Leadership Philosophy
What I believe
After more than a decade in elementary schools, a few things have stuck with me.
Relationships come first.
Not because it sounds nice, but because nothing else works without them. A reading strategy, a behavior plan, a hard conversation with a parent, all of it goes better when people trust each other. So before I try to fix anything, I work on the relationship. That's not the soft part of the job; it's the foundation the rest is built on.
Data should help students, not define them.
Numbers tell us where to look. They don't tell us who a child is or what they're capable of. I lean on data every day to find the right next step, but I never let it become a label. A score is a starting point for a plan, not a ceiling on a kid.
Leadership is mostly about making other people's jobs easier.
The best thing I can do for students is take good care of the adults who teach them. When a teacher feels supported, when someone helps with the hard parent meeting, or builds the resource they didn't have time to make, they have more left to give their students. I'd rather quietly remove obstacles than stand out front taking credit.
None of this is complicated. It just takes showing up, listening, and following through.
Curious how I'd start? Here's my plan for the first 90 days.
Read my first 90 days plan →