Cool Coffee w/ Kansas Principals

Cool Coffee 12 - Mrs. Melissa Evans - Midtown Alternative HS (Hutchinson)

This episode features Mrs. Melissa Evans from Midtown Alternative High School in Hutchinson, KS. Melissa shares about her unique start at Midtown and how she works intentionally to create a "home" for all students in her building. Focused on engagement, Mrs. Evans provides examples and highlights of how this looks still only a few months into her principalship here at Midtown. 
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Chapters
(time stamps do not account for the Cool Coffee intro--full transcript of the show below)
00:00 Introduction to Midtown Alternative High School02:54 Navigating Change and Emotional Attachments05:57 Melissa's Journey to Leadership09:11 Understanding Midtown's Unique Structure12:11 Rebranding and Enrollment Strategies15:01 Building a Positive School Culture17:54 Proactive Approaches to Student Engagement21:20 Innovative Restroom Management in Schools23:00 Creating an Engaging School Environment24:32 Empowering Students Through Clubs and Activities26:46 Building Community Partnerships for Student Success28:57 Celebrating Student Achievements and Building Culture30:59 Planning for the Holiday Season35:05 Pride in Community and Staff Support
 
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TRANSCRIPT OF THIS SHOW (Generated by AI)
Rick Sola (00:01.656)Hello and thank you for listening to another edition of Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. Today I am here with Miss Melissa Evans, principal of Midtown Alternative High School and director of alternative learning placement in the Hutchison School District, USD 308. Welcome Melissa.
Melissa Evans (00:20.558)Hi Rick, thanks for having me.
Rick Sola (00:22.22)All right. So we won't share out loud that that was take two of the intro. But yeah. But we did have a conversation before starting because as I was putting this together and preparing for it, I asked you ahead of time, what's the proper way to talk or mention your school's name or the vernacular? Is it midtown or? And so then we had a kind of a good conversation. So would you mind just kind of sharing before we get into even
Melissa Evans (00:26.646)I wasn't gonna say it.
Rick Sola (00:51.734)your school in general, just tell us about how you refer to your school out in Hutchison.
Melissa Evans (00:56.782)Yeah, you know, so we are actually in the process of looking at changing our name of our
doing that because Midtown is in its fifth year of operation so it's fairly new. And the first year how it kind of came to be we realized there was a need for an alternative high school and our district had recently acquired a building that was formerly formerly a restaurant here in town and at that point I believe in the first year they had about 12 kids enrolled and so they were utilizing this restaurant they had partitions it was actually really neat and if you talk to those kids those
kids that came there as freshmen just graduated last year and I had the opportunity to get to know them a little bit the last couple of months of that school year and they're very proud of Midtown and proud of what they really helped build but after the first two years it grew pretty substantially and they needed more space and so then they moved Midtown the school into an elementary building that had closed and it's called Avenue A so then they kind of referred to us as Midtown Avenue A.
but they kept the building midtown also. And so there's a lot of times confusion within our district and definitely with outside of our district about where is midtown? Is that a building? Is that a school? And so we've talked about renaming it. And you know, for me being new to the school, it seems like a no brainer. But I also think when you walk into situations like this, you realize for me, I don't have an emotional attachment to it. But there are several kids here who have attended midtown and take a lot of pride in being midtown kids. And so
recognizing there's almost an emotional attachment to that name. And so how do you facilitate change and help keep those emotional ties to it, but also bring them in on a process that really would be beneficial long-term. So that's where we're at with Midtown. So currently we are Midtown Alternative High School located in Avenue A. I'm mouthful.
Rick Sola (02:54.318)All right, I love it. Yeah, and you you hit on some things as you move forward with potentially changing and the district I'm in, just recently did a rebrand and we launched in July a new logo and rebrand a new mission. And being a part of that effort, know, a big piece of it is honoring the past and you don't want to, you know, there's so much treasured history and just like you said, students that feel really connected to what you have and so.
Logistically, there may make a lot of sense to make some changes, but how do you do so while being cognizant of how the emotions of the past and honoring that. so thank you for clearing that up because I wasn't entirely sure. you hit on, go ahead.
Melissa Evans (03:34.126)You know what, right?
It kind of, when you're talking about that, it really reminds me of my first year in administration. I was in elevate leadership through USA Kansas. and Dr. Hart and Jess Griffin led that. And I remember we were as a building going through redesign at the time, and they talked about that change and something I just never considered until they brought it up. And I think about it a lot. Anytime I'm trying to lead through change and it talked about there are people who a lot of times have to grieve when you do things like that. And so just keeping that in the forefront, but I thought that that was a
really interesting take on change that a lot of times we pass over. Some of us get so excited about the next thing that we forget that there are other people with different emotions attached to it. So absolutely.
Rick Sola (04:17.804)Yeah, especially when you know if you're in a position of making some of the decisions with it and many people are not in that position so they don't know what's going on and there it builds the anxiety and my gosh what's where's this going to go and so no good luck on that but you had touched on some things with you know being new and you you you took over as principal there last spring break and you mentioned five years in existence this is the fifth year of the school.
Melissa Evans (04:44.808)Yes, we are currently in year five.
Rick Sola (04:47.158)lot of growth in the area, a lot of need. I noticed on your website a virtual program is housed there. And it's alternative school. There's a lot of uniqueness. And I thought that would be really interesting just to hear more about. And so I guess before we kind of get into just how the school operates and a little bit about it, I do like to go through the road to the chair of how did you end up where you're at today? What got you here?
Melissa Evans (05:15.758)Well, Rick, I'm really glad you told me to keep this 30 minutes or under, because that helps me figure out how much detail to go into. No, I was a math teacher at our high school before entering administration.
Rick Sola (05:21.482)Ha
Rick Sola (05:25.974)Hi, boy.
Melissa Evans (05:30.614)My first admin job was assistant principal and athletic director at our seventh grade building. And really wasn't looking for any type of change, really enjoyed what I was doing, was really excited about the changes that we had made. And I really felt like we were starting to see all of our labor in those years that I was there come to fruition. So was really exciting. And then I got a phone call right before we left for spring break asking to go to district office at 3 PM on a Friday, which is.
Absolutely terrifying. I was convinced I was fired and never, it never feels like a good thing. But they just had asked me to come up there, mentioned that Midtown was kind of struggling in terms of direction and they were hoping I could come over and kind of help land the plane and then were hoping I would take over. So after some consideration and talking with family, went ahead and decided to do that. So ironically enough, I had to make that change.
Rick Sola (06:15.502)you
Melissa Evans (06:27.048)on April 1st, April Fool's. it started, April Fool's Day started with me standing in front of 300 seventh graders and telling them I wouldn't be coming back to the building. And half of them were crying and half of them were saying, no, it's an April Fool's joke, you guys. It's just a joke. So yeah, told them that on April Fool's Day and then came over and started here. it was honestly, was...
Rick Sola (06:41.838)wow.
Melissa Evans (06:51.456)It was hard at first to come in mid-year. I think anyone who kind of is in a leadership role, realize.
change, trying to facilitate change when you only have a couple months left in school, really there's no point. Really I felt like those two months were meant to kind of observe and just really get to know the building so that I knew what we needed to look at and reevaluate over the summer. But that also means you're coming in living in someone else's system. And so that was kind of difficult, but I do feel like it gave me such great insight for us to meet over the summer and really figure out what
we wanted to focus on to get the biggest bang for our buck in terms of change for the start of the school year. So it was hard, it was really hard to not get to see those seventh graders finish out. You're at the middle school level so you know how much growth there is from August to May in seventh graders and so to not see that was really difficult but I'm really glad that we did, that I did come over in April just so that I could kind of get that head start in planning.
Rick Sola (07:54.062)So be a named principal, it's April 1st, you're walking into a new building, you are the new principal. What was your first order of business? How did you approach it?
Melissa Evans (08:02.478)you
you know, so that's funny. And we laugh, this student now, we laugh about it.
I walked in, they had a meeting set, and I think it might help to know just size of Midtown. So we are an alternative high school. At that point, I believe rostered, there were 70 students, but what I found out coming April and May, probably about 30 students were attending on a regular basis. So it was just myself and the staff, have a staff, they had a staff of seven teachers at the time. We had some teachers move on to different roles and we didn't fill those.
very excited to fill them for the next year as we scale larger. So sat in there, said, hey guys, I'm really just here to kind of see how you do school. I'm really excited. I'll be here next year also. It was, I guess I should back up. It was really important to me to be able to tell staff, I'm not just here for a couple months. I'm here for the long haul. I'm invested. So I wanted to be able to tell staff that when I came over to say I would be here, I wanted to be able to tell students that, I would be coming back.
The conversation had with them was, I'm really just here to observe, see how you guys do school, I don't plan on making any big changes. And then about an hour later, I had to suspend a student for a vape. So that's never, never a fun way to start out. But that was, I mean.
Melissa Evans (09:29.324)That was one of the issues that was pretty prevalent here in the school. And so it was difficult to start out that way, but one of the things, one of the best things to come from that, and it didn't feel like the best thing at the time, but I had one of the students, she's a senior now, she was a junior then, she asked to see me. And I don't know any of these kids, Rick, it's April, but I have never met any of these kids. She walks in and I will never forget her telling me, like, I'm gonna try very hard to be respectful.
Rick Sola (09:53.016)Sure.
Melissa Evans (09:59.2)But who do you think you are coming into this building? You don't know any of us and an hour into being here. You're suspending a kid You don't even know her and just going off, you know and and in moments like that That's never that doesn't feel like a positive experience. But what I took from that was here is a passionate student She cares about the people that are in this building She cares about her school and if we can get her to care about doing well here I think she's gonna help me lead the changes that we want to see down the road and she has she is
crushing it this year and she's such a leader. it's hard initially when you have experiences like that, but when you can take that passion and harness it for the good of the kids in the building, it's really an incredible thing to see.
Rick Sola (10:42.764)Yeah, that's really cool. What did you discover that you had two months and that's, you there's not really a natural break there. I'm not super familiar with the Hutchison calendar, but April 1st is that's in middle of the fourth quarter, right? mean, spring break has occurred or has it not? Or is that?
Melissa Evans (10:59.674)Yes, so spring break had happened. Hutchinson 308 is really unique in that we do trimesters. don't know. At one point, know Emporia had done trimesters, but they made the switch back. I feel like there's always been talk of us making the switch to semesters. It hasn't happened yet, but it is still in talk. So it'll be interesting to see what comes in the next couple of years. But no, you're right. There was no easy break. was kind of a weird time to come in. Yeah.
Rick Sola (11:06.635)Okay.
Rick Sola (11:27.542)Yeah, so you have a couple months and in some ways, like you said, not moving in to make a bunch of changes, but you could kind of sit back, observe and is that what you did? Take a little bit of assessment of the situation.
Melissa Evans (11:38.316)Yeah,
Yeah, I really wanted to see firsthand what I found even before they had come to me about this job is you would hear things about Midtown. And I loved earlier when we first started talking, you talked about rebranding. You had said your district was working on rebranding and doing those things. And I very much feel like that's what we are doing this year. And so before we could rebrand ourselves, we needed to see what we're working with. And so, yeah, I tried to just get in classrooms as much
much as possible talk to staff, talk to students. I scheduled one-on-ones with each of the staff members, paras included, all of the staff members to really figure out what they enjoyed about the school, what they felt like needed to change, what they felt like the biggest issues were, what they felt like they did well. And hearing from those people, that's how you get the best information and then just seeing it yourselves. I always joke with people I love, I have the flexibility because we're a smaller school.
to be able to go help our lunch staff. It's just one woman, Miss Bev, be able to help Miss Bev serve lunch. And that was my favorite part. Kids were not thrilled with me being here to start. I think I'm very different than the administrator before me. And being able to go into the lunchroom and see them be so kind to Miss Bev. She is the sweet woman that could retire any day she wants to. And she shows up every day and does a wonderful job for us. And these kids that would glare at me, not say anything when I'd say good morning to start, use their manners.
Rick Sola (13:01.39)you
Melissa Evans (13:11.444)with Miss Bev, pulled their hoods down because she's established that expectation that when you come in, you're gonna use your manners, your hood's gonna be down, and she's so loving, but she's firm. And I wanted to take what they do in the lunchroom because here they are clearly capable of following those expectations, and they do because they Bev cares about them. So how do we take what's happening at lunchtime and scale it into the school building wide? That was our big focus, but I just loved how kind they were to Miss Bev. So that's what I did. I served lunch and I got in class.
and just really got to see kind of how school functioned.
Rick Sola (13:45.166)Awesome. So this is maybe kind of backing up in the conversation a little bit, but talk about that, how your school functions and kind of everything that's under the roof at Midtown. I'll call it Midtown. Is that all right? Yeah, talk a little bit about it.
Melissa Evans (13:56.534)Yeah, yes, that's what we do. That's what we call it.
Yeah, so we last year, they've made some changes to how it's arranged. And I actually love that you mentioned that on the website, it says we house the virtual program because we don't anymore. So that is, that's noted that I need to let someone know that needs changed on our website. Yeah, here in our building, it's kind of unique. We are an old elementary school repurposed. And so we have one hallway as our midtown hallway. And then our building is shaped in an L. And so we actually, the Boys and Girls Club utilizes the other side of the L.
In the afternoon, it's K6 boys and girls club. So we're never here at the same time except for those wonky days where elementary is how the day off in high school still in session. yes, we house Midtown here and then we also have our alternative learning placement. So we call it ALP and that's where students at the secondary level who are suspended for drugs or weapons that 45-day placement if they have an IEP they come here for their education. And then we have that same thing we utilize ALP for.
our elementary as well. Our elementary buildings don't have ISS, so a lot of times if a student is struggling to stay regulated in their classroom, they'll come here for a couple days to kind of reset and then they go back to their elementary. So it's very fluid on the outside. Midtown side is our high school, which is I would say the main part of my job. So currently, when we, I guess let me back up just a little bit. At the end of the school year, I met with district office and they said, okay, what are you
seeing what do you need and I would be very remiss if I didn't make it a point to say how grateful I am for the support of district office and their willingness to pretty much green light anything I've asked for. I felt very very supported to make changes even things that I was nervous to ask for they were really great about. So one of the things my
Melissa Evans (15:54.402)think my biggest takeaway from those months of April and May was that Midtown is absolutely a need in our district. And I think what happened is it just scaled too big before systems were put in place. so after graduation, after the school year ended when I met with district office, I asked if we could go ahead and cap enrollment. I wanted to take every kid that we had here and bring them back next year, bring them back this year, but not take any additional kids. That would have dropped our enrollment.
down from about 70 to about 50. We had about 20 students graduate last year and they were okay with that and that always makes you nervous, right? Because you're constantly, I don't know about you guys, but constantly thinking about budget. How do I justify the amount of employees I have? How do I justify the expenditures? How do I make sure that we're serving enough kids for it to make sense? And they were wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So we capped enrollment. They allowed us a couple days at the end of last school year to tour other alternative schools. So Complete Mays was wonderful.
who were wonderful hosts. Hayesville was wonderful. I'm currently in the Kelly Mentor program and have Mr. Brian Gee over at Goddard's Alternative High School as a mentor also. So in talking with all of those people and kind of how they run their alternative schools, majority of them have some type of application process that Midtown didn't have. They have agreements that the students and their guardians sign and all of these things in place to really hone it.
on these are kids that want to be here and they just need a different environment. When you talk about that rebranding piece, Midtown had the reputation of being that's where the bad kids go. When kids are kicked out of school, that's where they're sent. And I think you would probably agree Rick, students enter a building with a totally different mindset when it's a decision to be there than when it's considered a punishment. And so we wanted to move away from that. We wanted Midtown to be a place that students chose to come because they could be more successful here.
So we kept our enrollment. We moved to an application and an agreement that parents and or I'm sorry that guardians and students sign. So we went through that process with all of the kids that come here now. So it's a little bit different and it meant we met with all of them prior to school starting. But what was so great about that is we had told them before school ended, it's gonna look a little bit different you guys. It's gonna be a little bit different when you come back. And so it was really nice to start the school year meeting with each of them individually.
Melissa Evans (18:23.762)meet with their guardians and kind of explain the things that we were changing, what that looks like, and kind of our expectations moving forward.
Rick Sola (18:31.758)How do you go about, or maybe some things that you've done intentionally to kind of build that climate and culture? You mentioned part of the population are those who are on suspension and so you might have a little bit of kind of come and go and.
What do do to make it feel like home and build that? now that you've capped it, about 50 kids or so, kind of that rebranding, what successes would you say you've seen as you've started this school year and this is the first school year of, full year for you? So what are you feeling really good about right now?
Melissa Evans (19:11.026)man, I'm feeling really great about a lot of things. You know, I felt like, I felt like really the biggest issue for us.
last year what I saw in those two months where kids weren't following schedules. They weren't where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there. They weren't getting their work done. Here at Midtown a lot of our kids, I think it might be helpful I guess to know our clientele who we serve. I would say a lot of our kids are here for credit recovery. We have the flexibility because about 70 % of our classes that we offer are through a platform called a Sellus. And so we have some in person about 30 % of our
classes are live teaching about 70 % is a cellist and so what I found when I was here was
