Educator

Tony Bisceglia — Principal of James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School

Tony Bisceglia — Principal of James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School
About Tony Bisceglia

Tony Bisceglia combines his roles as an Urban High Priority Educator and coach with entrepreneurship, while being a father of four. His dedication to education in high-priority urban settings, alongside his entrepreneurial spirit, shapes his multi-faceted approach to making an impact – and while he didn’t invent Pickleball, he’s certainly enthusiastic about it.

Connect with Tony Bisceglia: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host Sam Demma and today we are joined by Tony Bisceglia, Principal at JCM Cardinal McGuigan, one of the best schools. They are a high performance athletic school, the only one in the Toronto Catholic District School Board, which we’ll talk about during the interview today.

Sam Demma
Tony combines his roles as an urban high priority educator and coach with his entrepreneurial spirit while also being a father of four, his dedication to providing education and high priority urban settings alongside with that entrepreneurial spirit shapes his multifaceted approach to making an impact. And I hear that he also loves pickleball. So we’ll figure that out.

Tony Bisceglia
Tony, thank you so much for being on the show today. Sam, thanks for having me. That’s a great introduction. I appreciate it. You know what? Always great speaking with you. Remember when you were here last year motivating our student population, they loved you. You’re a massive hit, motivator, mentor, role model. So love talking to you whenever I can.

Sam Demma
Please take a moment, introduce yourself and let the educator listening, let them know a little bit about who you are and why you got into education.

Tony Bisceglia
Yeah, so I think you hit the nail on the head in the intro. I’m a multifaceted individual. I definitely consider myself an educator, but it’s not my only role. Being a father for me is for sure the most important role that I hold or the most important title that I have.

Tony Bisceglia
And then beyond that, being a teacher, principal, educator, coach, sports enthusiast, entrepreneur, it all sort of meshes in together. So it’s a fabric and you know any good fabric when it’s woven neatly and tightly together usually produces something really good. And I think you know over the years over my 30 years of being an educator next year will be my 30th year. I can’t believe the time flies that fast, but it’ll be 30 years. I’ve experienced a lot and there’s been a lot of changes in the world, obviously. I think, you know, a lot of markers that for me and my life in the world, you know, COVID being one of them, and you know, the world definitely changed post and pre-COVID or different times. So, yeah, I think I’m a multifaceted individual and my main goal in life is probably to leave an impact. And as I get older, I wanna make sure there’s a legacy.

Tony Bisceglia
I wanna make sure that I leave a mark and I wanna make sure that I leave the world a better place than when I got here. And that’s the goal each and every day.

Sam Demma
You know, it takes a lot of effort and intention and energy to do one thing well, and you’re doing multiple things well. Where does that passion come from? Where does that drive come from? Tell me more about your a little bit about your upbringing.

Tony Bisceglia
Yeah, so you know what people people ask me that all the time. They’re like, how do you do it? And you know what, I am a high energy individual. I can’t sit still. I’m not the type of person to, you know, a lot of people say, hey, what’d you do this weekend? It was snowing outside and people are sitting on the couch and that’s not me. I just, I can’t sit still. or something that I grew up with. I think I had role models who were high achievers. My older brother, who’s six years older than me, was definitely a high achiever and a busybody. My dad, who was an entrepreneur, was definitely a high achiever and a busybody. He would never let us rest on weekends. We always had to be doing some kind of work, whether we went to work with him or work around the house.

Tony Bisceglia
But there always had to be, um, you know, something getting done, right. So we couldn’t be relaxing. I don’t know if it’s an immigrant mindset because obviously my dad immigrated with my mom from Italy and they had that, you know, we’ve got to make it in this new country mindset and that gets passed down. Um, so I definitely feel that I have that immigrant mindset that you want to achieve, that you want to do better.

Tony Bisceglia
You want to make your parents proud. You want them to know that, you know, all the effort that they made for us, their children, was worth it in the end. So I think that’s where it comes from. I think it comes from having really good role models in my family. And then my grandfather, who was a military, you know, almost a career military guy, he spent seven years in Africa during the Second World War. He traveled, he was really, he was well-read. He met, you know, icons of history and, you know, would retell these stories of meeting, you know, world leaders, you know, good and bad, you know, Benito Mussolini, who was the fascist leader of Italy, meeting him, meeting some British generals in Somalia, meeting Libyan generals, just pretty amazing stories. It’s a history book.

Tony Bisceglia
I’d hear those stories all the time, so they were pretty inspiring. That’s where I think I get my drive from.

Sam Demma
At what age did you venture into entrepreneurial pursuits?

Tony Bisceglia
So I think it was, you know, pretty much all my life from whenever I can remember, I actually remember selling a, this is before your time, but you probably know who he is, Hulk Hogan, who was a big wrestling guy. I would sell t-shirts. So I would go to a local mall. I lived at, at a Jane and Wilson I go to Sheridan mall and I’d get t-shirts printed of Hulk Hogan and they say like Hulkamania and all this type of stuff and I’d buy cheap t-shirts at a place called by way get the shirts printed with the Hulkamania and Hulk Hogan logo and I’d go to school and sell them in the schoolyard. So and I was pretty sure I was in grade five, grade four or five doing that. And I don’t know where that idea came from, but I specifically remember doing that. And I think that was the start of my entrepreneurial journey.

Tony Bisceglia
And I’ve had a million businesses since landscaping, restaurants, sports camps, day trading, you name it. I think I’ve done it. Good and bad because I had a lot of failures, but those early failures was really my education in entrepreneurship.

Tony Bisceglia
It was a school of hard knocks. Nothing like losing money to teach you a lesson. And I lost my money in the early days and I’m thankful for that. And I learned, I learned a lot of valuable lessons by losing that money. And that was my education in entrepreneurship. Then I got some formal education too.

Tony Bisceglia
I got a master’s degree in leadership and supervision. And I’ve got other courses, business courses from universities, Queens, Western. But I would say that the real experience that I gained is in operating businesses operating businesses and just, you know, hitting, hit the ground running, uh, good or bad, losing money. And that’s where I learned to be a good entrepreneur.

Sam Demma
It’s one of our backs against the wall where we learn the most. I think, you know, you succeed, you, you continue forward without reflection. You have a challenge or a failure. You, you pause and ponder. And sometimes those situations are even more helpful than a win because you change nothing. And it sounds like you’ve had a fair share. And within business, you’re operating with lots of other people. You’re building relationships. And that really ties into your work as an administrator at a school. You’re managing a team of staff. You’re interacting with students all day.

Sam Demma
When it comes to managing others, humans are so complex. We have our own, we all have our own diverse set of needs and how we like to be communicated to. What are some of your philosophies or ideas around leadership that help you work with and manage other people effectively? What do you keep at the front of your mind when you’re dealing with people? Well, I’m sort of the opposite.

Tony Bisceglia
I buck the trend on what a leader should be, because the modern leader is like a collegial leader who wants everyone’s input. And I got to be honest with you, if you want to run a really good organization or a large organization or a business, a school, anything, the leader has to have a clear vision and it has to be a determined vision and that means you’ve got to go with what you believe in and you’re not always going to be able to take other people’s input. You’re not always going to be able to sit down at a table and say, hey let me hear everybody out. If you want things to work and you want to get things done in a timely fashion, you have to almost be a militant type leader and I’m not saying you’ve got to be a bad person and treat people badly because I don’t believe in that.

Tony Bisceglia
I believe you treat everyone fairly, but if a person is, is not going to pull up their socks and do what you need them to do, those people should not be part of your organization. And it doesn’t matter what kind of organization it is, whether it’s a business, whether it’s a government institution, you need people to be on the same page and who are willing to go down the river with you, right? Willing to fight battles with you and they need to believe in that leader and the leader leads the charge from the front.

Tony Bisceglia
And if you don’t have a leader who’s willing to put everything on the line and say, hey, here’s the vision, I’m going to lead us into this battle and we’re going to win this battle. If you don’t have a person like that leading the organization, this is where you see a lot of failure, especially mature type businesses or organizations. So for me, it’s it’s you know, you’re either getting on board or you’re getting off the ship. It’s one of the two. And like I said, I think, you know, in today’s world, there’s a lot of niceties and we’re trying to sort of appease everyone. We’re trying to make everyone happy and it just doesn’t work, unfortunately, if you want to be successful. Now, if you want to be mediocre, that’s a different story. And we see a lot of mediocre schools, a lot of mediocre businesses, a lot of mediocre individuals, because those are people who are willing to settle and not really drive their dreams. You know, like, look at you, what you’ve done. It’s incredible.

Tony Bisceglia
Your story, right, from getting injured as a soccer player and now being, you know, this internationally recognized speaker all over the world, traveling to Africa. It’s pretty incredible for a young person like you, but you have to believe in yourself to do that. I’m sure you had a lot of naysayers, but if you weren’t steadfast and headstrong, that you were going to achieve what you’ve achieved and you were confident in your own abilities, you never would have been where you are today on this platform. Kudos to you for doing that because I honestly do not see a lot of young people being the type of risk takers that you are and what you’ve done. So I admire everything you’ve done. So keep it up.

Sam Demma
I appreciate it. Big time. Talking about niceties. One of my favorite lecturers and speakers is a gentleman named Jim Rohn. And he said, everyone talks about affirmations, but they only work if you affirm the truth. He said, if you’re, if you’re broke, you should wake up every single day, look in the mirror and say, I’m broke. And, you know, and, and if you, if you face reality, there’s an opportunity for you to change. And, and he would always say, you know, show me your list of reasons why things aren’t working out. And most of the time people don’t include themselves on that list. And that’s one of the major issues, you know, the things in the world don’t change unless we change. And it’s, it’s a hard pill to swallow, but if we want to make a shift in some area of our life, it has to come back to ourselves and our choices and our actions. Um, I have a little team now, four or five people. And I found that if someone’s not, you know, tightly tied into the vision that I’ve shared with them, it’s really hard to motivate them and get them excited to work, you know, and they gotta go and we’ll find another person. Speaking of mediocre versus high performing, your school is one of the high performance athletic schools, one of the only, or the only only in the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about what that means and how it’s had an impact on the school population, enrollment, and even students’ excitement.

Tony Bisceglia
So it’s been an incredible adventure. It’s something that I wanted to do for a really long time, having, you know, four kids involved in pretty high level sports. I’ve always tried to find a space for them that was a high performance academic athletic institution. So I would look at examples around the world that have succeeded like IMG Academy in Florida, you know, Bill Crothers up in York region, who have taken student athletes and really nurtured them to be the very best they can be to make sure that they excel in whatever it is that they’re doing, whether it’s sports or academics, and that we graduate individuals who are more than just competent. They’re high achievers in their sports and in their academics, and they on to get you know D1 scholarships, D2 scholarships, maybe play professional right out of high school but basically we nurture those high achievers and I think you know there’s a place for everybody in the world not everyone needs to be a high performance athlete and we have programs for those kids and I think everyone has different interests but for me having a serious interest in sports, it appealed to me to create that kind of environment because I didn’t see it in Canada. I didn’t see many of them in Canada anyways. I would say Bill Crothers in York region was really the model for most of the rest of us high performance schools in the GTA. So kudos to them for having that vision and getting that off the GTA. So kudos to them for having that vision and getting that off the ground. But in Toronto Catholic, we are the first high performance athletic high school, and we focus on basketball, soccer, volleyball, and every year we’re expanding into other areas of sport. But our main goal is the student athletes, student being the primary focus, athlete being secondary. But knowing that high performance athletes may train up to 20 hours a week, we’ve got to make some accommodations, we’ve got to adapt some things for those kids.

Tony Bisceglia
We’ve got to support them to be the best student athletes that they can be. Because you can’t be an Olympian, you can’t be a professional athlete, you can’t go to D1 without support, with some support from your high school and from your high school teachers.

Tony Bisceglia
And teachers got to buy into that. And that’s the culture we’re trying to build here. We’re trying to really focus in on the kids from this community, particularly the Jane and Finch community. We’re taking kids who may have raw athletic ability and we’re trying to refine those skills and make them the best student athletes that they can be. And, you know, student being very important, they’ve got to maintain a 70% average. And the program has been a real hit. It’s been a success. Our enrollment has gone up 35% since we introduced this program. So the school is, is exploding.

Tony Bisceglia
It’s, it’s, you know, bursting at the seams. Because we place a real emphasis on each individual student and what their individual needs are. And the communities recognize that. And it’s been successful because we have a caring, nurturing culture in this school.

Tony Bisceglia
And that’s what separates us from other schools. Not to say that other schools don’t care about their kids, but we take it a step above. We’re taking it to the next level. And we’re trying to make contacts for these kids in universities, in post-secondary, with pro teams like TFC.

Tony Bisceglia
We have a student who’s on the under-17 national team soccer, Elijah Roche, and he’s a fantastic defender, one of Canada’s top defenders, and I guarantee you’ll see him playing internationally soon with a big club. So we have students like that real high achievers, and we support and nurture them to be the best they can be. I kind of wish I was able to attend the school during the program when I was a high school student. Right? It sounds like a place because you are a high performance athlete. But I think in those days, you know, we weren’t focusing on nurturing and supporting student athletes the way that we are today. You know, and I think, you know, that kids today have a real advantage if they’re in a program like ours. If their real dream is to play D1 football, then this is the place for them because we’re going to support them in that dream. We have an academic coordinator that meets with them every single week to focus in on their academics, to make sure that they’re doing well. And if there’s an issue, that academic coordinator is on the phone with a parent, a coach saying, hey, we’ve got to do something here. There’s an issue. So, you know, we tackle issues before they become bigger issues. So, to your point, if you would have had a program like this, you’re successful already, but who knows what could have been. And then you had an injury, and we support kids through that too, because that’s a reality of playing sports, right? That injury comes with another impact, the psychological impact, and we support them with social workers and CYWs, child and youth workers, to get them through those tough times. So yeah, really good program.

Sam Demma
It sounds like it. And I’m glad to hear it’s having a very positive impact on the community. The focus on the student athlete and the academics not slipping or sliding is so important as well. My, my parents really drilled that into my mind when I was a young kid, Sam, you got to make sure that you, whatever your hands touch, you do the best with it that you possibly can. If that means doing your homework, do the homework the best way you can. You touch the soccer cleats on the field, play the sport the best you can. And I’ve kind of carried that mentality through my life.

Sam Demma
And it’s helped me because yes, certain things are more important than others, but everything matters and the way we do one thing is going to seep into all the other things that we do. So not allowing those other aspects of life to slip is really helpful, you know, especially for young people that are focused on sports 24 seven. I’m curious when you think about building relationships with students, you know, a lot of educators want to build solid relationships with their students and lot of educators wanna build solid relationships with their students and as they do, the student is more engaged in class and paying more attention. How do you think you build a connection with a young person?

Tony Bisceglia
So I think it’s gotta be authentic. And I think for me, the way I built connections when I was in high school was by playing sports. So being on the soccer team, being on the football team. Just for me, the after school activities were as important, if not more important. I would say for me, they were more important than being in class.

Tony Bisceglia
Classes is important, but traditionally speaking, you know, most successful people in the world, and there’s data to support this research, weren’t A plus students. They weren’t the kids who had a 95% average. They were like C, C plus students, B students maybe.

Tony Bisceglia
But they were kids who were well-rounded, who played sports, who had other activities in their life. So I think teachers really need to go back to and focus on, because this is what’s lacking in education today. I think when really need to go back to and focus on, because this is what’s lacking in education today. I think when I was in school, I had teachers who taught because they actually loved teaching or coaching. My teachers were coaches, they were ex-CFL guys. And they wanted us to excel in sports, but they hammered us in the classroom. They made sure we were on top of everything. But they said, hey, you’re gonna be a practice today practices at four Don’t be late or you’re gonna be running for an hour and we respected that today that’s lacking and for whatever reason and I don’t know if it’s you know, again, I don’t want to blame social media for stuff You know, he was to Gary Vanner Chuck. He says, it’s not social media that’s the problem, right? And I don’t think it is. I just think, I think the world has changed, but coaches have changed too. Coaches can’t be as hard as they were on athletes because mom and dad’s gonna come to their rescue.

Tony Bisceglia
Like every little thing a coach does is questioned now. And for me, and I’m a parent of a bunch of athletes, of my kids, when my kids are playing, I don’t get involved. The coach can say whatever they want. Whatever the coach does, obviously, I’m trusting that coach to be a good leader, to be a good mentor, to be a good coach, to speak with them with authority and maybe firmness even.

Tony Bisceglia
But I’ve got to trust that coach, otherwise I shouldn’t be there. I can’t be second guessing everything the coach does, the lineup, the strategy, the tactic. I can’t be questioning that. Otherwise I shouldn’t be there. But in today’s world, every parent is a former athlete. Everyone says, I played, I played in high school.

Tony Bisceglia
You know, we’ve got coaches who actually played pro, who maybe played in Europe, who played in the MLS, or wherever they played, right? So you’ve got to trust those people. If you’ve enrolled your kids in that program, it must be for a reason. You like the program, you like the club, you like the coaches, and then all of a sudden, you know, you register, you get on the field and you start yelling at coaches, or like right after a match, you know, this is why a lot of people don’t coach anymore, especially in high schools. We don’t have enough teachers coaching because of the grief, right? The, you know, parents might give them or the other kids might give them. So like we got to get back to, and I don’t want to say get back to the basics, but I mean, the, the relationship that a coach and a student has a student athlete is very different than the relationship, a geography teacher in a student has very different. And you can’t build that same relationship in a classroom, especially in a traditional classroom, you know, a Socratic type of classroom where a teacher’s giving you information, spewing out facts, and you’re just absorbing it. There’s nothing stimulating about that. You know, whereas on the field, I feel like, you know, there’s stimulation between the interaction with the coach, the team, especially in team sports.

Sam Demma
I can speak from personal experience. I built some of my closest relationships with coaches or with extracurricular activities where they were there to push and guide and support and provide feedback that I was very excited to receive because I wanted to improve. And unless I was very interested in the subject and really wanted to excel at it, I found a lesser connection to the staff member or teacher that was in the room, and some of the teachers that had the biggest impact on me just really took a interest in me as an individual and, and got to know what my life was like outside of the classroom. And I think that made all the difference for me too.

Tony Bisceglia
I agree, you know, because you feel that, Hey, that teacher wants to know about me, not just as a student, not just the facts that I memorized that teacher wants to know about me, not just as a student, not just the facts that I memorized. That teacher wants to know who I am as a person. What do I, what do I like? What are my interests? What do I want to do in the future?

Tony Bisceglia
And if you know, someone cares about you that way, you’re going to reciprocate. You’re going to give back.

Sam Demma
You’re going to give that effort on the field, this has been a very stimulating conversation. I appreciate your time and your insights and the ideas. It’s lovely to hear about the success of the high performance athletic program at the school. Keep up the amazing work. I look forward to seeing Elijah Roche playing nationally or internationally and the rest of the athletes to see them succeed in school life and their own set of goals. So you’re doing a great job. Keep up the amazing work and we’ll cross paths again soon.

Tony Bisceglia
Thanks. And same to you. Keep inspiring the young people all over the world. Now, all the things you’re doing everywhere, Africa, the U S Canada, just keep it up, man.

Sam Demma
Thank you very much.  

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tony Bisceglia

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

May 15, 2025 by Educator Principals 0

Ryan Wamser — Director of School Improvement for ROE #40 and Director of the Illinois Area 5 SEL Hub

Ryan Wamser — Director of School Improvement for ROE #40

About Ryan Wamser

Ryan Wamser has taught middle school Physical Education, high school drivers education and health, been a high school Assistant Principal, an elementary principal, assistant Regional Superintendent, and a district Superintendent.
He is currently the Director of School Improvement for ROE #40 as well as the Director of the Illinois Area 5 SEL Hub. Ryan is passionate about helping to support teachers and administrators in any way possible. When not working, Ryan loves spending time with his wife Michelle and their four kids.

Connect with Ryan Wamser: Email | Instagram | Linkedin

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

ROE #40
Illinois Area 5 SEL Hub
Ryan Wamser

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host Sam Demma and today we are joined by Ryan Wamser. Drawing on experience from teaching to superintendency, Ryan now serves as both the Director of School Improvement for ROE 40 and the Director of the Illinois Area 5 SEL Hub. His diverse career spans middle school, physical education, high school health and driver’s education, building leadership as a principal and district leadership as a superintendent.

Sam Demma
A passionate advocate for supporting educators at all levels, Ryan balances his commitment to educational excellence with family life alongside his wife, Michelle, and their four children. Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time today to be here on the podcast.

Ryan Wamser
Thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Sam Demma
Tell us a little bit about what got you involved in education and why you’re passionate about it.

Ryan Wamser
Well, it’s one of those things that as a kid, I never saw myself doing anything else. My dad was a teacher, taught for 22 years, was a middle school science and math teacher, my older sister’s a teacher, my mom was an administrative assistant working for a regional office of education. So I grew up, you know, learning how to shoot a basketball and learn how to walk through the halls of a middle school. Got to see the impact that educators had on kids

Ryan Wamser
and on colleagues and community. When I was 12, my dad passed away, actually in the middle of coaching. He was a, he coached year round for the school that he taught at and actually passed away in the middle of coaching a volleyball game. So got to, you know, obviously that was a traumatic situation for a 12 year old, but got to see the impact that education had on his students and his coworkers. And I still get to see his impact today because time doesn’t go by where somebody doesn’t come up to me and ask if I’m Jim Wamser’s son and they have a little story to tell me or some sort of thing that happened when they were in school that they credit to my dad for them getting into education. And so it’s just one of those things that, I always say that that was probably the worst time of my life was being a 12 year old kid whose dad collapses in the middle of a volleyball game and passes away.

Ryan Wamser
And then luckily I didn’t go to the school that he taught at, but I was at the neighboring school where, you know, his best friend was the superintendent. His other best friend was my principal, you know, all those people that were there that were friends of his. And I got to experience what, you know, education is about and the community that it brings in. And, you know, I always say it was the worst year of my life in school, but in some respects,
it might’ve been the best year of my life in school because I got to really experience what education can and should be and what teachers mean to kids like me that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today if it weren’t for those teachers when I was 12 years old who wrapped around me and made sure that I was taken care of.

Ryan Wamser
And so it’s just a little bit something that I try to give back every day to make sure that I’m leaving even a little bit of a mark that my dad left on his community and his friends and kids who are now grown adults and give them back as well.

Sam Demma
It sounds like your dad made a really large contribution to every person he crossed paths with. And it made me think a little bit of my grandfather who passed when I was 13. It was the first time I ever attended a funeral, very different from losing a father, but losing a family member was tough. And I’ll never forget the stories people told me. There was one lady that told me that my grandfather, when he had cancer, would still show up to her house and shovel her driveway and bury her hamster in the backyard when she asked him to. All these random little things, right. And I wish I could have captured more of those stories and, and just wrote them down in a journal or something. I’m sure you’ve heard so many over the years that you were completely unaware of that, that you didn’t even know your dad did those things. Are there any that bring you an immense amount of pride and joy that you might want to share one, one or two on the podcast here today?

