Innovation in Public Education: Embracing Change and Personalization

Hello 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 for today, CheeTung or CT, and I'm co founder of Engage Rocket. Engage Rocket is a leadership listening and insights tool for school district leaders to help drive teacher attention, engagement and ultimately student achievement outcomes. So on the show today, it's a great privilege for me to be chatting with Doctor Marc Bertrando. He's the superintendent of schools at Garnet Valley School District.

It'a great pleasure to have you with us today. Marc, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Marc, tell us a little bit more about Garnet Valley.

ool district of approximately: 4500

92% of our students go on to a four year college and almost 100% of our students go to some level of post high school education, whether that be college and university, technical colleges or schools and those types of things. So there are high expectations from our community. So we hold high expectations for ourselves to provide a very valuable service to this. What I believe is a really wonderful school community. And the only other thing that I think makes us unique compared to the other districts in which I've worked is that unlike, for instance, my last school district, there is no town center in Garnet Valley.

re we have literally three to: 5000

That is incredible that the school district is so central to the community and almost creates that glue that binds all the people and families together. And one of the things that was really interesting to me is you almost have this monopoly on community interaction and community engagement being that center of the community, and yet you're there, you and your team, thinking about how do we innovate, how do we bring more value, how do we become a personalized the education journey a lot more for our kids. What drives that? You could sit and rest on your laurels. It's an interesting question and one that we think a great deal about it.

Personally, from a leadership perspective, I think one of the things I think, or worry I should say most about is complacency because of all the things that you just said, not only personally as a leader, but also for our organization. But there's been some, I would consider, recent changes in public education in general, that I think all educational leaders need to really take note of. First and foremost, the complexity of the world that our students are preparing to enter continues to evolve at an ever quickening pace. So as a result, we need to be innovative and progressive so that our students are prepared for an innovative and progressive world. So that's one thing that makes personalization really important to us also from a student and just community lens, it's been my experience as a father and educator that our students and our families are consumers of everything in their world, whether it be clothes, sneakers, tv shows.

And I think education now is starting to fit in to all those other gener things in folks lives. And as a result of that, there's more and more competition being placed on public schools to keep up. Our families now have a lot of, especially in our area. So we're in a pretty affluent suburb of Philadelphia, so there's really good private schools that families can send their children to. And also in the state of Pennsylvania, it's been the first time in my career where we have a democratic governor who has been on record as a supporter of lifetime scholarships or vouchers, where parents can take their educational dollars to choose other schools and use those educational dollars for tuition.

I also think that the charter school movement in Pennsylvania, especially cyber charter schools, has also layered another level of competition. And selfishly, just because of my leadership style, I welcome that because it keeps me from getting complacent and it keeps all of us fresh and trying new and progressive things. But I also think it's incumbent upon us and this community, we have a very unique community, and it is a great blessing. And we want to maintain that so that our families trust us, respect us, and are proud to say that their children went to the Garnet Valley School district, just as we want our students to say we're proud to be Garnett Valley School District graduates. And one of the pieces of evidence that I use to see if we're meeting the mark is, do our students come back to us?

And we do. We have Garnett Valley graduates teaching for us. And it's one of the proudest things that, that happens in my career, especially now that I've been here 13 years. I see students that I saw in the playground in elementary school now leading children on the playground as teachers and support staff. It really fills my heart.

I see families now where, and this is a testimony to also, to how old I am. But families that graduated got married, and now their children are going to the school district. So it's why I love my job. But it also speaks to the approach that we take from a leadership perspective and also from an organizational perspective. Yeah, that's amazing and very inspiring as well to hear all those stories.

From what you're describing, it sounds like public education is going through a Netflix moment where suddenly there's this explosion of choice that is happening, and you can either embrace it or you can go down with, with blockbuster and others in that industry. How do you approach this at all? Because on one hand, you have all these changes. On the other hand, it sounds like any changes in public education funding has actually been going in the direction of supporting alternatives to current public education. And you still, you're still accountable to your school board, and you still have, you have to balance a lot of, any kind of change initiative across a very wide swath of the community.