Those kids that were showing up every day, were here. They weren't making great choices when they were here in the restroom specifically. They weren't completing their work. would say last year at the end of the year we had only about 40 % of our kids complete the classes they were enrolled in. And so in talking with staff at the end of the year, what were the big things we really wanted to target? Because if everything's important, nothing's important, right? You really got to focus on those wigs. So specifically they wanted to focus on attendance. They wanted kids to be here. They wanted kids to be completely
Rick Sola (20:20.942)All right.
Melissa Evans (20:28.224)completing their classes when they were here and they wanted them to not be vaping in the restrooms when they were here, which all felt like very good goals. And so I don't know about you, Rick, but I definitely did not get into education to spend all day, every day searching backpacks and standing guard in restrooms. And so instead of focusing on a reactive approach, how am going to chase them down? How am I going to catch them? We really wanted to be proactive with how we were addressing it. So some of the things we did, we implemented an E-pass system through Securely.
And what I love, love, love, love about that is you can set capacity in restrooms. And so we're able to make it one at a time. it's glorious. Do you guys use an EPAS system?
Rick Sola (21:05.134)What does it, I was gonna say, what does that look like or how does that manage itself there? Our high schools, I think all of them do. I think E-Hall Pass is what we've gravitated toward. I can't totally speak to the high schools, but I know they've done it, yeah.
Melissa Evans (21:20.494)sure.
it is glorious. So we actually were able to pilot it at HMS 7. So I felt very fortunate to be familiar with it prior to coming over here. But it's so nice. So some of the things that I love about I better get paid for what I'm about to share right now because I'll hype it up. But you can set capacity in a restroom so you can make it to where our school is small enough that we have just one at a time. One girl in a restroom at a time, one boy in a restroom at a time. We only utilize one area of restrooms. And so that's something we have done to help negate the hanging out grouping
Rick Sola (21:34.488)Hahaha
Melissa Evans (21:51.776)making bad choices in there. You can set it to where if you and I, Rick, if we notice, the staff notices you and I are trying to meet up in a restroom, they can block it to where you and I can't be out on pass at the same time. So if we suspect that we're getting into not great things, they can set it up to where if I'm already on an active pass and you try to ask a teacher to approve a pass without the adults trying to constantly communicate to see who is where all the time, that system automatically blocks it, turns red and says you can't go on pass yet.
which is glorious. The kids furious about it. The staff love it. So that EPAS system has been wonderful.
Rick Sola (22:23.918)Yeah.
Melissa Evans (22:32.674)But it's not just a matter of cracking down on them in that way. We also wanted to address how do we make them want to be here? How do we create an environment that kids are excited about being here, that there are things that they want to do, and so they get their work done so they can participate in these things. So we redid our master's schedule. Looking at it, I was green-lighted to be able to give all of my teachers the same planning period. And so they tweaked the schedule quite a bit.
Rick Sola (23:00.066)Mm.
Melissa Evans (23:02.56)prior to me getting here and what we did was we went ahead and went back to one of the first things they had started with where all the teachers, our students are actually dismissed at 2 30 here. Teachers are contracted till 3 40 and so we meet every Monday, every Wednesday. If it's a really light agenda, we'll cancel it, but more often than not, what I found is when I cancel staff meetings, we all just end up in the office talking anyways, which is kind of nice. But one of those meetings is for behaviors, one is for academics, and so that has been so helpful just keeping everyone on the same page.
being able to come and sit down and say, hey, I noticed so-and-so was struggling. How was that happening there? I don't think you can ever over-exaggerate how, or over-emphasize how incredible that PLC time is to keep everyone on the same page. So we have those meetings because of our schedule. And then we also do a block schedule on Tuesday, Wednesday. And the reason we do block schedule on Tuesday, Wednesday is so we can build in time for what we call town hall meetings, where students and staff get together short, 30 minutes. We'll do birthday celebrate.
We do shout outs. We talk about things coming up. We've had some students do presentations from what they've done in their classes. So it's really just meant to build that culture and get everyone on the same page. Sometimes we ask for student input on how we're doing things. And then we also in the afternoon have what we call enrichment. So that's when we have speakers come. That's when we will play games and that's when we do clubs. And I would say that clubs has probably been one of the biggest
I don't know that success is the right word. It's what kids are most passionate about or most excited about. So we went ahead and surveyed them at the beginning of the year, asked what clubs they would be interested in doing, and paired up with sponsors. Yeah.
Rick Sola (24:41.763)What did they say? What were they interested in most for a club? So I'm kind of curious.
Melissa Evans (24:47.542)You know, the hot one right now that everyone really fights over is Cooking Club. They love it. They love it. And it is so neat to see them so excited about it. And I think the best part is it's the boys that want to do it. And so that has been fun. And it's been fun watching them do the dishes afterwards, too. They're not always thrilled about that. But yeah, we have Cooking Club. We have Gaming Club. We have Art Club. We actually have a Cosmetology Club. And one of our paras here had actually gone to
to be a hairdresser so she actually gave some haircuts today in Cosmetology Club. Yeah, was was really kind of cool.
Rick Sola (25:20.998)wow.
Rick Sola (25:24.3)Yeah, that's pretty neat. know, clubs, it's something, our schedule isn't kind of middle school wide, but it's not super conducive to just having natural time for clubs during the school day. have some, and there's just so much value to that. You just listed off a bunch of clubs that kids love to do, and you always find those niches within clubs that can be so powerful. It could be a reason that a student wants to be at your school, and you talk about an emphasis being, hey, we want you here.
Well, if I know I get to go cook, and that's something I really like to do, that might be a carrot to get me there. And I can do the other stuff if I get to go do that. So, I love hearing that. Yeah, so you're less than a year into this building as principal. Is there anything that you can identify that you know now that, gosh, I wish I would have known that back on April 1st? Anything at all?
Melissa Evans (26:16.514)You know?
I I don't know that if there's anything that I wish I could go back and know outside of, I wish we would have found some community partnerships just a little bit sooner. I have been so grateful, we have been so grateful for some partnerships that we have here with the health department, some partnerships we have with a church nearby that has provided,
pumpkin. So when you talk about some other things we've done. Let me let me go back. So I shared that about 40 percent of our students completed classes and got the credits they were enrolled in last spring. This year at the end of our first trimester we had 88 percent of our students pass every single one of the classes they were enrolled in. Our entire passing rate for totality of classes taken was 91 percent. Just incredible. So the couple kids that brought down that 88 percent they'd actually pass four out of six of their
classes as well. And so because they were working hard, you have to reward that, right? You have to keep that motivation going. You have to reward that. And so we were able to reach out to First Presbyterian Church, who provided pumpkins for every single student. So we celebrated on Halloween. We didn't do school on Halloween. We just did fun stuff all day on Halloween. We had students kind of plan what they wanted to do that day. We did pumpkin decorating. We did, I think they did, a movie day or a movie
in one of the classrooms and just played some games, some different things like that for Halloween. We just finished having our big Thanksgiving meal that that church donated, the turkey and the ham, our cooking club cooked all the food, we had staff bring sides, but that really kind of building that family feel, right? I think that's one of the most beautiful things about being in an alternative setting is you're able to do that. And so when I talk to you about those kids, those hard kids, because I would hate, hate, hate if I only shared how much of a struggle it was for them to be excited.
Rick Sola (27:57.592)Huh.
Melissa Evans (28:16.294)to have me there and so when you're talking about wins, one of the things we did in town hall was write thank you notes to the church and the pastor for providing that and one of the things our students read, was pulling it up because I would love to share it, she just said, thank you and your church for providing us with pumpkin's food and an amazing honest talk which definitely opened our eyes. I appreciate you for giving our school a chance when in the past people probably wouldn't have. I didn't try the food because I wasn't at school that day but I'm
so grateful that people are seeing our school as a school instead of a place where bad kids go. Yeah. my gosh, Rick.
Rick Sola (28:52.278)Wow, what a powerful note. That's awesome.
Melissa Evans (28:57.578)And you know, a lot of times when you ask kids to write thank you notes, you never know if they even are gonna know what to say. Because you know they're grateful, but a lot of times high schoolers aren't great with their words in that way. she really summed that up. That is what the reputation of Midtown was. That's where the bad kids go. And it's not.
Rick Sola (29:15.246)I mean, what a great note to even share if you are working with a potential community partner and say, look, this is the power that you have on our kids and changing that narrative. That should be in a frame or something. I don't know. That's really great.
Melissa Evans (29:30.822)It's, I've got several notes that if they're going somewhere else, I take a picture and just keep it because I want to remember that. And that's what we do as educators, right? We have to go back to those notes that just remind you, even on those days when you feel like you're not making a difference, it's working. Things are happening.
Rick Sola (29:46.626)Yeah, that's really great. you have, you've talked a lot about, I mean, there's so much to celebrate and you kind of beat me to it. You mentioned you got to celebrate. I was going to ask what you do and you just gave a couple of really great examples. What does the next, I guess, couple of weeks now, so we're recording this, it's December 4th. And so this is actually the last cool copy of the calendar year. They'll come out on December 19th is when this will drop in the...
Melissa Evans (30:09.507)the pressure!
Rick Sola (30:14.722)Thousands and thousands of listeners will flock to upload this and listen But what does the next couple weeks look like at Midtown as we head into the holidays and for them I'm sure a nice solid two to three week break
Melissa Evans (30:17.791)Melissa Evans (30:29.07)Yeah, know, it's always, holidays are always kind of interesting when you're in education because there are people, students and staff alike who really look forward to it. And I think there are students and staff alike who really dread it. And so we've talked with our kids kind of about what would you like to do before break? Because we do, we try very hard to have kind of those days of celebration and community building as long as they're getting done what they need to get done. And so right now, some of the things we've talked about, is set in stone yet.
but ideas that we have. The kids would really like to do some caroling. We have some neighbors around the school that we're working on building relationships with, so they would like to go caroling. We've talked about doing, well, let me take that back. We have that church that I had mentioned. They're sponsoring some of our students, which is wonderful, but we do want to spend that day right before we go into break really just kind of spending time with each other and celebrating. So we have some students that are brainstorming what they would like to do. They want to pick a Christmas movie.
Rick Sola (31:05.614)awesome.
Rick Sola (31:28.846)you
Melissa Evans (31:28.896)And I feel like a lot of times it centers around food. So I'm sure we'll do a Christmas meal. We had some leftover ham. So we've talked about how we can use that. But really, it's just pushing them. Because this is what we just talked about as a staff. This is the hard part, where everyone's doing really well. How do you keep that going? How do you keep that momentum going? And we're already seeing it a little bit, just in terms of students getting their percentages. So because they're in a cellist classes, we set a weekly percentage they have to be at at the end of the week.
to be on progress to complete their courses by the end of the trimester. And so one of the supports we have for them on Fridays, if they are not at the percentages they need to be to be on track, they stay for what we call academic recovery. And it's been kind of neat because early on we had quite a few kids in academic recovery and what we found was they really just wanted to stay at school. And so we adjusted and said, okay, academic recovery is still gonna be for those kiddos who maybe just need a little bit of extra help, but they're behind still. They have to turn their cell phones in when they go to academic.
recovery but then we have a teacher she's wonderful and she opens her classroom for kids that just want to stay and hang out. So now that the kids can just choose to stay and hang out they're still getting their percentages they just want to be around each other which is really special but so really locking in we want our kids to go into break being in a good spot academically so they're not coming back and having to dig themselves out of a hole so really pushing them and when it comes to those percentages but celebrating as they hit those.
Rick Sola (32:55.598)Yeah, that's great. You hit on, know, it's a reminder, you know, it's such an exciting time of year, but it can also be, I don't know if you use the word dreaded or not, but it can be dreaded for some, or the idea of being at home for an extended length of time and not being able to come to school, you know, the school provides so many opportunities and so much structure and.
consistency and routine and relationships that may not always be available when school's not in session. And so just keeping that in mind, I love that you ask them, what do you want these next few weeks to look like? And what can we provide? And I'm curious, what Christmas movie did they select?
Melissa Evans (33:31.054)So what I found is so many of our kids love horror movies. They were pretty disappointed. I was terrified by some of their Halloween movie selections. So I'm trying to inch them towards The Grinch or Elf, and they're still talking about Saw movies. And I'm trying to think of their Terrifier, The Punisher. There's been some scary one coming out. I'm like, no, Mrs. Evans can't handle that. That's going to be one year out. I can't do those. I know. I know.
Rick Sola (33:35.962)well fantastic.
Rick Sola (33:46.444)Rick Sola (33:52.782)I did not expect to go that direction with the Christmas selection, but you know.
Melissa Evans (34:01.006)But I do believe that Batman Returns is a Christmas movie. Die Hard, not so much. Batman Returns, that's Christmas movie.
Rick Sola (34:07.352)Batman Returns, is that with the Penguin? The Tim Burton? That's going way back. Okay, I have not seen that. I would not have considered that Christmas, but I have to think back. Now Die Hard, I think there's a really strong argument to be made that it is a Christmas movie, but. Well, this came to an abrupt close and next time on Cool Coffee, no. So, no, that's awesome.
Melissa Evans (34:10.156)Yes! Uh-huh. It's a good one.
Melissa Evans (34:23.116)All right, Rick, well, I was enjoying you. I was enjoying this.
You
Rick Sola (34:36.171)You know, I want to appreciate all it's been really interesting to hear about this and what you're doing. And I mean, you've talked a lot about a lot of really positive things. And it's as if I feel like I'm talking to someone who's been in a position for several years and you're only several months into it. So it sounds like you're doing really, really great things there and just a lot of really bright future. I would love to finish this with just giving you an opportunity to brag.
on your people and you've done a lot, is great, but just brag on your people out in Hutchison and at Midtown and the district and so forth. What do you love about where you're at?
Melissa Evans (35:16.622)I love it.
everything about this place and this community. I grew up in Hutchinson and so coming back to a community it just it's really important to me. I'm very proud of a district that values alternative education and green lights pretty much everything we want to do here as long as it's what's best for kids. I am so proud of the staff we have here at Midtown. They're constantly I mean when we talk about these things that we're doing here it's staff when we talk about the clubs it's because staff is willing to sponsor these clubs.
when we talk about these Thanksgiving meals, it's because staff is willing to go home and cook and bring their food or cook here with kids. I'm so grateful for our high school administrators. A lot of times I think there's this notion that all Ed and traditional Ed, but heads and you do, you feel protective of your people, but I'm very grateful for great relationships with those principals so we can communicate and make sure the kids that are coming to Midtown are the kids that should be here and that the kids that we're sending to the high school are kids that will
do well there also. I'm very, very grateful for those things and for a community that is willing to help and pitch in. feel like anytime there's something we want to do, if we don't have it in our budget, there are so many people willing to help and support. I'm just honestly Rick, I'm really proud of our kids. And I know that sounds cliche and I'll try not to cry because you can't do that on a podcast, but you, I mean, you can create an environment that makes it easy to make the right choice, but they still have to make the choice.
Rick Sola (36:39.383)You
Melissa Evans (36:46.768)still have to do the work. They still have to show up every day and they are doing that. They're doing that and they're representing themselves well and I'm just I'm really really proud of that.
Rick Sola (36:58.21)That's great. you mentioned it's a cliche, cliches are cliches because there's some accuracy to them, you know, and that's what it is all about. And so that's what you recognize there is awesome and perfect. you know, there's no shame in cliches when it comes down to celebrating kids and just a lot of things to celebrate.
Melissa Evans (37:05.17)I did.
Rick Sola (37:22.318)I'll give a quick shout. I appreciate the fact we have a mutual colleague that kind of connected this had a suggestion like hey you need to get Melissa on the show she's got a great perspective and talk about the building and You know, so I appreciate Justin he's an HR so I don't want to talk anymore about about him. Yeah, he's a we know we love our colleagues, but but I appreciate the connection and You know in I guess in closing a shameless plug
regarding the show is, know, in our show notes, one, there'll be information about Melissa in there, contact information, connection on social media, but there is a form in there that can be filled out and feedback or suggestions or recommendations. So if you're listening, please feel free to click into the show notes, click on that link and provide some feedback. So that's exactly how this occurred. And so I'm glad he did. I've really enjoyed talking with you and getting to know a little bit more about Midtown and
I want to wish you a good, here a couple weeks, Merry Christmas and a good start to 2025.
Melissa Evans (38:28.558)appreciate that Rick and I am, this isn't a plug, but I just want to say thank you for starting this up. My first year in administration was like drinking from a fire hose. And I felt like the biggest saving grace was really getting involved in KPA, following the podcast they had at that time, attending the KPA conference, being involved in USA Kansas, their elevate leadership, currently going through Kelly mentorship and just really building those connections. you don't realize how lonely the job can be until you're in it. especially now I was fortunate to be an assistant principal, but now I'm the only administrator in the building. so having connections like these and finding what
ways to, when you don't have the experience, learn from others' experience is always one of the best things you can do. So I am very grateful for you, Rick, for starting this back up because this is one of my favorite ways to hear about other administrators and what they're doing around our state.
Rick Sola (39:19.202)Well, thank you. Thanks for listening. And, know, it's exactly that. It's all about connections. And before we started, we were talking about you had mentioned some people that you know, and these are all connections I've made through KPA as well, whether it's Kelly Whitaker in Ottawa or Stacey Green, or both have been on this show and they're on the board and we're on opposite ends of the state basically, and having this conversation and able to share ideas. And so that's kind of the purpose of this podcast.
the KPA in general is all about that network and we're all in it together. And so I love that you brought that up and I appreciate the words. I think, you know, with that, we'll sign it off and keep listening. I appreciate it. but have a nice break and thanks again for being on the show.
Melissa Evans (40:07.352)appreciate it Rick thanks you too
 