Ryan Wamser
Yeah, there’s a lot. Just recently, it’s funny, my son is 13 and he’s gonna be in high school next year. And the teacher that he probably will have for biology, not too long ago, it was a few months ago, she stopped me and she said, you know what, I’ve, we’ve talked numerous times, but I never put two and two together that who your dad was. And I said, yeah, she goes, well, the reason why I’m a biology teacher and a science teacher is because of your dad. And it’s just one of those things, like, you know, you have conversations with people and you don’t put two and two together, but it’s just, those are the kind of things that, you know, give me solace in the field that we have and the education that we have that even, you know, this person who was, you know, happened to be his student, you know, when they were in eighth grade, you know, in science class at Bell Valley, you know, junior high, that, you know, that person went on to be a science teacher because he helped instill that love of science in them. And so those are just little, little things that every once in a while catch me off guard because, you know, you never heard that story before, somebody didn’t feel like, or didn’t have the opportunity to share. And so I just, that’s one of those things that I think that in education, especially that we as educators have to make sure that we remember the impact that we have on kids and on our community. And, but we also need to make sure that not forget to share with those educators and those important people in our lives, how much they, they mean to us too, because you know, there’s sometimes we forget to do that. And so, you know, we may not always hear the impact that we have, but we can at least make sure that others hear the impact that they have on us.

Sam Demma
This is your reminder mid podcast to pause the show. Go on your phone, search up that contact that person you haven’t let know how big of a contribution they made in your life to just call them and tell them, um, I’m already thinking of someone I’m going to call after this podcast ends.

Ryan Wamser
It takes two seconds to shoot a text message or, um, you know, I’m not a Facebook guy, so I get, I don’t have those connections, but it takes two seconds to send somebody a direct message, uh, shoot them a text message. even those people that I consider to be closest friends and I go, man, I haven’t talked to that person in months or we haven’t had an extended conversation with.

Ryan Wamser
And it’s just, it’s hit home, especially in the last, lots of things have hit home, especially in the last five years, but it’s been one of those things that to make a conscious effort, to be intentional about those relationships and making sure that we’re reaching out to those people because you know may not have the opportunity to.

Sam Demma
You’re someone who has served nearly every level of education from teacher to superintendent. How have the different roles you’ve served shaped your understanding of what schools and educators truly need to be successful?

Ryan Wamser
Well, when you read off my list of my experience, I still consider myself to be a young guy. I know I’m not, but it makes me just think I can’t hold the job down when you list everything. So, you know, that’s my running joke is I can’t keep a job. But, you know, I think it’s really, it’s changed. My perspective has changed, especially, you know, post pandemic and what we should be doing.

Ryan Wamser
You know, I grew up in a kid’s first household. Like literally my dad was coaching year round and he never, you know, he was at school more than he was at home. You know, he was up at 5 a.m. dragging the ball fields because they had a softball game that afternoon. You know, he, you know, wasn’t at my games because he was coaching games. And it’s one of those things that, you know, 10 years ago, you know, 22 years ago when I started in my career, we all talked about, you know, kids first, kids first, kids first, kids first. And everything was about making sure we did everything for our students, everything for the kids that we interact with. And I think my perspective has changed in 20 years, 20 plus years that, you know, we can’t do anything for kids if we’re not taking care of ourselves as the adults in the building. And I joke, but it’s true.

Ryan Wamser
If five years ago I was doing a professional development for teachers and I walked in and said kids aren’t first, kids are second, and the adults in your building, if I told a group of principals, the adults, the teachers in your building were the most important thing in the school, I would have probably been run out of that. Because it’s like, that’s very self-centered and why would we talk about the adults being the most important thing? But at the end of the day, if we’re not taking care of ourselves and we’re being taken out on a stretcher in the middle of a game or from our office, or who’s gonna be there to step up and help kids if we’re not taking care of ourselves?

Ryan Wamser
So in order to put kids first, we have to put ourselves first. And I think that perspective has really changed as teacher, administrator, superintendent, and the work that I’ve done, that my job is now to try to pour into our educators and make sure that they’re taking care of themselves because the impact is there, but at the end of the day, like, this sounds crude, but, you know, on January 4th, 1994, when my dad died, on January 5th, 1994, the eighth grade kids at Bell Valley South School still had math class. Like, school continued. It didn’t shut down. Yeah, his colleagues were sad. Kids were dealing with it. We had the funeral, we did all that, but school continued. And so, but he wasn’t there to be there. So we have to take care of ourselves because this is going to go on with or without us, and we need to make sure that we’re taking care of what’s important, which is our family and our friends, and we can’t do that if we’re not here. And so I think that’s perspective for me has changed a lot in the last 22 years that, you know, it should be adult first. And I think for many of us in a giving profession, that’s hard to hear that I’m gonna put, you know, others second so that I can put myself first.

Sam Demma
One of my favorite speakers and authors is a gentleman named Jim Rohn, and I talk about him quite a bit. And he has a phrase in one of his lectures where he says, the most important thing you could provide to a relationship, whether it be professional relationship or personal relationship, is your own personal development. Because if you became more valuable yourself, think about how much more you could contribute to that other person, whether it’s a professional or personal relationship.

Sam Demma
And he said, you know, the people would say, I’ll take care of you if you take care of me. And he said, no, I’ll take care of me so that I can take care of you and you’ll take care of you so that you can take care of me. And that’s the principle or the philosophy that came to mind while you were just talking about the importance of putting ourselves first in terms of our health and wellbeing so that we can pour into others.

Sam Demma
How do you put yourself first? What are some of those practices that help Ryan stay grounded and able to show up every single day at his best?

Ryan Wamser
Well, I’m gonna preface this by saying that, none of us are perfect people, so it’s hard to stand up here and be an example of that because I’m not a great example. To be completely honest with you, in September of 2020, I was a burnt out educator

Ryan Wamser
and I walked away from the superintendency. I quit my job. I was 385 pounds, I was having anxiety attacks, panic attacks, and all that I was not taking care of myself. And so I had a colleague of mine who was also superintendent, who we were talking about, you know, our impacts on on kids and, and my dad’s name got brought up. And I said, it’s pretty cool, the school that he taught at.

Ryan Wamser
They named the gymnasium after him after he passed away, his name’s on the building. I said, that’s kind of a cool impact. And my friend, also superintendent, said, Ryan, do you want a building named after you? Or do you want a gym named after you?

Ryan Wamser
Or do you want to see your kids graduate college? And it was one of those like, you know, truth bombs that I had to take. And I had to step back and, you know, have a conversation with my wife to say, you know what, in the current context that I’m living,

Ryan Wamser
I cannot take care of myself and still do the job that I’m doing. And now most people don’t have that opportunity to say, you know what, I’m gonna leave. You know, we talk about privilege. That’s a pretty big privilege to have a wife that says, you know what, we need you, so you do what you gotta do.

Ryan Wamser
So yeah, so I do feel like I’m a failed superintendent because I walked away at that time. I took nine months off. I focused on my health, I focused on, you know, being a good father and a good husband. Like I said, though, most, unfortunately, most people can’t just quit their job and walk away to be able to do that. So that’s part of what my mission is now, you know, it’s the whole adage of, you know, the reason why the universe or God asks us to go through hard things is so when we get through the other side, we’re there to help other people get through it as well. And so that’s kind of my mission in life now is to make sure nobody gets to the point where I was where they have to walk away because our profession is the most important profession in the world as educators. And we’re losing good people, because we don’t have those people that are there to help them and pull them through.

Ryan Wamser
So for me, it’s now in my life, five years later, my health is the most important thing to me so that I’m there for my kids, being a good husband, being a good father, making sure that I have those connections with what I call B12 people in my life.

Ryan Wamser
So these are people that, like taking a B12 supplement every morning that elevate my, you know, my mood. And so I surround myself with B12 people, people that when I, I know I can talk to them at any moment, and they’re going to elevate me, they’re gonna make me better. So I have those, those, you know, that strong, small group of people that I can contact. And it’s not just people that, and that’s the thing I think we misuse that about making sure you have a strong support system because sometimes that strong support system are the people that we know we can call and complain to and vice versa, they can call and complain to us. But I also think these are also the same people that you have to be able to have a good, strong group of people who you can call and complain to us. But I also think these are also the same people that you have to be able to have a good strong group of people who you can call and celebrate to. Like you say, if I picked up the phone, I’m sure there’s five or six people that would call and let me complain about my life. Let me air all my dirty laundry out. But who are the people right now that if you had to pick up the phone and tell them some great news, who was going to be there to be a huge cheerleader, who’s going to not make it about them, who’s going to be like, tell you that’s the greatest news they’ve ever heard and just pump you up. We got to have that. And we got to have those relationships because I’ll tell you that the higher up you get in education, going from teacher to principal, from principal to district office superintendent, the less you have of those people because teachers have built in colleagues at the same level with them. They have those friends, those people in the teacher’s lounge, they become principal.

Ryan Wamser
You can’t have those same relationships with the teachers now that you’re in charge of. And then it gets even less when you become superintendent. And so having that support system, having those people around you is huge to your mental and emotional health. In addition, again, pouring into yourself, making sure that you’re taken care of, diet, exercise, and then I get on my soapbox and preach this all the time. The most underrated yet most important aspect diet, exercise, and then I get on my soapbox and preach this all the time. The most underrated yet most important aspect to our physical, mental, and emotional health is making sure we’re taking care of ourselves when it comes to sleep habits. And so that’s another one that I preach to my administrator colleagues, that making sure that they’re taking care of themselves when it comes to sleep, because nothing else can matter if we’re not getting good sleep. And those are all things, looking back five years ago, I wasn’t sleeping well, wasn’t healthy, didn’t have those people that I was actively searching for to reach out to, to be part of my inner circle. And so not only do I do that now, but then I make sure that I’m part of those people’s inner circle as well to hold people accountable and expect them to hold me accountable as well.

Sam Demma
I’m going to start asking people before they enter my circle. Show me your vitamins. Show me your vitamins stack.

Ryan Wamser
It is true. Here’s a little trick that I came up with over Christmas this year. I had a friend of mine who I taught with, and he said, and he retired and he went back and now he’s teaching at a Catholic school because he’s retired from the public school system. And he said the diocese, the Catholic school, gave every teacher a $500 bonus at Christmas time. I was like, man, that’s awesome. That doesn’t happen in the public school system.

Ryan Wamser
It’s not built in to give bonuses. And so I was just pumping them up, telling them how great that was. And he goes, you know what? I called some of my friends that I used to teach with and I was excited about this $500 bonus.

Ryan Wamser
And I just wanted to share with somebody. And he goes, none of them were happy for me. None of them were happy for me. And so it just made me realize like, you know what, so think about that. Now, we’re probably not going to call people that we win the Powerball or the mega jackpot. All your friends. On a small scale, you went 500 bucks at a local raffle or grocery store or something, you know, who would you call and who would be

Ryan Wamser
fired up and excited for you? I mean, that’s something that’s just a little simple thing that I thought of over Christmas, like, who’s going to be there to tell you how great you are and how awesome that is? Or who’s going to make it about themselves? Or flip it around? Man, I wish I had 500 bucks. Well, can you give me five? Give me some of that? No. And that’s just a little something, like who are those people that, like I said, who are those B12 people that are gonna be there to cheer you on?

Sam Demma
I love that frame. It’s such a powerful way to look at connection and relationships and the people we wanna spend more time surrounding ourselves with. I, about a year ago now, was sitting at a restaurant eating dinner before a speaking engagement the next day for 800 high school students for a STEM conference. And I like talking to strangers, especially when I’m traveling alone. So I sat up by the bar and was watching the hockey game. This gentleman was sitting beside me just under his breath saying stuff about the game.

Sam Demma
And I made some funny comments that related to what he was saying. And we start talking and we end up sitting at that bar for four hours. His name’s Ron and he’s now a close friend.

Sam Demma
We talk maybe once every two months over the phone. That was our only interaction in person. And every once in a while, he’ll just call me and share some ideas that he thinks are helpful for the work that I’m doing. Out of the blue, Sam, here’s some ideas for you. And he calls me this one day and he goes, do you got a paper? Grab a piece of paper right now. I’m like, okay, Ron, I’m grabbing some paper. I run over to my desk and I put this paper down and he goes, Sam, think about this as something you could share on stage.

Sam Demma
Every day, our phone rings dozens of times. And throughout the course of our lives, our phone rings thousands or millions of times. And in a split moment, we look at the phone, we look at the name of the person who’s who’s calling us, and we make a decision, do we pick up the phone? Or do we let it ring through to voicemail or hang up? How do you live your life in a way that when your name shows up on someone else’s phone, they always pick it up. And I was like, whoa, this is such a cool idea.

Sam Demma
And while you were talking about those people you can call, I also thought about, you know, how you said, you know, you also wanna be that person for others and would they pick up the phone call and would they be excited to call you? I think is just as powerful as a frame.

Sam Demma
And shout out to Ronald McDougal. Thanks for the thanks for that. And anyway, I’m getting sidetracked a little bit just passionate about that whole idea of making sure that we’re surrounding ourselves with good human beings, and being there to support and celebrate and to answer the call when other people are wanting to support or wanting to be celebrated.

Sam Demma
There are lots of different involvements and developments going on in education. What do you think are some of the big opportunities that exist currently in education?

Ryan Wamser
Well, I think the opportunity is how do we get back this, how do we reframe educations that we’re getting people into the field? I think that’s our biggest, our biggest problem, especially in Illinois is, you know, we lack the numbers of teachers that we need, you know, to fulfill the jobs that we currently have, let alone what’s going to happen in the future. You know, when I first started off as an assistant principal and we’d get a job opening, back when everybody sent paper resumes and packets in, we would have like nine paper box, you know, like copy paper boxes. We’d have like nine paper boxes full of job applicants, you know, just, and now, you know, you’re lucky if you get six people to apply for a job, you know, and so that’s the opportunity I think is, got to go back to, you know, I grew up, like I said, my dad was an educator, all of his friends were educators, I never heard them. Talk, I never I’ve never heard them say anything negative about education negative about their jobs, they love their jobs, they, they always were laughing always were having a great time. You know, they spent all of their free time at school, which means I spent all my free time at school.

Ryan Wamser
And so we have the opportunity now to reframe the fact that yes, it’s not the same as it was in the early 80s education and teaching is, but we have the opportunity. It’s still the greatest profession in the world in my opinion.

Ryan Wamser
And how do we reframe that so that we get away from, well, I don’t want my kids being teachers. I don’t want them being teachers. Oh, you know, and a lot of those people that are saying that are our teachers, you know, that are saying, I don’t want my kids. And so we have the opportunity to reframe that and truly, um, you know, we have to do our best to, to raise up kids that, like me, who the reason why they are who they are is because of their teachers. And I think if we can reframe that, we have the opportunity to truly take back education and get good people back in the field. Because right now it’s a real struggle to recruit and retain people. And I think part of that is, you know, having great leaders, we have to make sure we’re supporting them. We have to make sure we trust them. We have to make sure we give them what they need. And then we have to get out of their way.

Ryan Wamser
And then hold people accountable when we need to. I think that’s part of any good relationship is to hold people accountable because we all want to be held accountable when we need to be. But I think that’s the big opportunity that we have. And I think it’s going to be a make it or break it here in the next couple of years of whether or not we’re going to be able to fulfill these positions.

Sam Demma
It’s the same in Canada. It’s the same among many of the people that I talk to in education right now. It’s one of the reasons I started this podcast was to share the story of educators that are loving the work they’re doing and sharing the journey about how they got there. So I hope that these sorts of conversations play some role in getting some more young people excited about the work. And I appreciate the  intention you have on shifting the conversation. I think it starts with that awareness and that intention. So thank you for the work that you’re doing. Thank you for spending some time here on the podcast today to share about your experiences and philosophies around education and the importance of adult first, or wellness and self development first before before others and other things to talk a little bit about the needs of educators or what it means to succeed in terms of our own well-being and placing that first. I really enjoyed just chopping it up and learning more about you and your journey. And I look forward to meeting again this summer.

Sam Demma
Until then, keep up the amazing work you’re doing. And we’ll talk again soon, right?

Ryan Wamser
Likewise, Sam, I appreciate you. Appreciate everything that you’re doing.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Ryan Wamser

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

May 8, 2025 by Director of Education Educator Superintendent 0

Josh Martin — Principal of Mt. Olive High School

Josh Martin — Principal of Mt. Olive High School
About Josh Martin

Josh Martin is in his first year as principal of Mt. Olive High School in Mt. Olive, Illinois. A dedicated educator, he has been part of the rural Mt. Olive School District since 2009, serving in various roles throughout his 20-year career. Mr. Martin has taught Health, Driver’s Education, and Physical Education, in addition to serving as Student Services Coordinator and Dean of Students.

Passionate about physical activity, he has coached football, baseball, and track, and he continues to lead the middle school track team. He enjoys engaging in type two fun such as hiking the Grand Canyon in one day, completing a half Ironman event, and running 5k/s  to Marathons. Outside of school, Josh enjoys spending time with family and friends. He views every experience as an opportunity for growth, embracing lifelong learning with gratitude for the journey and the meaningful experiences it brings.

Connect with Josh Martin: Email

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Resources Mentioned

Mt. Olive High School

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today we are joined by my new friend and guest, Josh Martin. With two decades of dedicated service and education, including roles as a teacher, coach, and administrator, Josh Martin now leads Mount Olive High School as its principal in rural Illinois.

Sam Demma
His diverse experience spans health, driver’s education, and physical education instruction, while his passion for athletics has seen him coach multiple sports and personally tackle challenges from marathon running to completing a half Ironman. A true believer in lifelong learning, Josh approaches each day as an opportunity for growth, bringing the same determination he uses to conquer the Grand Canyon in a single day to his mission of fostering excellence in education.

Sam Demma
Josh, it is a pleasure to have you on the show here today. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Josh Martin
Well, Sam, I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I’m excited about this.

Sam Demma
Please introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what got you into education.

Josh Martin
Yeah, so like you said, I am a almost two decades. Yeah, this is my 20th year in education. And I would say what got me into education was just life. I went into college thinking that I was gonna go into the medical field, started that route and ended up meeting my wife. And she was going into education. And I ended up through athletics, blowing my knee out and needing to have some surgeries and got to see the medical field and got to meet a bunch of people in the medical field and actually practicing in the area that I had wanted to go into and got to get some feedback and it wasn’t necessarily wonderful, great feedback. So it gave me pause as to like, should I continue to explore this route? And eventually decided, you know what, I wonder if I should go and talk to the guidance counselor at this point. I was in my third year at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and I went in and I had a ton of science and I Was just like I don’t want to start all the way over. What can I do? so they kind of gave me some options and becoming a science teacher was one of those options. And they’re like, so if you want to do that, I was like, well, let’s take that route.

Josh Martin
Let’s see what it’s like. So I took a couple education classes and I actually really, really enjoyed them. And from there decided I didn’t want to be a science teacher. So I was like, well, what other areas and what other passions do I have that I would actually be like excited to teach?

Josh Martin
So that’s where the health came in and the physical education. And they basically were like, hey, if you’re going to get health and PE, you might as well go ahead and get your driver’s ed. So I kind of wrapped them all three and finished up my bachelor’s that way. And I still finished on time, I just took a couple extra summer classes and the rest is history. So it’s been pretty amazing because my wife and I have very similar schedules, which allows us to do a lot of the things we like. We love traveling, so summers are spent traveling. We do a lot of outdoor activities together with our family and our friends. So I think that the entire situation turned out just the way that it was supposed to.

Sam Demma
With such varied experience in different roles, from being a teacher to a coach to an administrator, how have those different experiences shaped or informed the way you think about leadership as a first year principal?

Josh Martin
Yeah, I think the beauty of having multiple or, uh, different points of leadership is it gives you different, uh, like lenses to look through. So you can reframe things. Uh, I think that’s probably the best benefit that I have. And I think the other things that have that’s helped me is you know, I I lead out in other areas of life and I’m a father. So I think every time that you you step into new things you you learn so much more about life and just so much more about yourself and I think learning how to tackle that with some mercy and some grace for yourself. But the biggest part is how do you do that while reframing for others and giving them the empathy and the compassion that we should each day.

Sam Demma
When you think about your experience as a teacher, what are a few of the perspectives you keep in mind or you’ve taken away from those experiences?

Josh Martin
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that being a teacher was making sure that you come in each day kind of fresh, kind of new. I think as a teacher, you got to come in and you got to have like your directives, you got to have your goals and your objectives. But I think when you are thinking about your students, you know, here in Manalo we have a wide range of clientele basically, and you don’t know if that student came in and, you know, they just got in a fight with their parent, or if they got breakfast, or any number of different things, so it’s always, you know, kind of like, is the problem the problem or is something else leading to what we’re now dealing with? And from my perspective, a majority of the time, the problem is not the problem. It’s the thing that happened before the problem.

Josh Martin
And I think if we can get to that and think about that, oftentimes we can solve nearly everything. And it becomes more restorative and more of a learning and growth experience than just a, hey, I need you to act a certain way and be a certain way. And I know you’re not that right now. And I know that you’re not in a space to do it. But I still need you to do it anyway, because they’re gonna look at you like, I can’t do that. I can’t do that as an adult. But I think, you know, luckily I’ve had people in my life that have spoken into my life and said, hey, you need to be able to say at this particular point, I need to pause. I need to step back. I need to reflect. And I think those are the things, if we can get our students to do that, and particularly now that I’m a principal, if I can get my staff to then get their students to do that, it becomes a culture where advocating for yourself and not just like a compliance culture.

Josh Martin
I don’t want a compliance culture, I want a growth culture.

Sam Demma
You’ve had experience as a teacher, also as a coach. I recently interviewed another educator who was an administrator in Indiana. And his name is Mr. Well, Aaron, but his, his students in class would call him Mr. Schmidt.

Sam Demma
And then when he was on the football field, they’d call him coach. And then sometimes they’d walk into his classroom and call him coach and they’d call him Mr. Schmidt on the field. And he was trying to tell people no on, on the field, I’m coaching in classroom. I’m Mr.

Sam Demma
Schmidt. And he said, you know, you get to see a different side of students when you coach and you hold a level of accountability that’s sometimes slightly different than in the classroom. What are some of the perspectives you took away from your time coaching or still continue to live through your time as a coach that you pull into administration or leading others?

