Leading with Mind and Heart Transcript (028)

KATHLEEN BLACK: Hi, this is Dr. Kathy Black with MH Educational Solutions, and you’re here with my good friend, Dr. Peter Horn, at the Point of Learning. Peter and I attended graduate school together. After about 10 minutes, we figured out we had a love of all things Buffalo, New York, including Buffalo wings and even the same high school—although Peter’s a lot older than I am! I’m here today to introduce my good friend, Dr. Errick Greene. Dr. Errick Greene and I worked together in the Washington, DC Public Schools, where his love for literacy allowed him to give me very direct and supportive feedback all of the time. I was privileged to work for him and with him. I am excited to hear about what he’s doing with his team in Jackson. Please enjoy the show!

PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today’s show, Dr. Errick Greene, an inspiring school leader:

ERRICK L. GREENE: My job is to ensure that we create conditions for great, magical, excellent things to happen, and to be done.

[VO]: As the superintendent of schools in Jackson, Mississippi, he has had to contend with relentless complications of the COVID-19 crisis: 

GREENE: We have to be extra cautious about the safety of the young people, yes, but also the possibility of them carrying the virus back home to elderly family members and loved ones and community members.

[VO]: We talk some about the solutions that Jackson is discovering:

GREENE: We’re working with the city to create a meshing—a wireless meshing—around the city, and in some of the densely populated areas where we’re concerned about folks having less connectivity, less opportunities, and access. For education, for employment searches, and that sort of thing, for tele-health … lots of opportunities that that opens up for those families.

[VO]: We also explore some of the moral imperatives of educating young people in this moment of greater awareness of social injustice.

GREENE: This is the work. The work is not simply teaching young Eric to read, teaching young Kamisha to write, or to think critically about some benign topic, but thinking critically about the world, the world around us, and the broader context, and the ways in which we can all act to make it better.

[VO]: And some of the practices that are helpful for any kind of leader or team player. 

GREENE: I’m modeling those times when it doesn’t feel great. I’m modeling those times when I’m so, so determined that what I’m thinking is the right way, but my team is not on the same page with me. I’ve got to investigate that. I’ve got to explore that. Like, how is it that I’m just completely right and everybody else is wrong? How is that possible? Right?

[VO]: All that, and much more on this episode of Point of Learning. Do stick around!

[03:30]

[VO]: Errick L. Greene’s career in education spans more than 25 years, and about half of the continental United States. He started in the classroom, teaching middle school and elementary students. Later he became a principal, principal supervisor, chief of staff, and consultant to senior district leaders in Washington, DC; Detroit; Syracuse; Baltimore; and Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Greene served as Chief of Schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma before arriving in Mississippi, where, as Superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, he is responsible for the second largest district in the state. Errick earned his doctorate in Educational and Organizational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania, which is where I met him back in 2011. He  holds two master’s degrees in education—one from Trinity University and another from Howard University. Howard was also where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. I could go on, but a.) Errick urged me to “hit it and quit it”; and b.) I want to reserve as much space as possible for this important and timely conversation. It gives an inside look at some of the challenges facing school leaders in this especially complex moment charged with challenges related to public health and social justice, and also provides great ideas that anyone leading anything can apply—whether it’s a team, business, or household. So just one last note before we get started: you will notice that Errick always refers to the [22,500] kids in the 54 schools and programs of his district not as “students,” but as “scholars.” It’s a small clue as to how seriously he takes the promise and potential of each and every one of them. 

HORN: Errick, thanks so much for taking time to do the show today. When I met you nine years ago, you were supervising administrators and schools for a large sector of the Washington, DC public school system. After that you served for a number of years as Chief of Schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2018 you accepted the call to become Superintendent of Schools in Jackson, Mississippi, where you are now. Now historically, Mississippi has invested less than most other states in public education, which is one challenge. The Jackson district, with 22,500 young scholars in [54] schools, narrowly avoided a state takeover in 2017. So the district is being especially closely monitored all the time. And of course, your city is a state capital, so state education folks are not far away. Anyhow, the scrutiny, or as public school folk like to call it, “accountability,” is another challenge. As somebody familiar with you and your talents, I can’t think of anyone better to serve in the role of JPS superintendent, but I’ve never asked you directly, what drew you to Jackson and this work?

GREENE: Well first off, just thank you for having me on, Pete. Really excited to have this conversation! There were several things. I was obviously building in my career, building towards the superintendency and looking forward to leading a school district. And in a district made up largely of children who look like me, and with many of them with low-income households and neighborhoods, communities—a district where there have been lots of challenges and lots of—I just say lots of room for continued growth and development. As I was looking around at opportunities to lead a district, there’s something about the size of the district, the makeup and the composition of the student body, the team, some of the characteristics of the city, of the surrounding community—there are lots of things about Jackson that just spoke to me: one, it’s large enough to matter, but small enough to get your arms around. As I said, the student body and the families that we serve: mainly folks of color, and there’s a good number of folks living in low-income families. And so that’s the work that I’ve done so much in my career, and where I just feel comfortable. That this really tough work—that I’m making a difference, and doing something that’s meaningful. As well, though, I met the leadership here, the school board members, the mayor here in Jackson. I had known the state superintendent for some time from our work in DC around the same time. So there were lots of folks in and around Jackson Public Schools, where I felt like we were of like mind. I could see their vision and what they were looking for in terms of excellence in leadership and service, a commitment to lock arms, and not to immediately be adversarial and to fight and challenge the work of the superintendent here. It just felt like it, well, it was clear to me as I was looking at Jackson and considering this as my new home and where I’d do work for probably the rest of my career, that this is a place where I could really, really call home and where I could really dig in, stick and stay, set up roots, and just become a part of what works here in Jackson. They also just had a number of partners, the Kellogg Foundation, and as I said, the city and the state. Even though the state had moved to take over the district, they didn’t want to take it over. They were determined that something needed to happen, that change needed to happen, and they weren’t getting that kind of urgent response from the school district early on. And so that’s why they made the bold move that they did. But it was really clear that there would be partners in the work here. And so this—it just made sense to me. And I’m excited. And, frankly, in the two years—almost two years that I’ve been here, I don’t regret it, not for a bit, but it’s been tough. I will tell you, it’s been tough!