Cool Coffee 11 - Mr. Eric Sacco - Clifton-Clyde Pre-K-8

Listen in on with NAESP rep and KPA board member, Mr. Eric Sacco of Clifton-Clyde Pre-K-8 principal. Eric discusses his "why not?" philosophy of sharing out all the good via social media. Principal banter ensues as discussion of basketball jamborees, holiday season, and the sprint to the break are discussed.
Connect with Mr. Sacco:
X: @SaccoEric
Connect on Email
Eric's article, titled "Why Join?", on page 22-23 of the 12/3/2024 publication of Under the Umbrella
Chapters
(time stamps do not account for the Cool Coffee intro--full transcript of the show below)
00:00   Introduction to Eric Sacco and His Journey
09:24   The Importance of Social Media in Schools
17:27   Creating a Positive School Culture
22:30   Holiday Traditions and Movie Favorites
 
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.
 
TRANSCRIPT OF THIS SHOW (Generated by AI)
Rick Sola (00:01.879)All right, thank you for joining in on another Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. This episode features Mr. Eric Sacco, Pre-K through 8 principal from Clifton Clyde School District, USD 224. He is a KPA board member, NAESP rep for the state of Kansas, and also featured on this podcast on the Cool Coffee Principal Perspective Number 6, Keeping Your Mind and Body Right, which was a great episode. You can check that out.
and as of December 3rd, which is actually recording today, newly published in the Under the Umbrella magazine sharing the why to joining the KPA. Welcome, Eric.
Eric Sacco (00:35.691)Thank you.
Eric Sacco (00:41.152)Hey, thanks very much Rick. Glad to be here.
Rick Sola (00:44.004)Appreciate you being here. Before we get started, I want to invite listeners to the show notes. You can check out and find a Google form there where you can leave some feedback about the show, suggest a guest and or topic, or even suggest yourself with a topic to discuss. In addition, I will include a link to what I just mentioned, the under the umbrella where you can read more about Eric's why of joining the KPA as well as articles and features from building the state level leaders from across the state. So
You can check that out in the show notes. Before we kind of get started, I'm going to kind of point out and just kind of a, I think I'll just say thank you as a good example. And you probably don't know where I'm going with this, but yesterday we were actually going to record and you reached out and said, my gosh, I just got my son's basketball schedule. I've got to go to this, you know, the game or was it Jamboree or what was it?
Eric Sacco (01:35.522)It was their jamboree last night, yeah.
Rick Sola (01:37.695)Okay. So we rescheduled, which is no problem at all, but I appreciate that. And I think it's, it kind of just touched on, I think it's relevant to all of us, principals. We have busy jobs, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of opportunities, but there's also, you know, our home life, our more important and our family. And, you know, that balance is so critical. And so it was just kind of a,
another good example, though kind of just an aside from getting this scheduled and I just wanted to bring that up because that is something I think that we all work through and deal with and there's times where work and conflicts do come up and we make those sacrifices but we also are very fortunate to have a lot of flexibility in what we do oftentimes and we can be a part of that. So anyway, that was kind of an aside but I thought that was really cool and I'm also
the basketball dad high school with my oldest son being on the team out here. And so we had our jamboree last night and we have late night tonight. So all sorts of good things going on. And it is so, you know, we're a couple days after the Thanksgiving break. Just, you know, your two days in and we got now the sprint to the even bigger break. first two days going okay for Eric.
Eric Sacco (02:49.076)Exciting time of the year, that's for sure.
Eric Sacco (03:03.49)Yeah, they are going real well. Like you said, yeah, we're three weeks out from Christmas break, so kind of a tight squeeze here to kind of get some last second things in. But yeah, the first two days have gone great.
Rick Sola (03:15.713)what's on the docket for the next three weeks or less than that now.
Eric Sacco (03:19.586)Yeah, there's a lot. We started off yesterday, we kicked off our fast bridge testing, our mid-year fast bridge. So most grade levels right now are hot and heavy into that. Like you mentioned, basketball. There seems to be games almost every night between middle school games and high school games. And so, you know, traveling to a lot of those. And then just, you know, trying to end the first semester on a good note.
Rick Sola (03:46.593)Yeah, there's a lot going on and certainly I think every building can point to many events. There's a lot of culminating activities for a semester and in some ways like you mentioned basketball kind of starting off kickoff or tip off I guess better for basketball but a lot going on. know Eric I've I like to ask about the road to the chair and kind of what what has led you to where you're at today but you also have a couple leadership positions outside the building the NAESP and the KPA.
So kind of a brief, you your road to the chair, but also what it means to you to wear the hats that you wear with both of those organizations.
Eric Sacco (04:26.062)Yeah, well, the road to the chair, guess, you know, I was born in New York.
That's where both my parents grew up. I moved to Texas when I was a little over one. So basically raised in Texas my whole life. Graduated high school there. After high school ended, had the opportunity to play a little college basketball. So that brought me up to Kansas. Went to Bethany College. Met my wife there and she's a Kansas native. And so she kept me around. I taught for 10 years at Halstead. Halstead Middle School taught fourth grade there for 10 years.
buddy of mine who I taught with.
was going in to get his master's in administration and I at the time really didn't have any interest in it but he was starting his master's and so he talked me into joining him. So we took our classes together and once I finished that, started applying around and a job popped up here at Clifton Clyde. It's where my wife is from, she's from the area. She graduated from Lynn High School which is just down the road so it got us up closer to her family which is very important with my family living down in Texas. It was important to us to have
one set of grandparents around within close range so we moved up here and been here ever since. This is year 13 for me here.
Rick Sola (05:42.913)Yeah, that's awesome. I'm interested in, you said you had no admin interest. What flipped? What switch was turned on to change your gears?
Eric Sacco (05:55.596)You know, I really don't know what the flip was. Like I said, buddy of mine was getting his masters and he talked me into it. And so I kind of figured, you know, after two years of taking all the courses and getting my masters in admin, I might as well put it to use. And so that's kind of what led me here. And I said, I've enjoyed 13 years so far. I've enjoyed it all. It's been a good switch. I really enjoy the role that I'm in right now.
Rick Sola (06:20.834)Yeah.
Yeah, I asked that because that's exactly how I felt. I made the decision to go into administration, but I didn't necessarily see myself in it. And then at some point, I found myself really interested and things just take off and go. And I think that's the way it is for a lot of us. You are very active in both the KPA and I've enjoyed my time with the KPA, serving on the board with you on that. But also in AESP, what do those hats look like as it relates to you as a building principal?
even as a leader in a different capacity.
Eric Sacco (06:54.988)Yeah, I've been...
Been very active in KPA. You know, it used to be KAESP prior to the two joining, but been very active in it most of my admin career. Got started early on, was asked to join the board and just kind of stayed with it. Really enjoy it. More of a networking piece. Being a small town 1A principal, I'm the only principal here in my town, so you don't really get to kick many ideas around with any other
admin in the district. know KPA, NASP, that gives me kind of an outlet to collaborate with other administrators, meet with other administrators, talk to them, steal a bunch of ideas from them. So that's kind of what has kept me in KPA, NASP. It's just that collaboration piece with other administrators. Three years ago was asked to be the NAESP rep for Kansas. So I accepted that role.
That's been another great role. I really enjoyed that. Kind of a liaison between NASP, which is the National Association, and KPA, our state association. So basically they're just kinda kept in the know of what's happening in the world of education nationally and be able to bring that and report it back to our state board, our KPA board.
lot of traveling opportunities that go along with it as well. Every November we have a Zone 8 retreat that I get to go to and I just got back about a month ago from Little Rock, Arkansas was where the retreat was this year. The previous year was in Santa Fe, New Mexico and then year before that got to go to New Orleans. So you know some trips that
Eric Sacco (08:43.892)I wouldn't necessarily take on my own that I've been able to experience. Also, every March, get to go to the National Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C. Get to meet with all the state reps there, and we actually get to go up on the hill, the Capitol, and advocate for public education. So that's been an eye-opening experience, a nerve-wracking one when I first started that, but been a couple times now. So it gets a little easier each time to go up there and talk to your senators and representatives.
in July get the chance to also represent Kansas at the national conference. again lots of lots of travel opportunity that I really enjoyed.
Rick Sola (09:19.65)Yeah.
Rick Sola (09:24.043)Yeah, that could be a whole different topic talking about what it's like up on the Hill, like you said, talking with senators and people in decision-making roles that make big decisions and impactful decisions. And yeah, can certainly see that intimidation factor setting in. that may be another show. But one thing I've noticed, and I follow you on your ex-account, and I see
Eric Sacco (09:48.366)You
Rick Sola (09:53.909)a lot of the trips that you've taken as a part of these organizations. But kind of segues into really one of the interests I wanted to talk to you more about was just exactly that, your social media presence with your school. I, even today as I was getting set up here and I saw just about 45 minutes ago from this recording you posted a celebration for a kiddo in your building. You do such a nice job of featuring
the kids in your building and you know I've noticed things where you you're having meals with kids, office positive office referrals, academic accomplishments, and even one right before Thanksgiving. I'd love to hear more about this too. A student that had a handwritten note that she made to every one of her every one of the classmates in the building or but just a lot of really great celebrations and I just wanted to hear more about it and it kind of have you talk
to it because you're very active on the social media with your school.
Eric Sacco (10:58.466)Sure, yeah, know, when it comes to that, my philosophy is why not?
I mean, we all have great things going on in our building. Why not share it? Why not brag about the kids that you have? Why not brag about the staff that you have, the great things going on in your building? And so, you know, an easy way to do that is to share it on social media, share it with the parents. Do a, we do a, like you said, a positive office referral where any staff member can nominate a student for doing something great around the building. I call them down in my office, share the positive office referral with them.
picture, they get a little prize and then I share that with the parents as well. I'll text them, email them that picture and kind of brag their kid up as well. And like I said, post it on X, on Instagram and just kind of share that out. Like I said, there's a lot of great things going on and you and I know the world of education does not always spun in a positive light. And if we have any chance to redirect that and share the great things going on, then it's always a positive.
Rick Sola (12:00.855)I love the idea of just telling your story. just like you mentioned, know, sometimes a story can be told from people outside the building and we have an opportunity to show it on the inside. And so for your students, they know, do they realize that they're going to be posted on their social media so their parents to see it? Or is that something they aspire to? Or is it more like, wow, I just got recognized? Or how does that work?
Eric Sacco (12:27.726)Yeah, know, it's funny because, you know, I have pre-K through eighth grade, so you kind of see that difference between, you know, an elementary student being recognized versus a middle school student being recognized. You know, your younger grade school students, they're pretty excited about it for the most part, being called down to the office, getting their picture taken. And I had a bulletin board up in the hallway that I print those pictures off and we post them out there. So.
Rick Sola (12:34.925)haha
Eric Sacco (12:52.13)throughout the year if at any time you get a positive office referral. picture's up there for the entire school year. So kinda you like to share in them as much as possible. It's funny though, know, the older kids, the sixth, seventh, eighth graders, they...
They don't want to enjoy it as much, there are sometimes, you can tell, they really do enjoy it. Especially when I tell them that I'm going to share that with their parents, send them a text and email and share that picture with them and brag them up. Because they're on social media quite a bit. And I would venture to say not everything they're looking at or browsing is always positive as well. So putting that out there and bragging about them and their peers can see it, their friends can see it, their family can see
it and it's just like I said why not do it.
Rick Sola (13:39.127)Yeah, I love the board the whole year. So where's that board located in your school?
Eric Sacco (13:43.738)Right out in the hallway. So right outside the, so I actually have two buildings. At the grade school it's kind of right by the library in between the boys and girls restroom. There's a big bulletin board there. And then here at the middle school it's just right outside the office as well.
Rick Sola (13:56.675)Yeah. So how long have you been doing this, that in particular, you know, taking pictures and being intentional about posting them and not just posting them, but printing them and putting them out there for everyone to see.
Eric Sacco (14:10.432)wow, I would say probably five, six, seven years. I've been doing it quite a while. The idea started, I saw it on social media. I used to call it Good News Call of the Day.
is what it was, it's just a hashtag on back then Twitter, good news call of the day, and it's just again a group of principals that were doing that, were making phone calls, sharing on social media, I thought it was pretty neat, so I kind of stole that, and over the past few years it's evolved to a positive office referral. So yeah, so we've been doing it quite a while.
Rick Sola (14:44.675)It
Yeah, and one of the what led me to that question was just I'm curious of the impact that this alone has had on your building and culture, maybe with your kids, but even with with staff that see that and recognize it. And, you know, I'd venture to guess that some students, maybe they needed that win. Maybe that that was something that it was a celebration that maybe they haven't had in a while, you know, and but they're there on the board. And so is that anything you can
Eric Sacco (15:05.388)Yeah.
Rick Sola (15:16.431)speak to as far as what you feel like is an impact on, at this point it's part of your building culture, it's an expectation which is really cool.
Eric Sacco (15:23.502)Yeah, you know, it's, I always try to tell our staff members, know,
Try not to look at what happened in the past with a student. know, because you have your students that, you know, they do a lot of negative things and they don't get that positive praise all the time. So, you know, don't look at what's going on in the past. If they do something well, celebrate it. You know, there's some students that you know that, you know, it might be one or two things that they do and, know, at that moment when they do something that's positive, something good, capture it. Capture that moment. You know, because that little thing can spark something in a student
and drive them to do more positive things. So yeah, I think.
It has become kind of a culture, know, try to catch those kids doing good things. You know, even your quiet kids that always do what they're expected to do, they're not always recognized either, you know. And so catching those kids who are the quiet ones that always do the right things, catch them in a moment and share that, you know, on them. So yeah, it's, I don't know, I enjoy it. It's probably one of the best parts of my day when I can call a student down for a positive aspect in the office.
Rick Sola (16:32.183)I think that's what's really cool. That's what I noticed is the pictures that I have seen posted just seem so genuine and so celebratory. It's just it's like you said a good news post of the day. You can see the joy in the kids faces and oftentimes you're making a goofy face or silly face or whatever with them. And it is funny because I did notice I hadn't thought about it but I did notice with the elementary kids that you could tell they have a different kind of feel with it versus some of the older kids. But you know that's
Eric Sacco (17:01.026)Yeah, and I was asking me, said, you hey, do you want to, do you want to selfie with me or do want a picture on your own? And so, you know, some kids want, want to do that selfie with me. The other, you know, some other kids just want to do that, that picture all by themselves. You know, they're too cool to get a selfie with the principal, but you know, some of the older kids still enjoy that. And you know, I, you know, I want to make the office a place that's not always negative. So, so much of the time.
Rick Sola (17:02.117)Thanks.
Eric Sacco (17:27.212)you know the office has a negative connotation with it. You know it's a place where you send students when they're doing something they're not supposed to. But it doesn't always have to be that. You know why not, why can't the office be a place you go to celebrate? know a place where students go when they do something good. And so that's kind of my philosophy around that is you know the office doesn't have to be negative all the time. You know keep it positive as much as you can.
Rick Sola (17:49.749)Is there an instance that jumps right to the front of your mind like, man, you do celebrations, it's fun all the time, but there's one that really was special or stuck out, is there any that really kind of come to you?
Eric Sacco (18:04.45)Yeah, you know, as a principal that's had my kids in the building, know, those...
you know when when my child gets nominated for a positive offer, you know always makes you feel good as a parent so you know those those always stand out. My two oldest kids are out of the building now so they're both in high school but I have a younger one my kindergartener that's still here with me so you know he got nominated last year as a preschooler so that one stands out you know your own your own kid you get to celebrate them.
Rick Sola (18:34.989)Sure. So you had the one right before Thanksgiving where it was a young girl that wrote a note, I think, to every student in the building. Yeah.
Eric Sacco (18:44.502)Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, her teacher brought me down the positive officer for her own said, yeah, she she had come to school and she had a handwritten note for everybody in her class. And the handwritten note was what she's thankful for for each kid in her classroom. So yeah, that was that was pretty cool.
Rick Sola (18:59.84)wow. Wow.
Eric Sacco (19:01.484)Yeah, I had never seen something like that before. But yeah, was brought, know, called her down and shared that with her and asked her about it. And she said, yeah, she just wanted to, she just wanted to tell her what she's thankful for. So that was, that was pretty, that was pretty cool. Yeah.
Rick Sola (19:13.923)That's incredible. And she's got a whole bunch of stories, I'm sure, about the kids that got that and received that.
Eric Sacco (19:22.114)Yeah, that's only a second grader that did that. Yeah.
Rick Sola (19:24.865)Yeah, that's unbelievable. That's really cool. Kids are amazing and it never ceases to amaze me what they're capable of. But a lot of it, I'm sure, the culture you're building and celebrating there, it helps prompt those kinds of things too. But what a great story. Yeah, that's pretty heartwarming. I was going to ask, and you kind of hit on this, but it's not just an X thing. Because one thing I discovered was a lot of our parents,
know that X is like their number one stop or at least the people that the parents that are wanting to to see these things. Facebook would be one. Instagram I know nothing about but we did create a Facebook page this year but so you mentioned Instagram is it X and Instagram or do you have Facebook too or?
Eric Sacco (20:11.234)I have for our school, the ex account and then, you know, it's basically a personal account, but I do mostly school stuff on there. But then I have an Instagram account for our school as well. We do have a Facebook account. It's more of a district account. And so we use kind of that as more of informational stuff to get out to families. So I try to tend to flood my Instagram and my ex account with all those positive things. And a lot of your parents, I mean, there a lot of them are on Instagram.
Rick Sola (20:40.279)Yeah, my wife tells me that she told me you need to get on Instagram like. Yeah, yeah. So what the next three weeks I mentioned you spoke about but what's your personal goal over the next three weeks.
Eric Sacco (20:42.274)Yeah, yeah. I have the school account, that's it. I don't have a personal account there.
Eric Sacco (20:57.026)You know, I thought about that when I saw that on your sheet. You know, I think for me personally, or sorry, professionally I should say, my professional goal would be not only to survive these last three weeks, I mean it's gonna go quick, but...
professionally just trying to set everybody up for a successful second semester. You know, and that's by finishing out these last three weeks as strong as we can. There's a lot going on, but we gotta just keep in the back of our mind, you hey, we're gonna have a break coming up soon, so let's finish it out strong. Let's go hard till the end.
Rick Sola (21:31.095)Yeah, it's very much a sprint. I was just talking to staff yesterday. There's a lot of positive, there's a lot of fun events. It can also be a grind, it can be stressful. We don't know what's going on at home. But it is a very exciting time in the schools with all the spirit days and things. But exactly right. Finish strong and let's start the next semester equally as strong.
Eric Sacco (21:58.146)And we'll be kicking off Thursday. We're gonna kick off our 12 days till Christmas. We always do, we've done for the last handful of years. It's the last 12 days before break. Kind of have a little theme each and every day leading up to break. So we'll send that out on Thursday and start kicking that off. It's different dress up themes, food themes, just kind of something every day to get staff.
a little more motivated when they're here. We invite all the kids to do all of our dress up themes that we do throughout the month as well. So be a lot of a lot of different things going on.
Rick Sola (22:24.236)Yeah.
Rick Sola (22:30.775)That's fun. I'll be looking for some pictures on X because I'm not on Instagram. real quick, is that time of year. Do you have a Mount Rushmore of holiday movies?
Eric Sacco (22:37.006)Absolutely.
Eric Sacco (22:46.582)Yeah, so Mount Rushmore, that means you're top four, huh?
Rick Sola (22:50.339)the four that you're gonna put on a monument.
Eric Sacco (22:53.454)Okay, so I thought about this a little bit. I'm not a huge movie guy, but you know, I do have kids at that age that enjoy it. I would say number one, because of my kids, they always watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. So that's one every year that they have to watch. They like the Jim Carrey version. Yeah, yeah, they like the Jim Carrey version of that. So I'd say that for sure. I don't think you can go wrong with Elf. That's a good one.
Rick Sola (23:09.751)The cartoon or the Jim Carrey version? okay, okay.
Eric Sacco (23:23.598)Home Alone is a classic and then I would say Christmas Story would be the other one.
Rick Sola (23:30.72)yeah, that's one of my can't miss every year.
Eric Sacco (23:34.222)Yeah, but then I got to thinking too, know, looking back at the days where we didn't have streaming services growing up as a kid, you know, I always, when it came to Christmas, you you always waited for NBC or ABC to show Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Frosty the Snowman, some of those old classics that were only seen on TV one night a year.
Rick Sola (23:51.341)Yeah.
Rick Sola (23:54.967)Yep. Yeah, that's right. Those were yeah, I would I would I still remember turning the dial on my non cable television and tuning into
Eric Sacco (24:00.866)Yeah. Yeah. And you had to tune in or you missed it.
Rick Sola (24:06.079)Yeah, no, those are good times. Those are good movies. That's good. There's a strong list there. know, Christmas Vacation is a top one, one of the top ones for me. and I, you know, there's several to choose from, you know, tis the season. So I thought I'd ask and gosh. So this is, I'm going to put Polar Express up there, but the personal reason behind that is that is a tradition in our family. Somehow it developed where the first day of every break, we can't
Eric Sacco (24:13.184)Yeah, I had that one on the list too, yeah.
Eric Sacco (24:20.886)What's yours? What's your top four?
Eric Sacco (24:27.021)Yeah.
Rick Sola (24:36.043)out in the living room and we turn on Polar Express and have hot chocolate so that there's a lot of good memories of that. Christmas story is in there. I have elf, Christmas vacation, It's a Wonderful Life is a really good one. I enjoy that one. I just saw the best Christmas pageant ever, which is in theaters. The new one and there's something about that that really hit me. You know it's about a group of kids who
Eric Sacco (24:57.186)The new one? Okay. Yeah, I haven't seen that one yet.
Rick Sola (25:04.567)who, kind of a, I don't know, challenging group of kids, but it's a very sweet story. And I don't know, don't know if I should mention this one on a podcast, but I'll go ahead. I'm going to mention Bad Santa. And maybe that's embarrassing to mention, I will say for it's not a family-friendly movie. I'll admit that. But.
Eric Sacco (25:17.941)Hahaha
Rick Sola (25:28.971)There is something sweet about the main character, Billy Bob Thornton and the kid who gets picked on in school and he kind of rallies around it. But yeah, I'm not going to give that a full endorsement on this podcast. But that is one that at least I haven't seen that in years, but that was one that came to mind. So, Darn, I think I spoke too much on that. I wish you wouldn't have asked me what my top four were. Well, Eric Kay, I really appreciate your time and
Eric Sacco (25:40.544)Yeah
Eric Sacco (25:50.935)Hahaha
Rick Sola (25:56.267)you know, making time for this because there is so much going on and and you know both personally and professionally so being on here.
Nice job on the Under the Umbrella article. A lot of good voices that you use there about, you know, kind of the YKPA. And there's just a lot of good, like I said, voices, some that have been heard here, but are very active. And it's very personal for a lot of people. So I hope you can check that out if you haven't. Other than that, I really appreciate your time and I wish you all the best the next three weeks. And we'll see you out there on X and Instagram.
Eric Sacco (26:30.68)Yeah, sounds good. Appreciate it. It was fun.
 