Josh Martin
Yeah, I think it’s knowing the leverage points of the people that you’re working with. Because I think of, you know, the different athletes that I’ve coached, some of them, they needed the motivational quotes, they needed the pick me ups. And some of them, you just need to look at them and said, I don’t think you can do this. Because that was the leverage point for them. They’re like, Oh, you’re, oh, you’re calling me out. You don’t think I can do this. And 100% I thought they could do it. And I knew they could do it. But I knew that the leverage point for them was to like set the bar. And they would always rise and meet that bar. And then they would be like, see, I told you. And I’d be like, yeah, you told me, you told me a lot. Perfect example of that is when I became the head football coach here in Mount Olive, actually my second year here in Mount Olive. And I came from a power I spread offense. And when I came to Mount Olive, they have run a traditional wing T formation for generations. And I didn’t really know that much about wing T. I also knew that generationally they had these, farm strong athletes and they, like when I came here, our starting line was like six foot three, averaging 230. They were, you know, throwing bales of hay. They were doing all the things in the summer. But then when I came in, we saw a very different, we saw these smaller statured athletes, but they had speed. So we really wanted to move to a spread offense, but we didn’t want to tell the kids that right off the bat. We wanted them to fight for it. So they came to us and like, we really want to run this. We’re like, oh, we don’t know.

Josh Martin
You’re really going to have to prove that you can do it. And the only way that you can prove that you can do it is in practice going above and beyond. So even though it was exactly what the coaching staff wanted to run, at practice we had to say, I don’t know. We don’t know if this is going to be it. Because it was a leverage point.

Josh Martin
And it gave them ownership. And I think that’s a big key part is, particularly in education is, how do we give kids, how do we give these students leadership opportunities and give them ownership of the school? Because yes, they’re the client, but they are also the person who’s like learning and doing. So ownership

Sam Demma
is huge. The idea of ownership is important when leading a team on a football field or a team of staff in a school building. I think about the team of folks that I work with to do the work we’re doing. And there’s been times where I delegate a task or a responsibility. And sometimes I’ve caught myself jumping in to finish the task or change the task.

Sam Demma
And I then put myself in the shoes of the person I delegated it to. And I think, wow, they probably think I don’t trust them because I’m now doing their work, as opposed to just letting them finish and then having a conversation. That’s been a tough skill for me to learn to allow people to do the work and then have an open conversation about it. When you think about dealing with other people and delegating tasks and just managing others, human beings are so complex. Are there any ideas or principles that you keep, you know, front and center to ensure you do a good job?

Josh Martin
Yeah, I think number one, you gotta look at them as a whole person and not just how they fit into your system. Like, you know, I think about the teachers that work here at Mount Olive High School and I like to know like, okay, you know,

Josh Martin
what are they doing on the weekends? What songs do they like? What drives them? What’s their passion? Like if when you talk about delegating, I don’t want to delegate them into something that they hate. I want to delegate them into something that like provides them energy, like it’s the right space on the bus. And so the way that you, for me, the way that you do that is you got to build a relationship. Just like when you’re the teacher, you build a relationship with your students as a principal. Now you’re building a relationship with your staff.

Josh Martin
And through those relationships, you are able to then not necessarily even have to delegate, but it’s you get to provide the opportunity for those people to lead out in places that they want to lead out. Now, there are times that you have to go in and be like, hey, I really need you to take your attendance. Everyone’s got to do it. There’s some general things,

Josh Martin
hey, we got to get the grades in the grade book. And those are conversations that you can have. But if you’ve built a relationship, those conversations go much more smooth. And most of the time, don’t even become things that either side think are, oh, they’re trying to catch me, or this is a gotcha moment. They’re just like, oh no, I get it. Everybody’s got a boss, and we all have things that we, there are some have tos in various jobs. And I think when you are working in a situation that kind of flows and has some, like, I like toward the use synergy, where we’re all working towards that common goal, but we all get to use our own, like, passion, and we get to bring our own personality to it. That’s when you see the widest net cast and the most people like catch on to it, that’s when you see the widest net cast and the most people like catch on to it.

Sam Demma
You are someone who lives out that philosophy. I mean I can feel it just through this conversation. I love the idea of replacing the idea of delegating with providing opportunities. That is a way more impactful way to look at it. I know that throughout your career, you’ve maintained consistency with coaching the track team. You’ve also pushed yourself athletically outside of the school building, whether it’s hiking the Grand Canyon or doing the Ironman stuff, those physical challenges, what keeps you pursuing them? And what is it about them that excites you?

Josh Martin
I think it’s the unknown. I like, I often at times have been called by family and friends, a workaholic. And that can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. It really depends on how you frame the rest of your life around those situations.

Josh Martin
So when I was doing the Ironman training, I literally went to my wife beforehand and said, this is what I want. Here’s what I think it will take. Are we as a team committed to providing the time for training because this is something that she’s gonna have,

Josh Martin
like she’s my nutritionist, man. She makes sure that I’m fueled well. That also meant that she was, there’s more laundry, there’s more moving of the kids around. And so you really have to think about how is this impacting others and not just my goal,

Josh Martin
because it is my goal, but it also has an impact on her, it has an impact on our family. So I think the big thing is where, what are we doing with like what’s in front of us? And not always just is it me, me, me. It’s a we situation. And some of the beauty of it is, you know, we get to train together.

Josh Martin
So she likes to run. So we get to do some long runs together. How can we, once again, synergy, how can we take the things that we’re all working towards and make them work together? So like when I, when we apply that into the classroom, it’s how can you take a PE class and a science class and find some kind of cross-curricular activity where

Josh Martin
we’re studying kinetic energy. All right, well you can do some stuff in PE, you can collect the data, and then you can decipher it in science, and in science you can go over it. So I think there’s a lot of like crossover, so you know I think that the latest term, I’ve always called it like a cross-section, it’s they call it intersectionality, It’s an intersection. And so how can we deliberately find those intersections and how can we use them so

Josh Martin
that our students or our family members or the people that we care about are like seen? How can we celebrate them? And how can we learn from them? Because I think if we can do those things, we’re gonna like you’re really going to ignite a lot of people and a lot of passion. What third of the triathlon was the most challenging for you to train for? So the most challenging to train for is swimming. And that’s literally because it’s super boring to go and swim miles upon miles in a pool.

Josh Martin
And until you’ve done it, it can be somewhat anxiety. Like I was stressing about swimming in an open water. Particularly because you can’t see the bottom. You know, there’s choppy waves depending on the wind. Also, location. There’s not always places to swim.

Josh Martin
Particularly in Illinois, there’s only so many months out of the year that you can get in the water. So there’s a lot of, you just have to adapt and you have to get over your fears. And you know, there’s, I will be 100% honest. I went to the race. I had done open water swims with a group.

Josh Martin
It was awesome. And I got there and the day before, and I got in the water and I was like, just panic ridden. Because the group was like just panic ridden because The group was like, all right today. We’re gonna swim without our they have like this I wouldn’t call it a floaty but it doesn’t like it’s not on you. It just floats behind you

Josh Martin
It’s an it’s a it’s a safety mechanism and in case well, we weren’t going to swim with it on our practice run And I it freaked me out I had never done it and And it freaked me out. I had never done it. And so I went in the water twice came back out was hyperventilating. And I was like, guys, I have to swim with my floaty. And they’re like,

Josh Martin
that’s fine. And I went out and swam with it. Having that made like I was perfectly fine. And I have no idea what the difference was the next day, other than guess who showed up? My kids. My kids showed up and I was like,

Josh Martin
I want them to see that I can do hard things. Like, and I was able to articulate, I’m worried about this. This has me a little bit nervous. And just to be honest, we’re people of faith. So I was like, let’s pray about it. And so once we walked through that, I was like,

Josh Martin
all right, now I’ve got to step up because I’m not just doing it for me. I have to think about all those hours that they gave up of hanging out, how many hours that my wife made cooking me these meals and making sure that I was fueled well,

Josh Martin
how many loads of laundry did she do that were extra? And just all of the things and you start to realize, all right, this is bigger than me. And it put me in the right head space and I was able to do it. So sometimes it’s just being able to step back and get try to get

Sam Demma
in that right head space. One of the things we read about you is that you know, you view every experience as an opportunity for growth. It sounds like this was one of them. Where did that philosophy or belief originate for you? Because I believe it’s an important one, but sometimes in life it’s so hard to take that perspective, to choose that belief.

Josh Martin
Yeah, I think I got it from my parents, honestly, because I look back and I feel like they worked so hard. Oftentimes, my dad was working two jobs, but he never missed a sporting event. If he wasn’t working, it wasn’t like, oh, I worked a double, so I’m not gonna be there because I’m gonna be asleep.

Josh Martin
He’s like, no, I’m gonna show up. I’m gonna make sure that they know. So it just really helped frame the idea that service and showing up for other people is super important and you know this life you only have a limited time and nobody knows exactly how limited that’s going to be for each person So, you know, get off the couch, be active, show up for people, serve people, let people know that you love them. Like that’s one thing that, you know, I have some very close friends and I make sure that when we leave, I tell them I love them. Give them a hug. It’s just something that I do.

Josh Martin
It’s but I learned that from my parents. And other people are like, I can’t believe you just told that person that you love him. And it’s like, well, I don’t know why I wouldn’t. So it’s just something that I grew up with. It was a part of the culture that I grew up with

Josh Martin
and I fully embrace it and it’s helped me as an adult.

Sam Demma
I just started thinking about Lucas, Cross, Savio, Dylan, some of my closest buddies, who we all, I mean, the first time I said, I love you and hung up the phone, they were like, talk soon, man. And now it’s almost common practice. And I have so much admiration and love for those people in my life and family and cousins and everyone that it you’re right It wouldn’t make sense not to express, you know How I feel especially if that was the last time I ever got a chance to speak to them Like you said, we we don’t really know how much time we have left I’m curious in your life It sounds like your parents have had a massive impact on your philosophy and the way you carry yourself. Were there any other teachers or educators or coaches who significantly influenced you growing up?

Josh Martin
Oh my gosh, the list is, it’s a long list. I mean, I think about, you know, once I decided to go into education, I, there were some people that I tried to model myself after because they didn’t even know it, but the impact that they had and the ability for me to reflect back and be like, this person made me feel this way, I want to replicate that.

Josh Martin
My elementary school gym teacher, Ms. Shehorn, she was awesome. Every day was exciting and new to come into the PE room. And I mean, I was an adult before I ever thought, you know what I want to do? I want to do that. But her impact traveled, you know, 20 years. And I never even got to tell her because I didn’t know her as an adult, but she had an impact. And I think about that like the ripple effect like you don’t know

Josh Martin
What what that I love you could mean to somebody and how the ripple effect is But you also don’t know what the good morning and a smile at the front door each tomorrow Just letting them know that all right, but guess what? I’m willing to sit with you and listen and be okay with you.

Sam Demma
I think about some of the educators and people in my life who went above and beyond to make me feel good about myself. And I have a hard time thanking them sometimes. I feel like it’s never enough. So I appreciate you sharing, just taking the time today to share some of your experiences, your beliefs around education, share a little bit about the importance of the perspectives you took away from coaching and teaching and how it impacts the way you think about administration and leadership, the difference between delegation and providing opportunities. This was a rich conversation with lots of ideas. And I just want to say thank you so much for sharing some of your time.

Josh Martin
Well Sam I really appreciate you having me on and I think it goes back to we had you here at the school earlier this year and I think your message of service really resonated. And we ended up having an appreciation service day where students went into small groups and they did various service projects throughout the community. And we wrote Christmas cards for the nursing home.

Josh Martin
We had a group that literally walked down main street and picked all the trash up. We had groups that were willing to do cleaning that like a deep cleaning of various areas of the school. We had kids that went down into the elementary and read books to the elementary students. So it was really exciting to see how they took a message and then

Josh Martin
they were able to take it in, put it into their own frame, put their own hands on the wheel, and then like start steering that a little bit. It was really exciting. Oh man, I had no idea.

Sam Demma
So I appreciate you sharing that. That’s, um, that’s awesome. And, and keep up all the amazing work you’re doing. Uh, keep shoveling the snow and, uh, we’ll catch you again sometime in the, in the spring.

Josh Martin
All right, Sam. Appreciate you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Josh Martin

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

May 6, 2025 by Educator Principals 0

Jacqueline Butler — Deputy Head of Student Life and Wellbeing at Holy Trinity School

Jacqueline Butler — Deputy Head of Student Life and Wellbeing at Holy Trinity School
About Jacqueline Butler

Meet Jacqueline Butler—an educator, leader, and lifelong learner who’s passionate about redefining what school can be. As the Deputy Head of Student Life and Wellbeing at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill, Canada, Jacqueline has spent the past 22 years fostering a learning environment that connects students with their passions, their well-being, and the world around them.

Her journey has taken her from the science lab to the gymnasium, always with a focus on creating meaningful, human-centred learning experiences. Right now, she’s working on integrating student life with academics, helping students develop the skills and mindsets they need to be changemakers in an ever-evolving world. She believes that in a world where humans are increasingly falling out of relationship with each other and the natural world, school needs to be a place that is based in community, where students discover, connect, grow, and take risks—without fear of judgment.

When she’s not thinking about the future of education, you can find Jacqueline hiking, skiing, or taking in a peaceful waterfront view with her husband, son and daughter. A former Queen’s University basketball player, she still finds joy in coaching, with a focus on teamwork, and inspiring young athletes to commit to something bigger than themselves.

Connect with Jacqueline Butler: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Holy Trinity School

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host Sam Demma and today we are joined by Jacqueline Butler. As deputy head of student life and well being at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill, Jacqueline has dedicated 22 years to reimagining education through a human centered lens. Her journey from science teacher to educational leader reflects her commitment to creating learning environments where students can discover their passions, develop as change makers, and build meaningful connections with their community and the natural world.

Sam Demma
A former Queens University basketball player turned coach, and she’s still got moves y’all, Jacqueline brings her passion for teamwork and personal growth to every aspect of her work while balancing her professional dedication with family, time spent hiking, skiing, and enjoying waterfront views with her husband and children. Jacqueline, it is a privilege and pleasure to have you on the show here today. Thank you so much for being here.

Jacqueline Butler
Thank you for having me. I was listening to some past episodes and you keep very good company, so I’m very honored to have been asked and to be here, spend time with you, Sam.

Sam Demma
I can’t wait to dive in. Can you please start by introducing yourself and just sharing a little bit about why you got into education?

Jacqueline Butler
So, so yeah, so I have been, um, a for, that’s been my whole career. And I graduated from university and took an adventure overseas to London and England to do some teaching over there, and then made my way back over to HTS and I’ve been here ever since.

Jacqueline Butler
So a really, really long time, had an early adventure, but I know a lot of people, you know, move around in their career, but I have found a place that I feel like I really belong and that I love so much. And so that’s me and kind of my little story, but I got into teaching really because I wasn’t ready to grow up yet. That’s how it started actually. And that I, all the things that I loved doing, in my youth, I felt like I could continue to do those things as an educator, and a sort of positive role model for for other young people. So, you know, I come to work every day, and I still get to sing out loud in chapel. I still get to play in the gym, whether I’m teaching or coaching. I still get to go on trips. I still get to do all of the things that I used to love to do as a kid, except just in a different role as the adult in the room now. So that’s how I got started in education.

Sam Demma
Tell me more about what brought you overseas at the start of your career.

Jacqueline Butler
So I was a student obviously in Teachers College and there were schools coming over to Queens to do some interviews. They’re doing their recruiting and I knew I was going to be in the workforce coming up really soon. And so I thought I better get some practice. So I signed up for these interviews because I’d never had a professional interview yet. And I thought this would be a great idea. So I went and sat down

Jacqueline Butler
and had some really amazing conversations with some other educators from around the world. And I never once considered that, you know a job offer would be on the table, but sure enough, it was. And then all of a sudden it was just, why not? So I really never had a plan to do it, but when the opportunity was presented to me, I didn’t have a reason not to do it. So off I went.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. Some of my favorite memories are from my own childhood experience of traveling to Italy for six months. And I think that earlier in any career, it’s such a valuable experience to gather different perspectives from different communities around the globe. It helps shift our perspectives and have more of a holistic view on things. You’ve been in education now, you know, 22 years.

Sam Demma
How has your vision of what school can be? How has that evolved? Oh, yeah, how’s that evolved over the years?

Jacqueline Butler
Well, it’s interesting, I’ve been in the game a little bit longer than that, actually, not that I want to date myself, but it’s just I’ve been at HTS for 22 years. But I think that when I was younger, I felt very much like I needed to stick to the script, right? Like I was very much focused on the curriculum standards and ticking the boxes and getting done what I needed to get done. And as I’ve grown and matured and become more in tune with what my students need or the students need. I’ve been able to focus on them more as people and individuals and young growing minds and souls and spirits to be able to actually meet them where they are as opposed to like having a set goal in mind. So for me, that has been the major shift in terms of, yes, just maybe taking the curriculum standards a little more seriously when you were younger and growing into a more holistic educator that’s really, really concerned with the whole child, which can take you down many different paths, oftentimes a different path, many different times in the same day. And being the whole child being the center of what education is and what it can be, as opposed to a set path.

Sam Demma
How do you build a connection with a student to the point where you really truly understand their needs? Sometimes it feels like certain educators connect really well with their students and others want to, but struggle to do so. What do you think some of the principles are to build those connections?

Jacqueline Butler
I think that there’s probably many different answers to that question because there’s, you know, many different personalities, many different connection points for different students and the other adults in the room. But for myself personally, I always connect back to the why. Like, you know, why am I in this? Why am I doing this? And the answer is always the same. The answer is always I’m doing this for them. So if that’s in fact the case, then I can’t really get too far down the road unless I know them. So it’s about the relationship building. It’s about the questions that you’re asking.

Jacqueline Butler
It’s about caring enough to know what matters, what matters to each individual person, understanding their goals, understanding their challenges. And the really, really, really important piece, I think, is finding a way to get each student to know themself first. And taking that coaching stance in terms of helping each individual learn who they are,

Jacqueline Butler
what makes them tick, not what they wanna be when they grow up, but what they want to spend their life doing.

Sam Demma
It makes me think of some educators I’ve had that really got to know me on a personal level and understand what I was passionate about outside of their classrooms, to the point where they would teach a lesson and at the end of the lesson say,

Sam Demma
Sam, for you, this means X, And Jacqueline, for you and your passions, this lesson means X. And it just felt so personalized, despite the fact that there was another 30 students in the class. And I’ll never really forget those specific moments.

Sam Demma
Sometimes young people put a lot of pressure on themselves with so many different expectations and goals and dreams and things going on in the world. How do you think we balance that healthy ambition in a student with the challenge of them putting so much pressure on themselves these days?

Jacqueline Butler
There is a lot of pressure. It might be a cop-out, but my answer is a little bit the same. It’s just in the sense that until you really know and understand yourself, you could be tempted to be trying to do a whole bunch of different things for different people or different things for different outcomes that don’t necessarily connect with your own personal passions and your own personal you know desires and on top of that if you don’t really know yourself yet it’s really hard to know where you want to go. So in that in that sense I think it’s it’s just super important that

Jacqueline Butler
students are staying true to themselves, that they’re doing the hard work, the self-reflection, the self-awareness, they’re focused on what it means to be a good human, a good citizen of the world, and then you layer in, you know, your interests and your passions and maybe a way to make money somehow in there along the way. But staying true to yourself, I think is the key to that because then you can sort of cut the noise out, right?

Jacqueline Butler
And not have to feel like you have to be everything to everybody at the same time.

Sam Demma
One of the things you’re helping students be at HTS is change makers. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it means to be a change maker and how we foster those characteristics and skills in, in students?

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah, I think, um, in one context, a changemaker connects directly with the word impact. And if you’re able to make an impact, and that impact can be at the local level, you know, maybe in your own class, or your own school, or you can extend that impact out to the community, you can go further, and, you know, into a different country or whatever the case may be. But I think to be a changemaker means that you’ve identified an issue,

Jacqueline Butler
that you’ve learned and understood the issue, that you’ve created empathy for the people that are being affected by the issue. And then you have dedicated your time, effort and energy to find out what the need actually is not what you think the need is, but but what the need actually is. And then you put a plan in place to make a change or make a difference.

Jacqueline Butler
So I think finding opportunities and experiences that give students the skills to be able to take those steps is what it means to be a changemaker because it can be in any field, in any place. There’s no limit to what it means to be a changemaker.

Sam Demma
One of the things I noticed at HTS, every student says hello, waves, smile on their face, looking for opportunities to help each other, eat lunch with each other. Tell me more about how the school staff is intentional about building that culture of inclusion and belonging and kindness and respect and how another school may borrow some of those ideas to try and build

Jacqueline Butler
that culture within their community. So I feel like we have a really strong community at HTS and I at the same time, I’m comfortable saying that we’re on a journey and we have some growth to do in that area as well. I think we do place a lot of value on the concept of belonging. I think we we put the right vocabulary in place and we create opportunities to come together in community, which obviously fosters those relationships. And this may be a little off topic, but I think one of the biggest challenges

Jacqueline Butler
that everybody’s facing right now is that people are falling out of relationship with themselves, they’re falling out of relationship with other people and they’re falling out of relationship with the earth. And there’s a lot happening out there in the world that makes it easy for that to happen. And so I think our jobs in a school like HTS where we really do value that community and those connections and those relationships is that you have to be very intentional. Now, more I think than ever before in teaching those skills, like there’s skills connected to it. And I think, you know, for a long time, you kind of gloss over that these

Jacqueline Butler
things are happening and people are showing the signs and symptoms of belongingness and togetherness. But if we don’t focus on being intentional in terms of what we talk about, how we talk, bringing people such as yourself into our community to speak about what it means to show up in a relationship and be a positive member of a relationship, then I think we miss opportunities to really like instill those values and skills.

Sam Demma
Tell me more about the falling out of relationship with the world, the natural world. I would love to dive into that for a moment.

Jacqueline Butler
Oh man, I wish I had the answer, like, you know, this is an area for myself that, you know, causes me a little bit of internal discomfort or stress. So I think in my in my learnings and readings, as they call it the the meta crisis,

Jacqueline Butler
right, the breakdown of the interconnectedness of global systems, you know, with technology, science, information, the environment, economics, psychology, culture, politics, all these things. It’s very complicated, like it’s beyond my sort of scope of obviously fully understanding, but I can tell you that I can definitely feel it.

Jacqueline Butler
So I mean, some professional communities that I’m a part of, finding pockets of people who notice this falling out of relationship, who are open to talk about it, and who feel strongly about doing something about it, I think that’s kind of where I find a little bit of inner peace around it. But it is a major challenge that our young people have to confront, come face to face with, because, yeah, things are changing, things are different. And again, that’s why the role of us as educators is so critical.

Jacqueline Butler
Because what are we doing? What skills are we instilling? What things are we teaching and talking about that will prepare young people to be able to deal with, you know, these changes, the potential chaos, collapse, whatever you want to call it. So like, we have a really, really big, important role to play in all of this. And so, you know, I think specifically at HTS, we are really working hard to

Jacqueline Butler
potentially disrupt the way education looks and the way that we interact with our students, moving towards more of a mentorship model with our students so that they have that close relationship and we’re building in the skills in a set kind of plan, a set plan that meets the students where they are and gives them the skills that they need to be able to meet these challenges in the future.

Sam Demma
Like skill-based learning versus subject-based learning.