HORN: We’re going to get into some parts of that, but, you know, I understand that under your tenure, the district moved a full letter grade in terms of quality, and you give some credit to some of the things that were already in process, but of course that’s part of the graciousness I know to be characteristic of you—I’m sure you had some role in that as well. But as if you didn’t have enough on your plate already, speaking of challenges, COVID-19 dealt your district, like every other district and school of any kind throughout the country and across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic dealt JPS a staggering blow this spring. Now you re-reopened last week, I believe, completely online. Right?

GREENE: Right. Well, we were scheduled to reopen schools this week [interview recorded on 8/11/20] and due to the governor’s latest executive order that delayed the start of school in eight counties around the state because of some of the numbers, the rising cases and infection rates… So we delayed until the 17th, but yeah, it’s been tough in general. And then of course, since March of this year, it’s just been ridiculously difficult, just to lead and to keep our arms around what is the truth with regard to the health crisis, and what are the numbers saying? Because the same numbers—you have a few people talking about them and they’re drawing vastly different conclusions, and next steps, and all of that. And that’s been, I would say, part of the challenge I would bet all of us, as district leaders, and likely others and in other fields, but across the country—just struggling with the, you know, you hear this data, you hear these recommendations, you see these kinds of urgings from certain leaders, and then folks develop plans that don’t align, right? There’s some folks who are going back to school here in this fall, going back full-blown in in the traditional model, and others with options. And we actually started offering options: the traditional, hybrid, and virtual. And over the course of a week, our numbers just spiked so rapidly and so dramatically that it was just clear we couldn’t continue with that original plan. And so we dialed that back, and decided to offer the virtual model only.

HORN: Was that number spiking among students, or among the community at large, or what?

GREENE: The state at large, our community, our county, and the City of Jackson in particular. And then we were starting to, we’ve been starting to see more of the pediatric COVID cases, so that as well. Plus, just some of the context of our district. We know that many of our scholars live with grandparents, or an elderly aunt, or there’s someone in the home that’s of age and there’s lots of underlying health challenges—diabetes, and asthma, and high blood pressure, and just on and on. So lots of that throughout the community. And so that, overlaying the COVID pandemic, it was just clear that we have to be extra cautious about the safety of the young people, yes, but also the possibility of them carrying the virus back home to elderly family members and loved ones and community members.

[13:53]

HORN: You mentioned that the governor issued an executive order delaying the opening of school, but was it up to you, was it up to each district to decide what reopening would look like, whether it was going to be hybrid, or was that also a public health decision?

GREENE: So there was guidance from the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, there was guidance from our state health department, and there’s guidance from the state education agency. We never had an overall or permanent requirement that folks wear masks in the state, though there is a requirement in the city. And the governor looked at some of the infection rates and some of the data around the state and identified eight specific counties where there was greater concern. And so we had a mandate to delay the start, but there was still all the variety! There’s tons of variety, even within the Jackson metro area, as to the models of delivery of education, of instruction, that folks are using. So there’s a district adjacent to us that is 100% traditional, with some exceptions of folks who are choosing virtual [instruction] and then there are others that are offering models that are maybe virtual for the first few weeks or through the end of the month, or that sort of thing. We’re one of, I don’t know, at this point there have been more that are going virtual, at least in the short run, but more over time who are making that choice. But I know of maybe one or two other districts in the state that are virtual for the year. We elected to go virtual for the first semester, again, because we can—just based on the numbers and based on the data—it just made sense to call it for the semester, allow families to plan around that virtual model, allowing us to prepare ourselves for this longer-run virtual and frankly, you know, as we continue to hear the news reports and health experts, I don’t know that come December or January, folks will feel very differently and we’ll have a different level of spread in the state or in this county that would suggest that Oh, okay, now we can do something different and open up some of these other options. Obviously, as you know, the virtual option though, it’s really problematic for families who, you know, if there’s a parent who’s a working parent and they need to now find an alternative for their child to be during the day—custodial care and that sort of thing.

HORN: And that’s not to mention, the technical difficulties, I think that you and JPS were able to estimate that about three in 10 families in your district have issues connecting to the internet, including sometimes lacking devices. How are you addressing that challenge for online learning?

GREENE: And that’s, you know, that three in 10 is the estimate for families. It’s even greater as you think about individual scholars. So we were not 1:1. We had about half the number of devices in our inventory for our 22,500 scholars.

[VO]: “1:1” is school-speak meaning that every student has access to a device like a laptop or Chromebook for their own use. 