Cool Coffee 10 - Dr. Jenny Woolever - Frontier Trail Middle School

In this episode, Dr. Jenny Woolever of Frontier Trail Middle School shares about the efforts she makes in keeping building morale high, especially during the grind of the school year. Building upon her "Principal Perspective" from the October 28, 2024 episode, Jenny shares more thoughts and ideas to help any building at any time. 
Quote from the show...
Gratitude:
“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Email: Dr. Jenny Woolever
On X: https://x.com/WooleverJenny
Chapters (time stamps do not account for the Cool Coffee intro--full transcript of the show below)
00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Excitement02:00 Building Morale Through the Holidays04:58 Traditions and Community Involvement10:14 Budget-Friendly Staff Appreciation Ideas12:04 Recognizing Staff Needs and Support16:00 Self-Care for Educators During the Holidays18:50 Community Outreach and Empathy in Education24:04 Data-Driven Decisions and People-Centric Approaches
 
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Leave show suggestions, guest recommendations, questions HERE!
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Follow us on X: @KSPrincipals; @KPACoolCoffee
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Contact the host: KPACoolCoffee@gmail.com
The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.
TRANSCRIPT (AI produced)
Rick Sola (00:01.302)Hello and welcome to another edition of Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. Today I am with Dr. Jenny Woolever of Frontier Trail Middle School and USD 233, home of the Jaguars. Hello, Jenny.
Jenny Woolever (00:13.994)Hi, good morning. I'm good, you know excited. We're counting down. We're about four days out for Thanksgiving break, so we have a lot of excitement here with the staff and students.
Rick Sola (00:15.564)How are you this morning?
Rick Sola (00:25.112)It's perfect and that's a lot of the reason why I wanted to bring you on. before that, right before we went live here, I guess we're not live recording, talking about where I was just a couple minutes late getting on and we were talking about why that is and how I don't know that we were late as often as we were until we had kids. So getting that.
Jenny Woolever (00:34.264)You
Jenny Woolever (00:46.286)Yeah, that's so true. I have a middle schooler and an elementary, so it's like two different schedules and one's getting involved in the events. so balancing that in your, you know, your profession, it's a lot sometimes. So you appreciate that and I think you have a better understanding when staff go through the similar situations that you are as a parent.
Rick Sola (01:08.086)Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, getting the kids to and from and we're at three different levels this year for the next couple of years. So there's three bell schedules to maneuver, but it's all good for another show. I wanted to kind of follow up. A few weeks ago, you submitted a principal perspective called building morale through the holidays. And first of all, really enjoyed it.
Jenny Woolever (01:13.921)wow.
Yep.
Rick Sola (01:33.15)And I know others that we both know but had listened to it and just thought it was really great. And I thought that would be a really good topic. And especially for this right now, this episode will come out on the 21st right before the Thanksgiving break, but then the three weeks or so before the holidays. And so I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about your philosophy with that. And if you haven't heard the principal perspective on that that Jenny did.
It's about a five minute deal and there's a lot of quick sound bites, but I wanted to get a little deeper into it. But you spoke about your intentionality with this time of year because one, there's a lot of energy that can be tapped into, but two, when you go from like October to Thanksgiving, that's kind of a typical lull and it could be a grind. Staff need to pick me up. So let's start with
Jenny Woolever (02:11.672)Mm-hmm.
Jenny Woolever (02:24.056)Mm-hmm.
Rick Sola (02:29.868)what's going on right now at your building or coming up because you know where we're at as far as the calendar goes.
Jenny Woolever (02:35.808)Yeah. Well, I was going to say we're excited. Wednesday is our faculty feast. And so what that means is that as the building, we kind of purchase the turkey and I believe ham. so staff bring in different kind of sides. And so we kind of invade the culinary space, which they know. And so they go to an alternate location. But it's really nice. And so we have kind of a long table we spread out. And it's just a staff.
It's a warm meal during that day and so staff have their regular lunch ships but it's really nice because we keep it warm in the ovens and I couldn't do without my office staff. I would say my office staff does a really good job of creating the sign up genius and kind of incorporating that and a tradition that when I started with Frontier Trail they also have what they call a pie day which is really cool too as well. Parents donate pies and so right before on Friday staff select their pies and they get to take one home to share with their family which I think is a pretty neat tradition.
We have an assortment all laid out, but our families are really supportive and sometimes they just want to know how to help. And so that was been one that's been kind of long standing and staff really enjoy it every year too. So I would say is those are two events this week that kind of get us through to the week. It's something that staff kind of look forward to.
Rick Sola (03:51.82)That's awesome. A Pi Day. What a great, great idea. So is that more of your parent directed? Or is it kind of initiated from you and then parents take over? Or is it such a long-standing tradition now it runs itself?
Jenny Woolever (04:01.186)Yeah.
Yes, you're exactly right. I would say anytime I kind of begin with a building, one of the questions I usually give surveys out to staff, I find I like the survey a little bit better than the face-to-face because it allows them to kind of reflect on questions and it allows me to get to know the building prior to kind of becoming that lead administrator. And so one of the questions, which is probably my favorite, is what's your favorite traditions at your school? And sometimes I'm shocked they don't list any traditions, which gives us kind of an open canvas and some of them are really
passionate about whether it's we like to pick what snowed it what will be the first snow day or had a raffle or you never know what's more meaningful to the staff and so I really try to keep those going or add to that and so you'll be surprised just having a little social committee many times it's a few of my ladies in the office as well as a couple of teachers that that's what they love to do too and so it kind of carries itself.
Sometimes I just share my experiences from other schools about when we, here's something we could do, but it's neat because with Pinterest and Instagram and all the things, I usually have some other stuff that have great ideas too. So we try to keep traditions, but we also try to build our own and to kind of as they go through. I would say Halloween was one not really tapped much here at Frontier Trail. So when I came, we
began Red Ribbon Week. And so that's when we tied in kind of the costumes and then we did the food contest in the lounge that is kind of spooky treats and that has graduated over the last three years. So it's neat to see how big it's gotten now. So some of those do become traditions and sometimes it's just a one-off but it's nice because staff look forward to it.
Rick Sola (05:42.744)I love that question you ask him, what's your favorite traditions? I've been in this building this my fifth year and I feel like that's a question I would like to ask even though I've been here. What's your favorite traditions? What is it we're doing that or our parents are doing or whatever that's really resonating. But then also like what's a new tradition that maybe you saw in a previous building? Yeah, just to add some fun. You know, so much of it too is.
Jenny Woolever (05:55.384)Mm-hmm.
Rick Sola (06:09.302)what resonates with an individual and not everything hits everybody. kind of tapping into, is that a thought that you give as far as how do I reach everybody or maybe you know, costume day is gonna really hit well with this group and then there's a Mr. Sola over there who's like, I don't wanna wear a costume, you know.
Jenny Woolever (06:15.821)Okay.
Jenny Woolever (06:33.486)Well, I have a Mr. Todd. He doesn't like to do that either, but he does a lot of others. So you're exactly right. And I think our staff does a nice job of, you know, it's OK if you don't want to participate, but you also need to mix different activities in. You're exactly right. I would say, you know, sometimes food is driven by people, and sometimes it's just a simple spirit day. Ones that I, you know, sometimes people that are less hesitant around the Super Bowl, we did odds, like they do of the game, like will it be heads or tails? We've done NCAA brackets.
So sometimes I have just varying staff, so I know their interests, so we try to combine different activities to help meet that. Because you're exactly right, Rick, that you have varying abilities, varying interests. But it's kind of interesting, because if you find one activity that gets someone involved, they end up kind of joining those other activities too. So that's where I feel like I've really kind of brought in the staff is, they may not like this one as much, but they know we do some others as we go through. A new one that actually was led by our science department, I think,
When you kind of create that climate where people feel like they can contribute ideas, our science team is actually doing a legacy night, which I think is really cool. Your building, in fact, had a recent one for years of, it's been established, right, Rick? Can you tell me how many years?
Rick Sola (07:49.464)Yeah, 25 years. Yep.
Jenny Woolever (07:51.502)25 years, yes. And so FT kind of had that before I came, but what they're wanting was they're trying to raise funds for an outdoor classroom. And so their idea was, you know, we've had so many staff that are no longer here that have a desire or want to help. And so there we worked with the American Legion and we're doing a pitch night. So they're going to be playing cards, they're coming in. But it was almost like another community outreach, but it was kind of neat because I didn't even, you know,
do that. I was just asked, hey, can we get this going? So our SRO officer as well as our science department is leading that. it's kind of changed since then. Even though we have a good social committee, if you give that ability to staff to come up with ideas and stuff, it really builds that. I just, I enjoy that.
Rick Sola (08:35.448)Well, what a great culture and like you say, it's almost like a snowball once you get it going and then it sparks ideas and that's perfect. Not that you wouldn't have wanted to have been involved, but I bet it's really nice that you had some champions in the building ready to move forward with it. And then at the end of the day, once they achieve that goal, that classroom, how great is that as far as the ownership and the maintenance of it and that sort of thing. It's ironic because we just did a father's club cleanup on our classroom over the weekend.
Jenny Woolever (08:39.459)Mm-hmm.
Jenny Woolever (08:50.446)Mm-hmm.
Jenny Woolever (08:56.3)Yeah.
Jenny Woolever (09:02.774)I saw that.
Rick Sola (09:05.594)you know, that's going to be a different move moving forward, maintaining that and getting it back to its good use. So, no, that's awesome. You had mentioned in the perspective you did, kind of the, I mean, there's things we can do, we can spend a lot of money, but then there's times that, you know, we need to do so on a budget or we can't maintain a trajectory of oftentimes like a pre-service before the school year. And there's a lot more meals and activities and things.
Jenny Woolever (09:13.87)Yeah.
Jenny Woolever (09:22.888)yeah.
Rick Sola (09:35.21)that you do invest in, what are some of those kind of budget friendly items that you have found that have been really a big success?
Jenny Woolever (09:35.309)Thank you.
Jenny Woolever (09:45.09)Yeah, well our staff loves the snack cart and so that's something that we have here in the office and typically staff just pay 50 cents. We just kind of cut even on it. We buy supplies from Sam's and just kind of keep it stocked. But anytime you can just get a free item from the snack cart is a big deal. And so they can use coupons at any time. So it's kind of very much like our PBIS system that we do with students. They can earn tags and they can earn something. So if it's something within that that's a little amount, but hey, it's a pick me up during the day, those are really nice.
I also do prizes where they can select a menu. So we have two parking spots that are free, that one in the front of the building and one on the side of the building. And so they can earn those two as well. That's an item that doesn't cost us anything that we just had. Maybe the sign that says staff appreciation so they know that they can park there. And they can maybe earn that for the month.
Just covering a class is really nice Supervision duty is a big one sometimes I always thought it was the class But it made if they don't have to get up in the morning or go outside when it's cold They love those as well and so those are just some of the free things that we kind of have incorporated within and sometimes just making a fun certificate I was surprised
Because our staff is so competitive, just having a certificate that they hang behind their desk or on their door, that's enough for them sometimes too. So if you have that kind of environment, it's fun too because, or a traveling trophy, that sometimes just does the trick too.
Rick Sola (11:06.626)That's really cool. You mentioned tags. How do staff earn tags? What do you do with that?
Jenny Woolever (11:12.104)So they don't necessarily, it's similar role, but they don't necessarily earn it. We have little slips that they can nominate each other to as well, or I can earn it as a prize, but you're exactly right. And sometimes, pizzas are really cheap, so we will allow them to, they can purchase a pizza and they share it with their team. But again, that's kind of a team builder too. So it's just a list of menu items. So it's rather than you earn this, but they can pick what they want.
Our local church that is one of our community partners, they also give us little $5 gift cards. So those are kind of the Sonic and Starbucks too. But again, those were brought in from the community so it didn't cost us anything, but it's a way that maybe they want the $5 card or maybe they want the parking spot. It allows for a choice option. And so we have those laid out. So it could be that staff nominate other staff or maybe we give it as a prize for one of our activities that we're doing. But having a menu each month is helpful because it allows us to kind of pick and choose.
or what's been given, what hasn't been given.
Rick Sola (12:08.448)You know, as the year goes on, there's, I think there's certain times of the year that we know that it just gets to be a grind or it's just kind of that ebb and flow. But there's also just times where there's, you sometimes we'll pick up like an undercurrent. What's going on and how do you go about, A, I guess, discovering it, I mean, outside of your own gut instinct. How do you determine that? then,
Jenny Woolever (12:15.778)Yes.
Jenny Woolever (12:30.338)Okay.
