'm glad I did that because I had that knowledge of special ed.

Joelle: So when my principals now or when my directors now come to me, I have that background knowledge. And after I did that, I thought, you know what, I probably should be an assistant superintendent before I go on to be a superintendent. So I've walked in a lot of roles knowing someday that I wanted to be a superintendent.

r me I felt that was the way [: 00:17:00

Joelle: We know the best leaders in the world, they use data and they tell stories. And I wanted to be able to tell stories from everybody's perspective. When I became a superintendent to say, yeah, let's talk about, let me tell you what happened to me. So there's some humility in that to be able to share your own, times when you've messed up and your own successes in the, in those roles.

Joelle: So people then could relate and say, yeah she's done this before. So I'm going to listen to what she has to say. And so that was really important for me to purposely take that journey and walk in all of those shoes, so to speak, so that when I sat in this chair, I could tell my stories.

CT: is, that is a very unusual journey. I have to say, because there are many guests that have been on the show where they became superintendent almost by accident, where they had like along the way that there's someone who tapped them in the shoulder and say, Hey, would you like to take this on?

CT: And then goes that way. [: 00:18:00

Joelle: Yeah, I started when I was five.

CT: As everybody watching the video can tell.

CT: one of the things that is super interesting when was that switch in your mindset that I entered education as an educator, as a teacher, but I actually want to, Make a bigger difference. When do you think that switch was flipped for you?

Joelle: that's a great question. And no one's ever asked me that before. So it actually happened. I started. When I started teaching, I taught in inner city Cleveland schools at the time. And, to be quite honest, they were, they are not what they are today. They were not in a good spot.

everything was just in, just [: 00:19:00

Joelle: I feel like I can do better for these kids. I feel like I can do better for just education in general because these are kids and there's, there were things being done to kids that I didn't agree with. And I continued my studies to go into administration and I did that as a building principal.

Joelle: My first principalship, so I was assistant principal, but when I got a principal position, it was in an inner city school in a different district in Ohio. And they put me in a building the superintendent put me in a building that had 78 percent free and reduced lunch. It had 52 percent minor, Hispanic population.

African American population. [: 00:20:00

Joelle: Every staff member stayed. We took that building from being the lowest performing building in the district to the highest performing building in the district in one year. And it was all by doing all of those things that I saw that were wrong as a teacher to come back and say, no, we've got to treat people differently, the adults and the students differently and the families differently.

Joelle: And so we did and walked in there and one year made such a huge difference in that school district. And so I think that's why I got moved to central office and special ed and said, now you need to fix this because we fixed the one building. And and but it was all about, for me, it's about those relationships that you have with your families.

ild with your staff and that [: 00:21:00

Joelle: Getting your, I say, getting your hands dirty. Like I was in classrooms. I was. Watching what was going on. I was participating in lessons and, we made the building itself more inviting to parents, by just changing up paint colors. Some of it, it sounds very trivial, but very impactful.

Joelle: If you're used to coming to a building that wasn't welcoming. You've got to make it welcoming, both how you interact with one another, but more importantly, what is the first impression when you walk in the door? And so just concentrating on some of those things really made it a turnaround school that, that I'm, and I'm very proud that I was part of that, but I've taken that experience that through my whole career.

ships that always need to be [: 00:22:00

Joelle: But then once you have a school district that is already. High performing and has all of those things. How do you continue to grow it? That's the biggest challenge when you're, for me, in a high performing district is how do you continue to grow when you're already good? And so that's really the focus that I take when I come into this district.

Joelle: When I was in my previous district is really looking. Yes, we've got the high performing kids, but we don't have the culture to match where we're, where we want to go and what, how we want to support kids. And so That's where my goals are for this year and moving forward in my career is to get that culture piece in line with how we

ship experiences that you're [: 00:23:00

CT: How did you know? What guided you? How did you know what to do in that situation where you're stepping into it for the first time in an unfamiliar school, this unfamiliar school, cause you were not there before? And you managed to turn it around in a year. That is incredible.

CT: Like what guided you during that time?

Joelle: That's a great question. I feel like, I have a little bit of an advantage is being a mom, to be honest with you. You walk into a group of people and you're like, An elementary school full of kids who are the same age as the two that you have that are living with you.