You don't have the natural agility that becomes Saf with a private school. How do you think about this? And are, how do you prioritize what needs to be done? That's a good question, and thank you for a really informed question, too. So there's a lot of things that go into that from a leadership perspective.

I think one of the things that I've had to embrace is the whole concept of defined autonomy. So you can't possibly, as the lead, as the leader of the organization, especially the organization this large, be responsible for all the things that would go into being a competitive system in today's environment. So you have to hire people that are not only competent, but are also very strong leaders themselves, not only technically, but also from a leadership skill quality, and then give them the defined autonomy to do their jobs. So really, my job as superintendent is more of a generalist, and it's cliche, but the chief communicator, the individual who just makes sure that the vision and the organizational clarity is set so that the environment and culture promotes this level of innovative and change. So what does that mean?

That means that you support calculated risks. You allow people to be vulnerable, and when they don't know or they're feeling nervous or anxious about a change, that they know that there's people to support them. I think one of the things we also do is we really promote, hey, let's value the perspective and not necessarily the position. So if a teacher has a phenomenal idea and wants to lead an initiative, then that teacher leads the initiatives, even if that means principals, directors, superintendents are under that individual's leadership. So that also has helped a great deal because I see too many organizations that ignore the practitioners.

And there's a lot of top down, especially in public institutions, governmental institutions, where there's a lot of bureaucracy. We've had to get away from that. But it's what speaks also to the concept of a legacy of leadership. I wouldn't have been able to create a culture that promotes this type of leadership, this type of progressiveness and innovation in two or three years. You have to build a level of trust and credibility in order to get people to accept that how you're leading and what you're leading is worth following.

And that's why I am committed to being in this school system. And I'm also committed when I speak to other school boards or other superintendents or even candidates for superintendent's positions, that you not only have to do all of the jobs that lead up to superintendent, but once you get in a job, do that job to the best of your ability and give them that legacy of leadership, because that's the only way that real change is going to happen, and it's the only way that you're going to leave a position feeling fulfilled with your legacy as a leader. Actually, everything that you've described sounds very spot on. And I think the place I first came across this concept was actually the US army, where they drove this concept of mission command, where the general is not going to be on the ground and every bunker calling the shots is not possible. So controls that is then devolved and each individual unit takes on operational command.

And this operational command could be a captain, a lieutenant, whoever it is. And even if you're a colonel. If you're under that person's operational command, you have to do what they're saying is essentially because that's, they're responsible and accountable for, for the outcome of taking that hill or whatever it is. And it's incredible to hear that's being applied effectively within your district as well. What are some of the examples or artifacts that have emerged?

And you've had. One of the benefits of longevity is the ability to see some of these projects through. What are some of the things that you're proud of that you've managed to drive? So at the beginning of the interview, we talked a little bit about the competitive nature or the change that in public education, that school districts have to become a little bit more market centered. And one of the things that we saw early in my career here was that more and more students were leaving not only our school district, but local school districts to go to cyber charter schools.

And when we started to analyze this issue, we quickly learned that got to get too deep into it. So when a student goes to a cyber charter school, the public school system sends that stud students tuition to that cyber school. So in Garnett Valley, that's just under $20,000 that will go directly to that cyber school. The cyber school may use three to $5,000 to educate that child, and then the rest goes to whatever that charter school decides to do with that money. When we looked at that and looked at what our expense would be to educate a student fully online, it was totally ridiculous for us to be sending our students not only to these cyber schools from an economic perspective, but we felt very comfortable and confident that we would do a better job educating that child.

So we quickly pivoted and created our Ownber cyber school. We call it the e school at Garnett Valley. And we not only pulled students back from charter schools, but we also marketed in a way where we engaged with our counselors when students came to them, or families came to them for these other alternatives that we presented our alternative to them first. So we kept a lot of students from going to cyber charter schools. We also use these schools for students who were medically fragile, who we would in years before have to place in an alternative school.

And a lot of times, whether it's a cyber charter school or an alternative school, once those students are there, we found that many times they would be labeled special ed or some other thing that would then raise that tuition and force the school district to provide more funding to those other entities. Again, we wanted to keep the finances here in the school district, but also with the understanding that we'll do a better job, and these families will see that, but they'll also graduate with a Garnett Valley school District diploma. And to us, that holds more weight and doesn't require an explanation, whereas a diploma from a cyber school or an alternative school begs an explanation. So that was one of the first, I believe, most innovative things that we did here. And then that evolved into what we call a gv global program.