GREENE: So we had about half that in our inventory, of Chromebooks and devices for them, which is a good start. And so between the inventory of devices that we have and what we’re learning from families, in terms of who has at least one device, even if there’s two, three, or more scholars living in the home—

HORN: —and trying to figure out how to share—

GREENE: —which is crazy! but at least there’s one there and some level of connectivity. So we’re confident that we’re able to get all of the homes connected and then families have to do this crazy dance of who’s going to get on because, you know, school is largely happening at the same time, no matter whether you’re in kindergarten or ninth grade or a senior. So they have to do this crazy dance of trying to share between them, but once we’ve blanketed the district and each of the families, we are confident that each family has at least a device and some level of connectivity. Then we start kind of going back to, okay, now, were there multiple siblings within the home? And where can we start to build up more of that? That’s for now. We’ve ordered devices to completely go 1:1. And you know, we’re in line with everyone else around the country in getting devices and shipments, and so as those come in next month and on, we’ll be able to deploy those devices. And so later in the fall, we should have a device for—we will have a device for every scholar, which is really, really exciting. It’s just getting there, right? It’s getting to that point, and all of the cultural and logistical things around going 1:1. Of course you don’t flip a switch and just decide, okay, well, we can go and buy the devices and we’ve got the devices in, and now we’re 1:1! There’s all the planning, all the preparation, all the professional development for our teachers and the readiness for our scholars, the readiness for families, just all of that stuff. One last thing I’ll say on this is that we have a small number of hotspots within the district. We’ve purchased more of those to help families that are just completely disconnected. And so we’ll have some of those to deploy as well, but we’re also working with the city. Well, the city has a longer-term multi-year plan for expanding broadband connectivity, which is awesome, but that’s years out. And so in the immediate future, we’ve got these these hotspots and in the shorter term, kind of into the fall, we’re working with the city to create a meshing—a wireless meshing—around the city, and in some of the densely populated areas where we’re concerned about the folks having less connectivity, less opportunities, and access. So creating that and creating some wireless opportunities that we can then just provide to our scholars and families, and so for education, for employment searches, and that sort of thing, for tele-health, lots of opportunities that that opens up for those families.

HORN: You mentioned health. You know, one of the other concerns I think about close to 95% of your students, your scholars, are eligible for free and reduced lunch. And so one of the real services that you provide is a nutritional service as a school. Are you able to make provisions along those lines, or how do you address that?

GREENE: Yes. I will say while we’ve got a pretty strong sense of where those needs are and who those families are, and those scholars are, it still feels like somewhat of a moving target, right? One, because families that are housing insecure and, you know, perhaps are underemployed or unemployed. There’s oftentimes some mobility there. And so moving from school to school or home to home. And so we experienced that throughout the year, and that’s in and of itself a challenge, but also thinking about how you set up hubs or distribution sites for meals, for instructional packets, or other resources for scholars. Those can sometimes be a little tricky, but that’s exactly it. We had some experiences where every summer we set up meal distribution sites around the city. And so it’s not totally foreign to us.

HORN: Is that right.

GREENE: Back in the spring, we did the same thing as we closed down for virtual or at-home learning to close out the year. We created a system to get meals out, but we just ran the sites themselves and families had to come to them. And you’d find that individuals in a community would come and get meals for several families, or several of our scholars within that community, on their block or in the housing projects, or what have you. Going into the fall, we are still running— I think we’ve increased the number of those hubs, those sites by a couple, and we’re using our bussing, our transportation team to help us to get the meals out further. We’ve been working with further into the communities, to Boys and Girls Clubs, some of the other nonprofits, to churches. We’ve been working with those groups to, where possible, to create little pods or opportunities for families, for the scholars to be there while parents are working and they can get connected and work remotely, plugging into the classrooms from those sites. But they’re also just sites where you know, folks can more readily and easily get there and pick up a meal and then go back home if they are learning from home. So lots of kind of layered strategies to try to provide for the needs.

[24:18]

HORN: Well, there you go with strategy, and that’s what I was going to ask you. I mean, these are all these additional logistical considerations that, some summer provision of meals notwithstanding, I mean, you don’t expect to do this during the school year! So I wanted to know how you keep thinking strategically. How do you go big picture in the face of this very difficult, adaptive challenge that you are all figuring out? I know you rolled out a strategic plan last summer, for example. How do you keep thinking strategically, educationally, amidst these ripples?

