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Aaron Schmitt — Principal of Reitz Memorial High School

Aaron Schmitt — Principal of Reitz Memorial High School
About Aaron Schmitt

Aaron Schmitt is the principal of Reitz Memorial High School in Evansville, Indiana. He and his wife are proud alumni of the school, and have two children who will also attend the school.

Aaron was hired as a social studies teacher in 2009, and spent thirteen years in the classroom and coaching baseball before moving into the principal role at the school. This is his third year, and he’s hoping to be around for at least another twenty-five to see the impact and the changes the school is making.

What Aaron loves most about being in education is seeing where the students are down the road. The impact that teachers make is long lasting and formational, and essential for character formation in young men and women. Without the educators in his own life who cared about him and taught him, he would not be where he is today.

Connect with Aaron Schmitt: Email

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Resources Mentioned

Reitz Memorial 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
When you were talking about returning back to the school and the opportunity and the challenge that comes along with it in terms of how we perceive ourselves versus how our peers do, it made me think about when a student leaves for university and spends four years away from their parents

Sam Demma
and then comes back and it’s like, well, this is interesting.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah.

Sam Demma
Tell me a little bit about those first few years. You mentioned before we started talking that the time in the classroom has a really special place in your heart. I’d love to know more about that.

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah. Oh gosh. You know, I mean, like I said, I was 23. I had proposed to my wife early on. I mean, if you asked any of my former homeroom kids, there’s like probably, you know, it’s interesting.

Aaron Schmitt
I have one of my favorite books is a book where the main character talks about, you know, the thing about a reputation is everybody knows your reputation except for you. Right. So that’s really insightful. Right.

Aaron Schmitt
So like there’s this always this kind of like everybody knows the reputation of Mr. Schmitt except for Mr. Schmitt. Like I don’t know necessarily what is I think I may know some things, but I don’t know everything. And one of the pieces of advice that I give to our new principal is, you know, as a young teacher, I was always terrified of being like, you know, there’s that friend or friendly. Right. And you want to be friendly with the kids, but not necessarily be a friend.

Aaron Schmitt
You want to be a mentor to them. You don’t want to you don’t want to cross that line where they don’t see you as anything other than their teacher, their instructor, their coach. There’s a professional relationship. And also one of the great things about teaching is kids are going to open up to you. They are going to come to you with stuff when they feel comfortable, when they’re struggling

Aaron Schmitt
with things at home or on the court or on the field or relationship stuff with their friends or with a boyfriend or girlfriend. They’re going to open up to you with those things or mental health struggles. I always felt like I had a lot of kids that would talk to me about things like that. And it’s always kind of that balance, right?

Aaron Schmitt
Like how do you give them an ear where they do that, but also make sure that they understand very professional, right? Like there’s a boundary and we will make sure that we can maintain that boundary. So, I don’t know, whenever I have our new staff, like I said, there were like three things that I was known for when I first started teaching. One was I would always just tell them that’s personal.

Aaron Schmitt
Anytime they would ask me a personal question, I would just say that’s personal and I would not answer it. And it drove them crazy, right? But I knew that the more I talked about myself, the less interested they would be in me. So I knew that if you hold certain things back and you only let them know certain things, right? Like you’re kind of also building out your reputation. Like you’re kind of building out like, okay, here’s the reputation that I want kids to be able to talk about me. Like Mr.

Aaron Schmitt
Schmitt’s class is really great. He really prides himself in academics. He puts a lot of time into his stuff, but also he’s a little standoffish. And so you gotta pay attention in class because every once in a while, he’ll tell something about himself. And they kind of latch onto that.

Aaron Schmitt
They’ll be like, wait, what did you just say? And you’ll go, and I would say, well, that’s personal. And I would just move on. It would drive them crazy, But it was a way to keep engagement up. It was kind of a little game you play in class, right? Like everybody plays a role, everybody plays a character in class. And so I used to always say that was personal.

Aaron Schmitt
And they would hate it. But then as the years would go on, like my homeroom kids, freshman year, nothing. Hey, Mr. Schmitt, are you married? That’s personal. Why are you asking about that?

Aaron Schmitt
That’s none of your business, you know, and it would just be like, I’m just asking. And, you know, you got to, you kind of play this kind of curmudgeon in class. And then over the years, you kind of lessen up a little bit, you let them know a little bit more, right, a little bit more and a little bit more. And you tell them some stories that were really meaningful and impactful to you, things that I had experienced, things know, that really helps set the tone for what was important, what I wanted them to walk away with from this class, right? Like when I wanted to walk away from this class, I wanted to know that I was

Aaron Schmitt
somebody who valued this place, cared deeply about it, appreciated the faith aspect that was more than just education, but was full formation as a human being, that I appreciated students that treated each other with respect. And, you know, I’d lay out these examples in my life where I’d seen stuff. And again, I’d tell them those contextual examples.

Aaron Schmitt
But really, that was, you know, those are years I really love that. It was easier to do it in the classroom because I had more opportunities to kind of build that up over time. As principal, I can’t do that now. You know, I can’t just walk around telling people that’s personal and then just walk away. They’re just like, this guy’s, I don’t know me well enough to do that. They’re just like, this guy’s a jerk.

Sam Demma
What would you say- the way you approach building those relationships in the administration role versus in the classroom. It sounds like in the classroom, playing the character, withholding some information, sharing stories every once in a while was one way. How has it shifted?

Aaron Schmitt
You know, I’m still learning.