I went in there with kind of [: 00:24:00

Joelle: And for, in terms of the adults there, there was a. A lot of scarring that had happened previous and I, I was I know just from doing the work that, you've got to, you've got to feed the teachers or they're going to eat the kids. And I felt like in that building, the kids were getting eaten by the teachers because the teachers weren't being taken care of and their needs weren't being taken care of.

Joelle: And I sensed that right off the bat, obviously, if they all, had put in to transfer out, that there was a problem that was not necessarily the kids. I have to take care of the adults first. And so I really went in there just with that mindset of, all right, we have this motherly instinct to take care of these kids, but I really need to focus on the adults right now.

minute [: 00:25:00

Joelle: And so I think it was the same thing. You walk into, I walked into that building and I was like, okay, I know what I need to focus on right away. And you just do it and you go with it.

CT: And that's such an interesting perspective as well, because you saw the needs from the students, but you also saw that their experience was driven by the adults and you needed to look into the adults first and ensure that you can take care of them so that they can care for the kids. Now that you're in this place of good to great.

CT: And you've had the experience of turnarounds. You're now, you've had the experience also as a superintendent and before, do you think about the adults today in terms of growing their careers, growing their needs? And what kind of systems frameworks approaches do you fall back on and rely on?

interesting when I worked in [: 00:26:00

Joelle: They're more willing to try because their goal is to get these kids to read or to get these kids to understand mathematical equations. And they would try more things. To the opposite end, here in a district where you, I've been in two districts now where it's, the kids are very successful. The staff is less Likely or wanting to take those risks and do something different with kids, because it's the mindset is what, why should we it's working and, I always go back to them and I say until 100 percent of our kids are passing 100 percent of every student.

were not great yet. And our [: 00:27:00

Joelle: We still need to take risks. We still need to look at how we're educating kids. We need to question ourselves and do a lot of self reflection. And I try to model that in every opportunity I can. If I'm in a classroom, and I'll say, gosh, I was thinking about this, or I'm self reflecting on how I handled this.

to, nobody wants to see, the [: 00:28:00

Joelle: So you always do your best to put your best foot forward. And what I've learned is that's. What our kids see and they don't ever see us being vulnerable. They don't ever see us being humble. They see us at our best because that's what we want people to see. And so I learned through a very personal.

Joelle: Experience that we never let. We never talk about the times that we've failed. We've never talked about the times that we weren't successful to our kids in our classrooms or to our own personal Children. They look to you as these role models and that you're up on this pedestal and. We got to get off our pedestals and start talking about the times that we didn't, we weren't successful and we didn't succeed because what did we learn?

what I learned. And we don't [: 00:29:00

Joelle: We've got to talk about our failures more to our own Children into our in our school. And so when I start talking about some of those things, teachers then feel more comfortable taking risks like, okay, Joel's not gonna, This is not going to show up in my evaluation if I don't do this correctly. And that, I tell them about, we adopted this curriculum.

Joelle: I tried this and every single kid in my class failed. And I was like, Oh my God. I try to tell stories about my failures as an educator, my failures as a building principal, my failures as a superintendent and say, this is, I'm self reflecting. This is what I've learned. And that's how I think for me in my districts that I've been in.

ractices always Self reflect [: 00:30:00

CT: Yeah, I think that vulnerability and authenticity that you bring to leadership is so critical. And, we were talking a little bit earlier also about How this can be even harder as a female superintendent, because you already, you're already bucking the trend. And there's, you, there may be this sense that you need to project Even more success.

CT: How do you get around that? That, that negative psychology and actually come forward with that level of authenticity.

Joelle: There's a lot of power in silence, too you know a lot of it you got to let roll off and I tell some of my colleagues this all the time that First year superintendent, Joelle, did not have leather skin the way she does now. And, you have to learn that, that you can't take everything personally.

superintendents, I [: 00:31:00

Joelle: So it's hard not to take things personally, but not acknowledging, silence sometimes is, if somebody wants to think something about me just let them think that and don't respond a lot of times what happens. But I think, um, we, I think women leaders. You get it from both ends.

en her job, because she knew [: 00:32:00

Joelle: So I think you do have to project yourself a little bit that you do know your stuff. You put yourself out there a little bit more probably so that people see that you can do this job just as well as any male counterpart that, that you have. And so It's been difficult. I never, and I will say, I never felt that I was treated differently as a woman ever in my career ever, until I got to be a superintendent and then it hit, it hits you like a ton of bricks.

sked him to meet with me and [: 00:33:00

Joelle: And they were sitting there having a conversation with me thinking that they could strong army and, threatening lawsuits and. And all of these things and I, I just sat there and I looked at the gentleman right in the face and I said, if you thought you could come in here and intimidate me because with two males, because I'm a female, you were wrong and here's the door and had to show him out of my office.