GREENE: It’s a challenge! I will tell you it’s a challenge, even outside of COVID, right? Because the day-to-day issues of life, the challenges of living in an urban area where sometimes, you know, our buildings are burglarized. And so, okay, there goes the coil from the air conditioning. And so we’ve got to replace that, or there go some number of our laptops or other devices or whatever it might be. Those kinds of issues, they exist already. We have the staffing to serve the scholars that we have, but that means that there are that many more people that you’ve got to worry about as well. Our staff members and team members, they have lives, so they may get ill or they have family issues. And so keeping staffing in place is yet another issue. So those things are already at issue. And then you layer on, again, this pandemic that just makes it that much more difficult. So how we maintain the focus is by, as frequently as possible, keeping the strategic plan in front of all of us, referencing, putting it directly in front of us as a leadership team, in front of our staff members or our school leaders, in front of our families, parents and community members, all of those folks, because it has to live and we have to continue to ensure that it lives. And so why are we making this decision? Well, if you refer back to our core values and our strategic plan … Well, as we stated in our strategic plan, one of commitments is X. Well, as we noted in the strategic plan, we’re not only educating young people so that they can read or count or write or whatever it might be, but they do those things for a purpose. There’s a larger goal in life that we’re preparing them for. And so again, using the strategic plan around that, it’s also ensuring that the plan is not just Errick Greene’s. I was very clear early on, we’re not building this plan for Errick. One, I don’t need it just for me! We need it as a community so that when we get into the thick of things, and we’ve got all these difficult decisions to make, and the answer is not so clear, we’ve got something to ground us and something to redirect us. And when we get that funder or that community leader, or that parent with a strong influential voice or whatever it might be, who’s got an idea of something that they want us to do and it makes sense on the surface of it, we can put that up against our strategic plan to say, Hey, these are the things that we committed to doing, first and foremost. Does that new idea fit in this plan? Yes or no? And if it does, is now the right time to do that? because we’ve also given some thought to not only the right thing in general, but the pieces of the thing that make sense today, next month, next year, three years out, et cetera. So it kind of insulates us from all of the great ideas that bubble up throughout the year, seemingly every day and gives us cover for doing a few things really, really well and seeing the successes from that and having those successes fuel future work. One last thing I’ll say about this, we get beaten up, have been beaten up quite a bit, right? Long before the state came and said, Hey, you know, you’ve not been performing. We really want to move to take over the district. Long before that. We’ve gotten, you know, because of performance, because of incidents, because of, you know, leadership moves or whatever, it might be just ongoing and lingering perceptions of the district leadership, of the staffing in general, of our children, of our families, of the city, all of that, right? And so what I’ve been really, really determined to do is create some wins for us and really publicize the heck out of it.

HORN: Yeah. Celebrate, yeah. Gotta have that cheerleading role as part of public leadership.

GREENE: Sure. And arresting that narrative of JPS, of Jackson, of our community, of our people such that one else owns storytelling rights of who we are, what we’re about, what we’ve accomplished and what we haven’t. We have to be honest about those times when we don’t quite get it right, and recommit to getting it right in the future but also being really dogmatic about the others who don’t get it right when they tell our story and pushing back hard on that so that in the very least, it’s a balanced retelling of who we are and what we’re about. And that’s something that I think all educators, frankly—whether you’re a classroom teacher or a principal, a district superintendent, it doesn’t matter—that all educators have to be more intentional about because, you know, everybody went to school. Everybody in this country, at least, we all went to school, and so we all have some experiences with it, and therefor believe that, unlike what we do with our doctors and with our lawyers, we all believe that we can run a school and we should, you know, our voice and our opinion should rule the day. Oh well!

[31:05]

HORN: We’ve talked a little about COVID-19, but let’s shift to another pandemic, in the U.S., at least: systemic racism. Days after the murder of George Floyd, which of course succeeded the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and far too many others, you recorded a powerful video letter to the Jackson Public Schools community, which I’ll link to the show page for this episode. You spoke candidly about the intersection of your personal class privilege of living in a more affluent neighborhood with your racial identity as a Black man, using Claude Steele’s term “whistling Vivaldi” to describe what you found yourself doing as you went out for a run, actively trying to seem less threatening to those you passed along the way. You emphasized that you didn’t share this anecdote as a play for sympathy, but rather to acknowledge that despite the academic and professional achievements that enabled you to earn, in your words, “a bit of that American dream,” your skin color is often a liability. You quickly connected this personal example to the broader district aims of relevant education, and the moral imperative to support young scholars to become righteous leaders in their community and in the larger world. Along with, I know, many others, I was addressed and deeply moved by this kind of public testimony that we don’t normally hear from our school leaders, certainly. I can’t think it was an easy decision to record this video letter. May I ask about how you decided to do it, and how it fits for you into what you consider the public leadership dimension of your role?  

GREENE: It was a few things. One, you know, we were in the midst of the COVID pandemic. And so we’re at a distance, and so all of the happenings of life—illnesses, deaths, birthdays, anniversaries, just all of the happenings of life are being experienced at a distance, so this resurgence of attention around racial discrimination and injustice, all of that was being experienced largely at a distance and through television and computer screens and on social media platforms and all of that. And so you know like others, I was grappling with my own kind of sense-making of it. And you know, what does this mean? And what is my responsibility as an individual, as a member of my own community and network, but also as a leader in the district? It just felt like remaining silent was not an option. And then you know, I rarely position myself as the stereotypical “activist” and use my voice and my platform in those ways. But I felt it would have been reckless and a huge missed opportunity for me to remain silent and not share one, just my concerns about what had happened with those individuals and others, many others in the past, the ongoing challenges around racial injustice. I find myself as someone who grew up in the North, I’m living in the South and specifically in Jackson and in the state of Mississippi with all of its history around race and social justice and all of that. It’s just, again, I couldn’t remain silent. I wasn’t sure exactly what I needed to say, though. And yeah, I think like many people just grappling with what is it that I want to say and what is it that I want to promise and commit to, and pretty quickly, what surfaced for me was, you know, I lead the Jackson Public School District. I work with some amazing educators, amazing board members, peers in the community, and families, and folks who, you know, we’re all grappling with what now? How do we keep from coming back around to the same horrible acknowledgements of killings and injustice in all their forms. And so I wanted to just spark for us as educators, let’s ensure that in the very least, what we do in classrooms and in learning spaces, that we’re creating opportunities and taking responsibility and the opportunities for developing in our young people the skills, the capacity, the desire to make the world a world in which we all want to live and seeing that as not just a nice-to-have, a nice-to-do, but a moral imperative. This is the work. The work is not simply teaching young Eric to read, teaching young Kamisha to write, or to think critically about some benign topic, but thinking critically about the world, the world around us, and the broader context, and the ways in which we can all act to make it to make it better. And I want to be real. I typically feel safe when I’m out running, you know, relatively safe when I’m out running in my neighborhood. But the reality is even with that, and even with, you know, the trappings of the life that I’ve amassed over time, it occurs to me that the White woman running near me could feel some level of fear or danger from me simply by my skin color. And so I’m really conscious of that. And obviously in the moment, I want to try to dispel any of those types of fears, but I’m also conscious of the fact that that’s on my mind, that that’s taking up part of my headspace in the moment. And it’s just, it’s unfortunate.