Rick Sola (12:35.98)What are some of those things you may do kind of in the off times versus like, we need to pick me up. We had a rough week. We had whatever go on. How do you get to that point?
Jenny Woolever (12:42.722)Yeah. Well, I'm lucky that my social committee, a lot of times they'll see things if I can't see it too as well, like, hey, we really need this. You're exactly right. Like, I think about assessment season. It's kind of an enduring one. And sometimes just placing little Easter eggs around. Like, you just try to come up with some different ideas. Sometimes it's as simple as writing little things in the restroom of just encouragement. You know, just kind of those little pick me ups. I know that they...
They have little like sometimes song quotes and different things that we kind of add into that could be through announcements as well. And just checking in that those many times just through conversation. Hey, how's it going? Yes, I agree. This is kind of like this one that is kind of my favorite. do a little stock the fridge.
and I get pop and so it's like they need a little pep in their step and it's like different flavors of Dr. Pepper or you know so really we just try to read it and find little reasonable things and just plug it in randomly throughout and I think those little pick me ups and surprises are really nice.
Friday is sometimes tough getting subs in and teachers in that will do a free cart Friday. So I kind of mentioned the snack cart. So they know, I get two free items from the cart. And so a free cart Friday, they love to. And again, that's just determined on, do we have a lot of subs in the building today? Hey, who are those staff that are there? Do they need this? Kind of pick me up. Kind of sprinkling those in is really helpful. But many times, like you said, I kind of use my group to let me know, hey, I think we could use something here. I do meet with my other admin.
team every Monday. And so they're also a good idea of, hey, assessment season's coming. What can we do here? What can we do there? But always doing things and activities for students. But I think it's also important that one of our conversations is what can we do for staff too? Because again, we know how difficult our job is and their job. So anytime I can kind of sprinkle those in. I'm all about ideas. Again, I get a lot of input off Twitter. Like Rick, I saw you guys doing the cleanup for your group.
Jenny Woolever (14:38.05)I think that's important as administrator because I don't have all the ideas and if I see a really cool one, that's something I would share with the team. What do you think would look like this at FTE? It may not be the time for it, but it could be something that we add later on. So I just really try to keep open minded and let other people drive it as well as myself.
Rick Sola (14:55.352)Yeah, I like that you, I mean, thank you for the shout out on that, but it's awesome. mean, that's what's great about Twitter. Truly, these conversations that I'm able to have and hopefully others are listening to because...
Jenny Woolever (14:58.338)Yeah.
Rick Sola (15:08.728)There's just so many ideas. I've been just taking notes almost feverishly because I'm thinking, we could do something like that or what would that look like here? And there's just so many, just so many ideas out there. And I can probably take credit for like 2 % of my original ideas. But at the end of the day, I don't know that it matters where the idea comes from. If it's going to help your building, because if you're helping your staff, it's going to help your kids and it's going to help your community. I'm a big believer in the
Jenny Woolever (15:15.758)Okay.
Rick Sola (15:38.834)the whole community aspect of it, but kids go home and talk about school. They talk about their teachers, and they do that with their parents. so it's really, you know, talk about the snowball, but that's a good positive snowball effect of these little gestures that can manifest into really a positive, not just school culture, but community culture. what are you doing?
Jenny Woolever (16:00.578)Mm-hmm.
Rick Sola (16:03.72)right now to take care of yourself and as you head into the holidays but you're also heading into the holidays as a mom but also as a principal of a building and how do you take care of yourself?
Jenny Woolever (16:06.252)Yes.
Jenny Woolever (16:14.286)Mm-hmm.
Jenny Woolever (16:19.234)Well, I love the holidays and I think that's why I'll probably always be a building administrator because I love my breaks. I love that time with family.
I'm fortunate my family and my husband's family are all really local and so we have an opportunity to spend time at each. We now have our children and their children, my siblings and things and so really it's about family I would say as I kind of shut it off when I can. I like to still follow and see what staff are doing and so that's something when I come back I can say I see you guys traveled or I see you guys went you know you had you went to your grandparents and so those are things that I think is important to share and then I think if staff get to know
the things you do on the things that you find important to as well. It resonates with them, but I'm excited. So like we do movies, we do game nights and all those kind of things built into the Thanksgiving break. I really love having the full week. Most of you know it's the time to clean your house, get those things caught up as well, get those decorations out and kind of, it just allows for that break time. And so I really recommend is,
unconnecting to school and just really focusing on your family and resting because I gotta tell you when you come back those next three weeks are a lot too so you gotta take care of yourself and I really do that through just spending time with my family.
Rick Sola (17:37.59)Yeah, one thing you mentioned in the perspective was, you know, kind of tapping into the energy. And you're exactly right. When we come back from break, from Thanksgiving, it's three weeks and it is a sprint. just like you, we have concerts, we have games, there's a city basketball tournament. There's spirit, you know, we do a 12 days of holiday, leading up to the holidays of spirit days and pep assemblies. And it's a lot.
Jenny Woolever (17:49.792)Yes, it is.
Rick Sola (18:07.466)that you had mentioned tapping into that energy, that's naturally there funneling it in a positive way to get to December 20th or whatever it is.
Jenny Woolever (18:11.178)Thank
Yeah.
Jenny Woolever (18:19.33)Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I would say is our staff is really good about inviting other staff too. So it's not even that they're helping supervise the event, they're just attending to watch students. And sometimes that's nice because I think we forget that, I need to supervise and so we're constantly monitoring and watching maybe the halls or the event. But just coming to an event to be a spectator is really important. And I would say I've seen more and more of that, especially with our new staff. I really enjoy that because it gives you a different light that you're not so much worried about supervising everyone, but you're really able to watch and absorb.
that and so that's something I would recommend to staff as they kind of go through is just asking them just to attend just to be able to observe and watch and maybe bring their family in. I know my children loved watching our musical and so those are things that I bring them to it too as well because I can make that a family event as well as what I'm doing too so I I would recommend that for others that we do have a lot of events so some that you can incorporate your own family in is important too.
Rick Sola (19:17.868)Yeah, now that's.
That's really great and there's a lot of the kids notice when you're there like as as a teacher you step into the gym for a basketball game and they they love that they kind of light up and then you know there's a lot of great conversation the next day at school. It's just building those connections and I'm going to have you share here in a bit about your KPA membership and what what leads you to it but there was a quote I was just going to share it since this is going to be right before Thanksgiving.
Jenny Woolever (19:24.182)Yes.
Jenny Woolever (19:34.947)Yes.
Rick Sola (19:49.418)Thanksgiving, but I put this in my staff newsletter, but it kind of goes to a lot of what you're talking about, especially this week of gratitude or leading up to Thanksgiving. But you cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late. And that's Ralph Waldo Emerson. And I just came across that as Google searching some good gratitude quotes and put
Jenny Woolever (20:10.681)huh. It is very good.
Rick Sola (20:13.666)put that out there and you know, especially this time of year, that's one thing that we try to encourage our kids to write a note of thanks to their teachers and all the things that are mentioned. Sometimes that note is just like so meaningful. You see the notes on teachers walls, whether it came from us or it came from a kid or a parent. So I wanted to incorporate that into this one, but as a KPA in last year, Jenny, we didn't present together, but we traveled together.
Jenny Woolever (20:22.541)Mm-hmm.
Jenny Woolever (20:31.981)again.
Rick Sola (20:43.66)to the KPA conference and we both had our separate sessions but what is it about the KPA that keeps bringing you back?
Jenny Woolever (20:51.318)Yeah. What I enjoy about the KPA is it's so interesting to see what other Edmin are doing across the state of Kansas. Our buildings, our demographics can look very different and it's so neat to hear and learn different perspectives, but also the similarities we still have and the same things that we go through. And so really why I've joined KPA and why I keep going is the relationships that I have formed with other colleagues.
And it's really neat to get insight in what seeing what we're doing across the state. I have to say is it really allowed me to build more relationships outside of my district or even Johnson County. So I have to say is that's really what I enjoy about it. And I'm a person that likes to continue to learn. So the stuff that KPA pits out, whether that's to the newsletter, your podcast, Rick, conferences.
I went to also the Women's Leadership Summit that they had in February and stuff and I really enjoyed that. But like I said, it's the things that they produce and support us to is really why it's kind of continued and why I feel connected to that.
Rick Sola (21:55.774)Awesome. Gonna give you a chance to brag on Frontier Trail. I know there's a lot over there to talk about, but speak about your people.
Jenny Woolever (22:00.942)Well, I have to say is the past two years we've really taken a look at our data and we've seen great growth in our ELA. So our focus has really been math and really what we're seeing is about enriching students. And I'd have to say I'm really proud of our MTSS. We have an academic extension block and really students sometimes we're really focused on those ones doing interventions.
It's been really neat to watch my staff then look on how we're enriching those students that aren't in interventions. And so still trying to grow that. It's something I've been really proud of and taking time to really look at the data. What is it telling us? How can we help students? Really means a lot. And this past Friday was also another opportunity that we had. I've been really watching some of our buildings in the district that do community outreach.
we were able to have a half day this past Friday and when you mentioned about thanking one another, one of the stations was writing notes for our first responders, police, fire department. We also had a station that helped make things for dogs and cats for shelters and we just really reached out of what do others need and we spent the afternoon dedicated to that and I just, think education's more than just what our dad is telling us to is.
how can we create people that are showing empathy and how they can help one another. And FT did a lot of that prior to COVID and it kind of drifted off once we got back. And so we're not at the scale of other buildings, but we were able to dedicate kind of an assembly schedule where I built kind of rotation and we did these activities within the building. And it was just really nice and I heard such great feedback from staff and students participating. And I got to tell you, that was also a day we had zero office referrals.
So sometimes when you build those in, you realize everyone participating and it's meaningful to everyone, that behavior goes down quite a bit too. when you get kind of to breaks, we all know as admin how that can be, but kind of plugging something like that in, again, it's.
Jenny Woolever (24:04.974)being an administrator, open to ideas. That was something that I know they've mentioned. We just didn't do it last year and we knew we wanted to do something with community service. We just didn't know how to do it. And so this was the perfect opportunity. And we kind of had an assembly and they wanted each grade level to be in an assembly. And you all know trying to figure out a bell schedule with that is very difficult. And so.
We were able to work it out through BLT, but it was something that, even though there's a great idea, it took probably a year for us to establish that. it was really nice because you're excited and nervous whenever you start something new because you're 700 kids preparing for that. But it was well worth it. And I got to say is those are the things, even though you don't have to rush to something right away, just over time, mole it and it will be successful when you kind of have your support of your team.
Rick Sola (24:51.466)I love that you talked about the importance of data and we know how important it is. That's how we measure a lot of things, but sometimes we can be data rich and maybe people poor, you know, and we're not focusing enough on, there's people behind the data, you know, and there's got to be a balance of, that's going to drive a lot of our goals, our vision, but we've got to keep the people in the center of that and doing that community outreach and providing an example.
Jenny Woolever (25:16.846)Thank
Rick Sola (25:21.582)students that there's something bigger than just themselves or even the school and that there's people out there that can benefit from them is such a powerful message. So a lot of awesome things going on at Frontier. I also see the things that are posted on Twitter and of course we're colleagues so we stay in touch but so many great things going on over there and I just want to say one thank you for coming on here today but for sharing everything you did and all the things that you mentioned that are happening at Frontier Trail that you are
Jenny Woolever (25:37.804)Yeah.
Rick Sola (25:51.286)that Frontier Trail, I'm confident that you're making an impact on Chisholm Trail too because I'm gonna steal some of these ideas.
Jenny Woolever (25:57.012)Nope. And I'm all about sharing. So you tell anyone that's listening to this, Rick, they got my email. Just I'd be happy to share anything because that's what it's about. And it doesn't have to be exactly the way we do it. You just make it to your building. You're exactly right.
Rick Sola (26:11.424)Yep, and actually I'm glad you said that, just a reminder. Check the show notes. Jenny's email and contact will be there. X handle, Twitter handle, and the quote that I read just a little bit ago. I'll put that in there as well. But Jenny, thank you so much. And I know there's a busy day ahead of us and a busy week, but it's going to be awesome. thanks for sharing everything and making the state of Kansas and the principles within it a little better today by listening.
Jenny Woolever (26:39.97)Yeah. Thank you guys.
 