So these are dual tracks that are running, whereas the GV global program opens up Garnet Valley curriculum, digitized curriculum, to folks from across the country. We've spent a lot of time. So what makes our e school unique is that it's Garnet Valley teachers teaching Garnet Valley curriculums. So as part of that economic design that we did is that we embedded the cost of digitizing our own curriculum, as well as providing the professional development for our face to face teachers who would also be cyber teachers. The fascinating thing that it did, CT, is that our face to face teachers who became online teachers who did both became better face to face teachers.

They had more tools in their tool belt. They had more alternatives for their students sitting face to face. So what we decided to do was to provide that professional development that we were giving to our eool teachers, to all of our teachers. And the innovation just started to just increase exponentially as a result of that. So then, fast forward, here comes Covid-19 and everybody has to go online.

There's school districts around us trying to figure out, first, how to get technology into students hands, but then teach their students how to use the technology and professionally develop their teachers all at the same time. We were able to fast forward through that. Wait, I'm going to interrupt you to make this point. You guys innovated on this before Covid-19 is that right? At least.

we began our e school around: 2016

Yeah, the EAs school was probably our first artifact that, hey, this innovative mindset is really working for us. And as part, after Covid-19 right before COVID we were also looking at adolescent sleep studies and looking at our adolescents. And when we started school, especially at the high school at 735 in the morning and right before COVID we were looking at ways to maybe delay those start times. Through Covid we learned hey, our students and our teachers really aren't starting to engage with students until around 8830. And there was a lot of flexibility in that school day and many of our students were thriving in it quite frankly.

So as a result of that, literally the year that students came back full time we engaged a new high school schedule that allowed our high school students to come into school at 830 in the morning. So we delayed by a full hour but didn't have to extend the school day. So our students still engaged in their extracurricular activities like they did in the old schedule. The way we did that. Let's go back to that e school.

Because our high school students were so used to being online and teachers blending their coursework, we now have a rotating schedule at the high school where every day, the first period of the day is taught asynchronously so students know that okay, if I have English on first period, today's Wednesday. On Wednesday I have work to do. But I don't have to come into school until 830 for my second period, which might be social studies. So that just keeps rotating. So four days a week are face to face with the teacher.

One day a week is completely online. And because we also wanted to give our students the experience of being online and also that college experience, that 730 to 830 period, our teacher day didn't change either. But those are office hours. So students may come in to take a test for tutoring, for whatever remediation, to do group work. And then we also positioned what we call lunch and learn where half hour lunch, half hour again is those office hours.

Or maybe it's an opportunity to work with friends or teammates on a collaborative project that you have in any number of different courses. We're very thrilled with the outcomes that came from really something that we saw as a marketplace change and now miraculously so I'll use one student as an example. And he's a rock star and he knows he's a rock star. So I feel comfortable sharing this. So he was at a private school, he's a student that had a sneaker business.

So he would program bots to buy up Nike sneakers the minute they dropped and then sell those sneakers at a profit. But at the private school he wasn't allowed to have his cell phone and he wasn't allowed to leave class. So he literally was missing out on thousands of dollars and got to the point where he was getting suspended. His parents were pulling their hair out. They heard about the e school and they happened to reside within our attendance boundaries and said, tell us about this e school.

oster child for education. In: 2024

And he not only got into James Madison on a scholarship, but he also was programming other bots for other websites for other businesses in the community based on his experience. And one of my proudest days, the parents asked me to come to his graduation party to present his diploma, but also as my present. He gave me a pair of Nike dunks that he bought online. So it was the coolest thing. But that's the type of personalization that we want all kids to experience in our school system, because that's the passion and the interest that's going to drive a career.

alization of education in the: 2020

I love so much here in that and how this kid's unique talent was not just celebrated, but'given the room to grow within the public school education system, which is something that would be counterintuitive for many people. And don't think this in the wrong way, Marc, you don't sound like a superintendent that has been in the same job for 13 years. He sound like you're just getting started. What made you take that job in the first place and what keeps you going? You're 13 years in and you sound like you have as much energy, as much ##vision and as much drive to push things along.