Aaron Schmitt
I’m still learning that. I think that’s the tough part about bringing up principal. So I never wanted to be an administrator. You know, I’m still learning. I’m still learning that. I think that’s the tough part about bringing up principals. So I never wanted to be an administrator. I tell people that all the time. It wasn’t my goal in life.

Aaron Schmitt
Like my goal in life was to come in and stay in the classroom and be the classroom teacher and be the coach for, you know, God willing 40 years if I could spend that long in the classroom. And if I was doing a good job at it,

Aaron Schmitt
I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. But I think in from an administrator perspective, the relationships you’re building with kids, it takes a lot more effort to build relationships with kids. It’s not as easy as it used to be in the classroom. I don’t have them every other day for an hour and a half

Aaron Schmitt
like we do, like I did when I was in the classroom. And so kind of getting that targeted group, and I don’t see as many kids as I used to either, right? Like I used to see, I don’t know, six classes over every other day, 25 kids in each one, so 150 kids. And then they help build your reputation, right? Like I talked about building that reputation out. They would tell their friends, oh, to take this class or hey, don’t take that class. It’s way too hard. You know, they kind of would help build that out as well. So now from an administrative perspective, it’s a lot more of the faculty.

Aaron Schmitt
The focus is a lot more on the faculty and the focus is a lot more on community relations. And so, you know, adults are difficult. They’re not as easy as kids. They’ve got a lot more life experiences and the things that are maybe a little bit more novel to kids that are interesting, adults are just like, I’m not interested in that.

Aaron Schmitt
And they’re not as interested in the gimmicks and the stuff that maybe you would be able to get away with in the classroom and the kind of things that you would pull and the levers that you’d try to manipulate to get kids interested and stuff. So, but I feel that it’s important.

Aaron Schmitt
You know, ultimately that’s the reason I stepped into the role is just because I felt like I needed to be not where I wanted to be, but I felt like I needed to be where the school needed me to be. And so that was ultimately the reason for the shift. We’d seen a lot of turnover, a lot of change

Aaron Schmitt
in the past few years. And so I just felt like providing some consistency was

Sam Demma
important for the school. You mentioned the other time you had done a podcast format or something similar of this nature was on the side of a football field. You mentioned the desire to teach and coach for 40 years, God willing. Tell me more about the athletic side of building relationships with kids and how that shaped your whole experience.

Aaron Schmitt
No, I was a terrible coach. I will say that. So I was a pitcher only. I was a PO in baseball. I didn’t play the field through high school and then through college.

Aaron Schmitt
I was a pitcher only. And so I shouldn’t say I was a terrible coach. I knew one aspect of the game. Took me a while to realize there’s a lot that I didn’t know and I needed to turn that over to somebody else. One of my assistant coaches

Aaron Schmitt
who had actually batted through high school would be more helpful than me trying to, you know, do those things and work with those kids. I think, you know, there’s something great about coaching, right? Like when you sweat with the guys on the field because you’re running sprints with them, right? When they get to see a side of you that doesn’t come

Aaron Schmitt
through in the classroom, right? Something with maybe just, whether it’s a little bit more aggression, a little bit more passion, a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit more honest conversations than what you can have in the classroom when you’re one-on-one with a kid on the field. You know, those things really, they help you. We always, in our school, we’re blessed. We’ve got about 90% of our student bodies

Aaron Schmitt
involved in athletics. And so we’ve got a good chunk of our kids appreciate the coaches. And the other thing is it helps kids see you outside of the classroom too. Like they understand why. If they know how you are in the classroom

Aaron Schmitt
and they see that you don’t change when it comes to the field, that they’re just like, that’s who that person is. That’s how he is, that’s how she is. They expect, they demand, you know, they build and they hold the standard.

Aaron Schmitt
And that really makes a difference for our students, makes a difference for our teachers as well. So we always encourage our faculty to get involved, to try to coach if they can. We just made two hires over the past couple of weeks, and hopefully they’ll both end up coaching here as well. They mentioned that they wanted to. So that’s always good news for us to have more coaches in the building, and whether they’re

Aaron Schmitt
academic coaches or athletic coaches or theater or play coaches or band coaches, we want everybody to have those kids have the ability to see them outside of that aspect, outside the classroom aspect. For me, I always told them it was, I always said it was kind of like Batman and Bruce Wayne, right? Like Mr. Schmitt is different than Coach Schmitt. I always told them in the classroom I wanted to be called Mr. Schmitt and I’d have players that—

Aaron Schmitt
I always told them in the classroom, I want to be called Mr. Schmitt. And I’d have players that come in, they’d be like, hey coach. And I’d, you know, and they could tell, like it was one of those things to me, it would be like, hmm. And they’d go, oh, sorry, Mr. Schmitt.

Aaron Schmitt
I’d be like, I appreciate that. But, you know, I wanted them to understand that there is a difference between the classroom and the field, you know, especially with what we’re talking about. I didn’t want to talk about baseball all day long in the classroom, and I didn’t want to talk about academics on the field. I wanted each thing to have its place and to be able to put the attention and the focus on those things when the time was for those things. So the coaches made the biggest difference in my life. I mean, when I think of, you know, the guys I had growing up, whether I was playing, you know, little league stuff

Aaron Schmitt
or whether I was in high school, they always made the impact on me. They always helped me find confidence. They always helped me, you know, see myself and they always held you accountable in the classroom. I think that’s one of the things that we pride ourselves in a lot here. We do grade checks every two weeks for our athletes. Our coaches get a list of who’s not doing well in classes and they do study tables.