Jacqueline Butler
Yes, or learning the skills through a subject and being more interdisciplinary and having learning experiences with people that are not all the same age as you, you know, that are not all talking about the same subject at the same time, but really having opportunities

Jacqueline Butler
with internships and capstones and all of the different projects and programs that we’re exploring here at HDS, but to create a more like holistic, human-centered version of education that breaks down the silos and creates learning opportunities that are more authentic to us as a human being. Again, we

Jacqueline Butler
kind of school… It’s not natural in the sense of if you think of experiences where you’ve had your most authentic learning, you probably weren’t, everybody that you were with wasn’t the same age as you talking about the exact same topic as you in a room. It probably didn’t feel like that. So, how can we recreate learning opportunities that really feel more authentic to what it means to have positive learning out in the

Jacqueline Butler
world.

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah.

Sam Demma
What other things would you re-imagine in a school, you know, if you could disrupt education as a whole? Are there other things that you think would be places you’d start? Yeah, I’m curious what other things you think should, could be disrupted in the next couple of years and kind of need to be in some ways.

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah. Again, it’s a, it’s who can predict it, right? Like who can predict exactly what’s going to happen. But, um, you know, we know that technology is a game changer. We know that we can use it for good and we can use it for bad. But I think we have to separate ourselves from the concept of the four walls, right, of a building that if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s able to send students out into the world to do their internships to do their projects and, you know, be able to get their credits while doing other things at the same time. these constructs that we think must be true in order to, I’m using air quotes here, I know we’re an audio only, but to do school.

Jacqueline Butler
So yeah, that we need to kind of just look beyond what we’ve come to expect or accept as what school is.

Sam Demma
When you think of your own educational experience, can you identify a few mentors or caring adults that had a big impact on you? And if so, what did those specific individuals do for you that made all the difference?

Jacqueline Butler
So therein lies the lesson, right? So here I am talking about how, you know, the constructs of school maybe don’t serve us as human beings, but at the end of the day, I have had amazing experiences in school, just the way that it is now. And the interesting thing is because of the relationships. So that will never change, right?

Jacqueline Butler
You mentioned it as well. The power of the relationships with you that you have with other people is like the number one indicator of happiness.

Jacqueline Butler
Right?

Jacqueline Butler
The more positive relationships you have in your life, the happier you’re going to be. Even when there’s crap. You know what I mean? Like even when things are rough, if you have positive relationships and the same is true with school,

Jacqueline Butler
like if you have those positive relationships around you, you can still accomplish all these wonderful things. So, for me personally, I had coaches in high school, I had coaches in high school, I had coaches in university. The difference for me was that it was about me. Like they wanted to know what my goals were.

Jacqueline Butler
What do you want to accomplish? What matters to you? What’s challenging you these days? How can I be helpful? So to me, again, just having that personalized connection with somebody who has your best interest at heart

Jacqueline Butler
is a difference maker in terms of how you’re gonna be successful. So if you know that somebody is caring about you, if you know if somebody knows what your goals are and where you wanna be and is there to support you and guide you, you have that person that you can go to

Jacqueline Butler
that you can ask the questions. I think that’s what makes the big difference, yeah.

Sam Demma
You mentioned coaches and I know that athletics have played a large part of your entire life. How has your background in athletics and coaching influenced your approach to educational leadership and student development?

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah, it’s really about the people working towards a common goal.

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah. It’s about the people working towards a common goal.

Jacqueline Butler
It’s about putting others ahead of self. It’s about, you know, you have to practice as hard as you want to play, right? So, you know, what do you, what do you, right? What are you doing when you’re not in the big game to enable you to deserve to win the big game is really important.

Jacqueline Butler
It’s a little off topic, but I saw something recently that I really loved and it’s so simple. The person’s name is Dr. Becky. Now, I’m sure she has a last name, but it wasn’t shared. She’s from Duke.

Jacqueline Butler
She’s from Duke. And her concept of the difference or the space between not knowing something and knowing something, right? Being pure frustration, right? The difference between when you don’t know something

Jacqueline Butler
and you do something is filled with frustration. It’s uncomfortable, it’s hard. And then you get to the point of where you know it and you have this huge sense of accomplishment. So it’s the same with sport, right? You’re not doing well and then you are doing well.

Jacqueline Butler
What happened in between? That’s the magic, right? And the skill that we need to put in place, whether it be athletics or education, is this concept that she calls frustration tolerance. And I thought, oh my goodness, like that is so simple, yet so amazing. So if we can, you know, help young people or old people, any, any to stay to the course through the frustration. The more that we can practice frustration tolerance, the more successful we will be

Jacqueline Butler
in terms of reaching our goals and getting to where we want to be when the going gets tough. So I think whether you’re talking about athletics, whether you’re talking about, you know, academics or education, how can you stay the course? How can you stick with something when you know it’s hard? Some people call it resilience, some people call it grit,

Jacqueline Butler
but the real skill of it is how do you live in that uncomfortable space between not knowing something and knowing something and have the skill to be tolerant through frustration?

Sam Demma
I think it’s such a cool way to look at growth. One of my friends always said, Sam, I hope you find something to struggle well on. It made me think of that. Life is about choosing things worth struggling for. And then it’s how much can we struggle? How frustrated can we, how much can we tolerate before we make a decision to try something else or keep moving forward? So I love that idea. And Dr. Becky from Duke, last name that we don’t know, we appreciate you.

Jacqueline Butler
We appreciate you. I loved it.

Sam Demma
This has been such a lovely conversation about what it means to build a relationship with a young person. Some of your insights that you’ve pulled from athletics and coaching and how, you know, how has you like looking through a lens in education, the importance of building community and some of the disruptions that may happen in education in the future.

Sam Demma
And that relationships are still at the center of all the work that we do in a school building and how important those are. I really appreciate your time and the work that you’re doing at HTS. I hope it continues for a very long time. Keep up the amazing work. You’re helping lots of young people and I look forward to crossing paths again soon.

Jacqueline Butler
Thank you, Sam. It’s been a pleasure.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Jacqueline Butler

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

May 1, 2025 by Educator Student Leadership Student Success Student-Centered Leadership Wellness Coordinator 0

Helen Pereira-Raso – Head of School at Holy Trinity School

Helen Pereira-Raso – Head of School at Holy Trinity School
About Helen Pereira-Raso

Helen Pereira-Raso is the Head of School at Holy Trinity School, a highly progressive and innovative Canadian Independent School located in Richmond Hill, ON. In her role as Head of School at Holy Trinity School (HTS) Helen brings a forward-thinking, progressive approach to education that is the foundation for HTS’s reputation as leaders in learning.

Helen’s career as an educational leader has always focused on what matters most — developing a school culture in which all learners, adult and young alike, are able to explore, create and learn in meaningful ways. She is committed to professional learning as essential in the journey of educators and has led workshops globally. 

A visionary leader, Helen has been instrumental in building the HTS Learning Network, an ecosystem that is dedicated to learners, adult and young, experiencing relevant, personalized and meaningful learning experiences. Her leadership and innovative approaches, combined with her passion and commitment to developing learning environments that inspire all learners, are what drive her life’s work. 

Connect with Helen Pereira-Raso: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Holy Trinity School

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. And today we have a very special guest. Today’s guest is the head of school at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill. Helen Pereira-Raso has established herself as a visionary leader in progressive education, championing a culture where both students and adults can explore, create, and learn meaningfully.

Sam Demma
Her creation of the HTS Learning Network demonstrates her commitment to building educational ecosystems that prioritize personalized, relevant learning experiences. A globally recognized educator, Helen’s forward-thinking approach and dedication to professional development has positioned Holy Trinity School as a leader

Sam Demma
in innovative education. Helen, thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to be on the show today. I’m honored to have you.

Helen Pereira-Raso
It’s so wonderful to be with you here again, Sam, and to be in conversation with you. It’s always a joy and learning from you. Love every minute of it.

Sam Demma
Please introduce yourself and tell the educator listening a little bit about the reasons you got into education in the first place.

Helen Pereira-Raso
My story is, oh, my journey into education might be a little bit different than most. People often talk about the love that they had, the most amazing teachers they’ve had that inspired them into education. And for sure, I’ve had some incredible educators in my journey, but it wasn’t the impetus for me to get into education.

Helen Pereira-Raso
So I have taught both in the public system here in Ontario in my 25 year journey and counting, I’m not anywhere near retiring or ever wanna retire. 25 years, both started in the public system in Dufferin Peel and then moved into the independent school system.

Helen Pereira-Raso
And so I’ve had the honor of teaching in both of our systems here in Ontario and learning in each of them. And the reason I got into education was because I had a teacher who used to tell me that I was going to amount to nothing. And that is something that has stuck with me till this ripe old age that I will not disclose at this time. But it really was something that impacted me. I think I went through an

Helen Pereira-Raso
elementary school journey where teachers, just the teachers that I had in my life were inspiring, were supportive. As an immigrant to this school, to this country, I started school not speaking English, and I don’t ever remember feeling different or not feeling supported or cared for. And so that was my elementary school journey where I felt like I thrived and I had support and I believed in myself and had confidence. And then I got to high school and high school is always a little bit messier. And we personally go through lots of things, relationships, friendships, understanding yourself. But in that moment, you know, for me,

Helen Pereira-Raso
that journey was filled with also some educators who weren’t the kindest, I would say today, but at that time was normalized. And it left an impact on me at a time that I was perhaps most vulnerable and questioning what was I going to do with my life. It was grade 11 when this all happened and I’ll never forget it. And so I promised myself that as I started to go and to explore what my career options were going to be, I volunteered back at my high school when I was in university.

Helen Pereira-Raso
I volunteered at a law firm because I thought I’m either going to be a lawyer or I’m going to be a teacher. which one is it? And in that journey, I came to discover that I wanted to teach, I wanted to be the teacher that no kid ever felt that they were alone because of me. And so that’s really been what’s guided me,

Helen Pereira-Raso
what’s been my sense of purpose is that I will always be here to make sure kids know that they belong and that they’re worth it and they have everything they need within them to thrive and succeed with the right people around them to build them up.

Sam Demma
There’s a speaker named Josh Shipp and he says every student is one caring adult away from being a success story. And I could not agree more that the words of a caring adult can build us up or completely tear us down. And sometimes we forget about that latter section of that statement. The words that we choose to use and the actions we take impact the thoughts other people have and their emotions and as a result, their actions and outcomes.

Sam Demma
And it’s funny. I there’s a, there’s a moment in my career when I was 20 years old, where I made a decision not to join a specific agency. And the owner of the agency told me, Mark, this day down is the best or worst decision you ever made in your entire life. And it was someone that I flew to the US to meet

Sam Demma
and bought their books and programs and took their courses. And I remember how much self doubt I experienced. And it was not only someone I aspired to be like, it was someone I wanted to work with. And I spent a couple of months really doubting

Sam Demma
my abilities and myself. And then one day I woke up and I grabbed a marker and I opened the calendar and I put, I went back to the date and I wrote down best decision you ever made. And I had this little chip on my shoulder for a few years. And it sounds like that was something that drove you to, I’m curious did you in those moments how did you how did you deal with those emotions in that experience?

Helen Pereira-Raso
You know it probably not in the best way I was 17 years old yeah you can only imagine that you know in that moment I’m I truly that that teacher, the intentions behind their words wasn’t what I made meaning of. I truly believe that. But what we sometimes lose sight of that I can reflect on now is that, and it’s just as you said, Sam, our words matter and they matter more than we actually might think.

Helen Pereira-Raso
And so I made meaning that here’s somebody that I respect. It was one of my favorite classes. So like you, I’m like, what? And how could this teacher say this about me?

Helen Pereira-Raso
I love her class. I love her.

Helen Pereira-Raso
What’s going on?

Helen Pereira-Raso
Where’s the disconnect here? And I don’t actually believe that this was about her. It was a moment about me. The meaning I made from her words was that I wasn’t good enough. And that started with my own self-doubt. And I didn’t realize in that moment.

Helen Pereira-Raso
So it became a lot of, I skipped her class, stopped going, I don’t want to deal with her, I was flippant. And so my frustrations with her words and what I understood her to say about me or to the judgments she passed on me was to just be defensive and not, you know, not engage in my own self-reflection at that time. But years later, the beautiful thing is that we do get the chance to reflect no matter how long

Helen Pereira-Raso
it takes us. And so, you know, in my journey now and as I, you know, I’ve told this story before to students that, you know, you think I got into teaching because yes, I love young people and I love being around them. They are my greatest inspiration. Like there’s not a bad day when you’re with a young person. There’s always something that inspires you. But my journey started from a place where somebody really didn’t think that I was good

Helen Pereira-Raso
enough, that I respected. But what I’ve come to understand is that’s exactly what I needed for me to truly do the self-dig, that self-work to say, actually, you can do this. Why are you letting her words impact you like this? That’s on you. That’s on you.

Helen Pereira-Raso
She’s moved on. She’s got other classes now. What she said is not even on her radar. This was on me. And so I think it took me a few years. It took me time to be away from it,

Helen Pereira-Raso
to finally realize actually that was a moment that was a catalyst to do my self-work that I hadn’t necessarily been provoked to do in the same way.

Sam Demma
A lot of students deal with the self-doubt without the additional words of others that they look up to telling them they can’t do something. Once you got into education, how did you practically build belief in young people? What are the things you could do in the classroom or what are

Sam Demma
the things you did do to make sure that young people knew, you know, you are supported here, you are welcomed and you are enough.

Helen Pereira-Raso
I listened. I didn’t come into my classes, both as a teacher and as a leader, assuming I knew what they needed. I had lots of conversations. I continue to have conversations. I ask their input.

Helen Pereira-Raso
I encourage them to be part of decision-making. When I started this career in a community that probably taught me my greatest lessons, students that were torn between gangs, that were in and out of jail, and bright, beautiful human beings, all of them,

Helen Pereira-Raso
where they were in their journeys and how they were showing up in my class and in the world and bright, beautiful human beings, all of them.

Helen Pereira-Raso
Where they were in their journeys and how they were showing up in my class and in the world was just different for each of them. And in that time, I remember teaching a history class and I was taught, I was about to teach World War I and a kid at the back of the class turned to me and he was like, what the bleep are you teaching me about this war? I’ve got my own war to deal with on the street

Helen Pereira-Raso
and I stopped because I’m like what? And he’s like do you think I care what happened in the 1920s and 30s like that is so irrelevant what I want me to talk want to talk about war come hang out with me on the street one day.” And I’m like, oh my, oh my God. And that was not anywhere in my lessons, but what that taught me in that moment was, Helen, maybe the curriculum needs to look a little bit different. Maybe actually I could talk about what some of the things that happen in war, what drives

Helen Pereira-Raso
us to build alliances, what drives us to join gangs, what drives us to, you know, military up through the stories of my students, because I can draw connections. Because in that moment, it didn’t matter what I had to teach him, it actually was irrelevant because of the life experiences he was going through. I taught geography through skateboarding.

Helen Pereira-Raso
We looked at urban planning through skateboard parks. Where do you put them? How do you put them? Because the moment, what I needed to realize in that moment is if I don’t know my students, what I’m doing there doesn’t actually matter. Because my work is to help them understand and make sense of the world, their world.

Helen Pereira-Raso
Yes, the curriculum is a vehicle, but it’s actually just about showing up for them. And so I let them know that they matter through listening. I let them know that they matter through incorporating their stories and their experiences in my lessons. I taught religion using Tupac’s poems because that’s what mattered to them. And it forever changed me. And so today we have all of these theories in education around making learning personal, making sure that it’s personalized for the students,

Helen Pereira-Raso
meet them where they are. I got a hard lesson first year, 23 years old, teaching. My students taught me that before anybody was talking about it as pedagogy and the future of education and how we should be. My students taught me that when they said to me, pay attention to me and my story, not what’s in your textbook. That’s how you let them know they matter. That’s how you let them know that you’re there for them.

Helen Pereira-Raso
When you show up the next day and you’re like, you guys haven’t had lunch. Okay. I’ve got you there snacks here. If you need anything, come get them as you need them. You can always come into my classroom. You can always come into my office.

Helen Pereira-Raso
Do you need a minute? Let’s take a walk. When you hear them, when you feel them, when you know that, you know, they’re in your class and they’re just not the way you’ve come to know them and the way they’ve been, and you pause for a moment to recognize that, then they know you’ve got their back. And there’s not a single child who doesn’t deserve that from all of us in this profession.

Sam Demma
What a powerful lesson to learn at such a young age in the profession and carry forward with you.

Helen Pereira-Raso
Forever. They changed me forever. They made me better. Those first five years of my life at that school made me the best human being and the best teacher I could possibly be. Can you tell me more about the journey up until now,

Sam Demma
the different schools you were a part of and the roles you played? Yeah. So I started as a geography civics poly sci high school

Helen Pereira-Raso
teacher. I’m trained in high school grades 4th right through to grade 12, but spent most of my time working in high school, especially in the public system. And in this first school that I taught everything that we were assigned. You’re a first year teacher, and your first five years of teaching whatever anybody gives you a job, and you’re happy about it, and you work your butt off, and you know you’re better for it.

Helen Pereira-Raso
And then throughout that journey, I thought I coached, I made sure that I could be part of supporting my students, all of that. And then in that journey, I became a better person for my kids, not my kids, sorry, for the students that I’m a part of. And so my first year, my first five years, I was a school out in Brampton, and I really got,

Helen Pereira-Raso
I always say that that school taught me how to be the best teacher to students. It was such a beautiful, diverse community, students coming from all kinds of experiences, all faiths, traditions, customs, point of views, and life experiences, some very privileged and some not so privileged. And in that mix, those students helped me listen, learn to listen, learn to make connections that

Helen Pereira-Raso
were meaningful to their life, and help me set a foundation for what it meant to be a great educator. I transferred to a new school that was just starting up north of Brampton. And in that journey as being part of a founding team of teachers, it’s always exciting

Helen Pereira-Raso
that you get to shape the school, shape the culture. It’s a brand new building. We were in a warehouse for the first few years. We got to our beautiful new building. It was like, whoa, this place is so cool. But there I had the opportunity to transition into a role as a student success leader, a

Helen Pereira-Raso
teacher at the school. And I got to work with students who are at risk of not graduating, and to mentor them and work closely with them towards their graduation pathway while also teaching classes. And so that coaching opportunity to work one-on-one with students and families to help them find their success and different academic pathways that would allow them to get to graduation, you know, really opened up my eyes to the different ways students can actually be successful and there’s not one path in school. I lived far from that school in North Brampton and while I was on maternity leave I had an opportunity to then transition to a school here in Toronto, an independent school in

Helen Pereira-Raso
Toronto and it was the first time that I taught in an all-girls community and so that was amazing. So it was my first independent school and there, the thing that I always say that changed me about coming into the independent school system is I learned how to be a professional in my craft. Learned how to do research, I learned how to, you know, how to really get good at, you know, different teaching strategies, resources, professional development, so much was invested in me to

Helen Pereira-Raso
be excellent at my craft. And so the level of professionalism that I brought changed from the on-the-ground grassroots work of being in the classroom in the public system. So I had access to this amazing amount of resources. Our students were so motivated. You know, the same diversity, same experiences, but there was more homogeneity in their life experiences and the supports that

Helen Pereira-Raso
they had and the resources they had. But the thing is, is that kids still can feel depression, exclusion, isolation, all of those things, no matter where you are in life or what your background is or social economic status is, all of those human experiences are still real for every single child. And so the work that I brought from learning and working with students who have had such difficult challenges and obstacles in life that taught me about resilience, that taught

Helen Pereira-Raso
me about perseverance when things were so tough. That’s the thing that they taught me the most. I was able to bring some of that coaching and mentoring to our students who had resources, who had privilege, but still were suffering and needed that support. And so that’s, as I transitioned to the independent school there, I started as a classroom teacher, moved into leadership, and then in my leadership started working more with,

Helen Pereira-Raso
although still teaching, which is so important, I got to work more with the adults and working with our teachers on their journey and how they can show up and be the best for every child that’s in their classroom and diversify their lessons

Helen Pereira-Raso
and think about how their work is meaningful to their own students in different ways. And then eventually from that leadership role, I then moved into a systems leadership role in the independent school system as a head of school, which is the current role I have now, which allows me to really make some important decisions and set vision and strategy for the school we want to be, and work with our staff and our students and our families and our board on really setting clear

Helen Pereira-Raso
strategic goals and vision and values that align with who we aspire to be and how we’re going to meet children, young people in their lives. I always have to correct myself on the children beat because they’re not all children. Just how we meet young people in their lives and how do we provide, you know, the best learning experience for them regardless of where they people in their lives and how do we provide the best learning experience for them regardless of where they are in their learning pathway

Helen Pereira-Raso
because everybody deserves that. And so that journey, my journey has taken me to that role now. And that’s where I am in a very, very privileged place as a systems leader to enact policies that support students and give them the tools and the resources they need

Helen Pereira-Raso
to thrive and to mentor and coach educators to be the best for themselves, but also for those that they serve, because our work is of service to others. And as you’ve said very, very often, and as I’ve gotten to hear you speak a few times now,

Helen Pereira-Raso
you have to take care of yourself so that you can give all of yourself to someone else. And so that work is so important to kind of unpack where you are and who you are and how you’re showing up in order to be the best, not only for you, but for those in your care and your stewardship.

Helen Pereira-Raso
So that’s where my journey has taken me. And I’ve always said, educators are the stewards of humanity. And we are, in fact, actually. We are shaping humanity for generations. And so if that work doesn’t matter, I don’t know what does actually. The work is the most important work.

Sam Demma
And I was speaking to another educator recently who told me that there’s been a shortage in their district of teachers. And he said, we have to find a way to reframe education so that more people get involved and excited about it but it is so clear that your passion and excitement is shining right through during this interview and I know that any school or young person or staff

Sam Demma
member that you interact with and touch is left better than when you found them. I’m curious when it comes to your own personal development and professional development, what are a few of the things that have been incredibly valuable for you that another educator listening may look into themselves if they want to continue improving their craft and just showing up better for themselves and the students that they teach?

Helen Pereira-Raso
I would say there’s three things that are really, that have left, you know, leave me in a place where I’m constantly in a learning mode. Your mindset is everything. And so for me, it’s working on being reflective. Whatever information I get daily, I try to make sense of it. What does that mean for me?

Helen Pereira-Raso
What could I have done differently? How could I have showed up differently? Even if it’s not about me, it is about me when we’re in community. There’s a collectiveness to our work. And so how could I have showed up differently?

Helen Pereira-Raso
So being a reflective practitioner, having the tools to ask yourself the hard questions. I write a lot about my thinking. I write weekly to our community and to our staff, and that gives me an opportunity to reflect on the week, to reflect myself as I prepare for those weekly communications on what’s going on in the school, why is it happening, what am I learning?

Helen Pereira-Raso
I’m also a learner, so I’m always reading any educational theory, any educational practice, any documents that come out about the future of education, what we need to do, how it impacts students, educators, the systems. I’m always, always reading. And that is important because it helps me stay on top of our craft and our profession and show up the best I possibly can for the generation that’s in front of me.