HORN: Well, real was how it came across. And I think that was, you know, a part of the power. It was not at all dogmatic, it was not at all prescriptive. But I think that was the thing that felt like it was really clearly that you were speaking from the heart. You said in the video letter that you don’t consider yourself a quote/unquote activist, but that nobody in this current moment has the luxury of sitting on the sidelines when it comes to fighting oppression and systemic racism. Then you just said that you were beginning to think with some of your colleagues at JPS … And I just wanted to ask, because as you know, some of the work I’m most passionate about when I consult with schools is helping educators, students, and parents have more productive conversations about hard topics including social identities, you know, for example, and systemic racism. So I’m curious about if there are, you know, plans taking shape, or where you are in terms of thinking about this, perhaps in a more explicit way, given the climate of the country, given the charged character of this election. Are there plans to listen to students’ and educators’ concerns about the current politics? I mean, how are you thinking about moving forward to a more just society and school’s role in that? Because there are all of these other things, you know, those issues about teaching somebody to read, teaching somebody to write and compute, those are important things. But one of the things that we can tend to abdicate, especially for public schools getting slammed with these standards of accountability at the expense of thinking about how we are modeling and how we are asking students to participate as citizens, giving opportunities to do that, because it’s not easy to do. So I just wanted to check in with where you all are with that.

GREENE: There are few things that are bubbling up. One is some pretty specific work around just kind of rethinking the curriculum, what it includes, what it doesn’t include, how it lives in classrooms. And obviously we’re not, you know, we’re not in a place, and certainly not right now to totally revamp the curriculum! But some pretty targeted efforts around like, what are some of the required readings and lessons around history and that sort of thing that we can fairly easily push on and layer into the current curriculum, just to beef that up and ensure that all of our scholars see themselves and see themselves more readily in what they’re learning, and the relevance in what they’re learning and how they’re learning.

HORN: And Relevance is one of those core values that drives your mission, which I think is super—

GREENE: There are six, and we mean it. We’re constantly referencing it. You know, we do shout-outs for things that people have done in the past week or so, in team meetings and that. And we reference, even in agenda items with our Board the core values, or the pieces of the strategic plan that this new item, this new contract, or this new initiative—that they align to. Early on, Excellence, Growth Mindset, maybe even Relationships were the easy go-tos. Now more and more, folks are referencing our work around, and the connection to, and the furtherance of Relevance as we do those shout-outs. And as we acknowledge the connectedness of these new initiatives.

HORN: If I could interrupt to give you a shout-out in real time, I think this is one of the things that is so important and such a great model. You know, plenty of schools have these mission statements, or let alone strategic plans, you know, which many people in the district don’t even know about, right? They’re far removed from the life of the school, and it’s very easy for that sort of thing to happen. And nobody’s going to want you to recite the strategic plan and look at the flag every day, you know, as we do with the Pledge of Allegiance. It can’t happen that way, that you remember it because you repeat it all the time, but as a way to make it real and to make it live, to make it live, that the applicability of what you’ve decided that you want to do, to keep bringing that out—I think it’s so important, because otherwise it is just something on the front page of the student handbook, or the district handbook, or what have you.

GREENE: And it doesn’t live. Thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, we thought quite a bit as we were developing the plan about how we would keep it alive and who would keep it alive. It can’t just be Errick. So that, but the point I was making with that is, you know, relevance has been a thing that is bubbling up more and more, where folks are seeing opportunities to create relevance and to acknowledge the relevance or where things are irrelevant. And therefore, we need to look again at, so is this the thing that we should be doing? So that work that I named as well, one of the pieces of the strategic plan is the Profile of a JPS Graduate [available on the JPS website]. And in that we specifically call out this need and this desire to develop young people who have some sense of government and democracy and have a strong sense of and ownership of the political issues and that’s big-P, small-p political issues within the community, state, country, around the world, and that they act on it. And so that they are registered voters and that they have, you know, developed a stance, and likely that stance will change and evolve over time as they grow. But that’s specifically called out in our Profile of a JPS Graduate. And so we’ve developed a partnership with actually a couple of organizations that are helping us to one, just ensure that our young people are registered, but also providing them with platforms and some deeper understanding of the governmental systems and some of the various workings of the democratic society. And so, you know, there are ways that we’re living into this and we see that there’s so, so much more that we could and want to do.