Aaron Schmitt
I mean, we really put an emphasis on the academics because it takes everybody—parents, coaches, teachers, counselors—everybody has to be surrounding that kid if we want them to be successful and try to get them to where we want. We want them to know that no matter where they go, they’re loved and they’re cared for. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a coach, if it’s a teacher, if we all have the same message and we’re all in the same spot,

Aaron Schmitt
you know, they’re gonna be in a much better place at the end of their four

Sam Demma
years here at Memorial. I was reading a book this weekend called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. And he shared a story about Picasso. Someone bought a bunch of his paintings and hung them up in a gallery and invited him to come and see it once it was all set up. And Picasso arrives, takes a glance at all the paintings on the wall, grabs a razor or like a knife,

Sam Demma
and proceeds to cut them all up. And the guy in the gallery is like, Picasso, stop, please, what are you doing? And he said, it’s not my best work. And the chapter was about professionals being critical or ruthless about their quality of work.

Sam Demma
And the first thing you said when I said, hey, tell me about coaching was, I was a terrible coach. And maybe it’s because what you’ve learned about coaching has shifted over the years. And I think that’s a beautiful perspective to have—that when your first version of coaching

Sam Demma
is very different than your 50th. And you’ve made progress. That’s a good thing. And I’m curious, in your perspective now, what makes great coaching? Or what makes a great coach? And are there any aspects of that that teachers can even think about or utilize?

Aaron Schmitt
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, coaching is a lot like parenting, right? I think of coaching as more like parenting. When I think about parenting, my own mom and dad, consistency is the most important thing—that you’re consistent, that kids know. Kids thrive in an environment with structure, when they know the rules and they know the boundaries,

Aaron Schmitt
they know how to act, and they will tailor their actions based on the consistency and the expectations that are laid out, right? And if you are consistent, 95% or higher, kids will tailor themselves and they’ll tailor their behaviors to that. And it’s a lot like in the classroom—like if you tell them, you show up late in the classroom, you show up late on the field, here’s the consequence, here’s the

Aaron Schmitt
consequence—and you have to be willing to follow through on it. My dad, you know, he was not one to mince words. He’s a man of little patience. And it was always one of those things that when he said he was gonna do something, it didn’t matter how extreme it sounded. He was gonna follow through on it.

Aaron Schmitt
And he always told me, the worst thing you can do is make a statement—“If you do this, I’m going to do this”—and then not follow up on it, because people learn very quickly that you don’t mean what you say.

Aaron Schmitt
And kids, better than anybody—because kids are always testing the boundaries, right? Like, they’re always gonna push you to try to see what they can get away with. And that’s expected—they’re kids. So, you know, but you know,

Aaron Schmitt
there are things on the field. You’d see a kid suffering with low confidence on the field. They’re just like, “I don’t think I can get it done.” How do you build them up? How do you build them up? How do you build them up? Well, same thing in the classroom too.

Aaron Schmitt
Some of those kids, they think “I could never—” they walk in the room, “I’m not any good at history.” Are they not any good at history, or have they just not put the time into it? Right? Like, it’s just like any other subject. I mean, again, I taught social studies and I taught everything from our intro world history up through AP comparative government, which was an international politics class.

Aaron Schmitt
And so I really loved how I could build kids up and get them interested in it. You know, it’s a little bit different on the field than in baseball. They want to be there, right? Like they’ve already made that decision that they’re going to be there and they made the commitment. But in the classroom, I always took it as a point of pride—how many kids can I get that walk in here and say, “I don’t want to be part of this, I don’t like this,” to then go… and I’m hearing former students want to go back into social studies as a career

Aaron Schmitt
and make an impact in the world through that. So, or even better—be a teacher. That was always the win, was when they’d come back and say, “I’m going to be a teacher now.”

Sam Demma
I think that’s a beautiful measuring stick of giving yourself that personal challenge of responsibility. “How many students can I turn on to this subject or this topic?” What would that inform you to do differently as a result? Like, is there certain things that you would think about doing more of in the classroom to increase the probability of that happening?

Sam Demma
Because I think every teacher listening to this is like, “Oh, if I could only get my kids passionate about math, this would be brilliant.” And I know you can’t take full responsibility. But yeah, yeah. I’m curious if there’s any things you used to

Aaron Schmitt
do.

Aaron Schmitt
No, you know, I mean, I think the biggest thing—for if you love your subject area, that’s the first and foremost. Kids have got to see that you love what you do. If they walk in the room and you’re just, you know, if you’re just run-of-the-mill, just doing the same thing—I mean, gosh, that’s terrible. Like, you know, you can’t do that to kids. You can’t do that to them.

Aaron Schmitt
They’re still young and they still have joy, right? Like, you can’t walk in the room and be like, “Oh, we’re just gonna do the same thing we’ve been doing.” Right? But I don’t know. I used to have a goal in every class where I would try to—I had one thing every week in every class that I looked forward to: an activity, a debate, a discussion, some type of project that they were going to work on.

Aaron Schmitt
I always said if I wasn’t happy in the classroom, that’s my own fault. I have control of it. I mean, yeah, I might not have control over the, you know, the standards that have to be taught, but I definitely have control over how I want to teach those standards. Like, I have a lot of autonomy—especially in a Catholic school, I have a lot of autonomy to be able to handle that. You know, if you’re not happy with how things are going in your classroom, then change it.

Aaron Schmitt
You have that ability. You know, there’s so many great ideas and so many wonderful things out there. I mean, I’ve been working with our faculty on just using AI to help just jumpstart the same, you know, lesson you’ve been teaching for 25 years. Well, let’s give it a fresh take. Let’s give it a fresh take.