Helen Pereira-Raso
Because it’s not the same. The students that we have in our kindergarten class right now that are going to graduate in 2039, I cannot teach them the way that I did the class I taught in 1999. It is a different world. I didn’t even have a laptop in my class. Nobody had a phone. But that’s what it, you know, like, those are the things that are so different that I’m present in what’s changing in education. I think that allows me to show up and be the best that I possibly can in my craft. And I would say some of the PD that’s changed me the most has been doing my coaching certifications and to learn how to be a real

Helen Pereira-Raso
instructional coach, to learn how to have difficult conversations so that they’re honest and they build us to be better and stronger collectively and self. And so in every coaching conversation that I’m able to be a part of, it’s not just about coaching someone else. That moment teaches me something about me. Did I ask the right questions? Did I help that person in that moment? Is this what they wanted to be coached on?

Helen Pereira-Raso
Did I take them down a different path? So my coaching certifications that I’ve done through the national school reform faculty, the Roy group, they have been instrumental in helping me deepen my practice and be more reflective because when you’re a coach, you are. But also ask the right questions.

Helen Pereira-Raso
It’s so tough to ask people the right question to actually get to what’s at the heart of what the tension is that’s residing within them or the questions they have. And listening, really truly listening, active listening as we now call it, once upon a time was just really listening. But there is a difference. as we now call it. Once upon a time was just really listening.

Helen Pereira-Raso
But there is a difference.

Helen Pereira-Raso
We’ve all lived it. There’s truly a difference. Truly being present for people and listening, and then asking the right questions has been such a gift to changing how I show up professionally and who I am today versus who I was when I started my career.

Sam Demma
This has been such an inspiring conversation. Again, your passion just shines through. I know it’s an audio format, so people can’t see you smiling when you’re smiling, but I know they can feel it through their headphones. I’m so grateful that you’re doing the work,

Sam Demma
you’re doing an education, and I look forward to following the entire journey, wherever it takes you and the impact you continue to create. Keep up the amazing work. It’s inspiring to watch, and I’m excited to continue following.

Sam Demma
If someone’s listening and is inspired as well, and they wanna ask you a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Helen Pereira-Raso
LinkedIn is probably the easiest. I’m always checking my LinkedIn. So if you just look me up at Helen Pereira-Raso on LinkedIn, you’ll find me. We can connect that way. And you can also find me on Instagram at htsheadofschool and email. And so you can email me at hraso@hts.on.ca, and I’m happy to have a conversation. I can’t thank you enough, Sam, for this opportunity to share my story, but it’s really easy when you wake up every day and you do what you love.

Sam Demma
Thanks, Helen.

Helen Pereira-Raso
That’s the game changer. And so just like you, continue to do what you love because that’s what fuels us and makes sure that we are ever so present that we are ever so present in the incredible journeys we share.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Helen Pereira-Raso

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

April 29, 2025 by Director of Education Educator 0

Mark Chapin — Principal of Meyer Middle School

Mark Chapin — Principal of Meyer Middle School
About Mark Chapin

Mark Chapin is the principal of Meyer Middle School in River Falls, Wisconsin, serving approximately 750 students in grades 6 – 8. Meyer Middle School was recognized as a National School of Character in 2016 and again in 2024.  Mark has served as a building administrator in the School District of River Falls for 16 years.  

Prior to coming to River Falls, Mark taught for 12 years in the Ellsworth Community School District as a high school special education teacher and an 8th grade US History teacher. While in Ellsworth he also coached cross-country, track, tennis and basketball.  In 2008 Mark was recognized as the Teacher of the Year in the Ellsworth Community School District. 

In 2019 Mark earned his doctorate degree from Bethel University.  His dissertation focused on character education, leadership and the change process. Mark currently serves as a character education coach through Alverno College and on the Wisconsin Character Education Partnership Advisory Committee.  

Mark works closely with the American Legion Post 121 in River Falls serving on their Veterans Memorial Committee. In 2014 he received the Post 121 Community Service Award.
Finally, in 2023 Mark was the recipient of the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Leadership award.

In his spare time Mark enjoys fly fishing, splitting wood and mountain biking. 

Connect with Mark Chapin: Email

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Meyer Middle School

School District of River Falls

Ellsworth Community School District

Bethel University

Alverno College

Wisconsin Character Education Partnership Advisory Committee

American Legion Post 121

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host Sam Demma and today we are joined by Mark Chapin. Mark and I connected months ago now. He has shared some impactful quotes with me over email. He let me know that he has 16 rules or principles that he shares with his middle school students every single year and it’s a big hit in his school. He is a advocate and has a huge passion for character development and how it can shape the life of our young people. He works closely with the state of Wisconsin when it comes to character development and I’ve really enjoyed our conversations about books to read and personal development and serving and supporting youth. Mark, thank you so much for taking some of your time to come on the show here today.

Mark Chapin
Thanks a lot, Sam. It’s truly an honor and it’s a privilege to be on your podcast today. And we’re super excited to have you come to Meijer Middle School at the end of April. I know our students and our staff are looking forward to you and your message.

Sam Demma
Let’s hope by then the snow storms have passed. Yeah, I agree. The weather’s back to normal. Do me a favor, Mark, and just take a moment to share a little bit about who you are and what got you interested in building and supporting the character of young people.

Mark Chapin
Yeah, my background, I grew up actually, it’s kind of a crazy story, but I’m the principal. I’m actually sitting in my principal’s office. I graduated from Rural Falls High School in 1990, which is in western Wisconsin. Went to UW-Eau Claire, which is in western Wisconsin, and got a degree, a 1.8 degree, with a special education minor. Student taught at the tribal school up in Hayward, Wisconsin, which is about two and a half hours north of our home here. And then ended up teaching for 13 years. I was a special education teacher for six and then I was a US History teacher for six years. And then I was an assistant principal at Ellsworth High School, which is right down the road, before coming back to my home in River Falls, and I’ve been here for 16 years. In terms of what got me really into education, my mom was a special education paraprofessional, and she provided me some opportunities to work with students, and I also had an opportunity to coach basketball when I was a senior in high school. A group of us, four guys, coached our seventh grade team. And I really realized at a pretty young age that I really had a knack and really enjoyed working with kids. And so my dad wasn’t too keen on me being a teacher. He was worried about me making enough money and supporting myself. So I actually went to school to be an econ major.

Mark Chapin
I did that for a year and I realized I have no idea what a person with an econ degree does for a living. But I always knew in the back of my mind I wanted to teach. And then I worked at a summer camp for five summers up at Eagle River, Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin. And I just I think I followed my calling at that point. And in terms of the yes question about character education, I’ve always been passionate about positive psychology, you know, developing ourselves, but then how can we take that and apply that here at school? And I was fortunate enough to be on a committee called the Healthy Lives Committee through our strategic plan and pitched this idea of character education. And it’s kind of evolved here in our district and it’s being implemented in all of our schools, our four elementary schools, our middle school and our high school. And I just feel like historically education has been something where, you know, going back to Horace Mann and Thomas Jefferson, it was educating the head and educating the heart. And I feel like we’ve gotten away from the heart. And so it’s something that I’ve just been really passionate about.

Sam Demma
When you talk about character education, tell me more about what that means to you or what that lens looks like that you look through when you talk about it.

Mark Chapin
Yeah, that’s a great question. What I know is that the best teacher of character are adults in our kids’ worlds, and that starts with parents. But we also know students don’t grow up, our kids don’t get to pick their parents.

Mark Chapin
But definitely, character has to start in the home. And so as adults, we need to make sure that we’re modeling good character. And so within our district, we wanted to find a model that was out there. And we looked at different frameworks.

Mark Chapin
The one that we came across was from character.org. It’s based on 11 principles. It’s not a canned curriculum. It really helps shape your culture of your school. You start off with principle one by identifying what you value as a community. In our district, we sat down with 40 community members.

Mark Chapin
We went round and round and round. We had two really lengthy meetings and we landed on nine character traits that we value as a community. And that’s true for the framework. So the community can decide what they value. And these are universal values.

Mark Chapin
And I think people get hung up on this idea of values and ethics, but it really transcends all religions. It goes back to Aristotle. And when you read off the list of these character traits or values, it’s hard to argue with them. So things like gratitude, curiosity, respect, responsibility, compassion, perseverance, you know, it’s hard to argue with those things. So, you know, we start with the framework. I mentioned modeling, that’s principle eight, but that framework has really guided our work. And it’s the work that I have an opportunity to work with other districts on how to implement that framework.

Sam Demma
How do you ensure the principles or values are consistently reinforced within the school community? It sounds like they become foundational. Is it month by month? Is it through the teachers? Obviously, modeling the behavior must be a big part of it. But I’d love to hear more.

Mark Chapin
Yeah. Yeah, it’s a great question. So we we focus on one character trade a month and we kind of joke that, you know, once we finish the perseverance, that kids don’t have to persevere anymore.

Mark Chapin
That’s not the case. We want to make sure we’re doing these all the time, but we do do a character kickoff once a month. I get a chance to get in front of kids. We define what it is. We talk about what it looks like. I usually typically show a video. If you guys or anybody out there listening wants to find some really good resource, go to Steve Hartman, Kindness 101. They’re short clips. He’s from CBS and he’s fantastic. So we show a video and then we do a quick reflection, and I send them on their way. We have a group called Girls Who Give Back that signs up around the building, so it’s communicated, so there’s that kind of visual marketing of it as well. And then each grade level has a different theme. That sixth grade focuses on what’s called the Everest Project every year, and that’s focusing on goal setting, so identifying your goals, identifying your character strengths, so they go through a strength finder with the kids, take them through the goal-setting process. That’s really inspiring for our kids.

Mark Chapin
Seventh grade is our service-learning project, so giving back. So, it’s the, when we talk about character, we talk about the head, getting kids thinking about it, the heart, getting them feeling it, and then the hands. So the head, heart, and hands, the hands part is going out in the community. And I’m sure you’ll talk about this with your backpack and your taco and all that,

Mark Chapin
which I’m looking forward to our kids hearing that story. So that giving back, the hands-on, the service learning. And then eighth grade, we have what’s called academic career planning. So we’ve charactered into that as well. And so we have a career fair, and through our careers class that we have in eighth grade, we identify kids’ strengths, we do career interest inventories and those types of things. So, and then like I said, we model it, we have to model it, continue to model it. And then the framework itself, the 11 principles, there’s a rubric that goes with it. So every three years we come back, we identify what we’re doing well, we identify one goal area to get a little bit better every year.

Sam Demma
It sounds very methodical and thought out. And I hope that if there’s another educator listening to this and they’re curious, they reach out to you to ask some questions about it so they can bring something similar to their district or their school. It sounds like you’ll be doing this work even after you finish at the school. So I’ll definitely make sure we include your email information in the show notes in case anyone does want to reach out.

Sam Demma
I had an educator who pulled me to the side of his desk and he said, Sam, living with principles and working hard is never a waste because it builds your character and you carry your character forward with you for the rest of your life. Living with principles and working hard is never a waste because it builds your character and you carry your character forward with you for the rest of your life. How do we remind young people that every choice they make impacts their character, both the positive and the negative? And when a student does make a mistake, how do we address it in a way that builds them up instead of tears them down?

Mark Chapin
Yeah, it’s a great, great question. And I mentioned my 16 life lessons, and one is be forgiving. And so my middle school has been recognized twice as a national school character through character.org, once in 2016 and again in 2023.

Mark Chapin
And I often talk about just because we’ve been recognized as a national school character doesn’t mean we’re perfect. We work with imperfect human beings and I wish I could control everything that comes out of 750 kids’ mouths and all their actions, but I can’t. And so we tell kids that and we have to be forgiving of ourselves. And anytime there’s a kid that’s in any type of trouble or hasn’t demonstrated good character, I let them know, like, listen, good kids make poor choices.

Mark Chapin
They make bad choices sometimes. It doesn’t make them a bad person or a bad kid. And so kids need to hear that. And the important thing is to reflect on it, learn from it, and try not to repeat it. I think that that’s the important thing when it comes to, you know, that we aren’t perfect and we are gonna make mistakes, but we’re gonna keep striving for it, right?

Mark Chapin
You wanna strive for excellence, strive for good character. And you mentioned the other thing is, one of my other life lessons is yes and no are the two most important words we’ll ever use in our life. Right, so sometimes it’s a split split split second. Like, and so we talked about the importance of pausing before you say something to somebody. Pause before you do something that you might regret.

Mark Chapin
So just take a second to pause. And so that’s one more reminder when we talk about character.

Sam Demma
Where did the inspiration come for you to sit down and craft some of the principles, the 16 life lessons you shared with students? I have recently been inspired by many authors, some of which are very much focused on building your life’s philosophy. One is a gentleman named Jim Rohn, who’s passed away now. And he spends his whole lecture talking about the importance of philosophy and how circumstances determine where you start, but your philosophy determines where you finish. What inspired you to start crafting this life lesson philosophy for your students?

Mark Chapin
Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. Again, our podcast, isn’t going to see this, but this is by my desk. We had a keynote speaker that came by, I don’t know how many years ago, and this is when I was teaching, grade. And it was fundamental rejuvenation. And it had 12 things on it. And I started looking at the list.

Mark Chapin
I was like, those resonate with me. And I said, are there more to that? Or am I on the same page with this, our speaker? And I think kind of in some ways, these are the character things that we pass on to our kids. Before I knew it was character when I was teaching, you know, this was 15, 16 years ago, probably longer than that, almost 20 years ago now, I wanted to pass this along to my students. And so a lot of this is really character-based stuff that probably at the time I didn’t realize was character, but these are the things that kids can take with them that’s gonna make an impact. And I think about like employers, what are employers looking for? I mean, do they want a positive attitude? They want people that can collaborate with other people. There are all these intangible things we talk about character, but where is it being intentionally taught or implemented in schools today? It is just so important.

Mark Chapin
And you can you can look at all the research on it. What employers are looking for: teach the skill and hire for character.

Sam Demma
I had a mentor tell me at the bottom of my job application to put a filter that said, if you believe you’re the right fit for the role, please record a one minute video explaining why. And I was hiring for an executive assistant and we spent $250 on LinkedIn promoting the post. And we received 2000 applications.

Mark Chapin
Wow.

Sam Demma
Guess how many people filmed and sent through a video? 14. And when you do the percentage, it’s like 0.01, less than 0.01%.

Mark Chapin
Wow.

Sam Demma
And I thought, wow, like attention to detail. This role requires attention to detail, yet 99.9% of people didn’t even read the actual job posting. And the reality is that these are individuals who are unemployed and looking for employment. And I was like, ah, like I just wanted to shake them and just grab them and say, come on, you deserve better than this. You can do better than this. And I think that a piece of that comes back to character and how you treat every interaction and every touchpoint in life. And you piqued my curiosity with the 16 lessons, and now you’ve shared two.

Sam Demma
Do you mind sharing a few more of them that are top of mind right now?

Mark Chapin
Yeah, so you just mentioned, kind of just taking pride in your work, right? Attention to detail. We talk about be a craftsman. So back in the day, how people got business is through word of mouth.

Mark Chapin
And so craftsmen would sign their name somewhere on a piece of furniture. So we talk about when you do turn your homework in, sign it with pride. Like you’re the craftsman, make sure there’s attention to detail. Did you read the directions? Are you doing your best work? I talk about, and this is a good example of taking pride in your work. I asked the kids, how many of you mow the lawn? There’s quite a few kids that still mow lawn. I said, how many start daydreaming? A lot of hands go up. How many of you start daydreaming and all of a sudden you look back and there’s a 20-foot strip that you completely missed? I said, okay, me too. I said, how many of you go back and mow it? Half the hands go down. I said, how many of you go back and mow it? You know, they keep their, that’s pride in your work, right? Are you going back and mowing that strip of grass? So that’s another one we talk about. I’m big in having a positive attitude. I think people, it’s hard to be around people that are negative. I think it sucks the life out of you.

Mark Chapin
I talk a lot about Viktor Frankl, the last of our human freedoms is the ability to choose our own attitude. We talk about that. The importance of goal setting. I share a story about Billy Mills and his goal setting process. He won the 10,000 meters in the 1960 Olympics. Talk about leaving your comfort zone. What else? I mentioned the yes and no.

Mark Chapin
Your true character is how you act and how you behave when nobody’s looking. So that’s important. Finding a career you love. Taking care of your body. Here’s an example of you never know how your words are gonna have an impact.

Mark Chapin
We talk about how your tongue is like the rudder of a ship and it can steer you one way or the other. And your words can build people up or tear people down. Like use it to be encouraging. The word encouragement means putting courage into others. And so I shared this story when I was in college. I was getting out of shape. I used to be in really good shape.

Mark Chapin
I was putting on weight. I looked at myself in the mirror when I was a senior in college, I was like, isn’t this the best shape I’m gonna be in the rest of my life? And so, sorry, I should have taken my phone off the hook.

Mark Chapin
Sorry. I started training for a marathon. I signed for a marathon the next day, started training. I had really no business to start, but I did. And I finished my first marathon. And so I shared this story. I mentioned my life lessons. I shared with my eighth graders. And didn’t think of anything other than the last day of school, I shared my list. I shared on the first day as well. And three years later, the student came up to me. He was at prom, and he said, you don’t recognize me, Mr. Chapin, do you? And I said, no, I don’t.

Mark Chapin
He said, your face looks familiar, I can’t picture you. He goes, you don’t recognize me because I lost 100 pounds. I said, how in the world did you lose 100 pounds? He said, I remember what you told me on the last day of school in eighth grade. I started to watch what I ate and I lost. You just, you never know how your words are going to impact people.

Sam Demma
I think it’s such a crazy and beautiful experience when you share inspiration and you’re not sure who it’s going to touch, how it’s going to touch them, when it’s going to click, but when you do see the result of that, it’s really gratifying. You know, I had a mentor for three years named Chris Cummins who is now like an uncle to me in many regards. And he would say, Sam, try this, do this. And, okay, coach, I’m doing it. And every time I would show up and I would try and I would take the shot he told me to take. And after three years, we’ve now transitioned from a coaching relationship just to very close friends and colleagues. And he hasn’t coached anyone else or taken many people on. And he’s like, you know, I tell a lot of people to do the same things I told you to do and most people don’t.

Sam Demma
And I, and I just think, what phenomenon is that? Like, how do we explain that? You know, and this is a person I wanted to be like, and I looked up to, and it sounds like that message you shared really connected with that young person. I’m sure it made you feel like good about it, right?

Mark Chapin
Yeah, it’s the whole starfish. You probably read the starfish, right? Yeah.

Sam Demma
Yeah.

Mark Chapin
It’s like the thousands, you just don’t know if you’re going to make an impact. And there’s certain days where you just you get tired and you get frustrated. Like, am I making am I making an impact at all? And then you’ll get that one note. We’ll get that one email or that one phone call. It’s like, yep, it made a difference.

Sam Demma
Now, what habits do you practice consistently outside of your time

Sam Demma
in the classroom that helps you show up as best you possibly can.

Mark Chapin
Yeah, that’s another great question. First of all, I think self-care is important. So I know when I’m getting anxious and edgy, like if I’m not exercising regularly, I’m not my best self. I do my best thinking after exercise. I’m always in a positive mood,

Mark Chapin
even though I don’t feel like at the time getting up in the morning, like I’m swimming laps or riding my bike in my basement in the winter time. Like that’s important. I think reading devotions, I start my day every day with two devotions.

Mark Chapin
I send out the daily quote, which I’ve sent to you the last couple of days now. You’re on a very select list of people I send it to. But I do send it to my staff every day and then my staff pass it on to their kids in the morning. Not all of them yet. I’m trying to get them to do that because there are such great quotes. That’s from values.com if you’re looking for some kind of motivational boost.

Mark Chapin
You mentioned Jim Rohn. Just watching YouTube, a lot of positive psychology, how can I better myself? Those are kind of the main things.

Sam Demma
I read a book recently that was really influential to me called Turning Pro by a guy named Steven Pressfield. And he talks about the difference between amateurs and professionals. And to be frank, I felt quite embarrassed about myself after I finished reading the book in a really good way. And I think sometimes the inspiration comes from an emotion like embarrassment. And for me, it came from this idea that I’ve spent a lot of time speaking, and especially in the earlier parts of my career, practicing my speeches and consistently writing.

Sam Demma
And then I got so busy, I would just write and speak when I was on the road doing it for people. But outside of that, there wasn’t much of a daily habit and or practice of doing it. And that book really clearly outlines that professionals have a daily practice, and they have a space where they practice, and they have a time when they practice, and they have an attention around their practice. And they show up every single day, and they’re ruthless with their work. They are craftsmen. He shared a story of Pablo Picasso, and someone bought his paintings and stuck them in a gallery.

Sam Demma
And two years later, the gallery opened, and Picasso walked in as a guest to check out his paintings. And he grabbed a razor and cut all of his paintings up on the wall into shreds. And the gallery owner said, what are you doing? And he said, this work is pathetic.

Sam Demma
It’s not a reflection of my work. I will get you some new ones. And I just thought, what a standard to hold yourself to, but to be a true craftsman. And I really appreciate you sharing that reminder to just continue being a student and listening to the things that will change your mindset and continuing to read.

Mark Chapin
Yeah, you mentioned, Sam, that consistency. I just share this with our students in our auditorium with one of our character kickoffs, just how important that consistency with either training or practicing. And I shared with them that it took me five years to finish my dissertation to get my doctorate degree. And I wasn’t making progress. I just, I wasn’t getting it done. And the lit review, the reading, this takes forever. I kept driving by this house in my neighborhood that the workers would show up every day at 6:45 and there they were. And before you know it, the foundation was built and then the framing was up. And I realized like, if I’m gonna get this dissertation up, I have to do work every single day. Otherwise the house isn’t going to get built. My dissertation is not going to get done. And that’s when I started making progress on my paper. Yeah.

Mark Chapin
You know, it’s funny too.

Sam Demma
Jim Rohn often says, my life changed when I was 25. I feel like I was subconsciously waiting until 25 to get in the saddle more consistently for certain things, you know? But I sincerely appreciate your time and the intention around all the work you’re doing. I’m beyond excited to visit the school soon and meet in person and collaborate with your school and your students. If there’s an educator listening, I’ll put your email in the show notes so they can reach out. Absolutely. But I wanted to just say sincerely, Mark, thank you so much for the time, the energy, and everything you’re doing in education.

Mark Chapin
Thanks, Sam. I appreciate it. And hopefully we get out fly fishing when you come to River Falls.

Sam Demma
Can’t wait.

Mark Chapin
All right, Sam, good to talk to you.

Sam Demma
Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Mark Chapin

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

April 8, 2025 by Education Educator Principals Student Leadership Student Success 0

Shandi Andres — State Adviser for Kansas FCCLA

Shandi Andres — State Adviser for Kansas FCCLA
About Shandi Andres

Shandi Andres is the State Adviser for Kansas FCCLA.  She also serves a Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Education Instructor at Kansas State University.  She is a recipient of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) 2023 Leaders Award. She started her career as a FCS Teacher and FCCLA Adviser.  She moved to a position as an Extension Agent. She served as a FCS & 4-H Agent while also serving as a District Director. These experiences led her to the current position.  