Cool Coffee 9 - Mr. Mike Wiley - California Trail Middle School

In this episode, Principal Mike Wiley of California Trail Middle School shares about Father's Club, the activities they do, and impact it's having on his building. Father's Club is a grassroots effort that started in a Blue Valley high school but has since grown and spread to 40+ middle and high schools. Only 3 years into his program, Mr. Wiley's school and community are enjoying the fruits of this group's efforts.
https://fathersclub.org/
Mission Statement
The Father’s Club is a dad-led, grassroots effort creating simple ways for dads to be intentional with their KIDS, with other DADS and within their COMMUNITY.  With resolve, humility, and love, our mission is to be a catalyst for positive influence around the world.
 
Contact Mike Wiley: mwileyct@olatheschools.org
X: @KSUWiley
Chapters (time stamps do not account for the Cool Coffee intro--full transcript of the show below)
00:00  Introduction to Father's Club
01:54  The Origins and Growth of Father's Club
07:23  Implementing Father's Club at California Trail
10:47  Engaging Dads: The Role of Father's Club
13:16  Annual Events and Community Impact
18:03  Screen Sanity and Parental Involvement
22:02  Mike's Journey in Education
26:05  Celebrating California Trail's Community
30:11  Conclusion and Reflections
 
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Connect with us on...
X: @KSPrincipals; @KPACoolCoffee
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Contact the host: KPACoolCoffee@gmail.com
The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.
TRANSCRIPT (AI produced)
Rick Sola (00:01.56)Hello and welcome to another edition of Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. Today I'm with Mr. Mike Wiley of California Trail Middle School, home of the Bulldogs here in USD 233, Olathe. Hello Mike.
Mike (00:16.194)Good afternoon, Rick. How are you?
Rick Sola (00:18.186)I am doing okay. We're just completing a Monday and the start of a week off of a Chiefs win. I see your Chiefs attire there. That's perfect.
Mike (00:28.398)Well it is Red Ribbon Week at California Trail and today was Red Day so it seemed pretty fitting.
Rick Sola (00:35.63)Perfect. We won't bring up the other game, although I'd like to. I know we're on the same side of the state collegiate game on Saturday night. Don't want to alienate our listeners, but I think you and I were happy with that outcome.
Mike (00:50.046)Anxious, anxious most of night, but yes happy ultimately.
Rick Sola (00:53.612)Yeah, we got it done. So before we get started, I do want to draw attention again to the show notes for this and every show. You're going to find a full transcript of today's show contact information for our guests and also a Google form to leave some feedback input or express interest to be on this show. So please check it out. And I do think today there's quite a bit that will be in the show notes cause some resources will be left. We're talking about father's club and
Mike, your school at California Trail is heavily involved in that. And it's, I don't know if it's totally unique or if it's fairly new. It's new in the Kansas City area, but what has been really interesting about it is seeing it grow. And so I wanted to talk with you a little bit about that and the school I'm at. have our experience with it as well, but I know you're doing really great things at California Trail. So for those who have no idea what Father's Club is,
Talk to us about Father's Club, what is it?
Mike (01:54.548)Absolutely. was in that seat a few years ago, knowing nothing about the organization and actually experienced it first as a dad. My kids went through Olathe South, my two older went through Olathe South, my youngest is actually struggling her way through a building now in middle school, at Rick's school to be honest. That leads me
Rick Sola (02:19.03)Yeah, that was very, very nice of you. Thank you.
Mike (02:21.854)Olathe South and she's doing great there, great things going on. when my oldest was at Olathe South, there was a little bit of a buzz about a new organization, a new way to get involved as a parent and that was Father's Club. Father's Club, think originally started at Blue Valley High School and as an organization that they were struggling with some things with kids.
having some mental health issues and some of those kind of things. And I think a group of dads talked to the principal about how could they get involved and make a positive impact on the school. And that's kind of where it started. And then it has spread to a lot of metro schools. And I think they're even expanding to kind of guide different clubs outside of both the
Kansas and Missouri sides. As a parent, I looked at it as an opportunity to connect with my daughters as well as friends of theirs and things like that in a real low key manner that maybe could just make a difference in a kid's day or a kid's week or a kid's school year. So that's kind of the gist of why I got involved in Father's Club and
kind of where that started.
Rick Sola (03:53.762)Yeah, and I'm to put the website up here and I've got it pulled up right here and there's over 40 schools on the Kansas and Missouri side that are with active chapters. And, you know, I think when you and I were initially talking about this a few years ago, kind of in the same boat, trying to get some information, how does it relate to middle school? Does it relate to middle school? There weren't, I don't know if quite half, there weren't nearly as many schools that were involved, but it just, it's
in the area we're in, we're seeing a major growth and certainly the districts out here in the Kansas City area. You mentioned Father's Club and your involvement as a dad. What did that look like as you were a parent of Olathe South? How did it present itself to you?
Mike (04:42.708)Sure, so they wanted to do some encouraging things around finals, I think was the first one that I went to. And at that event, a group of dads organized it and then invited others in to help pass out. They did breakfast burritos from McDonald's. Somebody had a connection.
a connection with McDonald's and got them at a fairly reasonable rate. And they handed out breakfast burritos to every student as they arrived in the morning. Of course they had run it through admin and made sure that they were good with those kind of things. But just they're offering a fist bump and a hey, good luck on your finals. And here's something to munch on to make sure your body's ready to go in and utilize what you've got in your mind with finals.
That was pretty cool. I got involved and did a couple of those kind of as they as they worked in my schedule, which was a little bit more difficult since my school and in late the South are starting in times were fairly close at that time. And so it took some finagling on my end. But what I got out of it as a dad was just seeing seeing some kids that maybe my daughters had played softball or soccer.
with years ago and I hadn't seen for years and they're like, hey, Mr. Wiley, how are you? And that was fun. And then I also had the kind of the inside with knowing the admin team pretty well and asked what, how did that impact your day? And they were just talking about the buzz that it created in the building and just the overall kind of positive feeling that was really obvious to all of the staff there.
So I'm like, okay, this is something that I want to get behind as a dad and do. And then ultimately there came a conversation. I was talking with the leader of the Olathe South chapter and he was talking to me about, you know, what would it look like in our middle school to get something like this done? And so I reached out to, reached out or he helped me reach out to kind of the
Mike (07:06.942)the core group that was helping guide the club on a bigger scale and had a conversation around some of the different things that we could do and it was exciting and so we started here at CT.
Rick Sola (07:23.586)So you talked a little bit about as a dad, shifting positions or putting a different hat on now as a principal and you're of a middle school that did not have it. You see it around you. What were some of those, I guess, growth processes you went through or considerations as you went to adopt it or consider adopting it at California?
Mike (07:45.324)Yeah, so if you've ever been involved in a booster club or a PTO or something like that, you know very clearly that the impact that that group is going to have is, you know, truly correlated to the folks that are involved. And so we first started talking to some parents that I knew were, you know, that were involved with different things like coaching kids and doing some of those kind of things already. And I would
them at you know parent teacher conferences in the drop off and pick up lane and they were friendly charismatic people and so I shared those names kind of with the district director if you will and he did kind of a soft reach out to them said hey this is the organization and
And we're thinking about thinking about doing something at the middle school level. Mr. Wiley shared your name as somebody that's a positive influence in the community and some of those kind of things. And they went through and talked about what the program has been in different places. And then we sat down as a group and talked about what would be a way to kind of start off small here at California Trail and then build some momentum and some of those kind of
So that's kind of the way we we kicked it off from from
Rick Sola (09:14.434)So, now go ahead.
Mike (09:17.626)From there, we had some events coming up that we were having parents into the building for, think it was a spring fifth grade, fifth grade parent night where parents come in and learn about different activities. had Father's Club had a table, it sat out there by our PTO table and each group was kind of talking to talking to parents as they came in. They shared a little bit.
that night about the vision for each of those organizations and that was kind of the way we kicked off and started the membership. At first was kind of, know, membership was slow. I think people thought, gosh, I'm going to get hooked into doing something every week and for two hours a week and some of those kind of things. And we tried to reassure that it's a pick and choose, find what fits in your schedule and some of those kind of things.
It started to build momentum.
Rick Sola (10:19.362)So you touch on this little bit at the origins of when it was popping up in Blue Valley, but kind of that why Father's Club? And I think there's an obvious question that has presented itself. And we do have a chapter here at the building I'm in. And it's been asked as it's very specific, Father's Club. What about moms? Where do moms fit in this? Or how does that look with this club?
Mike (10:47.854)Yeah, I know your wife and my wife have been very, very involved in the elementary booster club and some of those kind of things and been used to that and been very involved in talking with our elementary principals. That's kind of the model there, right? The majority of their involvement is from the moms and there's a spot for that. In our building, we do have a PTO and PTO looks at doing some different things.
And, you know, they're really their mission in our building anyway, the PTO mission is building community, supporting tradition and expanding opportunities for students and staff. When we added the Father's Club, we were able to engage a part of our community that really wasn't engaging in that program, you know, in the PTO program. And it's really been good as far as, you know, if there's a mom that wants to,
wants to get involved. I think there are all kinds of avenues to do that. The Father's Club organization as a whole has had a couple of those conversations, I think, in other buildings. We really haven't run into that here because we do have different ways to get involved and know what's going on and be able to support your child's education. And Father's Club hasn't had to be that for.
That group,
Rick Sola (12:20.428)Yeah, one thing I've liked is, you it's a stereotype perhaps, but dads are generally speaking underrepresented at the table in schools, in our schools. And that's a point of emphasis here is, you know, we may do a handful of events throughout the year. If you miss the first one, that doesn't mean you don't come back or that, you can't commit. It's truly a
hey, you can make this fist bump welcome, but you can't make the burrito give out or whatever. That doesn't disqualify you from being a part of the Father's Club and just being a part of it. speaking to that, your building, think you're three years into it, what are some of those maybe events that have grown into an annual expectation versus maybe something you're trying new this year?
Mike (13:16.14)Yeah, so.
Kind of the annual expectation piece would be showing up at drop off a few times and doing fist bumps. We started that, I think the first one was around finals also because it was about the end of first semester, that first year that we started doing some events. And it's just, holding the door, telling a dad joke maybe.
into having some music out there and just making it a, you know, kind of a festive time as they're walking in. Our group has gone with some chicken and biscuits from Chick-fil-A. Somebody had a connection there, so that's kind of the way that went. Each year we do a full day community service piece where every one of our students and the vast majority of our adults go out somewhere in the metro area.
we're doing some sort of community service on on those days now for the last couple of those our father's club has reached out to Andy's frozen custard and and brought that in during our during our lunch and on the next day after after our CT serves day and and what they love about that is they're hearing from kids you know hey what did you go do what did how did how did you how'd you feel about that and they're seeing the the impact that
that community service has on our students and then also, you know, getting to feel that excitement. So that's kind of cool. For when assessments roll around, Kansas assessments, that first day of the reading assessment, our dads were out doing or handing out bookmarks that had some positive quotes on them, had their father's club logo on the backside, but just encouraging kids to do well on the test. They did the same thing for the math assessment.
Mike (15:17.9)handing out pencils, you know, and just really, really just being there for kids and starting the day off right. The last two years we've been really fortunate on the first week of school. Some days it's the same dads for like the three days in a row, but they're out there at parent drop-off. They're helping direct traffic there. My building is such that we have a
a street right in front with one of the push button lights that flash to tell cars to slow down and stop so that someone can walk through the crosswalk. We've had dads out there that are teaching the kids, no matter if you see a car or not, you push this button before you enter. And just kind of giving some of those coaching things that we kind of think are common sense, but at middle school, nothing's common. So they're out there doing that.
helping parents as parents pull up and and you know look kind of confused they're they're giving them directions on how how the car loop goes and some of those kind of things which has been awesome. Yeah.
Rick Sola (16:29.282)One thing I've noticed that's been fun is we have kind of a once a month fist bump Friday and it's all about relationships. mean, ultimately that's what's really neat about this. It's just another way to build relationships with the school, the community and our community back with other students. But it's funny because you'll see the kids whose dad is out there, especially when we do like ugly sweater or
you know, they're dancing to the music they have jamming out there. And you could just see the wave of embarrassment sometimes from the kid whose dad is out there, but the kid, the kids friends love it. And they, they see, and they're just having a great time seeing each other's dads. And I think, truly I've seen so much, so many more just super positive interactions and kind of that, I'm embarrassed, but I'm so glad you're out here. look as I've seen full on bear hugs given from
a dad to one of their kids' buddies that it's just a fun way to pick up. And what I've seen as well is there's certainly some comfort in our parents dropping off and you see a lot of adults and the dads and some staff out there, especially a lot of times, you know, kind of where it started was some of the need, maybe something's going on in the building or in the community that's
of concern and that added presence just goes a long way and I've heard so much good feedback from that.
Mike (18:03.5)I agree. It's neat to see and like you said, I think it starts as a little bit of embarrassment and then rolls into, well, maybe this is OK, you know, in their own middle school way. They're not going to come right out and tell you that probably. But I think our kids do like seeing their parents involved and that's awesome.
Rick Sola (18:22.99)So Mike, know that I can't remember what your building has done over here. Our father's club sponsored screen sanity and then a fentanyl presentation, which both of those were intended for parents, but it was sponsored by father's club. And I wanted to throw that out there as kind of another example of, I think the father's club can kind of be what your each individual building needs it to be. And
we had an opportunity to bring both of those in and there's always the challenge of bringing parents in at night after a long week and our numbers were maybe not as high as we'd like them to be but actually not terrible but it was a really good outreach from the Father's Club. Have you as a parent or a principal been a part of those that you're building?
Mike (19:12.438)Yeah, so we also hosted a screen sanity. We had hosted it a few years ago before we got involved with Father's Club. We as a district connected with screen sanity and it's actually a fairly expensive program to put on in your own building. And so as 10 middle schools, we split up the cost and had two sessions.
one on each side of our district, if you will. And that cost us several hundred dollars each, if I'm remembering right. And this is something that the Father's Club has worked out a contract with Screen Sanity. They've gone through and had actually their couple dads that have been trained as trainers and they come in and present it. we actually had that presentation, I think it was either in late August or early September.
And we had good involvement that night and the parents that were able to attend absolutely appreciated the information and it's just one more way that that organization is making an impact on many kids.
Rick Sola (20:25.41)Well, it's been a lot of fun and you know, I guess the full transparency, maybe this should have been at the top of this, this episode. and I go way back and you know, doing all, all that I can. I'm sure you are too to keep it professional here and not, not take any shots at each other. no, Mike and I go way back. We presented last year at the KPA conference. But going back a few years, we were both getting into getting information about Father's Club around the same time. And it's been fun.
now that it's expanded to several of our middle schools here where we're at, we all have a different flavor on it. We all have a different need. And truly, I think we're all kind of learning from each other as well from this. But it has been a real positive. I know you're doing really good things. That's why I'm so glad you're able to come on here today. And I'm going to put a lot of information just for accessing.
some information about Father's Club and it's been a really, I think it started kind of unique, but we're a few years in and it's spreading. It's over 40, I think over 40 some schools here, just in the metro area, both sides of the line and it keeps growing and growing. So, Mike, gonna, you know, I mentioned the KPA and one thing I've found, I'm shifting gears here, but anytime we do anything,
with USA, Kansas or KPA or we're in statewide groups, you are like almost like a mayor. seems like everybody knows you or you know, you know, you know so many people. Talk about, you you've got a lot of connections. Talk about your road. like to ask people their road to the chair. What is your road to the chair you're in right now?
Mike (22:02.126)It's cause I'm old Rick, it's cause I'm old.
Mike (22:18.85)goodness. I started out, I graduated with an elementary Ed degree and I taught three years of fifth grade in Wamigo. Then my wife and I were getting married and we moved to the metro and I made that move into the middle school world where I taught middle school math and coached about everything under the sun and then
As we, you as I progressed through that, I decided that, you know, that leadership route was something that I really wanted to explore and I was associate principal at Turner High School for two years.
And then, then went to Baser-Lynwood where I was middle school principal for six years, opening a new building there, which was kind of fun out in the middle of a pasture that is an absolutely gorgeous building now. And then, and then my kids had always been in Olathe. We'd lived in Olathe since my wife and I got married. And there was an opportunity to make the move and get a little closer to home and shrink that drive.
from about 40 minutes to about eight and be able to go home and eat dinner and then come back to a choir concert or some of those kind of things was good for me. In my time, both at Turner and Baser and now in Olathe, I always wanted to be kind of fed, right, professionally. And so I went through several different programs. currently in Elevate Leadership.
leadership too with USA Kansas. It's a great program. I really enjoy that opportunity not only to just pause and focus on the leadership side of our job, which on the day to day, I know you're just as busy as I am that that doesn't that doesn't happen as much as we'd like it to. And so getting involved in those those type of courses, whether it's Elevate Kansas or, you
Mike (24:25.88)something else going locally. KSB had a leadership for tomorrow program I went through.
gone through leadership Olathe, which I think that lot of different communities have that kind of explore that connection, not only that schools have with legislators and the community and those kind of things. But that for me is where I get my, you know, I get my feed, if you will. That's a horrible word for it, but that's where I get, where I feed my need to keep pushing myself forward.
Rick Sola (24:54.158)You
Mike (25:02.992)Personally, that's been great. Like you said, the KPA conference last year was fantastic. It was a great opportunity to present with you. And yeah, look forward to hitting that again soon.
Rick Sola (25:17.346)Well, I've had a lot of these conversations and talking about just the collective resources of either the KPA or the networking that's done. it's just, the word I use is energizing. That's what it is to me. Or feed, it feeds me well. But it's energizing. even within my own team, but just connecting with people all across is...
Mike (25:32.524)much better speed.
Rick Sola (25:46.826)It's just a huge value and so glad you brought that up and I appreciate you sharing your road to the chair that you're in and I always give everybody a chance to brag on their people and you got some great things going at California Trailed. I know it takes great people so take a moment. Tell us about California.
Mike (26:05.1)Yeah.
my goodness, you know this is my tenth year in this building and each year I'm more more impressed with the level of connectedness my teachers have with the community. You know it's a joy each day to come in and work and work with people that really have the student needs at the heart of everything that they do. You my office staff is amazing.
together a staff that can you know work really hard for our customers which our customers are students and parents and community and and and and really do some great things for them but also have some fun and this is a group of people that I come come to school each day excited to spend my day not only
with our office staff and our teaching staff, but our paras that are working every day so hard with some bigger challenges than we've faced in education in a lot of years, and ever in my estimation, some of the things that kids are having to deal with, and we're helping them through that, and it's a joy each day to come and do that. And I would say this,
In Baser, I was kind of a one-man team, right? I was the only middle school in the district. being in a district like ours where there are 10 of us that share the same seat, I love the opportunity to be able to pick up the phone and call any of the other nine and say, here's what's going on. Have you ever dealt with this? And be able to kind of be a little bit vulnerable, but then also gain.
Mike (27:56.88)gained so much from other people's experiences and those kind of things in it. And the flip side of that is it feels good when people reach out and ask for, ask if there are things that we can help them through. So great team both in my building and outside of my building. I love that, and like you said, knowing a lot of people from really the metro especially, but across the state that are out in
in buildings every day. fortunate to be able to have a Rolodex of people to reach out to and share a laugh and gain some knowledge.
Rick Sola (28:36.11)Well, absolutely. And you got to share the laughs or else the job can swallow you up. And that's one thing. Going back, I don't know, nine years or so, we connected, I guess, or you said 10 years, I guess it's been longer than that, but we connected for the first time. You've always been there and always a good perspective, a good ear. So I'll always appreciate that. And you're right. It's those connections that really what the KPA is all about, what
our own districts and then networking that we do. It's, you know, without it, it really can be a job that, like I said, can just swallow you up. But, you know, there's also, there's just so many celebrations in there and having those networks and those connections are huge. And, you know, kind of on that point, I want to thank you because a few weeks ago you recorded a perspective, the crosswalk, see at the crosswalk. And if you're listening to this and you haven't checked that out, it's about a five minute PD.
Mike (29:28.721)Yeah.
Rick Sola (29:34.734)principal perspectives. But Mike did one of those about the importance and value of being outside and the crosswalk being visible every day and what that means to a community. It's really, really good. So check it out. Mike, I appreciate you taking the time. At the end of a long day, I know, but jumping on here talking about some really neat things going on in your building and all the things that we spoke about today. I'm going to put some links in the show notes, so make sure to check it out.
I really appreciate your time and giving back to the listeners in this way.
Mike (30:11.582)Well, I appreciate you asking me to join and I will also give a shout out to
those principal perspectives that you're posting. I listened to one on the way to school today and that was Dr. Woolever talking about different culture things to kind of energize your staff as we're getting into this tough time of the year and that was a lot of fun to listen to but I've enjoyed each of those that I've listened to. If someone's by chance hearing this and hasn't
tuned into those. There are some really good ones and they're quick hitters that I think you're going to leave every one of them with something to take back to your building. Even yours Rick, the man slash woman in the arena is a great quote and I love the way that you put some thought to that and made it extremely applicable to what we do on a daily basis. And thank you for all you do for my daughter at your building.
Rick Sola (30:58.467)Uh-uh.
That's right.
Rick Sola (31:12.994)Yeah, that's what.
Yeah, no, she is awesome. Yeah, you may miss that early on if you're listening here, but Mike's daughter is here at the building and she is a wonderful, wonderful person and certainly takes after her.
Mike (31:30.594)Clearly.
Rick Sola (31:32.578)But no, I appreciate your time, Mike. And we'll be seeing you around soon. So check the show notes, and we'll get it all connected. But thanks for being here today.
Mike (31:44.743)Thank you, sir. Have a good one.
 