Aaron Schmitt
How do you do that, right? Like just, “Hey, I’m looking for a 20-minute activity, you know, for the start of class that puts them in groups of six,” or whatever it is, right? Like, you can be so specific and you can generate so many ideas. And it’s not about letting it do all the work for you, but it is about just helping take the creativity burden off, right? Like, at least you get a starting point, you go, “Oh, that’s good, but what if we did this instead?” Right? I always think, you know, again, I try to build in one activity that I look forward to—but that takes time. It takes a lot of time.

Aaron Schmitt
Like, you start out like, “Okay, hey, one a chapter,” right? And then the next year, you’re like, “Okay, the one activity that kids really love,” and you ask them for their feedback. That’s, you know, if there’s one piece of advice I could give new teachers—I’ve been talking about this a lot with our staff right now—is don’t be afraid to ask the kids what they think. Like, that is your client. That is who you’re working with every day.

Aaron Schmitt
And they know you better. I, as an administrator, I get into the classroom twice a year for two hours. Like, as much as I’d love to say I have the best idea of everything that goes on every day, there’s no way I could do that, right? The kids know though. They know every day whether you put your best foot forward,

Aaron Schmitt
whether you are happy or joyful, whether you’re giving a good effort. And they know too like, “Hey, this activity isn’t landing as good as it used to five years ago,” right? Like it’s old news, you know, that kind of thing. And so they’ll keep you straight if you have a good relationship with them. I know that with some teachers, it’s always terrifying, right? When you ask for self-awareness

Aaron Schmitt
and you ask for feedback from people, it’s always terrifying because they’re going to be honest, especially if you allow them to do it anonymously. They’re gonna be brutal. And they’re gonna tell you things that bother you and drive you crazy. But if you can focus on the things that you consistently see patterns in and not the outliers—it’s easy to get hung up on the one kid who’s like,

Aaron Schmitt
“This one day you said this one thing to me and it really bothered me. And so you’re a terrible person.” Well, if that’s one out of 150 kids, you apologize. It’s good to have awareness of that. It might help form your opinion later on with what you’re doing the next year. But I think it’s kind of said earlier, like focus on the negative and being critical, right? Like it’s easy to get that way and get in your own head. But if you see 95% of your students are, “I really

Aaron Schmitt
value you because you make me feel like I can speak freely without being criticized. You make the room into a team atmosphere that makes people feel welcome.” If you say, if they say, “I feel respected,” or “I feel like you know your content really well,”

Aaron Schmitt
“I feel that you love your subject,” it’s easy to focus on the negative. But if you can also focus on the positive and the things you do really well and put a lot of energy to the things you do really well so you do them even better, then that helps compensate for maybe where you’re

Aaron Schmitt
falling a little bit short. But you don’t ignore those areas, but you don’t hyper-focus on what you do poorly. It’s way too easy to just get caught up in that and be in a bad spot and just being self-critical and then driving yourself into the ground because you’re not perfect at it.

Aaron Schmitt
I think as teachers, we’re always—like a lot of us were great students. And so if we’re not perfect at it, if we get any negative feedback, like we’re immediately like, “Oh, I must not be any good at this” because I didn’t get a perfect score. Like, we have to drop that mentality.

Sam Demma
The mistakes are necessary. And they’re just there. They’re learning moments if we look at it from that perspective. One of the other things I really appreciated about the community is how value-driven and value-based it is. There are a lot of schools that have values—not many that live them out and practice them every single day, try their best to and make that attempt. Is there anything from an administrative perspective or that you share with the staff to try

Sam Demma
to keep those values front and center? Because it feels like you do a really good job.

Aaron Schmitt
Oh, well, I appreciate that. Again, that’s part of the learning as well. I knew how to build culture in the classroom. Like I knew how to do that. After 13 years, I knew how to, you know, the kid that might get picked on in class

Aaron Schmitt
or might get ostracized because maybe they’re a little bit odd or they’re a little bit different or they maybe say something that, you know, people walk in the room and they always are like, “I don’t want to have class with this kid again,” right? Like I knew how to make that kid like a champion in the room. I knew how to make that kid celebrated that they were in the room. I’m still learning how to do that at the building level.

Aaron Schmitt
That’s tough. I have a lot of ideas. I always have a lot of ideas. It’s whether or not they’ll come to fruition and whether they’ll be—you know, they’ll sit well with everybody. Again, when you’re working with adults and a bigger community, it’s tougher to get everybody on board. When I’m in a class with 30 kids, I can do that.

Aaron Schmitt
I can set the tone and control everything, and I can get them where I want them to be within, you know, three, four weeks—I can get them where I want them to be. Yeah, you know, it’s just—you have to trust other people. You have to trust other people. You have to let them in on the process, and you have to let them know why you think it’s important for the things that you’re doing, why they matter.

Aaron Schmitt
We’re very lucky. I have inherited a culture that’s 100 years long at the school from the Brothers of Holy Cross out of South Bend, Indiana, St. Joseph, and Notre Dame. And I was a recipient of the education that they left for me. And the core values—we really spent a lot of time kind of looking back, because all the

Aaron Schmitt
brothers have passed away. I know we talked about that whenever you were down here. And the last brother, Brother Eugene, passed away in 2009. He was the reason I wanted to be a teacher—or one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher. I mean, just—the man was an amazing human being who gave selflessly of himself and just loved this school and made you really appreciate this school.