This position allows her to work with youth and FCS professionals from across the state and nation.  Shandi believes that Family and Consumer Science courses, skills, and experiences provide a foundation for individuals to succeed. FCCLA is the student organization as part of FCS in which students are able to grow as leaders and develop skills for life.  

Connect with Shandi Andres: Email | Instagram | Facebook

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Kansas FCCLA

Kansas State University

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam. And today we are joined by Shandi Andres. Shandi Andres is the State Advisor for Kansas FCCLA, and she also serves as a Family and Consumer Science Educational Instructor at Kansas State University.

Sam Demma
She’s the recipient of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Leadership Award in 2023. And she started her career as an FCS teacher and FCCLA advisor, which I’m sure she’ll be talking a little bit about here today. She’s also done some work with 4-H and with the district as a director.

Sam Demma
And these experiences have led her to her position today. She’s also currently in calving season. with the district as a director. And these experiences have led her to her position today. She’s also currently in calving season. And I know it’s very busy for her. Shandi, thank you so much for setting aside some time to be on the podcast here today.

Shandi Andres
Yeah, thanks Sam for having me.

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about what got you interested and involved in education and family consumer sciences.

Shandi Andres
So, I remember even as a little kid thinking that I wanted to be a teacher. Many fellow educators, you know, when they were little, they probably had their siblings set up and playing school, etc. And that was no different at my house. However, the biggest difference was I didn’t want to teach math, I didn’t want to teach reading. So I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to teach. And it wasn’t until I got to high school, my freshman year, one of my best friends drug me into the organization fair and her aunt was the FCCLA teacher and FACTS or FCCLA advisor and FACTS teacher and she drug me in and she said, hey, we should do this. And I said, okay. So I signed up and I was actually enrolled in a facts class that semester. And what I found was that I found my home. I grew up with an ag background, absolutely love ag, grew up in 4-H. But I found my home in FCS.

Shandi Andres
That’s the acronym we use for family and consumer sciences. So you’ll hear people say FACTS, you’ll hear people say FCS, but it all comes down to the same. And so my high school career, I took as many family and consumer science classes as I could. I was a chapter officer, star event participant, district officer, and really launched my desire to be a FACS teacher. So by the time I was a junior, I was committed to being a FACS teacher and that’s kind of continued with my path of family and consumer sciences.

Sam Demma
What was it specifically about family and consumer sciences versus the other subject areas that really drew you in or pulled you in?

Shandi Andres
No, it was skills that everybody could use every day. When we think about, yes, we need math. We really do. You know, kids don’t necessarily see that they need math, but I can tell you exactly how we use it. You know, when don’t necessarily see that they need math, but, but I can tell you exactly how we use it. You know, when I am going to make a recipe and it’s written as a single recipe, but I want to quadruple it because I’m serving a larger group, then I can calculate that out in my head because I know how fractions work and how our, our math works. So it’s real life skills. It’s also skills like communication and public speaking that we grow and develop through our time in those family and consumer science classes. And so if you think about our careers, we have a lot of careers in the new career cluster model and previously that are connected to family and consumer sciences, but our skills that we learn in family and consumer sciences launch us into any career, help us to be better people and to be better consumers. If we think about family and consumer sciences, we can break that down. So anything that involves us as being a member of a family, and that means as a member of the family, we’re a member of the community.

Shandi Andres
But also then we think about consumerism and how do we make better decisions as consumers. And so that might mean when I buy a car, how do I choose that process and that purchase to make the best choice for me? But it could also mean that how do I choose a banking product or how do I choose my insurance? And so all of those impact us as individuals. and FCCLA is that I’m going to call it professional development component for students in the area of the family and consumer sciences but when I’m talking to potential students or teachers, parents about our program then a lot of times I get well what can I do if I don’t want to be in family and consumer sciences.

Shandi Andres
We have a lot of components that are just about making making yourself better. One of our national programs is the power of one and so it really is about you personally. How do we how do we make ourselves better? When we think about power of one, then it has modules within it. So one of them is a better you. And so you set personal goals for yourself to be able to improve something about you. One of them is a family tie. So maybe that means that you want to improve our relationship with your mom or dad. Working on working, so I’m going to prepare for a career, how do I do that? Take the lead and then speak out for FCCLA. Those are just, that’s just a very basic program within FCCLA and so it’s applicable to anyone. Our competitive events are the same way. When we think about maybe you want to be in a family and consumer science-related career, but maybe you don’t.

Shandi Andres
And if you don’t, there’s still competitive events and story events like leadership or career investigation that are very much just about you and not necessarily about a family and consumer science science related career.

Sam Demma
Tell me about your first experience with FCCLA.

Shandi Andres
I don’t know if I can tell you my very first experience. But I do know that I was part of our chapter. So that’s the basic unit building blocks within the organization. So our chapter was in our high school. And so we had a chapter there where I went to high school. And so we had monthly meetings.

Shandi Andres
Those monthly meetings allowed me to see how parliamentary procedure was used in a business meeting beyond just knowing Robert’s Rules of Order, how do we use it. But then we also planned activities, community service projects. We took some of our national programs and created projects within the school and communities. I did star events. So my freshman, sophomore and junior year, I competed in the job interview of star event.

Shandi Andres
And my goal was to make it to nationals. And so I did my junior year I made it to nationals. Part of the job interview event means that you’re going to have a job that you want to apply for. You’re going to create a portfolio as if you are preparing for that job. And then you meet with the judges just like a formal interview process and they’re going to have your material.

Shandi Andres
And that was a great learning experience for me as an individual, not only to think about the preparation of that portfolio, but also then how do I efficiently communicate with the person sitting on the other side of the table, and to be able to take constructive criticism and feedback from those judges. So my junior year, I qualified for nationals, and I was able to go to nationals that year and that was that was fantastic to be able to do that. My senior year then I had to choose a different project. I couldn’t take the same events so I had to I did something different but but that created that process created a lot of opportunities for connections but in personal growth. The one year I was working on my job interview event and we actually had a parliamentary procedure team from our chapter. And so that team actually worked, they met a lot.

Shandi Andres
They usually met two or three times a week to go through their practice. And one of our chapter members that was on the Parlipro team that year actually was diagnosed with diabetes during the preparation. And so to see the connections that happen beyond just school and classroom for those for my friends and those fellow students was just amazing and we don’t create those connections when we’re just just

Sam Demma
attending class. It sounds like every touch point you’ve had with FCCLA has been an impactful one. Whether you were the student or the advisor, or just involved at an event. Why do you think it’s important that more students get involved in experiences like FCCLA or FCS?

Shandi Andres
Well, one of them I think that’s really important is connection. You know, our students when in middle school and high school really need that connection. Yes, they need that connection with their peers, but they also need that connection with an adult in their building. And so when we participate in extracurricular or intercurricular activities, then we actually help build those connections and students do better in school. FCCLA, depending on who you ask, would say, or most of the time we would say that it is intercurricular. So the hope is that all of those advisors are using the FCCLA materials within their classroom. And then sometimes it becomes extracurricular because you have students who really want to take it above and beyond. But it is designed to be intercurricular. And yes, it does take a little time outside of class if you are doing well within your chapter.

Sam Demma
What part in your journey did you also start serving at Kansas State University?

Shandi Andres
So when I was fresh out of high school, or out of college, I actually attended Kansas State University. And then when I was fresh out of college, I took a teaching position. So I taught in a family and consumer science program in a multi-teacher department. So there were two of us and served as the FECLA advisor. I had my two children and my husband and I made the decision that I was going to leave the classroom so I could stay home and so I stayed home with my kids for a couple of years. My husband was managing an Angus operation. And so then our family process, I actually went to work full time on the ranch for five years. And when we moved home, we were living about two hours from where we grew up.

Shandi Andres
So when we moved home, I took a position with K-State Research and Extension. And if you’re not familiar with extension, extension is associated with the land grant universities, oftentimes called cooperative extension. And in Kansas, that’s housed through K-State. And so I became a Kansas State University employee when I joined K-State Research and Extension as an agent. And so I was the Family and Consumer Science and 4-H agent for the district. And I was with them for six and a half years. I took over as interim director during my time and then I went to director.

Shandi Andres
And I absolutely loved Extension and I loved 4-H. And we all have paths in our journey and part of my journey included a change. And so I, technically I changed job, but I’m still employed through Kansas State University. So I moved from my position with extension, which was out in the county. To campus and so I’m housed at Kansas State University. And my position is a 2 part position. So, I, I am employed on campus and so 20% of my contract is for teaching. That’s the family and consumer science education instructor. And so I teach our methods course for our students who are going to be family and consumer science teachers.

Sam Demma
Oh, wow.

Shandi Andres
Yeah. So I get to work with our pre-service teachers. And so in the fall, I methods and supervise practicum. And then in the spring I supervise student teaching for those students. And so making their placements out in the field and matching them up and doing their supervisions. And I work with our student organization for FACS Ed. And then the rest of my time is spent as the Kansas FCLA state advisor. And that is a contract through our state Department of Education. So they contract out our state advisors. And so that happens to be the other part of my position. I I love the combination of my position. I love that I still get to work with professionals in the field. I get to help prepare our students as they’re entering the classroom. And then I get to work with our state officers and planning our state events. So that’s the state advisor role. So I serve as an administrative function for the organization. And then I help work with our state officers and help plan leadership trainings at state events and get to see all of it come together every time. And so that’s really an amazing process and a rewarding part of my job.

Sam Demma
When you speak about it, it’s so clear that you’re passionate about all of the roles because it sounds like you could talk about them forever and you light up and you’re smiling the whole time. When you think of the advisors you had, is there any that still are front and center in your mind?

Shandi Andres
Well, I just had one FCCLA advisor. My chapter advisor was there the whole time. And she’s actually now a cousin by marriage. My husband and I started dating before I started high school. And his mom and my teacher’s husband were first cousins. And so I got to know her through class, but also outside.

Shandi Andres
And so what I appreciated about her as an advisor was her willingness to let students take the lead, jump in for pretty much anything. We were able to toss at her. But also her passion for family, for sciences, and for teaching. She was very animated, very structured in her classroom, and so I really appreciated those dynamics.

Shandi Andres
She has since left the classroom, but obviously we still still chat. And it did make a huge difference and an impact on on what I was going to do. And it was a simple ask of, hey, because you know you could do this as a career. And sometimes we have interactions with great people, but they don’t necessarily see their potential. And so as teachers, as adults working with youth, sometimes it means a simple observation of, hey, have you considered this for your career? Or have you considered looking at this? Because I think you’d be great at it.

Shandi Andres
And I think that’s really important as we think about choose preparing, choosing, advocating for teachers is how do we grow that profession? How do we encourage those youths to capture and take hold of their natural interest?

Sam Demma
It sounds like one of the ways you support young people is by acknowledging their own greatness through suggestions of pathways that they could pursue based on your observations. When it comes to building relationships with young people, supportive relationships, both with FCCLA or in the classroom, what else do you think makes all the difference when it comes to connecting with the young person?

Shandi Andres
Sometimes it’s simply them knowing that you are available, that you care, that you understand, but also sometimes that means picking up on the little things. I have our state president right now and she’s actually been on our state officer team for two years. And so she traveled with me to one of our events. And in one, she’s very, very, very good about writing thank you notes. Thank you notes following the event. And that’s one of the things that she excels at. But in one of her

Shandi Andres
thank you notes, she commented about like, thanks for always having a listening ear and for having gum to chew on when I need it. So sometimes it’s the little things that you capture. One of our training events this last fall, we usually go, I usually take our state officers, part of their training, but also advocacy

Shandi Andres
opportunities is to go to Capital Leadership, which is held in DC. And it didn’t happen this last year because of the election year. And so we went to a different training, one at the Fall Leadership Institute, and that was actually a partnership with Disney this year. So they went and did the leadership training with Disney, and then as a bonus, then they got to go to the Disney theme park to check it out.

Sam Demma
Oh, wow.

Shandi Andres
One of my state officers was very adamant that he doesn’t like roller coasters. He skipped out on the Incredicoaster. But he had his sights set on Space Mountain. He was going to go on Space Mountain while we were there. If you’re not familiar, Space Mountain is a roller coaster inside.

Sam Demma
Dark.

Shandi Andres
Dark.

Sam Demma
Yeah.

Shandi Andres
It’s absolutely dark. So we convinced him that he could go on their runaway rail car with us. And he ended up, our group got split. So we had a group at the front and a group at the back. And when we got done, he survived and he had a smile on his face. But he told me that he was going to ride with me on Space Mountain. And I said, okay. And he goes, because you laugh on the roller coasters and that makes me feel better. And I was at the front, yes, I laugh on roller coasters. And I said, you could hear me? And he goes, yeah, I could hear your laugh on the roller coaster.

Shandi Andres
And so it was something that I do naturally and I didn’t think about it. But his statement made me think about how sometimes we do little things that others pay attention to and capture onto that we don’t. It does have an impact on others, positive or negative. I think that’s important to remember. But in this case, it made me smile and it made my heart happy to hear him, hear him, um, take that in a positive light instead of negative.

Sam Demma
Oh, my, my laugh sounds like a flock of dying geese. So we’re the same people can recognize it from some ways away. And you’re so right. Sometimes the things that we take for granted are the things, not even maybe take for granted, but the things we don’t even recognize are the things that other people appreciate the most.

Sam Demma
And I think that’s what’s so unique about education or working with young people is you never really know what’s going to connect and make a difference, but you show up with the intention every single day to be of service and support and help and trust that something will connect and will make an impact. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with you. I can’t believe the time has already flown by. If some educator is, you know, an educator is listening to this, they might be struggling right now or a little bit burnt out. What advice would you give a colleague or someone else in education who’s just going through a lot right now?

Shandi Andres
I would say I have two parts to this. One of them is to remember your why, because your why, if you can remember that, will usually help you get through some of those tough times, but also remind us like, what’s your purpose? Why did you get into this? Or, why do you hope to help others with? What’s your why? That’s the first one. The second thing is, I think today, even more than ever, it’s really important to remember that we practice some self-care. Maybe that means that we take our calendar and we write it, make sure we have white space. If you’re not familiar with white space,

Shandi Andres
I use a paper calendar intentionally because I can see if I have any white space on my day and that’s me. But making sure that we have some white space for ourselves, for our own time or know where those boundaries are. But also maybe it’s the little thing.

Shandi Andres
Maybe that means there’s a song that’s your pick me up. Maybe that means there’s a scent that is your go-to. Maybe that’s a candle you can keep close. Maybe that’s a perfume or a spray. But something that reminds you, even when days are tough, to take a deep breath. And what’s the good? And let the bad go. Breathe it out. And so I think those two parts are really important as we take care of ourselves as educators and to be able to give back to our profession.

Sam Demma
I got a lot of green space and yellow space and red space and blue space. I got to find some white space, Shandi. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to share some of your journey and beliefs around education and impacting young people.

Sam Demma
I look forward to meeting you shortly. I’m so excited to be of service and support to Kansas FCCLA. If there is an educator listening to this that wants to reach out and ask you a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch? You can reach me at my email.

Shandi Andres
So that’s sdandres@ksu.edu.

Sam Demma
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time and keep up the amazing work you’re doing.

Shandi Andres
Thanks, Sam. Hope to see you in April.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Shandi Andres

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

April 3, 2025 by Education Educator State Advisor Student Leadership Student Success 0

Janis Volker – School Counselor at Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School/Middle School

Janis Volker - School Counselor at Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School/Middle School
About Janis Volker

Janis Volker is the School Counselor for grades 6-12 at Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School/Middle School. She started in the district in 2004 as the elementary counselor and spent 4 years at Roselawn Elementary School. In September 2008 she transitioned to the high school/middle school, making this her 21st year in the district. Prior to entering education she was a program coordinator for Barron County Restorative Justice for two years. That experience working with law enforcement, schools, and community members was a wonderful foundation to school counseling. She felt honored to be present with victims and offenders that worked to heal the harm that was caused.

In the high school/middle school she has many roles that support students, including the coordination of the Early College Credit, Advanced Placement, Start College Now, and Youth Apprenticeship programs. On a daily basis she is assisting students with their academic and career planning, college applications, scholarships, and providing individual counseling and SEL classroom instruction. She coordinates the ASVAB Career Exploration program and the PSAT/NMSQT, as well as assisting with the proctoring of state assessments. Behind every successful program and initiative at school is a team that works together to get everything accomplished. No one does it alone.

Advising students on their next steps and encouraging them to explore dual credit courses to earn college credits in high school are some of her favorite experiences working with students. Seeing the growth, both academically and socially, from year to year and celebrating them as they cross the stage at graduation; are some of the most rewarding days. She is proud to work in her district that is so supportive of students, families, and staff. 

Connect with Janis Volker: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School/Middle School

Roselawn Elementary School

Barron County Restorative Justice

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam, and today we are joined by Janis Volker. Janis has been in education and counseling for a total of 21 years. She has worked in the middle school age bracket, the high school age bracket, and the elementary school age bracket. Janis and I will cross paths here shortly in her school district.

Sam Demma
And I’m so grateful that before I had the opportunity to chat with her. Janis, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here.

Janis Volker
Good morning, thank you for having me.

Sam Demma
Tell us a little bit about what got you into education and wanting to support young people.

Janis Volker
Well, way back in high school, I thought I was going to be a college professor and I just had that in my mind, I’m going to be a teacher. And then I started off in college and, you know, I had a rough start. And I was once told, I don’t think your grades are going to get you into that school of education. And that really hit me hard.

Janis Volker
And it was a little bit of a wake-up call that this is serious. This is like, this is all counting, you know, I need to really figure myself out. And then I found my path down psychology and loved psychology. And that was my first degree. And then in my senior year, I discovered, oh, wow, this whole world of if I continue and get a master’s degree, I could actually work with students and help them in a way that I wanted to. And that’s how I discovered school counseling.

Sam Demma
What about psychology intrigued you?

Janis Volker
Well, I have to be honest. I think it was a lot of figuring out myself and my family and the dynamics and then also just being able to help other people. I found it fascinating, all the different theories, you know, psychotherapy. And I knew I didn’t necessarily want to do that, but I just wanted to be around students. But I didn’t think I wanted to teach.

Janis Volker
And so that’s how I found my way into the education system.

Sam Demma
It sounds like you married the best of both worlds. Work with young people, fulfill that love for psychology and supporting them with it. Tell me a little bit about after the psychology education, what happened next?

Janis Volker
I actually first started in school psychology and after just one term of it, had to do a shadowing experience with a school counselor. She was at the elementary level and I just loved her job. I thought it was, wow, look at her. She’s sitting on the floor with these stuffed animals talking to kids about their feelings. It was like, this is so much fun. And so I did that switch to school counseling right away in the program.

Janis Volker
But I think it was, you know, just, I didn’t realize when I first started college in psychology that I couldn’t probably get in front of people and help people unless I continued my education. Like the opportunities were more limited. So that’s why I decided to continue on. And I kept going. Took me a while because in that time I also was married and then became a mom myself and so didn’t take a direct path through college.

Sam Demma
Did you have a counselor in middle, high, or college that really supported you through your own transition or challenges?

Janis Volker
I definitely had people that supported me but I wasn’t one that would go and seek out help myself. So I didn’t really have that experience other than like helping with scheduling and talking about college visits and things like that. But it was a teacher of mine, a professor in my undergraduate that taught us all these career opportunities. And I think without him, I don’t know that I would have kept going. I was really thankful that he shared that with us before we graduated.

Sam Demma
You and I are very alike in the sense that we sometimes don’t go out of our way to seek the help we might need in the moment we need it. And I would argue that’s most people because of a stigma and a fear. And it may even be most students in a school building. Are there any signs or signals of distress that you look for in students to recognize if someone might need some help but are a little bit afraid to ask for it?

Janis Volker
Yes, I think there’s lots of clues. When you, as an observer, just see, you know, when someone’s going down the hallway, are they talking with other people? Are they really by themselves? You know, at lunchtime, are they with a group of friends? Are they off in a corner on their phone? Are things going on in their life that you know about, but they’re not seeking help? Have they had death in their family, repeated other kind of challenges? And then grades are a big clue.

Janis Volker
All of a sudden you see a dip, or maybe you’re not going out for the sport you always used to get involved in and things like that. So I think as long as it doesn’t have to be the school counselor that reaches out, just any adult in the building that makes connections with students. Sometimes that’s the favorite person, the person who’s doing attendance in the main office. That’s their person that they connect with, that just says good morning every single day.

Sam Demma
I had a guidance counselor who supported me in all my post-secondary applications for college and university in the United States. We were trying to figure out the eligibility requirements as a Canadian who wanted to do a Division I scholarship in the United States. And she became someone that I felt very comfortable sharing things with over my high school experience. I know that oftentimes the administrator’s office or the guidance counselor’s office can be a little bit intimidating for a young person when they walk in the door. What are some ways you help calm people down and just let them know that they’re here to be supported and it is a safe space?

Janis Volker
You know, I think I have a friendly face, right? I like to smile, I like to laugh, but my first three words are usually, when a student walks in, “You’re not in trouble.”

Janis Volker
There’s this fear of, I got called to the office and I say, you know, we do a lot of things in here. We help with your schedule. You know, we talk about college. We talk about youth apprenticeships. Like, I don’t just call people in to say there’s a problem or there’s, you know, a concern. So just trying to, you know, get to know students in different ways in the building. So to make that connection that, you know, you have to do those conversations sometimes

Janis Volker
about dress code, and then you get that reputation. She’s going to tell you you’re wearing the wrong kind of shirt today.

Sam Demma
I just remember situations when I was in school and I got called down from class at the office and I was like, oh man, this is gonna be bad. I think that’s a really good way to start the conversation just to let a student know, you’re not in trouble, we’re here to help.

Sam Demma
How do you think you build a connection with a student to the point where they really look forward to chatting with you and trust the advice or trust the guidance?

Janis Volker
I always, I mean, I’m more of an introvert to be honest. So I’m not that person that’s out there, like the super fun cheerleader, but I’m more the quiet, always supportive, always there to listen and really ask you questions about, you know, your day or your struggles. Or I like to remember certain things about a student that I can bring up the next year. You know, like I remember this when we were in seventh grade

Janis Volker
and you were talking about the careers and you said you wanted to go into welding. You know, and then I see them pursue that as they get older in high school and comment on that, you know, so that they know I’m listening, I’m aware. You know, I wish I could do that more

Janis Volker
with every single person in the building, but I think that’s really, students really, really want to be cared for. That’s, I mean, don’t we all, but it’s really important.

Sam Demma
You must have a long list of notes from all these conversations.