As somebody who's just taken the job, what drives you? Thank you. What drives me so what used to drive me, obviously, is engaging students as a teacher. So I've done all the jobs in public education. I was a middle school teacher, a high school teacher, a public speaking teacher, a basketball coach, a golf coach, a public speaking coach for speaking contest, you name it, class officer, all that stuff.

Then I became an assistant high school principal, a high school principal, an assistant superintendent. So along the way, I also was remembering my own education and being in those classes, learning how to sleep in school for the first time. As sad as that is, because I was in a class completely unengaged, uninterested, and knew that there was nothing going on in this class that I was ever going to use in my life. So I, from an early age, I thought to myself, there's got to be a better way to do this, and there's got to be a better way to engage our kids. So that has been really my moral compass for a long time.

But as I got into central office positions as assistant superintendent and superintendent, and I got further removed from the classroom, and I don't mean for this to be condescending or arrogant or any of those things, but the adults became my students, and my passion that I had for my students remain, but my passion for the adults that I led became just as inspiring for me. So to see my leader. So I work with the leadership team of about 30 when they're comprised of directors, supervisors, principals, assistant principals, to develop them as leaders, to see them learning grow, and then to see that filter down. One of my most inspiring things, and it wakes me up in the morning and keeps me driving, is that I'm a huge believer in establishing a positive culture that engages everyone from our youngest learners to our custodians to our assistant superintendents. And seeing that and having that vision and then seeing that vision realized.

I don't think there's a more powerful thing in the world than to experience that. We're not in this job to make a lot of money, but I would give a lot of money to have the feeling that I get when I see that happen. And you're catching me a good week, because students now are back in our buildings for the first time. This is a new school year for us. So I get to see this happening all around me, and it fires me up, as you can tell.

I absolutely live for it, and it drives me. That's incredible. And tell me about the first time that you transitioned from an educator to a leader, because that was when there was that switch that had to happen where I'm leading my classroom of kids to know, oh, I'm now leading other adults. Was that an easy transition for you? How did, what went through your mind then?

So most of the transitions were easy because I was in the confines of a school building, which always gave me a level of comfort and an inherent credibility, that there wasn't a job I hadn't done. The greatest transition for me was the superintendency. That's the transition where I remember walking into my office for the first time with nobody else in it and saying, oh, my God, I'm in charge of this, but I'll tell a quick story, because it. It was the moment where I said, okay, I'm either going to be able to do this, or I'm going to be the shortest tenured superintendent on the face of the planet. I walked into our first management team meeting, and the cabinet level administrators were sitting at the board desk looking out at the audience that was filled with assistant principal supervisors and others.

And I thought to myself, oh, my God, this is not going to work for me. This is not who I am as a leader. I can't sit in front of these people as if I'm the king and they're part of my court. I can't do it. So I got through that meeting and just, hey, I'm justnna sit here and listen and observe.

And then the next meeting, I said, everywhere I went, I was the authentic me, and that's not gonna change. And if it has to change, then I'm gonna need to find another job. I got to the meeting early. I put the chairs in a circle, and then I left the meeting so that people could come in, and I wanted to observe what happened. So I walked into the reading ct, and nobody was sitting down.

They didn't know what the heck to do. So I I use that as an example to say, hey, I know you're used to a very strict hierarchy, and that worked in Garnet Valley, and I know that it worked because there's been such a tradition of excellence and success here. But for me, as a leader, we're gonna do things differently. And one of the things that we're going to do differently is that I believed in defined autonomy. I believe in you as leaders, and I value your perspective.

And the only way for me to show you that objectively and intangibly is to give you a seat at my same table. So could you please sit down at these chairs? And I thought it was a little thing, but there's administrators that have been with me now for several years that still tell that story to new people coming on, and we do an admin retreat, and just. I guess it was two years ago I heard one of our more senior administrators telling that story, and it was one of the proudest moments of my leadership career, and it could have been one of the worst things I ever did in my professional career. But it turned out to work, and I think it defined who I was as a leader, but it also defined, okay, that was the moment I became an organizational leader, because that act and the acts that came after it really were the thing that I think set the culture of how our district was going toa move forward in the future.