Aaron Schmitt
And so we look back at like, if you had somebody who graduated in 1925, 1950, 1975, 2000, and 2025, what would be the values that would stand the test of time? And, you know, looking at Basil Moreau and his work in it,

Aaron Schmitt
which is titled Christian Education, it’s really amazing. It was written after the French Revolution, which, if you know, France was in chaos trying to rebuild after all the massacres and everything that had happened. And Basil Moreau is like, “Education is important and education really matters. Academics matter.”

Aaron Schmitt
“But formation of individuals really, really matters a lot.” And having good people really matters. Academics matter, but formation of individuals really matters. And having good people really matters. Really good, really intelligent people matters. I always think that’s kind of the hallmark of Catholic education—is values and academics both together.

Aaron Schmitt
And so, you know, when we looked at our list of values, you know, we came up with a list and then we kind of narrowed it down to eight, which is a lot. I voted for like three or four because I was like, “You have to have—” I know like, memory,

Aaron Schmitt
teaching psychology, right? You know, it’s like seven plus or minus two or five plus or minus two—I can’t remember because I haven’t taught it for three years now—but I know there’s a short-term memory that will work. But I know acronyms and mnemonics help, and some of our kids have tried to come up with mnemonics and stuff to help remember them. But we found a lot of value in our eight core values—

Aaron Schmitt
coincides really nicely with the calendar year. You know, the first month is introducing them in an all-school assembly, talk about what it means. And then every month we focus on one and our kids, our students nominate other students for those core values. And we have a committee that meets and reads through: Why does this kid get a nomination?

Aaron Schmitt
What is it that they’ve done that embodies or says that they embody the core value? February’s integrity. So after Mass on Wednesday this week, we’re getting ready to announce our winners and celebrate. We’ll bring them up and we’ll talk to them about,

Aaron Schmitt
you know, read a little bit of what other people submitted and why they feel this person displays integrity. And those are slow steps. And they take time. I’m kind of impatient, right? Like I’m used to the classroom where I can control and have control of the room for, you know, 30—

Aaron Schmitt
for an hour and a half and get them there within. And here it’s, you know, talk about generations in the sense of each graduating class is a generation, right? So it takes four years to get through that cycle. Well, we’re really in year one with the focus on core values. And so it’s going to take another two or three years before we see kind of the full fruits of our labor for what it means to have those core values and how we’re implementing them every day and kind of holding kids to standards. But we’re still working at it and we’ve got great partners with other Holy Cross schools from around the country that we’re working with.

Aaron Schmitt
And they always provide a lot of insight because they’ve been there before, before we have in the sense of truly being affiliated with Holy Cross.

Sam Demma
Well, it was a lovely experience visiting the school and I felt the culture when I entered. And if I lived in Indiana, I would have my kids attend the school.

Aaron Schmitt
I appreciate that. We’re so far south. It’s, you know, we’re often forgotten about because we’re so far south of Indianapolis. There’s not too much a little bit beyond the southern part of Indy. So I appreciate that. And I’m sorry we didn’t get you a soccer game. We were excited for it.

Aaron Schmitt
But then I think we had that hurricane or whatever it was that flow ended up in southern Indiana that day and I know it was terrible. So—

Sam Demma
No, it was a lovely experience. And thank you so much for taking the time to share some of your beliefs and philosophies around building culture in the classroom and the entire school, and building relationships with young people, and some of the things you think about when it comes to getting students more engaged in the curriculum or the stuff you’re teaching in the class,

Sam Demma
and for your vulnerability to share that it’s a big learning experience and we don’t have to have all the answers right from the jump. If there’s someone listening to this and wants to ask you a question, Mr. Schmitt, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Aaron Schmitt
Uh, probably email because that’s the one I’ll answer. And if they end up saying it in passing, or if I get a phone call, I might not call them back with just everything through the day-to-day. But my email is my name, aaronschmitt@evdio.org. That’s the Evansville Diocese, evdio.org. And that’s my name, Aaron Schmitt, which is A-A-R-O-N S-C-H-M-I-T-T.

Sam Demma
Aaron, thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it and keep up the amazing work.

Aaron Schmitt
Thanks, Sam. I appreciate you asking me to be involved. And thanks again for coming down and seeing our kids.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Aaron Schmitt

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.

Leanne Forrest — Program Manager for Educational Assistants at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board

Leanne Forrest — Program Manager for Educational Assistants at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
About Leanne Forrest

Leanne Forrest, is the Program Manager for Educational Assistants at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. Her career has spanned over 35 years in special education. She was nominated in 2022-2023 for the Ronald K. Lynch Award for an outstanding and significant contribution reflecting either a sustained compassionate and dedicated commitment by an OCDSB employee to the success of students with special education needs. 

She began her career as an Educational Assistant supporting students with autism in specialized program classes, then joined the central Learning Support Services team for Autism. As more leadership roles became available, Leanne moved into the role of Applied Behavior Analysis Coordinator and then became the first Program Manager of Educational Assistants in 2024 at the OCDSB.

Connect with Leanne Forrest: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board

Bonus Q&A with Leanne Forrest

 1. Why do you do the work you do with young people? 

I’m drawn to working with young people, and particularly in special education, because I believe every child deserves the chance to thrive. I’ve seen firsthand the incredible potential that exists with our students, regardless of the challenges they face. It’s about looking beyond the labels and diagnoses, and seeing the individual – their strengths, their passions, and their unique way of learning. For me, special education isn’t just about accommodations and modifications; it’s about building genuine connections, understanding each student’s specific needs, and creating a learning environment where they feel safe, supported, and empowered to reach their full potential. 

It’s also about the staff who support these young people. A lot of my work now revolves around supporting Educational Assistants who walk alongside students each and every day supporting their mental health, social, communication and learning needs. 