Janis Volker
I do, yeah, somewhere in my head, but. And at this age, sometimes they lose us, but yeah. I think the intent to remember

Sam Demma
is already a phenomenal start. It forces us to, creates a forcing function for us to pay more attention when people are talking to us, as opposed to thinking about the past or the future, which is so easy these days. Question for you, do you, or can you share a story

Sam Demma
of a student who walked into the office that was very confused, very uncertain, very overwhelmed, and after a couple years and some guidance, you just were so proud of the young person they became. And you don’t have to share their name. And the reason I ask is because

Sam Demma
there’s an educator listening to this that may be a little bit overwhelmed, or even a guidance counselor that may be a little overwhelmed, and they may have lost sight as to why they do what they do and I think that these little stories of

Sam Demma
transformation are really at the heart of why most people get into the work

Janis Volker
They do with young people. So sure. So someone comes to mind a young man who really dealt with mental health and had a lot of family struggles a lot of there was a lot of death in the family. Just you know, there was poverty. There was a little bit of everything. And he missed a lot of school.

Janis Volker
And he would have moments where he just needed to take a break from class or he wouldn’t come to school just feeling overwhelmed. And I never felt like I was making a difference because when you’re listening, I always feel in their mind, they must be thinking, I still feel just as anxious or I still have this depression like things are, I mean, things progress much slower than we all want them to.

Janis Volker
But then his senior year, he, I got a letter from him. It was a really cool activity where the seniors get to pass out letters of people that they want to thank before they graduate. And when I received that, it was one of the most meaningful things, you know, in my career. Like, wow, because I’m not I’m not in front of students as much and more in this office. I try to be out and about, but I mean, teachers, I feel, get to build those connections on a deeper level with every student than maybe I do. And it just it meant the world to me that that I was able to help and that he recognized that.

Sam Demma
I just think about all the students who have walked in your office whose lives you’ve had an impact on but who haven’t written a letter. That’s what we hope. Yeah, that’s the… It’s so funny, I did a performance last week for a high school and the audio system was not great and they swapped out four mics in the first 30 minutes.

Sam Demma
I feel like the first 30 minutes, people didn’t even hear what I was saying. And we finished the performance and we had a good number of students still rush on over and ask questions and thank us and take photos. And in my heart, I was like,

Sam Demma
I could have reached more, you know, like this was a waste, we didn’t make a difference. And this one, like the setup was not great. And then, you know, we got home and the cameraman who was with me, Matias, was like, dude, there was a couple of students that I saw who were absolutely glued and locked in despite the audio challenges. I promise you it reached some young minds. And that’s all that matters, even if they hadn’t written that letter or written that message.

Sam Demma
And just this morning, it’s been a week, I got a message from a student that was like, hey, you came to the school last week and I just wanna let you know, our friends really enjoyed it and I was like, if this ain’t the universe, just like let me know.

Sam Demma
You know, like, stop being so critical and stop judging how other people are receiving it. Just show up and do your best. Like I think that’s something that I’ve tried to carry forward with me in everything that I do. Have you ever had any moments in your work where you questioned if like, oh, is this the right work for me to be doing? And if so, how did you get through some of those

Janis Volker
Moments? Yeah, I mean, definitely the mental health piece takes a toll. And I don’t know that I’m the best at self-care. I, you know, I can tell people like, oh, you need to do this and you should be exercising and a great diet. Make sure you get out in nature. And I’ve improved in that area by developing my own hobby of photography. That became something that I felt like just relieved stress like nothing else to just be outside and at sunrise. That’s all I need really to feel better. So I think just trying to be self-aware of you need, if I ever hit that point where I’m burned out, I need to release myself because you’re not helping anyone once you reach burnout. So I guess that’s something I always think about because I have thought about, well, what would I do if I did something else?

Janis Volker
And I still think it’d be helping people. It would just be in a different scene, maybe healthcare or something, but that’s always what I want to do.

Sam Demma
Was photography something you discovered earlier in your childhood or when did that come about for you?

Janis Volker
Just being in the house and I just started observing that stay at home order we had for a few months that first spring. And so I was working from home and at the dining table and I was surrounded by windows and I thought, all these birds come to my house during the day when I’m not here. Like, wow, this is really cool. And then I just, it kind of created this, you know, interest of mine, curiosity.

Janis Volker
And then I started taking pictures and then I kept getting different cameras and then I was hooked. And then I was taking pictures every single day. So it’s, yeah.

Sam Demma
A pipe recently burst in our basement bathroom and my dad had his friend, a subcontractor named Jimmy come over to fix it. And while we were in the bathroom, I was handing him tools, he was fixing it. He started telling me about the books he had bought that morning. Did you know that you can go to a thrift store and buy a book for 50 cents? I was like, yeah, I know, I know, because I used to buy a bunch from Value Village, and he’s like, Sam, I bought seven books for $3.

Sam Demma
I was like, this is awesome, man, I’m so glad you’re excited about books. And he told me about this one book called Who Moved My Cheese by a guy named Kenneth Blanchard and he’s a business slash management author and he gave me a very high level overview of the book that there’s these two mice and one is always waiting for the cheese and the other one is always like searching for it. And that to remain curious and to keep searching for things in life is such a beautiful way to live. And you said one of the things you realized from the book is that the mice that would wait for it just live the same life over and over again. Like everything about their day was exactly the same. Whereas the mouse that was searching or curious would take different paths and try, find the cheese down different roads.

Sam Demma
And isn’t that interesting? Like COVID changed up your routine. And instead of going to work, you stayed home. As a result, you saw these beautiful birds out the window and boom, a new passion for photography came to life. I think that remaining curious is so important, not only for students, but everybody. Trying the new restaurant, taking the different route home, looking out the window and pausing for a moment. I developed some passions during the pandemic. I’m curious, like, has photography remained a part of your life?

Sam Demma
Oh, yes. Do you take a lot of pictures? Like, tell me a little bit about it

Janis Volker
Yes, I do. And the last year I haven’t as much, which is funny, that the more I tried to get into selling it, the less I actually did it. And so that was a really good lesson of, wait, you need to keep that focus on your enjoyment, like what you, what relieves the stress, which is the whole point, you know, to have something so fun. And that what I like about photography is there’s, there’s no two sunrises that are identical, like everything.

Janis Volker
There’s just no two pictures are going to look the same, just because of all the different components. And that’s the same way I love my job here is you can never predict a day in the school. And it just keeps it kind of fresh, even though it’s the same office every day, it’s very different from day to day.

Sam Demma
In your 21 year career in education, have there been any colleagues or teachers who have walked into your office and said, hey Janis, can I ask you a question? Looking for guidance.

Janis Volker
Yeah, definitely. Especially, you know, with the loss. And loss by suicide is one that when we’re growing up, we don’t really, you know, it’s something that’s not really talked about. And people don’t feel comfortable asking someone when they’ve experienced that loss. You know, people tend to avoid the really uncomfortable conversations. So when someone’s experiencing that in their family for the first time, no matter the age, you need help. You need support. So I know definitely those are times too. And just we’re struggling with, you know, just having a rough time either in school or out of school just needing someone to listen?

Sam Demma
I ask because when we were all little babies, we very openly accepted failure and recognized it as a necessary thing. How many times will a baby fail before it learns to walk? As many times as it takes and we’ll cheer them on all the way.

Sam Demma
But then at a certain age, a child starts to believe that it’s not acceptable to make a mistake. It’s not acceptable to fail. And then I think as that child grows up and becomes an adult, there’s another unconscious belief that we start to carry that we can handle things on our own because we’re now big people.

Sam Demma
And it’s like, it’s okay to reach out for support and ask for help. And I just hope that if there’s an educator listening to this right now who’s struggling, that this little portion of this conversation encourages them to reach out and ask for it.

Sam Demma
So I appreciate you sharing that.

Janis Volker
Yes, thank you.

Sam Demma
If there is an educator listening to this or even a student and they are a little overwhelmed, what words of advice or encouragement would you offer them?

Janis Volker
I think, you know, it’s kind of, everyone says this, but chunking it out like one piece at a time, one day at a time. Let’s just focus on today. You know, what can you do today to relieve that stress? You know, can I can you get some help talking to the teacher that you need some help with that you don’t understand the assignment?

Janis Volker
Is there is there another student I can get, you know, to help you? Maybe we do need to call your mom right now and have this conversation and get this off your chest or sit down with a friend. I think just whatever you can do in this moment and not worry about fixing everything between now and three months from now. Let’s just get through today.

Sam Demma
Yeah, that’s a great way to look at it. If there is an educator listening to this and they just want to ask you a question or reach out, what would be the best way for them to get in touch or connect with you?

Janis Volker
Oh, I would say, you know, my school email, right? My school phone, hopefully those are all published on our website and that’d be great.

Sam Demma
Awesome. Jan, just keep taking photos.

Janis Volker
I Will. And you know, I wanted to tell you, I did just read your book and I think it’s fantastic. And one part that really stuck out for me was when you talked about for students, the five people that you surround yourself with. I was like, wow, that I really like how, because that is so true. We’re not saying you’re all going to make bad choices, but if the group you’re with is not doing things like you said to build you up, then they’re not, they’re not helping you get to your goal. So I appreciate you for sharing those types of tips because even though I’ve been in this business 21 years, I can always still learn and find new ways to help students.

Sam Demma
Well thank you for reading the book. You can’t get it at the thrift store for 50 cents unless someone drops it off there, so please don’t. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. I appreciate you reading the book. And I appreciate all the effort and energy you place into helping people, whether it’s teachers or students.

Sam Demma
You are making a serious difference. And I look forward to meeting you here soon.

Janis Volker
Yes, thank you. Two months, we get to see you in person here.

Sam Demma
I’m counting it down. All right, Janis, keep up the great work. And we’ll talk soon. And we’ll talk soon.

Janis Volker
Thanks, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Janis Volker

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

March 20, 2025 by Education Educator Student Leadership Student Success 0

Sean Kenney – Director for the Nova Scotia International Student Program in the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education

Sean Kenney – Director for the Nova Scotia International Student Program in the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education
About Sean Kenney

Sean Kenney is the director for the Nova Scotia International Student Program in the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education and the Coordinator for Community Learning, International Services, and Family of School Supervisor. Previous to his current role, he has been a dynamic classroom teacher, vice principal, and principal spanning 30 years in Manitoba, Quebec, and his home province of Nova Scotia. Although desperately missing being in a school each day working with students, he is broadening his impact within his regional of 6200 students.

Sean has always engaged students in thoughtful and meaningful ways while having a sharp focus on equitable practices that are safe and inclusive of everyone in his school community. Each year he welcomes over 250 students from at least 20 different countries into his schools and communities while serving as their custodian and ensuring that they have a rich Nova Scotian experience. 

Connect with Sean Kenney: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Nova Scotia International Student Program

Tri-County Regional Centre for Education

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today we are joined by Sean Kenney, the Director for the Nova Scotia International Student Program in the Tri-County Regional Center for Education and the Coordinator for Community Living of International Services and Family of School Supervisor. But he’s been in education for a long time in Manitoba, in Quebec, in Nova Scotia. He works with international students from all over the world and I’m so grateful to have him on the show here today. Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

Sean Kenney
Thanks so much, Sam. I appreciate the invitation.

Sam Demma
Where in the world are you tuning in from today?

Sean Kenney
That’s a great question. Most of my work is centered in Southwest Nova Scotia, so my office is in Yarmouth, one of the small towns in the southwest portion of the province. That’s where I am right now. However, some of my work takes me different areas of the world, including different parts of Canada where I first met you at the CAPSI conference in Niagara Falls last spring. Yeah, recently for work purposes I’ve traveled to Thailand and Vietnam for a couple weeks meeting with prospective students, partners, and agencies through our international student program.

Sam Demma
When young people, aspiring educators, think about education, most of the time they think about teaching in the classroom or being a principal of a local school, not traveling the globe recruiting students to come to Canada and to provide them with a home away from home and a life-changing experience. At what point in your own educational journey did you uncover international education, and how did you get involved?

Sean Kenney
That’s a great question. Many moons ago, you alluded to the fact that I’ve been in different provinces. And I began education, oh, 34, 35 years ago now, when I went to teacher’s college. So it’s been some time.

Sean Kenney
And at that time, I was really passionate thinking, okay, I’m going to be the, you know, a great math teacher. And that was my singular focus. And truth be told, I’ve taught a number of other subjects other than math. Over those years, you know, I’ve held different roles as a teacher from grade seven through 12. There’s been math, there’s been science, industrial arts, leadership, outdoor ed, you name it. You kind of try some different things. But then being a teacher and vice principal, I was first acquainted with the International Student Program in that regard at one of my previous schools in Shelburne County, Barrington High. We’d have a number of students come in and that was my first introduction to that. So over the course of the last 15 to 20 years, I’ve had kind of an arm’s length support of the International Student Program. During that time, I’ve got to meet a number of great students from all over the world. And then, as we started to develop programs in schools where we’re able to create a bigger network of host families, we were able to welcome more students.

Sean Kenney
And in doing so, we were able to put in a number of different programs in place to help support those students. It was a few years ago, the opportunity came up where the previous director for the International Student Program in our region took a job change. And I thought, okay, I’ve been a leader from a number of different schools and I’ve always felt for me personally, kind of four to six years is that kind of window where it’s important for the organization and the person to seek new opportunities and change. It’s good for everyone that we continue growth through taking new opportunities. So I said, okay, let me give this a try. And Sam, my eyes were blown wide open because certainly from this lens and the supporting role that I’ve got, I didn’t realize all that was involved in the International Student Program, having been a teacher, vice principal, and principal. Certainly, it’s been very alarming and enlightening to see all that’s involved in welcoming all these students in our program. We’ve actually got one of the most esteemed public school, high school programs in Canada.

Sean Kenney
It’s certainly well respected across the country. We’ve welcomed over 25,000 students across 70 different schools in Nova Scotia. In my particular region, we normally bring 200-250 students. Some will be here for as short as four weeks and some will be here for the full year. Some actually begin in grade 7, 8, 9 and they’ll continue for three or four years to graduate. It’s really exciting, the opportunities. And certainly, as you get to travel and meet different agents and partners, you get to see how my starting role 35 years ago as a math teacher has certainly changed greatly. However, not losing sight of the fact that we’re providing great educational experiences, not just for our Canadian students, but also welcoming students from so many different countries.

Sam Demma
For an educator listening to this, who’s aspiring to get into a school, but has never thought or considered about international education as a way they could provide an exceptional experience for young people and also make a contribution in slightly different ways.

Sam Demma
What are some of those services you provide or things you do on a day-to-day basis to paint a little bit of a picture for the role?

Sean Kenney
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I see my role right now within our region as two, you know, it’s, it’s, there’s many different things on my platter of responsibilities. And one of them is really specific around our 150 international students that are part of our program. a more rural way of life. And then there’s a lot of people coming from other countries and immigrating and moving into our communities. So all of our teachers and staff in all schools

Sean Kenney
have been forced to think of things in a different way, as far as a culturally responsive approach in welcoming all of our students and all of the different cultures in our schools. Previous to COVID, quite honestly, a number of our schools would have had limited experience to people from other countries unless it was through the International Student Program. In our region and across the province, that has traditionally been from grades 7 to 12. So a lot of our elementary schools didn’t have those opportunities. So when we think of those best teaching practices and school practices and creating welcoming schools, they were often limited to junior and senior highs. eyes. So now within our region and across the province, and I would guess across the whole country, this has become a wider focus for every educator.

Sam Demma
When you think about your journey in education and international education, who comes to mind as mentors or folks that have helped you and supported you in your professional and personal development? Yeah, that’s a great question. So, the founder and forefather of the Nova Scotia International Student Program was by the name of Paul Millman, and he’s recently moved on over the last couple of years to take on new ventures. So, certainly I was introduced to him while I was still a vice principal about 12 years ago at a conference in a little town named DeBert. And at that time, they brought together a number of administrators. So watching him and his passion from a distance has certainly been incredible.

Sean Kenney
As I’ve become part of the program, I get to see his far-reaching impact and passion and how he’s instilled that on every single… People are living and breathing the program. I think sometimes we take for granted that, you know, a regular classroom, it ends at three o’clock. Well, the International Student Program, it’s a 24-7, 365-day gig where we’ve got the responsibility for that incredible school experience, but as well, we run our own homestead. So it’s creating a network of quality families that welcome students in for this intercultural exchange that’s so rich.

Sean Kenney
So within our program, I’ve been mentored by a friend and colleague, someone actually oddly enough I knew back at Teachers College 35 years ago, and he and I have had similar kind of lived experiences professionally where, you know, he left Teachers College in the mid-90s, became a teacher, moved, you know, different opportunities. Sometimes opportunities present themselves to you by suggestion. People are thinking, hey, there’s an opportunity here, and I think you might be able to fill this need right now. And I think that’s often how people might step into a leadership role in education, especially when it comes to that of a vice principal. I don’t know that many people go in education thinking, wow, one day I’d love to be a VP or a principal. It kind of happens out of curiosity and just different lived experience where you keep building on different things. So he’s been a wonderful mentor as well as our entire program with this particular journey over the past two and a half years.

Sam Demma
What did those folks do for you that had the greatest impact?

Sean Kenney
I think when you bring varied experiences to a new role and set of responsibilities, it’s around validating some of those curiosities, thinking, okay, is this kind of what’s expected? Am I heading in the right direction. He would provide a number of suggestions to me and he was always there for support when I needed.

Sean Kenney
There’s a lot of text messages and emails, hey, in this situation, it’s new for me but probably not for you. This is what I’m kind of talking through those. Because when you’re dealing with, you know, when you’re dealing with humans, man, there can be some high emotions, big emotions, and you definitely want to make sure you get things right. There’s no playbook that’s black and white. We live in the gray when we’re supporting our kids and families, right?

Sam Demma
I think the unique thing about having a mentor who’s been working in a similar field for such a long period of time, is like you mentioned, it may be new for you, but for them, it could be something they’ve experienced dozens or hundreds of times. And there’s a phenomenal book by a guy named Ray Dalio called Principles, and he talked about a mentor that he had in the book, and he would bring him his challenges, and the mentor would say, oh, it’s just another one of those.

Sam Demma
He categorized a lot of his challenges into buckets of things that his mentor had experienced in the past. And even if they haven’t experienced it based on the breadth of their whole experience, they can probably help make a good suggestion even if they’ve never faced something like that before themselves. You said that international education is 24-7.

Sam Demma
It doesn’t end at three o’clock. I think it takes a pretty special human to dedicate their life to supporting young people From 8 a.m. To 3 p.m. Let alone in a position where it seems like it never stops Did you have any experiences growing up that? Inspired you to want to help kids and work with young people or why did you choose this work? Well, it was the fame and fortune. I was looking for I think it’s a calling. People who want to help and be in a helping field, they find their way there. So for me, I think of a couple of pivotal moments and actually they both happened for me as a student when I moved schools. My family moved schools when I was in grade six. So in Nova Scotia, many of our elementary schools go until grade six. So it was kind of a big deal being the oldest of three boys. We ended up moving to this small rural community and I was like, wow, this is really different. Um, and the teacher there kind of, she saw things in me that I didn’t really see in myself at that time. Right. And then it happened again in grade 10 when I arrived at the high school, first year in a new school and kind of had a similar experience. So I thought, okay, these people, um, are suggesting that I might be a great in school one day. And for me, I found math easier than many of the other subjects.

Sean Kenney
So, between that and enjoying sports, certainly enjoyed sports playing as a child when I realized I was far from a pro ball player, I was never going to be a professional athlete. Later in high school, I can’t remember if it was, must have been the summer of grade 11, a friend, me and one of my friends, we ended up coaching a minor ball team and working with the little league kids at that time would have been five, six, seven. It was fun.

Sean Kenney
And I think that kind of was the hook. It’s one of those things that if you enjoy working with kids, you know, just one of those things. With working with kids, every day there’s something new. So you might get some of those moments, but there’s so many things like, wow, that’s different.

Sean Kenney
So I think always being curious, willing to learn and open to new opportunities, that’s what I love about working with kids. There’s never a dull moment. That’s in transitioning to this role, it’s a little different, right?

Sean Kenney
Having been a principal, I was there every day with 575 students every day. So you get to interact all day long, you know, and this one here, working more regionally based, it’s a little different as far as your impact and influence because you don’t get to see every student every day, which is something I had desperately missed, but I’m adjusting to, right? Finding other ways to kind of get to see them.

Sam Demma
There’s unique opportunities in every field, in every, I believe, in every vocation, every job. I think one of the unique opportunities in the work you’re doing now is you’re creating homes away from a home for lots of kids who these experiences could be life changing and and when you think about the students that you’ve served over the years in international education, is there a story of a student that might come to mind right now who was really nervous and shy and maybe even struggling at the start of their international experience but by the end, we’re emailing you, mister Kenny, you’re not gonna believe this. Yeah. And if there isn’t a specific email, that’s okay too. But if there’s a story, I would love for you to share it because there’s an educator listening to this that’s doubting if they’re making a difference. And I think it’s stories like that that really remind them to keep showing up.

Sean Kenney
Yeah, so having been a principal for a number of years, right? And I’ve had the luxury of working in grade primary to 12 schools. And I always shared with my staff, listen, different grade levels have different levels of gratitude.

Sean Kenney
Some are time delayed. Some are like that email that you’re going to delay send. So in elementary schools, gratitude is daily. You get hugs and kisses and snot on your pants from the hugs, right? So you feel that love every day. In high school, those major milestones, the proms, the graduations, when kids are leaving, you get a lot more gratitude. Middle school, it’s delayed, right? So some, you feel that love, right? And you know that you’re making that difference, but for some, they come back. So from my experiences, I’ve had a number of students that are like, man, I just want to talk to you. I really appreciate that you never gave up on me, even though I didn’t deserve that unconditional positive regard or love that you were given. Because sometimes at that time when I was in grade 7 or 8, I was 13, 14, I wasn’t nice. I wasn’t nice to you. I wasn’t nice to other people around me. I just wasn’t nice to myself. So it’s kind of keeping that in mind. With that said, it’s not lost on me the great responsibility that we have in making sure when our students come as directors, we all serve as the legal custodian. So I take them on as my kids. And one of the great responsibilities that I see is taking care of that homestay part, making sure that we vet the families in an appropriate way so that I’m convinced that if my kids were in another country, my own children, I’ve got two that are 17 and 19, am I comfortable with my kids staying in that home thousands of kilometers away? So we’ve been investing time and energy in making sure that all of our homestay families have a common vision of what it is to take care of our kids while they’re here in Nova Scotia. And unfortunately at times I’ve had to make tough decisions where we’ve had to part ways on that hosting relationship. And that’s really difficult to do because parents are sending their kids to Nova Scotia or Canada hoping for a certain experience and many of them will share. And the great thing is, Sam, I’m Sean now, I’m not Mr. Kenny, which is a great thing.