HORN: And I imagine being in the state capital, you know, there would be some more opportunities than there would if you were a hundred miles away or something like that also.

GREENE: Yes, absolutely. Also, I’m just highlighting, again, some of the young people who are already using their voice right, outside of us. There’s a young lady who just graduated who led one of the protests around police brutality and killings of unarmed black folks. And so you know, it’s great to see that one, that there exist young people who already want to engage and have a mind to engage, and that we’re finding ways—authentic ways—to engage them over time that they are responding to.

[46:42]

HORN: We’ve covered some hard ground here. How about hope in this moment, and this hard job, where are the seeds for you? Where do you find hope right now?

GREENE: I’m a hopeful guy, right? I was raised just to believe that, you know, pretty much anything is possible. You have to create a plan, you gotta commit to it. You’ve got to find the resources, or acknowledge and access the resources that you already have. So that is my orientation, just to life and to work. I came here because I was hopeful, not because of all of the things that were broken and dysfunctional and not in place, but for all the things that were sources of strength, and the resources and the assets and all those things that exist here in Jackson and in JPS in particular. As I look out at our babies, the more and more I see them, the more I’m just like, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t go out and kick butt in the world. There’s no reason, right? And quite often, the reason why you don’t is because people like me in this role or others in district roles or school leaders or teachers or what have you—because we haven’t prepared you. And so I am determined that that’s not going to be your story. You’re going to be well prepared and you’ll have the option to go out and do great things, or sit on it, but it won't because you weren’t prepared. So for sure, as I see our babies and just think about all that, you know, could be in their lives if somebody just give a daggone. I also hope in the team that we’re amassing here. For all the haters, you know—and we have some on the team, but not a lot—but for all the haters that exist, the people in and around the area who just don’t believe it can be done, there are tons more folks who know, who believe it in their bones, that it can and must be done. That they are enough. Whether you know how to use Zoom or Google Classroom or any of those right now or not, that you are enough. You’re smart enough, you’re caring enough, determined enough to figure it out, access the resources, get smart about how to do the work better, more effectively, and that it’s your job to do that, and you’re going to do it. So there’s lots of hope around us. You know, we, as I say, we have the haters, we have the folks who make it their business to tear down the district, to tear down the leaders, the teachers, the children, and families, period, pretty regularly, but for whatever number of them—

HORN: And they’ve had a little more time on their hands in the past few months!

GREENE: Apparently! I can’t imagine that being my life’s work. Like, are you retired? How are you able to do this? But, for whatever number of folks like that, there are so many more who have locked their arms and are standing around us, kind of protecting us, protecting the vision and the possibility that is Jackson Public Schools.

HORN: I wanted to ask too about this notion of team and the way you use “team,” because this morning I watched your recent message. I think maybe it was just yesterday that it came out. I’m not sure. It was very recent. To administrators, faculty and staff, is how I took it, right? Of Jackson Public Schools, whom you addressed as “Team JPS.”

GREENE: Yeah.

HORN: Now I know when you’ve alluded to it, and I know from talking with you over the years, that your vision of leadership is not the traditional guy at the top of the org chart, just calling the shots. I know that for you, it’s about teamwork, real teamwork and collaboration, more of what scholar Jill Harrison Berg likes to call “co-performing leadership.” [See Leading in Sync with Jill Harrison Berg, episode 016]. So that notion of team and JPS, first of all, do I have it right? That you’re thinking about all the people as part of the team?

GREENE: Yes.

HORN: Okay. And you and I have talked about the importance for you as a leader in allowing people the space to screw up and learn from that. Can you riff on that for just a second? Because I think sometimes people confuse leadership with management and then, of course, especially with micromanagement, like when you do this thing that I exactly told you—

GREENE: May I breathe today, sir? May I breathe? Is it okay if I breathe today? Like let me know when I can—that kind of a thing. Yeah. I spend a lot of time thinking about leadership, about team and all of that. My job is to ensure that we create conditions for great, magical, excellent things to happen, and to be done. And so, I spend a lot of time ensuring that I’m building up the folks around me, and that’s not the arbitrary and kind of baseless accolades—

HORN: You’re not blowing sunshine.

GREENE: Absolutely. No, we have to give one another the hard truth. We’re building a muscle. I like to say we’re building a muscle around feedback, giving and receiving. Because as I’ve learned, you know, it’s just as hard sometimes to give the tough feedback as it is to receive it. But we’re doing that. I’m modeling it. I’m modeling those times when it doesn’t feel great. I’m modeling those times when I’m so determined that what I’m thinking is the right way, but my team is not on the same page with me. I’ve got to investigate that. I’ve got to explore that. Like, how is it that I’m just completely right and everybody else is wrong? How is that possible? Right? I mean, it’s possible, but isn’t likely that everybody else is wrong, so let’s explore. This is why I think as I do, this is why I believe what I do, help me understand what I’m missing. And so quite frequently, if not in every meeting, what I’ll say to team members is I’ll ask a question or pose a direction or a pathway and then ask for feedback and not move on until I’ve gotten it. And then do some cold-calling [around the table] or I’ll say, “Poke holes in this. What am I missing? No, you cannot just allow me to jump out there with this. I know that I’m missing something, help me see what I’m missing.”

HORN: And did it take a while before people believed you?

GREENE: Yeah.

HORN: You know, because this is not the way—this is not what a lot of leaders ask for.

