INTRO:

In this episode, Matt Robbins is my guest. Matt is the Superintendent of the Daviess County Public Schools in Daviess County, Kentucky. What’s different about Matt is that he didn’t follow a traditional route to the superintendency. His background is in finance. In this episode, we talk a little about how his past experiences help him in his current job. In Part 2, in his After Action Review, he describes a situation all superintendents should be prepared to deal with. What happens when you adopt new routing software for your bus system and it crashes? What happens when the crash occurs RIGHT before the school year begins and you have to postpone the start of school? A really good episode!

BIO: Matt Robbins serves as Superintendent of the Daviess County Public Schools, a district with nearly 12,000 students and 2,000 staff members in 12 elementary schools, three middle schools and three high schools.

Matt serves as the team leader for the finance & operations training program for KASA’s NextGen new KY superintendent program and has done this for six years now.

Matt is also President of Kentucky’s Council for Better Education that ensures equity and adequacy of funding for Kentucky’s public schools. As a part of this work, Matt has most recently led Kentucky public schools districts in a lawsuit that involves funding private schools in Kentucky. That case is now on appeal before the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Hello Imperfect Leaders!

It's summer!! And for leaders, that means reflection. And it means planning for the coming year. It is for that reason that this week's episode is an encore episode specifically picked with your upcoming year in mind.

As Labor Day approaches, Season 3 will kick off. And I am so excited about THAT because  Jamie Almanzán from The Equity Collaborative will be joining me as a cohost and commentator. It's going to be great! So, sit back and enjoy this encore presentation of An Imperfect Leader: The Superintendents and Leadership Podcast.

Intro: Hope is a powerful theme for today’s conversation.

My guest today starts with a quote from poet, activist, and National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman. I found it to be such a perfect way to start our conversation because my guest, Ms. Hattie Tate, speaks to hope. She speaks to how important it is to maintain hope. In fact, she reflects on the words of Amanda Gorman and reminds listeners how “every day, we have not lost hope.”

And the key to maintaining this hope is a simple one to say aloud and sometimes so hard to achieve. It’s relationships. The influence and impact that comes from a deep and genuine relationship. So to kick off this really inspiring conversation with Hattie Tate, a district leader in Oakland, CA, I give you four more stanzas from an Amanda Gorman poem New Day’s Lyric, written and performed as the pandemic began to experience a waning (vaccines we on the horizon and brighter days appeared to be imminent). She wrote:

Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.

Never is that more important than those working with our children struggling to achieve their promise. Often labeled as at-risk, Hattie discusses this with honesty and optimism. In her After-Action Review, she reflects on career choices - a deeply personal conversation. Thanks for tuning in!

BIO: Ms. Hattie Tate has many titles. They include educator, principal, and administrator in the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, CA. She has been the principal of an alternative school, has worked with the Department of Violence Prevention/DVP, Oakland, CA 2011-2023, has served as an Administrator/Coordinator for the Juvenile Justice Center, has been a leader with Youth Diversion and Re-Entry Strategy, and has been an important piece to Stanford University’s Impact Labs as a researcher.

Hello Imperfect Leaders!

 It's summer!! And for leaders, that means reflection. And it means planning for the coming year. It is for that reason that this week's episode is an encore episode specifically picked with your upcoming year in mind.

As Labor Day approaches, Season 3 will kick off. And I am so excited about THAT because  Jamie Almanzán from The Equity Collaborative will be joining me as a cohost and commentator. It's going to be great! So, sit back and enjoy this encore presentation of An Imperfect Leader: The Superintendents and Leadership Podcast.

INTRO: Choosing a name for a public building is a challenging process. With schools, a new name often includes the choosing of a mascot as well. Renaming a school or changing a mascot is often even more difficult. Community members will allege you're erasing history. I was a superintendent presiding over the renaming of Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Missouri! Most recently, I served on a renaming committee in the Seattle area. The committee process was well conceived and thoughtfully carried out by the district's current Superintendent, Amii Thompson. She made sure to make decisions with those most impacted, in this case, the Suquamish Tribe.

Now, imagine if you were the principal and your school board decided on a Thursday night to remove an offensive mascot effective immediately. My guest is Dr. Andrew Dolloff, superintendent of Yarmouth Schools in Yarmouth, Maine. His After Action Review is about exactly that! Thanks for tuning in.

Bio: Dr. Andrew Dolloff has been the superintendent of schools in Yarmouth, Maine since 2014. He is a 35-year veteran of Maine public schools, having begun his career as a chemistry teacher and basketball coach in central Maine before moving into school administration in Greater Portland in 1996. Andrew has served as a superintendent, assistant superintendent, high school principal, high school assistant principal, and athletic administrator. For nearly 10 years, he has served a community that is deeply personal to him as his grandfather graduated from Yarmouth High School. I have no doubt that leading in a hometown district must have made it even more meaningful when he was named Maine’s Superintendent of the Year in 2021.