Sean Kenney
In the international community, I don’t have to be Mr. Kenney. I love it. So they come and they say, Sean, this is just like the Hollywood movies, right? When they think of high school, what’s high school like? Well, North American high school is very different than it is in Turkey or Germany or, you know, pick a country, Japan, South Korea, any of the countries that we host from. So, yeah, it’s that responsibility. And we do a great job making sure we transition the students in. So we have a big team of people, whether it’s our home state coordinators, our program managers, we have school ambassadors, which is a wonderful program. They’re Canadian students in every one of our high schools that are trained to help welcome students as they arrive and help them transition through all of their firsts that happen during their stay.

Sean Kenney
So yeah, there’s a lot of stories where kids come, they’re really scared, sometimes they experience culture shock. I’ve really enjoyed my travels with students when I pick them up from the airport and help kind of relieve their concerns. It’s a three, three and a half hour drive from Halifax Airport down to Yeremeth.

Sean Kenney
So if I’ve got three or four students brand new to Canada, we have nice chats coming back and forth.

Sam Demma
When you think about building relationships and having a positive impact in the life of a young person, have you gotten any advice that you think would be worth sharing with some of the educators that are listening right now that might just be starting to work with youth and wanna make a big difference. Like what advice would you share with them that you’ve received at points in your career that you thought were helpful?

Sean Kenney
There’s a lot of different ones. So one of my mentors as a school-based administrator, he was my principal while I was his vice principal for seven years together. And one of the piece of advice he shared was, no matter what the situation is, when you’re speaking with a child, speak to them as if their parents are sitting in the room with you. Show them the same care and concern you would. You can’t be two different people, and that’s really stuck with me.

Sean Kenney
And some of our CRP work in our region, Shrocky Holly, he talks about VABing, which is the validating, affirming, building, bridging. So, I mean, that’s all, it’s about outrageous love, right? So, that’s kind of the part that keeps us going as educators and relationships are everything.

Sean Kenney
Programs, they come and go. Those are kind of the what’s. The why’s and who’s are kind of that vision of purpose. What is your purpose? And who, who’s it all about? Getting to know those kids, getting to know your staff, getting to know your families and having relationships. Certainly there are some time obstacles and barriers, but that is by far the most important thing. And certainly when I think of some of the work that you share in your presentation, it’s around kind of getting to know those kids so that you can help them raise their ceiling of expectations or goals, dreaming big, think big, and then go for it daily with small, reasonable steps. And that’s certainly what resonated with me in the work that we do. And certainly, Sam, I’m looking forward to bringing you to the East Coast here, hopefully in the next school year, so that we can get you to help bring your message, because certainly I think it would resonate with all of our students.

Sam Demma
I appreciate it, Sean. And I’m so grateful that we were able to share some time on the podcast. I know there’s a lot of educators listening to this who have not even considered or thought about international education as a way they can make a difference and express their own passions for working with young people. I wish you nothing but success in all of your upcoming travels. And if there is someone listening to this that wants to touch base with you, reach out, share some delayed gratitude or ask a question, what would be the best way for them to touch base with you?

Sean Kenney
Yeah, so I’m sure on the bio of this podcast, you’ll share that, but my email is sean.kenney at tcrce.ca. Certainly they can look me up on LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Instagram, certainly, even WhatsApp. So I’m certainly willing and able to help answer any questions or even just chat with anyone who’s kind of curious about this because certainly I didn’t think that my educational journey that started 35 years ago would end up in international education right now. And it’s certainly a very wide field and certainly a niche part of public schools.

Sam Demma
Well, one thing, if you’re listening to this right now and you do want to reach out, just don’t call him Mr. Kenney, refer to him as Sean or else you’ll not get a response.

Sean Kenney
That’s definitely one of the top 20 great things about this new role.

Sam Demma
Sean, thank you so much for taking the time. This is awesome. Keep up the great work.

Sean Kenney
Appreciate it, Sam. Thanks.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sean Kenney

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

February 27, 2025 by Director of Education Education Educator Student Leadership Student Success 0

Betty Norton, M. Ed. – Chief Academic Officer at Xceed Preparatory Academy Virtual School

Betty Norton, M. Ed. – Chief Academic Officer at Xceed Preparatory Academy Virtual School
About Betty Norton

For almost 30 years, Betty Norton worked for Broward County Public Schools where she taught middle school students and later concentrated on special populations included Gifted and Exceptions Student Education (ESE) classrooms and Title I schools.  

Motivated to bring even more value to the students of Broward County, Ms. Norton pursued and earned a National Board Certification in 2004 and a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction in 2007, while concurrently dedicating her time to increase academic achievement in the district’s middle and high schools. She worked at the district level from 2005-2016. She worked for Core Curriculum as a curriculum developer and then in 2009 transferred to the dept of Accountability. In both cases, she was assigned to low-performing schools (D-F schools) and led a team of district support to evaluate, design, and implement school improvement plans and met with great success. Norton also provided training for faculty and administration. 

Keen to learn more about virtual and remote education, Ms. Norton also spent seven-and-a-half years working for both Broward Virtual School and Florida Virtual School before embarking on her career at Xceed Preparatory Academy Virtual School, where she served as Head of Schools for Coral Springs. When Xceed Preparatory Academy Virtual School opened in 2020, Norton was tapped to lead the global virtual campus and since then, has become a go-to expert in online, remote and virtual education, having been featured in Thrive Global and numerous family and lifestyle blogs.  

Ms. Norton earned a Bachelor of Science in Secondary English Education from the University of Central Florida and a Master of Science from Capella University. 

Connect with Betty Norton: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Broward County Public Schools
Broward Virtual School
Florida Virtual School
Xceed Preparatory Academy Virtual School

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today we have a very special guest on the show. Betty Norton is a veteran in education, almost 30 years. She is currently sitting in her office in beautiful Florida where it is sunny outside and I’m sitting in my office where it is minus five and snowing.

Sam Demma
Betty has an unwavering passion for education, personalizing the experience to individuals to meet their needs and help them excel and exceed. Betty, thank you so much for coming on the show here today. Thank you so much.

Betty Norton
It’s my pleasure.

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about the work that you’re doing in education today and what got you into education in the first place.

Betty Norton
Okay, well, those are two very big questions. Do we have time for both? What I do in education these days. So I actually am the chief academic officer for several private schools that we have here in South Florida.

Betty Norton
We have six physical campuses and one virtual school that we use to kind of overlay across all of our campuses. We have students all around the world who attend our virtual school. And we also have students who are visiting the state of Florida for their sports and maybe attending any one of our XSEED Prep campuses.

Betty Norton
So that’s what I do now. I do oversee them. And my focus is doing whatever we can to make those schools better, to be able to provide students with a personalized learning education that really fulfills their needs and helps them achieve their goals. And the biggest reason why I got into education

Betty Norton
is because I have a big passion for it. I know that everyone says that, but I genuinely enjoy working with young people, especially middle schoolers and high schoolers. I graduated college going into business and then very quickly switched gears and went straight into education and I’ve never looked back.

Sam Demma
You mentioned the importance of creating personalized educational experiences and journeys for students. What does that look like for your schools? Great question.

Betty Norton
So at our schools, we have, let’s say for example, our schools open from 8 to 3.30 every day. And we personalize our students’ schedules all the way down to when they will be on campus. So a traditional campus will have students coming in at 8, leaving at 3.30, bells will ring and they will switch from class to class. They only have a certain amount of time with

Betty Norton
each of their teachers and let’s say for example if you’re waiting to get to number 17 because that’s the only question you really had a problem with, it’s really difficult when everyone else kind of gets a turn and perhaps the bell rings before you even get your shot at it. So at XSEED our students have flexible schedules. Some of our students come maybe three or four times a week. They may be on campus for about five to six hours, and they get to work with their teachers individually,

Betty Norton
and they also get to work with their teachers in small group sessions. So one of the ways that we customize our curriculum for them is meeting them where they are and then being able to create a support system for any foundational skills that they may be lacking. We help remediate those throughout the day. And then while they’re working with their teachers and working in small groups,

Betty Norton
they’re accelerating and moving forward. So we have the ability to have some students who may take a little bit longer to earn their high school diploma and say they might go an extra semester. But the opposite is also true.

Betty Norton
We have plenty of students who wish to graduate early because they wanna pursue their careers or the ideas and dreams that they’ve been planning. So sometimes we have students who graduate early.

Sam Demma
And recently you opened a few more schools. Tell me a little bit about it.

Betty Norton
Yes, that was quite the endeavor. We opened three new campuses this August and they are spread out throughout South Florida. We have a new campus in Boca, one in Palm Beach Gardens and one in Fort Lauderdale. All of them were quite exciting and quite challenging

Betty Norton
to open, trying to do three things at once is always a challenge. But we are hoping to tap into those communities and again, allow those students the opportunity to get the education personalized and have those needs met. Our schools tend to be rather small. Our schools are less than 100 students at each campus. And we do that by design so that the teachers can go ahead and personalize things and work students in small groups, if not one-on-one.

Sam Demma
How do people find your schools? Has XSEED been open for a long time? Tell me a little bit more about the process of a family getting their kid involved in one of your campuses.

Betty Norton
Yes, so we opened our doors back in September of 2017. And honestly, the fastest way for them to find us now is typically word of mouth. We have a very strong community build where our families will share with their friends and let them know what the experience has been for their child and so they’ll come out and visit our campuses. But otherwise we do

Betty Norton
what everybody else seems to do. We participate in conversations, we go to conferences, we have our website and Google and so forth. So we do have an active Instagram page and we get a lot of our families through our social and through word of mouth

Sam Demma
When you think of the students you serve at exceed across all campuses How do you measure the success of a student is it? I guess it must be based on their own goals and dreams and if you if you were able to help them move closer to those, but are there any students that stick out in your mind when you think of the impact that XSEED has had on a student’s journey?

Betty Norton
Yes, so you’re right. We do have a different, different ways of measuring, but quite honestly the first and foremost way that I measure student success is based on how happy they are. Many of our students are coming to us because they either feel like they’ve been left behind at a traditional school, whether it be private or public. Larger schools have a difficult time, and no fault to them.

Betty Norton
I used to work public school for about 20 years, so I understand the needs of the classroom teacher. But sometimes you just need to have a little bit of extra time every day to help you do what you need to do. So some of our students really come to us because they want that flexibility in their day,

Betty Norton
they want a little bit of a later start, and they want more of that one-on-one experience so that we can help them with those foundational skills. So honestly, seeing students go from being a little sad or depressed or feeling like they couldn’t achieve things or just even basic things like,

Betty Norton
miss, I’m not good at this math, I’d like to skip it or move on to something else. And then going in, let’s say six to seven weeks after they start with us and see them participating, not only just joining, but participating in a group session and getting up to the board and running through the math and showing you that they know what they’re doing is kind of an amazing task. I think one of the biggest memories that I have with XSEED that really made me proud of what we do and what our team has been successfully doing for the last few years, especially.

Betty Norton
I’ve been to probably 50 or 60 National Honor Society inductions. Between all the schools that I’ve ever worked in and working at the district level, you tend to be invited to things like that. And it’s always a very nice affair and everyone’s quite proud of their child. But at Exceed,

Betty Norton
since so many of those students were already struggling at their previous schools, I’d never seen so many parents just kind of move to tears with sharing so many stories of how their child, if they stayed at their school, they would have never been part of National Honor Society because they just weren’t getting the time and attention that they needed to be successful. So to see something that became so normal for me and then run into so many families that were just crying

Betty Norton
and brought every relative, the biggest event just to celebrate their child’s success really was a huge moment for me. It made me feel like we really were heading in the right direction and providing this level of education for kids.

Sam Demma
It’s so cool to hear about the impact the programs are creating in the lives of families and their children. I know that the reason many educators, heart-centered individuals, get into education is because they want to make a difference. Sometimes you don’t hear about it for a really long time, and more often than not, might not even realize that you are making

Sam Demma
a serious contribution to the life of a young person and their family. To attend an event like that and hear the stories must be such a gift. It sounds like you’ve spent years in public education, you’ve now spent multiple years in private education.

Sam Demma
You’ve also spent years teaching and leading virtual education. Can you talk a little bit about what it means to create a great experience virtually for students because school boards, especially in the pandemic hit, really struggled to maintain engagement and provide a good experience virtually. But I think it’s a beautiful opportunity to connect students from all over the globe with virtual experiences.

Sam Demma
And I know you’ve been doing it very well. No, thank you. And I mean, Sam, I’ll have to say, just this experience that you and I are currently having,

Betty Norton
that you’re in Canada and I’m in Florida, and we’re able to have this conversation, and I feel like we’re in the same room just chatting with each other. So the virtual education, I think, that’s probably the biggest piece right there.

Betty Norton
If you can help the student feel like they are live and in person and they’re engaging, regardless of where they’re sitting, I think you’ve really, you’ve kind of like overcome your first hurdle, if you will, in the virtual world. The other is over communication. I think that when you have a physical environment, people get a lot of their

Betty Norton
physical cues, you know, they look at each other, they can see how someone is feeling and so on, but in the virtual world, it’s kind of radio silent until you tap into them. So it’s really important to have different engagement opportunities for our students. We have social hours for them. We have activities that we sometimes run. We have virtual parties. We have all kinds of things that help them still be a part

Betty Norton
of our virtual community. They can even volunteer online and participate in donations if they wanted to donate for Toys to Tots or what have you through that virtual platform. So I think the key there in order for the students to feel really engaged is to have those connections

Betty Norton
and have those opportunities for the students to be a part of something, whether they can physically be there or not, they feel connected to everyone else in the group.

Sam Demma
Throughout your educational career, which mentors have you had or resources that have been really instrumental in your personal and professional development? And if so, what did you learn from those things or those individuals?

Betty Norton
Yes, that’s a really good question. So I’m gonna have to say my very first resource is the library. Ever since I was in elementary school, any time I wanted to know a little bit more about something rather than, and maybe this is probably because I did go to public and private school when I was younger, but going to your teacher and asking 20 questions wasn’t always ideal.

Betty Norton
So being able to go to the library and check out books and talk to the librarian and learn as much as I could about a particular topic really helped me stay curious and really helped me figure out how to tap into things and be a self-advocate and self-reliant. I think those skills really have transferred into my academic career and my professional career. But if I were to talk about any one mentor that I think really helped change things and

Betty Norton
helped mold me is Dr. Janet Allen. She was my college professor, and I kind of used to call her my college mom. So she’s the person who guided me through the entire process, helped me land my first job in education, and really saw that I had a passion for working with students, especially underprivileged students,

Betty Norton
who may have been attending Title I schools or lived in difficult environments. And me growing up in Newark, New Jersey also kind of gave me that opportunity to feel like, yes, I know what it’s like to be in a tough neighborhood and go to school.

Betty Norton
So she really understood what I wanted and saw that talent in me and made sure that I was in every rough school I could possibly work in so that I can make the greatest impact. And I really appreciate her for that because if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know that I would have taken advantage of those opportunities myself.

Sam Demma
Does she know how much of a difference she’s made in your journey in life?

Betty Norton
I hope so. I ran into her probably about seven years ago. She was presenting at a conference and I just walked up to her and said, hey, do you remember me? And she said, yes.

Betty Norton
And I said, I just wanted to give you a big hug and say, these are all the things I’ve been able to accomplish because you put me, or helped put me on the right path. And we both cried a little bit over that and reminisced about the good old days.

Betty Norton
But so I think to a certain extent she knows. Does she know? The full extent of it I think as teachers we never really know the power that we have over someone or how far our reach is, even when we run into them, really. They share their successes, and we say that’s fascinating. But to have that inside of you and every time you think about that person,

Betty Norton
you can get warm fuzzies and feel like they were your greatest cheerleader and supporter. I don’t know that we ever know how great that impact is.

Sam Demma
I think it’s an important reminder that we don’t know, and it’s equally as important a reminder to reach out to those individuals and tell them. I have a teacher who in grade 12 totally changed my life and trajectory, and fortunately he lives close to home,

Sam Demma
and we’ve stayed in touch over email, and once a year I try to eat a lunch with him and his wife on their porch and their dog. And every time I go, I get emotional. And I tell him and his wife how thankful and grateful I am for their presence in my life growing up.

Sam Demma
And I just think that the world needs more of those moments. And if you still have contact with Dr. Janet, it would be a beautiful reason to reach out and let her know. And if you’re an educator listening to this and you haven’t heard from a student or a colleague about the impact you’ve created on their life, just because you haven’t heard doesn’t mean you weren’t instrumental in that person’s personal and professional development. So please keep showing up and keep going and start the cycle. If there’s someone who had an impact on you

Sam Demma
and you’re listening to this, reach out to them. Use this as a reason to do so. I’m curious, Betty, you seem like someone who is extremely driven and dedicated to supporting young people and their families and advancing them in their education and their personal dreams and goals. How do you fill your own cup when you’re not at work to ensure that when you do show up,

Sam Demma
you’re giving the best of yourself that you possibly can? Well, I think the most important thing is to strike a balance between what you do for

Betty Norton
yourself and what you do for others. And a balance doesn’t necessarily mean 50 50, right? Today, it might be 100% exceed and 0% Betty, but tomorrow, it might be 90% Betty and 10% exceed, right? It’s knowing that balance, knowing what the priority is of the day and where you’re going to make the most impact. When you first start off, especially doing something

Betty Norton
at this scale, you feel like you have to be there for every single person, and you want to be a great leader, you want to be able to talk to them and say, I have an open-door policy, reach out to me, talk to me. But if you allow that, you could easily have 65 to 70 people reaching out to you on a daily basis,

Betty Norton
trying to troubleshoot things. So I think the biggest thing that I try to do, especially with our heads of schools and our leadership team is delegates, right? I want them to be able to provide and support our teachers by becoming experts in different areas. So even though I oversee everything,

Betty Norton
I do have them helping and balancing the load. And I try to take off as much as I can off their plates so that they can spend their time working on the job itself, working with the families and the students. And I take care of the business side of things or managing any issues that we may have, our curriculum, our facilities,

Betty Norton
and so forth. But I think having that downtime at home, spending time with my family, I have a daughter, a son, and a beautiful husband who are incredibly supportive of me, who understand that sometimes I have to work on a Sunday at 6 in the morning, and understand that, you know, I make up for it in other ways. We have family time, we always have dinner together, I do have a few things that are non-negotiables, if

Betty Norton
you will. I think those are important to have that set of standards in your work life, but also have some boundaries in your personal life.

Sam Demma
Saying no is so difficult in my own personal life. I know that as an educator, you’re pulled in hundreds of different directions too. How do you build that muscle to set the boundaries and stick to them when you really want to serve and support all the time

Betty Norton
You make a lot of mistakes. I’m gonna be honest with you. I mean, it’s not it’s most certainly not a perfected craft I think it’s always a work in progress and I think it will be until forever Yeah, it really is, you know, sometimes you sit there and go jeez. I probably shouldn’t have extended myself there I really wanted to be better at this and it really only takes one or two opportunities where you feel like you could have been at 100% to make you feel like, okay, I need to really focus because being here for the students and our families is what’s most important to me. Being here to support the teachers is also incredibly important. So once you have

Betty Norton
that experience, you say, all right, I’m going to wake up every morning and get myself organized. So that’s exactly what I do before I even hop out of bed. I go through my calendar, what’s going on, what do I need to do, what do I need to fire off and delegate or ask someone to assist with so that I can clear the path and be fully present. That’s something that I’ve been focusing on,

Betty Norton
especially over the last two years, with everything that happened with COVID and social media and all the things that are going on, wanting to be present is incredibly important for me. So I do, I sit with people, I like to sit with you face-to-face.

Betty Norton
I ask for people to turn off their cell phones and let’s just have 20 minutes where you and I are engaging, we’re present, we’re here, we’re not worrying about all the things that are happening around us. And let’s focus on the items that we wanna get to, to make a better tomorrow for everybody.

Betty Norton
But it is difficult.

Sam Demma
The presence piece is huge. I think about my personal relationships and when I feel most seen, heard, understood and connected to others. And it’s when we are sitting together face to face or engaging in an activity, our phones are off or not in sight.

Sam Demma
Simon Sinek, there’s a picture or a video of him sitting on stage, and he pulls out his phone and holds it in his hand and waves it around while he’s speaking, and ask the audience, did it change the way you feel about me while I’m holding my phone speaking to you right now versus when it was hidden in my pocket. And as a viewer watching this video online, I answered the question in my head like saying yes,

Sam Demma
because it made me feel like I wasn’t the most important thing, that you’re holding onto something else. Maybe there’s something you’re thinking about related to your phone or a task you have to complete rather than being present with me.

Sam Demma
And it’s something I’ve tried to carry forward in all of our relationships, whether personally or professionally. When you think about XSEED and the new year’s right around the corner, what are some of the objectives the school as a whole,

Sam Demma
across all campuses are focused on, or some of the things you’re very excited about as we move forward?

Betty Norton
Yeah, so I think I have to start that by saying that I’m already in planning mode for fall of 2025, right? So I’m looking at our curriculum, our staffing, our facilities, the resources, what do we need to do? Are we adding more classes? Are we taking away classes?

Betty Norton
What are we gonna do to help provide opportunities for our students, field trips, guest speakers, and so on. So I’m very much ingrained in fall of 2025 right now, to the point where I’ve actually put in my calendar that Christmas is a week away and I need to shop. And every single day I have a notification

Betty Norton
that says go Christmas shopping, because I’m just so living in the future right now. And we have so many great things planned. We have, you know, with all of our campuses kind of ramping up for the fall, we wanna be able to provide

Betty Norton
those unique student experiences. I’m very big on experience versus giving someone an actual gift, I’d rather you have an experience or a moment, so we’re focusing on what do we need to do to take that classroom, that day-to-day and add to it, right? How do we take this opportunity

Betty Norton
and let you have a real life experience through a guest speaker or a field trip or even just a virtual tour? Those are incredibly powerful as well. You can visit anywhere in the world on a virtual tour. And I think it’s quite fascinating

Betty Norton
to be able to do that with students. But of course, continuing our work with the rigorous curriculum, we are a college prep school, so we want to make sure that we have strong relationships with the colleges and universities, especially those that our students wish to attend. And then supporting our community, having more opportunities dedicated to volunteer work and being able to work with everyone in our, you know, surrounding cities and towns by donating our time. So those are our big focuses.

Sam Demma
It’s been such a pleasure having you on the podcast to talk about your journey through education, some of your beliefs and philosophies around education and the cool things that are happening at XSEED across all the campuses. If someone is listening to this very inspired,

Sam Demma
wants to share a note of gratitude or appreciation or ask you a question, what would be the best way for them to reach out and get in touch with you?

Betty Norton
Absolutely, I would love it. I like talking shop, so anyone who’s open to chat, I’m always up for it. But I think emailing me at bnorton@xceedprep.org would be fantastic.

Sam Demma
Awesome, Betty, thank you so much for your time and your presence. I appreciate it and I wish you all the best in 2025 and beyond.

Betty Norton
Thank you so much, Sam. It’s been really great speaking with you today. It’s been really great speaking with you today. Thank you for your time.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Betty Norton

The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education.  By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators.  You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.

February 13, 2025 by Director of Education Education Educator Entrepreneur School Administration Virtual Education 0

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