GREENE: More to the point, it took a while before they would even say like, “Listen Dr. Greene, this isn’t how we have operated.” And I say, “But I told you, I need the feedback. I hear you.” And what we’ve experienced, for many of us, over our entire careers is that when you disagree or oppose the person, you know, who’s supposed to be leading, then that puts you in danger.

HORN: Yeah. You’re supposed to be talking smack in the teachers lounge! In the cafeteria or something like that. You’re not supposed to be actually disagreeing, respectfully and constructively, in a moment where it can make some difference.

GREENE: And that’s exactly it. So “we will have the meetings after the meeting in the parking lot or in the lounge or off in our individual offices, but we won’t say it at the table.” And so I’ve started calling people out for having meetings after the meeting. That’s what you’re going to get called out for. You’re going to get called out because you didn’t push back on me when I said _______. That’s what people are getting called out for. So if this is the thing that drives you, then let’s give you some of that experience. But for doing the things outside of this constructive—let’s build and riff and iron sharpening iron here together at the table. Don’t text me after the fact, “Oh I would have said …” or “I was thinking …” Nope, that’s not okay! Next time say it at the table. And when I’ve gotten the texts during the meeting—

HORN: From somebody at the table? Oh man!

GREENE: Yes. “That’s not true. Dr. Green. It’s actually the …” My response is, “Say it. Say it!”

HORN: Do you text them? Do you text them back?

GREENE: Yes! Yes. I absolutely do. I absolutely do. “Say it now.” Because you know, again, those are the behaviors that—it just perpetuates that sense that, you know, we can’t do honest conversation here. [I’m like,] “We’re okay. Our relationships will survive this. Your employment will survive this. Let me show you. I know that you had some strong feelings about X. Say it now.” It’s a culture we’re building. We had to do the things. The relationship building, getting to know one another. We’re continuing to do that. We had to create the norms. You know, attack the issue, not the person; assume the best intentions; confidentiality; all those things that create the conditions for me to have an honest conversation with you right here.

HORN: And you make those explicit.

GREENE: Oh, we created those norms.

HORN: Really.

GREENE: As a team, created those norms from the beginning and every year we re-up, “Okay, these were the norms that we had last year. Do these still make sense? Okay.” And people will say, “Hey, you know, I’m going to be vulnerable [a norm] now.” And I’m like, “Okay!” And then when you do it, people are celebrating you and whatnot. So you were being vulnerable. Okay, well let’s have more and more of this vulnerability.

HORN: That’s critical for any kind of team that hopes to be productive, and I advise teachers to do it with students, to create those things together. It creates a much different environment in classes, just to draw an analogy for a second, a much different environment to develop those things together, rather than, you know, having students roll in and you hand them a sheet of paper, or point to something on a wall and say, “This is the way that it’s going in here.”

GREENE: Right. One last thought on that is I also have become pretty disciplined about coming back around to apologize for something, or naming something that I got wrong. Again, because I want to debunk this belief that the positional leader has all the knowledge and is always going to get it right. So I’ve got to debunk that. And very intentionally, when we’re talking about, I don't know, high school schedules, I very intentionally position the leader in that discussion as the person who does that work, the assistant superintendent for high schools. “You’ve got to lead this conversation, because I’m out of my depth. Please lead us through this. And not because you’ve got all the knowledge, but because you have more of the knowledge, intimate knowledge and experience, than most of us at this table.” And so, you know, pulling myself back from that, you know, not only positional leadership, but leadership in this discussion to position others to lead us out. I think it’s another thing that’s allowing people to see themselves as equals. [I’m like,] “No, no, we’re equals in this discussion. And your ideas and your beliefs and your experiences have got to show up at the table or we’re not getting the full benefit of who you are as a professional, as an educator. You’re holding back on us, and therefore our decision-making and the pathways that we take are likely not going to be the best because we don’t have the full benefit of all that you could bring.”

[1:00:04]

HORN: Leadership is never easy, let alone in an urban school district, where I think the average tenure of a superintendent is something like around four years, and, let alone, during a pandemic in which the federal government has completely abdicated a leadership role, how are you taking care of yourself?

GREENE: Wow. I appreciate that question. I will say I’m doing a decent job, given the crazy stressful period that we’re in, but I’m doing a decent job because I came into this role being really, really intentional about it. Before I even started the role, I was very mindful about the home, and what I needed at home to relax when I come home, finding that restaurant, or that place where I could go and walk or, you know, those kinds of things … a massage therapist and, while I haven’t settled on one yet, finding a therapist, a psychologist. All those kinds of things. Yeah, I was very intentional about those things coming in because I wanted to make sure that I was giving myself a fighting chance to sustain and to be sane, and to manage stress. You know, high blood pressure runs in the family, diabetes runs in the family, all those kinds of things. And I was just determined that I would be as intentional as possible about that. So here comes COVID. I already have some practices around just healthy eating, or healthier eating, healthier living, exercising, creating the breaks in my day, in life, just to kind of rejuvenate and that. So I’m doing a bit of that. I do a lot of self-talk as well. Also, frankly, I’ve just got a lot of people who are betting on me, and holding me accountable for taking care of myself. And so, getting the rest, unplugging at some point, not taking on too much at once, you know, all those things. I listen a lot to my peers who have been, or are currently serving in the role and, you know, there’s a number of us who are intentional about surviving the superintendency. I’ve named from the very beginning of my tenure here that I plan to be here for quite some time. I plan to be here at least for a decade, because I just want to ensure that the things that we build take root, that I’ve built out a team here where if something happens to me or if I get “voted off the island,” as I sometimes say, that they’ll be able to easily find someone from within who can pick it up and carry it forward. Cause they’ve got the skills, they’ve got the knowledge, there’s a level of commitment and they’ve been in the work. So it wouldn’t miss a beat.