2. What got you into this work? 

My path to this role was driven by a deep belief in the power of inclusive education and ensuring our students with special education needs were met. I’ve seen firsthand how dedicated teachers and EAs can transform a student’s experience, providing not only academic support but also a sense of belonging, safety and joy. I was inspired by their compassion and commitment, and I wanted to be part of a system that supports these incredible individuals and amplifies their impact. 

How it all began for me: 

When I was 16 years old I had an opportunity to do a volunteer placement at a specialized school in our district for students with developmental disabilities. I had never been in an environment like this and was in awe of the students’ needs and how the educators supporting them were positive and passionate about what they were doing. I found a place where I felt I belonged, where I shared the same joy in giving back, and pride in seeing students reach their full potential. I knew from that time on I wanted to work in special education. 

It led me to pursue my post secondary education in supporting students with special education needs. Through my education I experienced another life changing student placement opportunity where I worked in a specialized class for students with Autism. Supporting and learning from some of our most vulnerable 

students with complex needs gave me a sense of purpose and drive to do more. In these environments you are surrounded by caring and dedicated staff invested in creating safe and caring spaces to welcome students where they are at. 

3. What challenges are you currently faced with? 

With my new role as the Program Manager of Educational Assistants, one of the ongoing challenges is ensuring we have adequate staffing to meet the growing needs of our students. Finding and retaining qualified EAs is crucial. Another challenge is providing consistent and relevant professional development to keep EAs up-to-date on best practices and specialized skills and ensure EAs feel valued. 

4. How are you overcoming those challenges? 

We’re actively working on several fronts. Our HR department has implemented targeted recruitment strategies to attract qualified candidates. 

We’re actively working on developing mentorship programs to support new EAs and help them thrive in their roles. 

We’re developing partnerships with local colleges and universities to create pathways into the field of education assistance. 

And we’re continually seeking feedback from EAs themselves to understand their needs and address them effectively. Staff feedback is crucial to understanding not only the barriers they face in the work they do but also an amazing way to gain insight and suggestions from those doing the work. 

It is also about elevating the job and bringing awareness and appreciation of the work they do. You were a large part of sharing in the recognition of the important work EAs do when you joined us in August for the EA Leaning days. 

We’ve also just had our first EA appreciation day back in November and I will continue to strive to bring recognition and support to the role of EAs across our district. 

5. What programs did you run last year that were a success with students and teachers? 

Last year we ran a number of After School Social Skills Development Programs for neurodiverse students who were having difficulty with play skills in Primary 

grades as well as a program called PEERS for Intermediate and High School students who were having trouble making and keeping friends. 

Both programs gave students the opportunity to learn vital play and social skills in a safe and caring environment where they could take chances and build skills and peer relationships. Teachers got the opportunity to focus on important skills, learn the evidence based strategies to elicit the skills and build connections with students they may not have already had. 

6. What gives you hope? What do you think is the biggest opportunity right now? 

What gives me hope right now is the unwavering dedication and passion of our Educational Assistants. In my new role I have had the privilege to walk alongside EAs who are doing remarkable things for students. 

They are truly amazing individuals who go above and beyond for their students every day. The biggest opportunity right now is to elevate the profession of Educational Assistants. By providing more training, support, and recognition, we can attract and retain top talent, ensuring that every student has access to the support they need to succeed. I think there’s a growing recognition of the vital role EAs play, and I’m excited about the future. 

7. What mistakes have you made and learned from that are worth sharing? 

Early in my career, I wanted to be the fixer. I wanted to solve the issues. I didn’t always take time to listen and reflect before trying to solve an issue. Through my leadership courses and some amazing mentors in my career I have learned the importance of this. 

You know System Principal Deb Lyon, she has been an amazing mentor to me and helped me understand the power of listening to others and taking the time to reflect. You don’t have to react immediately and make suggestions, you can give others time with their own questions to reflect and maybe come up with the solution before you make a suggestion. I find it really empowers others. 

I have also learned the importance of surrounding yourself with people who not only share your values and views but the importance of being around those whose views differ from yours, who add the diversity and creativity that makes the process of collaboration so important. 

I’ve also learned the importance of student voice, parent/guardian voices alongside our educators in the decisions we make. We can’t make decisions 

about them without them. We can’t make lasting, supportive change unless we include the voice of everyone involved. 

8. What is your motivator (or your driver)? 

“My motivator is seeing the positive impact our educators have on students’ lives. It’s not easy work but they do it anyway. Knowing that I’m playing a role in supporting these dedicated individuals and ultimately helping students thrive is what drives me every day. It’s about creating a more inclusive and equitable education system where every student and staff member feel valued and supported. 

9. Tell me a story about a situation where you heard the impact a program had on a student. 

As I mentioned earlier, in our After School Social Skills Development Programs part of my role was to train staff to run the programs at their schools. When I would do onsite visits I would hear first hand how students were building play skills and making connections with one another. I would see the excitement and joy staff had in running the programs and feeling like they were really getting to know their students and building connections with them. They would tell me it was the best part of their day! 

I had a parent stop me and tell her how her son in Kindergarten was playing with others for the first time and asked when the program would be running again so they could keep making friends. 

In our PEERS program I had a student who for the first time walked home with a peer, got invited to a hangout at someone’s house and felt like he had a friend. It may not seem like a lot but for many this is the difference of wanting to come to school, having a sense of belonging and can really support their mental health and well being. 