Cool Coffee: A Principal's Perspective 16 - Jenny Steele - Is this a sitcom?

In this perspective, Mrs. Jenny Steel, principal of Manchester Park Elementary School in Olathe, USD 233, talks about the unbelievable, the heavy, and the need to find the joy every day, no matter what's going on in your building. 
Mrs. Jenny Steele
Manchester Park Elementary School
USD 233, Olathe
Is this a sitcom?
 
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.

Cool Coffee: A Principal's Perspective 15 - Jenny Woolever - Building Morale through the Holidays

In this perspective, Dr. Jenny Woolever, principal of Frontier Trail Middle School in Olathe, USD 233, shares many ideas on how to build up morale during the second quarter and through the holidays. This episode is packed with ideas for the building principal to consider. 
Dr. Jenny Woolever
Frontier Trail MS
USD 233, Olathe
X: @WooleverJenny
Building Morale through the Holidays
 
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.

Cool Coffee: A Principal's Perspective 14 - Stacey Green - The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

In this perspective, Principal Stacey Green provides insight on a book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKoewn. Stacey provides the listener an opportunity to discern their location on the spectrum of essentialism and explains how this can impact our own performance as a principal. 
Stacey Green Pre-K-8 PrincipalStockton Grade SchoolUSD 271 StocktonX: @usd271sgsEssentialism- the disciplined pursuit of less
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
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Cool Coffee: A Principal's Perspective 13 - Krista Dueringer - The Power of Student Service

Listen to Mrs. Krista Dueringer, assistant principal of Chisholm Trail Middle School in Olathe USD 233, describe why she views community service as an essential part of a student's school experience and development. In this perspective, Krista shares about her passion for serving and for promoting a building that values student service in the community. 
Krista Dueringer
Assistant Principal/Athletic Director
Chisholm Trail Middle School
Olathe Schools, USD 233
X: @kdueringer
Topic: The Power of Student Service
 
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
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Cool Coffee 8 - Mrs. Kelly Whittaker - Ottawa High School