[1:03:37]

HORN: Often because this is a show about what and how and why we learn, I like to ask guests  about a teacher who was a strong influence on you. Even though I’ve mentioned already your bio on the JPS website is pretty short—you know, it’s five succinct paragraphs—but Mrs. Grandberry gets a shout-out, your third-grade teacher whom you credit with inspiring your love of learning. And you say a little bit about her there. I wondered if you wanted to say anything else quickly about her, but I also wanted to ask about some of these influences in terms of leadership. So however way you want to take that, but I’m interested in the influences and the inspiration for you in doing this.

GREENE: I am blessed in a lot of ways, a lot of ways, not the least of which is my network. It’s hard for me to hold in my head the numbers of people that I’ve learned from. And that’s folks that I’ve worked with very closely, and it’s with folks with whom I’ve had a shorter experience. And so Mrs. Grandberry was an amazing teacher. And honestly, I don’t know how she did on evaluations or classroom observations! I don’t know how she would have done on that. What I will tell you is she had relationships. That was her superpower: relationships. I believed that I could do anything. She partnered very closely with my family. And so, you know, that is absolutely clear. That was a clear lesson as I moved into the the profession as a teacher and school leader and on, that relationships—that that was going to be part of the magic that, that helps me to achieve anything in the work. So for sure that relationship, my parents—my dad is deceased now, but my parents were, my mom is—they’re just really good people. And again, with relationships, both of them just exude this level of comfort so that people very easily warm up to them, come to them with challenges and come to them and want to celebrate successes, that sort of thing. And so that’s the cloth that I’m cut from. I want and need people to be comfortable around me. That makes me comfortable. That’s of course—I’m talking about people who are good, people who are doing good things in the world. I don’t want folks who are tearing others down to be comfortable around me. In fact, I want you to be uncomfortable. So again, you know, by all the colleagues, people who’ve worked along with me, people I’ve supervised, people who have supervised me, families that I’ve worked alongside, parents, on and on and on. I find myself over time just taking pieces of individuals—people like yourself, people who are super, super smart, very critical of ideas, and the world around them—that have challenged me to think more critically about what exists and why what we really want want out of life doesn’t exist. And therefore, what can we do about it? What’s my role in this? And seeing myself as someone who has some agency to make things happen, and challenging myself to do that.

HORN: Eric, thank you so much. Thanks for that lovely kind word, thank you for your time today. Is there a question you would have liked me to ask that I did not ask? Or is there something else that you would like to add?

GREENE: One thing that I just don’t want to ever miss the opportunity to do is to shout out this amazing community. I now get it. You know, I heard in DC, the superintendent, well, the chancellor there shout out and give accolades to the community there. And I agreed, but, you know, I wasn’t in that role. The same in other places where I’ve been. Definitely in Tulsa, the superintendent there, she doesn’t miss an opportunity to shout out the Tulsans and the fiber of the community there. I get it now. From this role, with this perspective, understanding more deeply the challenges that people face, but also the options that people have to lean in or to lean back. And the numbers of times that people actually lean in, with resources to support their fellow man, another family, another organization, offering resources, giving grace to us when we don’t quite get it right, or when we misstep, or what have you—just all of those things. It’s pretty remarkable. In fact, it makes me emotional when I think about just all that people do to create the kind of community that we all really deserve and want, that many of us want, and want to live in, and that we want for our children. And so I’m just deeply, deeply indebted, greatly appreciative, and humbled by the heart that goes into the experiences that I’ve had here in Jackson. It was never my plan to be here in Jackson. But I’m so, so, so, so thankful that I’m here now.

HORN: And I’m sure that there are a lot of people in the community who would say that they’re very thankful that you are there.

GREENE: Thank you.

HORN: I’m thankful you’ve been here. Such a pleasure to talk to you under any circumstances, but this has been particularly rich.

GREENE: Thank you. Thank you, Pete. I appreciate it. Always just good to chat with you. I feel blessed every time I emerge with “Okay, we got this. We can do this!”

HORN: Now like over/under for the closing credits: like you, me and Al do some karaoke? Is that what we should—

GREENE: Yeah, that’s what we should do. Exactly it.

[VO]: That’s it for today’s show! My great thanks to Dr. Greene for taking the time to talk, and to Gil Scott Chapman for laying down some special Mississippi-inspired piano tracks for use in this episode. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for intro and outro music, and thanks to you for listening, sharing, and subscribing to the show. Rating and reviewing on your podcast platform of choice helps us connect with other people curious about what and how and why we learn. A proud member of the Lyceum consortium for education podcasts, Point of Learning is written, recorded, edited, mixed, and produced by me here in sunny Buffalo, New York. I’m Peter Horn, and I’ll be back at you with a fresh episode just as soon as I can. Until then, stay safe, strong, and prophetic. Make sure everyone you know has participated in the census, and, as someone who just volunteered to become a poll worker in my county, see what steps you can take to help November voting go smoothly where you live.