10. Where can other educators reach you if they want to bounce ideas around? 

I’m always happy to connect with others. They can reach me by email at leanne.forrest@ocdsb.ca or through my linked in account. I believe in the power of collaboration and sharing best practices, and I’m always open to discussing new ideas and approaches to supporting students and EAs. As I am still new to the role and not sure if other boards have a similar position, if there’s anyone out there that supports educational assistants in their boards I’d love to connect. 

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Leanne Forrest

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.

Christine Preece – Manager of Mental Health Services & Mental Health Lead at the St. Clair Catholic District School Board

Christine Preece - Manager of Mental Health Services & Mental Health Lead at the St. Clair Catholic District School Board
About Christine Preece

Christine Preece has over 30 years of experience working in child and youth holistic health. Presently she is the Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead and Manager for Student Mental Health Services for the St. Clair Catholic District School Board supporting a system-wide approach to adopting evidence-based mental health strategies through a tiered approach.

Previously Christine worked in public health as a Manager of School Health and a Health Promoter at Middlesex-London and Lambton Public Health Units. In all these roles she has facilitated and guided many disciplines to work together to better the lives of others in our schools and communities.

She firmly believes that youth can move mountains when given the proper learning conditions and opportunities to make change for the better, regardless of their personal situations. She believes that schools need to safe spaces of belonging for every student and staff member. 

Connect with Christine Preece: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Clair Catholic District School Board

Middlesex-London Public Unit

Lambton Public Health Units

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 Christine Preece. Christine brings over 30 years of experience in child and youth holistic health to her role as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead and Manager for Student Mental Health Services at the St. Clair Catholic District School Board. A registered Ontario social worker with dual master’s degrees in health science and as a certified health education specialist, she implements evidence-based mental health strategies through a tiered approach. Her career spanning public health management and school health promotion reflects her core belief that schools must be safe spaces of belonging for all students and staff. While her extensive volunteer work with organizations from Water Polo Canada to the Ministry of Education Ontario Wellbeing Advisory Committee, demonstrates her commitment to giving back to the community.

Sam Demma
Christine, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Christine Preece
Thank you for having me.

Sam Demma
Please tell us a little bit about what got you into the work that you do today with young people. Oh, wow, that’s a big, heavy question.

Christine Preece
You know, it just kind of, my journey has been very interesting, Sam, because I started out in recreation. And when I was in recreation, I was a rec director before these years that you talked about. I learned the importance of youth voice and youth engagement and how when you actually listen and hear the words of youth and their ideas, they can actually make such a difference in the lives of other people, but also themselves. So that kind of brought me in over to public health where we were doing a lot of work with children and youth because, you know, we have a really big role to play as adults in their lives and was looking at how we can really make a difference related to that. And I started off in public health working in the area of physical activity. And that is a passion of mine. And just looking at some of the programs that were done way back then, which is still running today in our school board, which was Playground Leadership Program, and it was done for youth by youth. And so, you know, you really can make a difference. And I was involved years ago with the Canadian Intramural Recreation Association. And we had a whole student leadership program within that where we actually trained students to run and organize intramurals in schools. That was years ago, obviously.

Christine Preece
And just the power of that and seeing how youth can really make a difference. So I really am passionate about children and youth holistic health and how we can help them make a difference in their own lives. That’s kind of a short story.

Sam Demma
You mentioned the power of actually listening and hearing the words of young people. It’s such a difficult skill sometimes because so many people listen just to respond or share their thoughts. But when you really truly listen, you uncover things that you probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Where does that skill come from and how do we build more of that? Because I think it’s needed in society.

Christine Preece
I don’t know where the skill comes from. I think it’s really having an understanding understanding of, you know, where children and youth are at, and being able to hear them out about their needs and wants. Often, when we’re adults, and I did this as a mother, is we think we know what’s best for them. But do we really if we aren’t listening to them and hearing what their needs are?

Christine Preece
And it’s not about giving in to them and not making them entitled. It’s about giving them the power to self-advocate, to do the best they can for themselves, and to have the tools in their toolbox to become a successful adult. And that’s where I was way back when, even around when we were in recreation, right? right, because I saw the power of youth and how they could make a difference, you know, whether it be organizing recreation activities for their peers or becoming a leader at a camp or wanting to inspire others through some advocacy initiatives. I just really believe in the power of youth and having that skill of listening and understanding where they’re at is so crucial in helping human growth and development really for children and youth, right? And it should be as even when they’re little, right? It doesn’t mean they get everything, but you have to hear what they want and hear what they’re saying.

Sam Demma
Do you believe that schools need to be safe spaces? And I couldn’t agree more. I think that if a school is not a safe space of belonging for every student and staff member, whether we intend to listen or not, a student or another human being might not be comfortable actually sharing their genuine thoughts if they don’t feel it’s a safe space of belonging. How do we cultivate those safe spaces of belonging for students and staff and school buildings?

Christine Preece
You know, it’s about setting a culture, a positive school culture where people feel safe and that takes a lot of effort. We know that when we have our school climate surveys, students want a safe place they can go to with a caring adult that they can talk to who’s going to listen to them. We don’t always have to have the answer, Sam. We just need to listen. And if they want help, then we can support them and advise them about where to get help. But it’s really not rocket science. I remember working years ago on a global youth health promotion program with a few agencies, and Dr. Bruce Ferguson was on there, but also Robert Blum from John Hopkins, and he said that an adult listening in a school to a youth for 10 minutes and not judging, not providing their thoughts or giving advice or can really change the trajectory of a youth’s life. So hearing them out, listening to them and being that caring person and inspiring them to help themselves through very creative ways, right? Because some kids have, or some students, I shouldn’t say kids, some students just don’t have those skills and we haven’t developed those skills. I’m a real firm believer that they just aren’t born with them, they develop them. We teach them that. So we are responsible for their skill development in schools. And I think that is one of those skill developments, right? And you know, with the whole stigma piece and all that kind of stuff that goes on around mental health, because I know this podcast is about mental health, we really can play an important role to break down those barriers and to help our children and youth to reach out for support. Because we know that children and youth won’t reach out for support because one, they don’t know how to, and number two, they don’t know who to go to. And so we need to be able to support that.