That is an amazing story. And'as, somebody listening from the outside, I would have immediately thought that this is a great move. Marc knows exactly what he's doing, and the amount of doubt and self questioning that you just shared speaks to the authenticity that you have. And at the same time, how an outsider, when looking in, of course that's the right thing to do, and he made the exact right call. And such a, it's such an interesting juxtaposition of perspectives where when you tell this story, and it just reminded me of King Arthur and his round table.

Right. You need, you need that. And, and how did you build or have come to that confidence in your own authenticity? Was it that moment where you just decided, or I'm gonna put all my chips on the table and see what, where it goes? Or has this been building up over your career?

I definitely think it had been building up in my career. And it also, I don't think there's too many leaders could, that would deny the fact that, yes, their leadership style has evolved through successes, trials and errors, but it also evolves by seeing examples that didn't work and making a commitment to yourself that if ever given the chance, you would do things differently. There were two different journeys for me. One, I did a lot. I'm a leader that has done a lot of study, that has looked at other leaders, has studied other leaders, has read a lot, but also has experienced the job in other organizations and other roles and responsibilities.

And I've had great mentors. I've been blessed with that, not only professionally and personally, but I also have been blessed with really terrible examples of leadership that have given me the confidence to say, and also, and I think that's where authenticity comes from, the opportunity to say, man, I know what it feels like to be on the other side, a bad leadership. And I'm going to make sure that people feel the exact opposite in the same situations that I felt terrible in. And it goes a long way. It goes a long way.

People just want to be validated and they want to feel good about what they're doing at work. And sometimes that means to give praise and validation, but sometimes that means to give critical feedback, but in a way that says, hey, I care about you, and we hired you because we believe in you. And here's what you need to work on to meet the expectation that we had for you when we interviewed you and you sold yourself on us. And that's very different than telling somebody they're doing a terrible job. So I think all of those things compounded into who I am as a leader today.

When you think about this idea of defined autonomy, one of the things that comes along with it is great power that's being devolved comes great responsibility. How do you go about holding your leaders accountable while they have that autonomy? Yeah, so there's lots of things. So I think one of. So my mantra since I was an assistant principal is I always want to be visible, interactive and proactive.

I think a leader being visible does so many things. First, it shows people that you care, but it also gives you a perspective that you're not going to get. Especially, like, in my role. People tell me all the time what they think I want to hear, and I need to see it. I need to observe.

As an educator, and this is year 33 for me. I can feel things now intuitively when I walk into buildings, when I walk into classrooms, when I observe a bus driver or a powerfessional or a custodian, there's just intuitive things that you pick up on so that visibility helps, but also just being interactive. Hey, CT, how's it going today? Great. Good to see you, too.

And if you do that enough and you build up that level of comfort, people feel comfortable sharing their perspectives with you. You just have to be on your toes and you have to be ready with what they're gonna tell you. But I've grown very comfortable with that. And in my role, too, you triangulate your observations. You triangulate the perspectives that are shared with you.

You never take somebody on their word on that initial day. You always make sure that you're triangulating. And my goal all the time is if I hear a perspective in, say, in one building, but I hear another, the same perspective in another building from a different person in a different role, that helps me understand that, hey, this is something that we need to address and do something about. I think also just in terms of listening to my leaders as they present, as they give meetings, picking up on special facts that I'm hearing, and asking them questions about those things. Hey, I heard you talk about X, Y and Z.

Explain that to me. How you, how are you implementing that? How did you socialize that idea with other folks. Asking those kinds of specialized questions gives me an idea of whether or not that leader is doing all the steps necessary to be successful. But I think another thing that I do is really work on relationships with my leaders, not just as authority figure to direct reports, but having lunch with my team, stopping in every single solitary day with my cabinet leaders and my other leaders.