Joelle: But it was the first time that. I was, it was ever brought to my attention that maybe if I'm, male and I come in here and I strong arm you that you'll do what I say. And it was I thought, gosh, is this how this is going to go now for the rest of the time that I'm in this career?

Joelle: And, there, there are still people like that. Still people that feel like, what you have to say or your decisions that you make, they can change your mind. And. No, I stay very focused on the kids and all decisions that we make in this district are in the best interest of kids and it's, but it's been eye opening, really eye

CT: Thank you for sharing [: 00:34:00

CT: That you naturally feel like you want to help them or be a mentor to them as they go through that journey and help them navigate all of this, maybe not in your immediate district, but even like more broadly, that's something that you feel a calling to do.

Joelle: I do mentor new superintendents in our state. We have a mentoring program and I'm assigned a mentee. And so that, that's always been great. There's not, like I said, there's not too many females. And so most of my mentees have been men and that, it's been great, but I, it's really important.

Joelle: This job is lonely, [: 00:35:00

Joelle: You need somebody that you, that can be your critical friend too, to say, Hey, maybe you think about this differently. And I know that was a need that I had when I got into the role. So I try to be that person. I have somebody in my office who. Would love to be a superintendent someday. And so I include them in meetings and so they may have nothing to do with what, they're not in charge of anything that we're talking about in the meeting.

the superintendency interns [: 00:36:00

Joelle: For me, it's more about, you, you're doing this, you're having all this classwork. Everything I learned about being a superintendent, I learned sitting in the chair. I didn't learn necessarily in a book. And so Knowing that I want to be able to share those experiences with other people that are interested in this role, especially in my own office.

Joelle: And it's great because then if you involve other people in those conversations, You then can have a bigger conversation and challenge my thinking, even if it is my decision, but to challenge my thinking on things when other people have heard those conversations. So I try to be very aware of when it's appropriate to bring in some other people.

ey can feel comfortable with [: 00:37:00

CT: That's very generous of you to allow like ride alongs for your meetings, because I know many who would find it like too sensitive or, oh, you're not previewed to this information or whatever. So I, I think that it's very generous of you. And I think it means an amazing amount.

CT: To all of these people are going through that. And on that note what is one piece of advice that you would give to an aspiring leader who's thinking about taking that next step in their own journey?

Joelle: I'm going to go back to the humility thing. You got to stay humble in this job. It's a tough job. If you're the only one in the district, in this position, the buck stops with you. You're gonna make mistakes and that's okay. I would also say that your relationship that you have with your board is critical and crucial.

t relationship you have with [: 00:38:00

Joelle: I've had a great board and I've had a terrible board and, so they all have their different idiosyncrasies and how they do that. But somebody that, that is, aspiring to do this, don't go in it for the title. It doesn't matter what it says after my name. I do this job because I love what I do.

Joelle: I love the kids. I love the adults. I love working in this environment. I didn't go in this because I, was a title grabber and said, no, I'm the superintendent. I always identify myself. I say, I'm a mom first who happens to be a superintendent. I'm not a superintendent who's also a mom. And that, that keeps me humble.

ve kids and you've got to be [: 00:39:00

Joelle: And it is there's no prize. No one's patting you on the back ever to say you're doing a good job. No one's ever saying that. There are, but they will let you know when you're not. But no one's patting on your back to tell you when you are doing well. And It's it's gotta be a passion of yours, it can't, I don't look at this as a job.

Joelle: This is my passion of being here for kids, taking care of kids, and, supporting the adults that are taking care of our kids. I answer my phone every day with, Doesn't matter if it's a parent or a staff member. How may I, how can I help you today? That's how I answer the phone because I feel very passionate that is my role.

Joelle: My role is to support and help others make our kids the best kids that they can be and help support our teachers to be the best teachers they can be.

next step in your leadership [: 00:40:00

CT: So thank you so much for your insights and your sharing and your stories today, Joelle. I've learned a lot and I'm sure our listeners For those of you listening, thank you for listening and tune in next time for more leadership stories from the Engaging Leadership Show. been your host for today, CT, and signing off.