Mrs. Kelly Whittaker, 7 year principal of Ottawa High School, USD 290, discusses the success they've had with parent-teacher conferences, her time with the KPA, and the upcoming KPA conference where she'll lead a session for new and early year administrators. Conversation leads to the mutual value for new and veteran administrators to share ideas and work together as they navigate the "fire hose" of administration.
Contact Kelly Whittaker: whittakerk@usd290.org
X: @kelwhitt217
Kelly's favorite quote: Optimism doesn't mean that you are blind to the reality of the situation. It means that you remain motivated to seek a solution to whatever problems arise. --The Dalai Lama
Chapters (time stamps do not account for the Cool Coffee intro--full transcript of the show below)
00:00 Innovative Student-Led Conferences02:52 The Journey to Leadership05:56 The Value of Networking in Education09:05 Insights for New Principals11:50 Optimism in Leadership14:45 Celebrating Ottawa High School's Achievements
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The mission of the Kansas Principals Association, an organization committed to educational excellence and the lifelong success of all students, is to develop and support all principals through optimized learning, collaborative leadership, networking, and service.
Read more about the KPA HERE.
TRANSCRIPT (AI produced)
Rick Sola (00:01.666)Hello and welcome to another edition of Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. Today I'm with Miss Kelly Whitaker of Ottawa High School USD home of the cyclones. Hello Kelly.
Kelly Whittaker (00:15.226)Hello, Rick. Thanks for having me today.
Rick Sola (00:17.494)Yes, great. Appreciate you jumping on here. And you had told me earlier in the week that this is conference week for you.
Kelly Whittaker (00:25.326)It was, yep, we had our parent teacher conferences. So we do student led conferences at our high school, ninth through 12th grade. And so students call their families after they've worked for several weeks on those individual plans of studies and they invite them to come meet with their advisory teacher and they go over that information. So.
We had over 85 % attendance this year, which is the best attendance we've ever had. And then the really cool thing was my teachers were turning in their attendance sheets saying, hey, I've got a meeting scheduled with this parent next week before school and this parent after school. And a lot of them were very motivated to get 100 % of their students to join us, which is just really encouraging. And it shows the value of that work.
Rick Sola (01:08.494)So that's awesome. And that wasn't really even the topic I was, we were going to spend some time on today, but we are also just finishing conference week. It's a Friday, it's October 18th. And this is a day off here where I'm at. We had just finished a week long conference week and it's fairly similar through the grade levels and it's by appointment. And then we have some common time on a Wednesday evening where it's open arena style. But I love that IPS approach and you said you had 85 % attendance.
Kelly Whittaker (01:38.822)Yep, we've hovered around 75 to 82 % the last four years and this year we really got over the bar which was exciting.
Rick Sola (01:47.822)So when did this begin?
Kelly Whittaker (01:49.638)We started when we were a school redesign school. So we would have started this. This is my seventh year at Ottawa High School. So we would have started six years ago. This is our sixth year doing it. And we've done different iterations and variations, but we kind of like the process that we have in place right now. We've done a lot of reflecting on it, gotten a lot of student and parent input.
And the most important thing is my teachers are pretty bought into our advisory process. We have pretty high expectations around that, but without them being bought into it, we wouldn't be able to, I think, have the success we do with our kiddos.
Rick Sola (02:23.692)Yeah, no, I really like that. I'm really intrigued. That might have to be another topic for a show sometime because we do the conferences here and, going back, I'm in my, I don't know, 14th, 15th year in administration. And at the very beginning, I definitely remember, you know, as, you know, learning management systems were kind of, were kind of pre in existence or not quite fully there. It was a little bit more of what, you know, kind of the
for kids coming in or parents, is it going to be a surprise night or what are we going to expect? But now there's really no mystery. I've said that for a long time. There's not much mystery for a parent who wants to know how their child is doing. They can find it almost in real time. And so I love that new approach with more of a presentation at conferences or a demonstration or a product being displayed.
Kelly Whittaker (03:20.12)Absolutely, no, we have found a lot of success in it and so we just, don't know, we're not, I'm not all about reinventing the wheel. And so now that we've kind of gotten a groove and we stole a lot of what we do from different schools and we've kind of made it our own and then reflect on it every year to make sure that it gets better. And then more importantly, keeping up with whatever the individual plans of study, guidances from the state. We try to make sure we're adding those new components each year.
Rick Sola (03:47.064)So you mentioned seven years at Ottawa High School. What is your road to the chair that you are in right now?
Kelly Whittaker (03:55.332)My road to this chair. So I was a special education teacher in Indiana for six years.
And then I actually was only taught at the elementary and middle school level. And my first high school experience was I did a lot of coaching, high school basketball and track when I was a teacher. But then I jumped into being an assistant principal at a really large high school in Indiana. And I did that for six years. And then my husband and I relocated to Kansas and I spent two years as an assistant principal at Shawnee Heights High School in Topeka. And then I have now been the principal at Ottawa High School for seven years.
And I really enjoy my job because I live in the community of Ottawa and I know that is not everybody's jam, but I enjoy being three minutes from work and interacting with all of my students and parents at the grocery store and everywhere else that I see them in town. And my son goes to school with, you know, a lot of my students' siblings and I just enjoy that aspect of it.
Rick Sola (04:54.028)That's interesting. I originally worked about 20 minutes away from my house and then had the opportunity to become principal at the neighborhood school where I currently do have one of my kids here. And it was one of the biggest parts of the decision was, is this going to be a good thing or not? And I tell people all the time, because that's a common question, is there are far more perks and far more advantages and
Kelly Whittaker (05:11.301)Yeah.
Rick Sola (05:22.638)Just just being in the community and being a part of it and I'm about a two minute drive from from the building and it's it's awesome so it's cool to hear you say that because I know there are some that's like, you know, I want to be across state line and You know go to my own little area, but that's cool
Kelly Whittaker (05:35.865)Absolutely.
And I don't want to make it sound like rainbows and butterflies, but I agree with you. There's pros and cons to everything, and there are, in my opinion, just way more pros to just being immersed in the community than if I lived 20, 30, 40 minutes away and I felt disconnected from what was happening outside of the school day.
Rick Sola (05:56.598)Right. So brought you on here because we are just a few weeks from the KPA conference, the principals conference, which I attended last year, presented at last year, loved it, had a really great time. It is such a valuable conference, I feel like for principal development. You are presenting and so I wanted to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about the conference you're going to be presenting at, but also you've been in the KPA for several years and just
what you have found and gotten out of it over the last however many years it was.
Kelly Whittaker (06:28.549)Yeah.
Absolutely. know I was saying, I think this is my sixth year as a member of the Kansas Principle Association. And it was, I was about six years ago when I was at a conference and I really didn't know anybody. And I was kind of just freelancing around by myself and a couple of the principals that were on the board of directors, they invited me to dinner, invited me to hang out. And really what
I think got me is it's for me. It's a lot of the networking opportunities. It's just being able to connect with principals from all across Kansas. I think of my relationship with you, Rick, and you're a principal that I would have really have no reason to ever get to know or be able to learn from if I wasn't a part of an organization like KPA and just the idea sharing and the sessions at the Kansas Principals Association. To me, those are some of the most valuable sessions because there are other principals talking to you about
know, just programs and inspirations that are happening in their building and really giving you some food for thought to bring back to your building leadership teams, to bring back to your assistant principals as you guys are just continuing to, you know.
probably work on your path towards whatever your strategic plan looks like. And so that's probably for me, like the biggest. then I think when I really outside of that is that professional development and not when I being a member of Kansas principal association has brought me so many opportunities that I would have never been connected to. I was fortunate enough last year to be a Kelly mentor through case state where I got to mentor a brand new assistant principal that was 40 minutes from Ottawa.
Kelly Whittaker (08:08.552)and I got to visit his school and he came to my school and we met weekly and it just was, I learned so much from him despite him saying he learned a lot from me being a brand new administrator. It was a really cool opportunity. Kansas Principal Association is even more associated with USA Kansas now and just the professional development opportunities for principals in the state of Kansas, to me it's...
I don't know any other state that offers what we do. I have had luxury of spending some time on some state committees where I can really advocate for our profession and voice, you know, an opinion that might lead to some positive change for teachers and for administrators. And so really all of those opportunities without the Kansas Principles Association, I don't know that I would have been afforded those opportunities. And really for me too, it's just about serving my profession. I'm a big boy.
and giving back to your community, probably why I enjoy living in Ottawa and being the principal at the high school. But I also believe in giving back to our profession and being a member is just to me one of the many ways that you can do that.
Rick Sola (09:19.734)You mentioned the idea sharing and you know that's what to me this conference is like the value. There's a lot of conferences in education. There's I mean they're all over there all the time. And what I really like about this is it's it is specifically designed for the building principle and it's it's for promoting that that idea sharing that conversation and the common challenges that pop up day to day and.
connecting with people from across the state. That's what I have enjoyed. Like you mentioned, you're right, you and I probably have very little opportunity to have paths cross except for this. And now we have had some conversations, communications of potentially sharing candidates and things like that. And it just builds that network. It's got just such great value.
Kelly Whittaker (10:16.166)Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more.
Rick Sola (10:19.054)So you are presenting, talk about your topic that you're presenting with one of our other members, I believe, Dr. Dane.
Kelly Whittaker (10:28.602)Yeah, Dr. Dane and I are.
We decided to team up to do a presentation. And he's another person that I've become very close with and I don't know that I would have had the opportunity to do so for any other reason. But Dr. Dane and I are together. We've got over 20 years of high school administrative experience and we by far do not know all the things and we are learning every day. Both of us, think, are lifelong learners. So we wanted to put together a presentation for principals that are in years one to three and really our goal
is to provide some insight and some advice, but more importantly, we've got some scenarios built that we want to give the administrators in the room an opportunity to collaborate with one another and process those scenarios, and then us be able to talk as a whole group. And those scenarios are somewhat aligned to some of the advice or tips and tricks of the trade that we are going to be giving those new principals. And so we really just want to encourage anyone who's in years one through three to come in the room.
We'd love to hear and learn from them. Just give them a little bit of advice and have some time to be able to connect and process with some scenarios that we feel like are pretty common amongst those first three years that you're in administration and you just need help processing and listening to other people's advice on how they might handle things.
Rick Sola (11:50.574)That's awesome. The first three years, it's funny, you mentioned like learning from them and that, you know, I have the opportunity, most years we have kind of a grow your own administrator program and to be a mentor for a week with one of the candidates and I love it. And I kind of try to put myself back 14 years, 15 years ago when I was in that position. And I was just perceived that the principal or the administrators, I mean, they just do it. They just know it.
you know, boom, boom, boom. And reality, we're picking up the phone and we're calling people. We're calling. If it's not within our district, it's people like you or Dr. Dane, even if it's, you know, if you've got those kinds of connections and it absolutely is an opportunity to learn from us as veteran principals, to learn from the one to three year, because that's a whole different perspective too. And there's a lot of like, huh, I hadn't thought about it that way before. You know, I've thought about this way for, for years and
Kelly Whittaker (12:28.88)Yeah.
Kelly Whittaker (12:45.784)certainly.
Rick Sola (12:48.814)What a great session.
Kelly Whittaker (12:49.062)then fresh, fresh energy. Don't you think fresh energy too? A lot of new principals have fresh energy and I think sometimes things are working well in our schools and we're kind of in a groove and maybe a rut and we don't wanna be perceived as adding too much to our teachers' plates. And so I really appreciate that fresh energy and fresh perspective that new principals bring to the table. Cause it really challenges you to be reflective of what's happening in your building.
Rick Sola (13:14.518)Absolutely. And just given the opportunity for some scenarios, know, I go back, I went to Baker for my, my leadership degree and just all the scenarios. And there were some that were fairly wacky and then you kind of get into it it's like, you do see it. You see a lot of the wacky, but I always enjoyed those and that'll be a really great session. You, you mentioned tips and tricks that are going to be shared. Do you have one or two that you could kind of give us a sneak preview of or like some advice?
Kelly Whittaker (13:41.792)sneak preview of. we were, so we've been problem solving and all of it is, it's all research based and so we really want to talk about like things that you're tight and loose on. We think it's really important when you are a brand new administrator to figure out what are you going to be tight with, what are you going to be loose on, because as you know, Rick, we can't hold our teachers
extremely accountable on every little thing. We gotta figure out what is that value that you have in the building. So we wanna talk a little bit about that. We also wanna just talk with them about decision making strategies. As you know,
I, there are days that I, sometimes I wish I could keep track of how many decisions we make in a day, because they just are constantly coming at you and we want to just give them some strategies and some tips about kind of quick and efficient ways to make those decisions. and then really talking about leaning on your team. So whether that's your team within your district, whether that's colleagues that you're meeting through organizations like Kansas principals association. but this is my 13th year as a high school administrator and I don't know that
I have a week that goes by that something occurs that I have to stop and think. And it stumped me and it's something new, something I've never had happen before. And I might be calling my superintendent. I might be calling Dr. Dane. I might be calling one of my league colleagues in Spring Hill to say, hey, have you ever had this happen before? And like, how have you handled it? So we really want to just encourage that networking and that collaboration as well throughout kind of our time with these new principals.
Rick Sola (15:16.814)those early years and especially I kind of, don't know the first very first year principal it's like you're drinking from a fire hose and you're just trying to kind of get your feet under you. When I made the transition to the building them and now had the opportunity to really have some experience to draw on and I just remember of course it was kind of a crazy time it was 2020 but I just remember like every decision is potentially precedent setting.
Kelly Whittaker (15:44.26)correct.
Rick Sola (15:44.558)And so you don't want to rush into just every, any decision, I guess, and be very selective. And I even share that out loud. There were times I kind of just want to think about this because there could be some unintended consequences. And I think that's part of our job to be kind of, to kind of evaluate the decision and what that might lead to. So no, that's great. That'll be a really interesting session.
Kelly Whittaker (15:57.211)Yep.
Kelly Whittaker (16:13.678)And Rick, I love that you said the title of our session is drinking from the fire hose, insights and strategies for new principles.
Rick Sola (16:20.642)Perfect. That's... Yeah, no, it's...
Kelly Whittaker (16:21.606)It is, so I love that you said that. I think that just proves though, because it really is truly, those first few years of being an administrator, you truly are drinking from a fire hose and you are just trying to keep moving and keep going and be methodical in your thought processes and your decision making while continuing to keep up with the pace of everything that's happening around you. So I love that I heard you say that, because that was exactly where our minds were.
Rick Sola (16:45.292)And that was not planned. I did not like scope it out. like, hey, I'm gonna plant this fire hose line. You know, it's, now I lost my train of thought, because I'm thinking about the no, just that first year, think part of the fire hose is kind of that feeling, like I mentioned, as a teacher envisioning my administrators. They just make the decisions. No, I think part of that fire hose is
Kelly Whittaker (16:50.726)That's great.
Rick Sola (17:14.561)kind of feeling like I have to know everything. I have to make a quick decision. I don't know everything. And so then it just compounds on itself. And that's what I love about, well, the session you're talking about, the conference that we're talking about, and the KPA in general is it is about building that network because it's, there's so many things and we don't.
Kelly Whittaker (17:17.158)coordinates.
Rick Sola (17:37.61)It may be a first time for us, but it's not the first time in education, but having that network and people to draw on both within your district and without outside of your district, there's just so much value. And at the end of the day, it makes us better leaders, which at the end of the day then helps our building become better and it's better for students.
Kelly Whittaker (17:51.225)Absolutely.
Kelly Whittaker (17:55.8)No, absolutely. And I just think too, especially with the Kansas Principal Association Conference in November, it's also just when we really think about our school year.
Our evaluations are winding down for those first round new employees that we have. There's been a lot that's going on and kind of just to take a day and a half for yourself to build and grow your own network, building your own professional development, and also just laughing with other people that can really relate to what you're dealing with or going through. That is huge and I think it's important for our mental health, right? We talk about self care a lot for our teachers and really
going to the KPA conference for me is kind of part of my self care, right? I go and I get to relax and I get to maybe challenge some of my colleagues and maybe do a presentation. I get to go and learn from my colleagues and then we all get to spend some time in the evening together, you know, just kind of laughing together, telling stories and really getting to know each other. And I value that. And I just, I always try to encourage every principal in my league, every principal that I come in contact with that it's not
We're not being cheesy. We're not just trying to increase our membership because we want every principal part of KPA. We really want every principal part of KPA because of what it means and what we know that it could do for them professionally. There is a lot of sincerity behind the work that the board of directors do when we come together to really promote our organization.
Rick Sola (19:27.086)Yeah, like you said, it's a professional refresh or restart or it's energizing. You go to those and then ultimately we are better for it. So I'm gonna shift gears just a little bit here to a quote that you had shared was your favorite quote. I'm pulling this from last year, but I thought it was interesting as I looked at it again. Optimism doesn't mean that you are blind to the reality of the situation.
Kelly Whittaker (19:31.376)Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rick Sola (19:54.496)It means that you remain motivated to seek a solution to whatever problems arise. Do you remember putting that down?
Kelly Whittaker (20:01.574)I do remember putting that out, I do. I do, that's one of my favorite quotes, because I think a lot of time as educators, it's easy for us to focus on the negative. And sometimes as a leader, when you choose to be...
optimistic. think sometimes your fellow colleagues in your building, they assume that you're ignoring all of the maybe issues or the struggles that are happening, whether that's within your own building, within your district, maybe within education in general. And I just, I truly believe in looking and thinking at the best of every situation. Even when students come to my office for really egregious behaviors, I
Our goal with my assistant principals and I, goal is we're going to address the behavior. We're going to give consequences if we need to, but more importantly, we need to figure out how to learn from this situation and maybe build a little relationship with the family in the meantime. So that way we can wrap around this student to move forward. And that doesn't mean that we're happy with whatever consequence or whatever behavior or action that they maybe did to another student in our building, but we're looking for the best in every situation. And I truly believe in that. Just really believe in
and optimistic. I think if we are pessimists in education and focus on all the things that are driving us crazy, you're not going to find yourself to be able to have a very longevity of career within education because there's a lot of negative feedback we get. There's a lot of negativity out there about being an educator and being an administrator. So I really believe in focusing in all the good that we do for students and for our communities.
Rick Sola (21:37.454)Yeah, it's a great quote and you hitting on a lot of things, you know, I always find it's a balance between just what you said and just what the quote says of, you know, being positive, but also kind of acknowledging the things that aren't positive and not with blinders on or being perceived as head in the sand about really important issues, but kind of being able to finesse what's really going on, but staying positive because it's so important and critical for.
Kelly Whittaker (21:49.51)Hmm.
Rick Sola (22:04.05)what it is we do and who it is we're working with, which is our students. So I want to give you a chance, to brag on Ottawa High School, USD 290, home of the cyclones. Brag about your people.
Kelly Whittaker (22:17.914)Yes, let me brag about my people. So Ottawa High School is a really special place. I've been there for seven years. Like I said, I live in the community. We get, we are fortunate enough to offer over 20 college and career pathways, CTE pathways to our students. And I always like to brag on that because the only reason that happens is because I have amazing CTE educators as well as amazing math, science, social studies, English teachers that are willing to teach some of those introductory
level or technical level courses so we can offer more opportunities to our students during the day. Over the last six years, we have done a lot of work with our individual plans of study. We've implemented a really robust advisory program. We have a student success team, is basically it's our sit process and at a high school, that's a really difficult sometimes to get a good process in place, but we believe in what we do. And because of all of those things that everything
that the teachers at Ottawa High School do. We have been fortunate. We've had over a 90 % graduation rate for the last four years. And I'm really proud about that because that echoes the hard work of not just my teachers, but my students. And we are bringing over 90 % of our students every year entering the community of Ottawa with that next step, right? They've got opportunities because they have graduated from high school. So it's not about them just earning that piece of paper, but helping them really.
analyze and think about what are my next steps, what could I, can I believe in myself, and what could I do with this. So that's what I'm probably the most proud about and I just have some phenomenal educators like we all do at Ottawa High School.
Rick Sola (24:03.596)Great. Well, you're just up the road here and it sounds like some really great things happening in Ottawa, Ottawa High School. And I really appreciate your time on, it's always a busy week, but conference week tends to be, you know, kind of different types of hours and potentially long. And I know you work this in. So I really appreciate your time and all the best here in a few weeks at the KPA conference and it'll be a great time.
Kelly Whittaker (24:21.615)Yeah.
Kelly Whittaker (24:32.738)Absolutely, I look forward to seeing you then. I think we've got a Zoom KPA meeting before that as well. So I appreciate you, doing this. And I just appreciate all of the hard work that all the educators across Kansas do, because our kids really do need us.
Rick Sola (24:45.486)Well hey, have a great day and a great weekend and we'll see you soon. Alright, see you, Kelly. Bye.
Kelly Whittaker (24:50.886)All right, perfect, you too.
 

Cool Coffee: A Principal's Perspective 12 - Courtney Weber - The Art of Tapping Out

In this "perspective," Assist Principal and AD of Spring Hill Middle School, Dr. Courtney Weber, shares about the art of "tapping out" as an administrator and why that shouldn't be considered giving up.
 
Courtney Weber
Assistant Principal/Athletic Director
Spring Hill Middle School
Spring Hill - USD 230
@DrWeberSHMS
Topic: The Art of Tapping Out
 
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