I would say in a week at the central office where we have our assistant principals, directors and supervisors, I interact with every single one of them daily and with my principals and assistant principals, if it's not daily, multiple times a week. So that that familiarity allows for not only the exchange of perspective and truth, but it also allows people to feel comfortable expressing their vulnerabilities, just as I express my vulnerabilities. Hey, I'm struggling with something. I need some help. Me saying that to them makes it okay for them to say that to me.

So that all folds into having a system that runs on to find autonomy and giving folks confidence to make changes and implement initiatives that overall make our district very successful. So what I'm hearing, it sounds like it requires constant communication, that visibility, that interactivity, but also there's that little bit of nudging that you have to do on a day to day basis to ensure that. And the proactive nudging. Right. So everyone just calls in the right direction.

And if I say one more thing, ct as part of that, too. One thing that I failed to talk about is the whole concept of organizational clarity. So as part of Def find autonomy, people need to work under an umbrella. So what are our belief systems? So here it's student achievement, safe and caring, and management of systems.

Those are the three things that we focus on, and even they have evolved over the years. So when I first came to garner Valley 13 years ago, safe and caring student achievement were two separate buckets. And now I see them in the same bucket because of all the changes that have happened over the years with students mental health needs, with the changes in family units. When I even 13 years ago, not every parent was working. There were stay at home moms still.

And now that's more of a minority in our community. So that has four school districts to take a more active role in what used to be reserved for the home. So we're teaching social emotional health, we're teaching mindfulness to our students, we're teaching digital citizenship. All the character education, anti bullying, all those things, especially in the career of an individual as old as I am, were really things that were added on and maybe for specialized roles in the schools. But now that's everybody's responsibility.

So that's a long way of saying that organizational clarity and those beliefs also help to shape the defined autonomy. Because everybody's working with the same themes and within the same structures and priorities. That makes sense. You want that clarity, you want that alignment for the whole team, and you're constantly pruning as the chief communicator, essentially to ensure that you're all on the same song sheet. We're coming up to the end of this episode, and you've shared a lot of gems today that I'm got to put together nicely in the show notes, hopefully, and if we can squeeze one more out of you, you've been a superintendent now at Garding Valley for 13 years.

You've been a leader for many more years than that. If you were to give advice to an aspiring leader in education who is maybe considering taking that first step or considering taking that next step into a leading and creating greater impact, what would your advice be as they think through the pros and cons of them? So I think that the one mistake that I see emerging leaders make, and I did, too, is they get stuck on the technical aspects of what they believe a leadership role will be and don't do the hard work of the self reflection and understanding who they will be and who theynna be as a leader. One of the things that I've taught graduate level courses on this very topic, and one of the things, and I surprise some of my students in doing this that we do, is those self reflective activities of who you are as a leader. So who are you under stress?

Who are you personally? Are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? What do you need to lead effectively from a personal perspective? Are you a person that after you have a team meeting, you need to shut the door and just debrief for a while and be quiet?

Or are you a person that likes to be around people all the time to debrief socially, are you a person that believes in define autonomy? Are you more of a top down leader? So all those things that they see in those leaders and role models that they think were just there, they, I think some of our emerging leaders think that you can bypass that and you're acting as the superintendent, and they have this vision of what a superintendent or CEO or whatever it is should and would look like instead of them looking at it from the lens of who am I as a leader? And I think that's the important work that are best leaders and the best leaders that I see, they are then their authentic selves all day long. So the big difference in me from I became a high school principal at 34, the biggest difference between me at 34 and now at 55 is that 34 year old might have been a certain type of guy at work and a different guy, maybe at home and with his buddies.

The guy at 55 is just the guy at 55. The people said, if you talk to me at work, it's the same guy that you're going to talk to at home. And my kids would say it's the same guy that they see. His dad is the same guy as superintendent. And that's who you should be as leader.

If you can't be a leader as your authentic self, you're just not going toa be successful. It's great advice all the way, many routes all the way back to Plato, knowing thyself and to Sunzu and yeah, it's time modern tradition. But it's so hard, especially as you mentioned, in the early stages of your career and emerging leader, and you're just taking on those first initial roles to embrace yourself actually and embrace authentically who you are. There's been a lot that you've shared with us today. Marc, I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for hanging with us and all of you who are listening, thank you for tuning in. It's been a real pleasure recording this episode today.