Sam Demma
Speaking on the mental health challenges faced by young people today, you’re very close with those challenges within your specific school board and many other initiatives that you’ve been a part of in the past. What do you think are some of the challenges, main challenges facing young people today?

Christine Preece
Oh boy. You know, since the pandemic, it’s growing. I’m not saying it wasn’t there before, but I’ve seen a significant change since the pandemic. Anxiety is really number one. And when we don’t teach them the skills of how to deal with their anxiety, and that is skill development, by the way, if we don’t teach them those skills, it can lead into depression in older years. And so we see a lot of anxiety and the world events that are happening now, and that’s spread through social media.

Christine Preece
So there’s been some really big shifts in children’s mental health, one being the iPhone and social media. We cannot deny that. There’s good things to it. I’m not saying it’s all bad, because it’s never going to go away. But we, I think, as a society, and education particularly, we have a role to play in teaching them how to use it in a positive way, to be aware of the impact that it can have on your mental health. And when children are young and people are saying stuff over social media and then it comes into school, which we see a lot, that hurts them. And they don’t have the skills to learn on how to develop that, do you know what I mean? Or how to support that or how to help themselves with that. Their brains aren’t fully formed. I mean, they’re not fully formed until they’re 25 or 30. Yet we’re giving kids these tools when we haven’t given them the tools of how to use that particular resource. I kind of went all over the map, didn’t I? Sorry.

Sam Demma
You did answer that. And I’m curious, as a follow-up, when you think of the resources or tools that have been most helpful within your specific school board. Are there anything that comes to mind that you think this has been helpful, that this has helped many students that another educator listening might look into or think about striving to implement within their own organization or school?

Christine Preece
So we have taken a real comprehensive approach, Sam, to social emotional learning. And it started about 2017. We brought in the MindUp program, which is from Goldie Hawn Foundation. Goldie created this program with Kim Schonert-Reichel, who was out of University of British Columbia, and Dr. Molly Lawler, and they developed this program because Goldie saw after 911, the anxiety levels go up for children and youth. And she had a real concern around that. So MindUp teaches children about their brains and how their brain, they can use their brains to become empowered to make decisions, but also understand how it impacts their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Christine Preece
And we teach that to kids. And so we started that program and we see, we evaluate it every year, Sam, and we see that those skills are going up. And if you ask our attendance counselors, where students are attending for various reasons, mostly mental health, they see that those, they bring them back to that. Remember when you learned this skill when you were in elementary school. But we’ve taken on a whole comprehensive approach to that around helping kids develop these skills so they can help themselves when they’re older. It’s not perfect, but we are seeing some great outcomes from that because we’re teaching kids, number one, most important skill of social emotional learning is self-awareness.

Christine Preece
If you don’t have self-awareness and understand who you are, what your values and beliefs are, how you impact others, you will never be able to self-regulate, develop healthy relationships, make wise decisions. It all comes together.

Christine Preece
So we’ve really broken it down and taken a really comprehensive approach to social emotional learning. And we’ve got our whole team of social workers, and child and youth workers, but then we also have educators that are supporting the educators in the classroom. And it doesn’t take a lot of work, Sam, to implement social emotional learning, you can do it two minutes before lunch, two minutes after lunch, like it really, but if you do it consistently every day all week for the year, you’re going to see a huge change in your students. We did a pilot program two years ago, and we saw a huge change in our students.

Christine Preece
We actually focused in on certain schools and classes. We actually had a teacher who wanted to quit, and she said, this changed my life. This changed the way I taught. So we’ve made some really good in ways in, but we still have, we have places to go to, right? It’s not perfect. But we have a real passion in our board to move this forward because we know it works. We’ve seen it work. We’ve seen it work in small scale. Now we just need to have it larger scale, like everybody doing it in every school and every board. And you can do them school-wide events, you can do it classroom events, and we’re doing it as well individually through our work with social workers and child and youth workers and small groups. So it’s been interesting. It’s been an interesting ride, that’s for sure.

Sam Demma
It sounds like it’s been impactful with the students that have been exposed to it so far. So I hope the reach continues to expand and the uptake from schools and teachers continues to expand. It’s a tough challenge that we’re all facing, especially in the education space right now. And I think every action and every attempt to help matters.

Christine Preece
Yeah, have you watched the movie, American Tragedy? And it’s the story of the two boys in Columbine. And at the end of the show, the mom of one of those boys said, this should be taught in every school. And they’re actually, she’s promoting social emotional learning, starting in kindergarten, going all the way up. She feels that if every child had these skills, then we would lessen many things, right? Situations, right? So yeah, that really hit home for me because I’m really passionate about it. And so is our board. So is our director, our superintendents, everybody in our school board.

Sam Demma
Thank you for sharing that. Are there any other resources or things you’ve come across that have shifted the way that you think about supporting young people that an educator listening might want to also watch or look into?

Christine Preece
Yes, thanks for asking that. Well, School Mental Health Ontario is an excellent resource. It has resources in French and English, and it is led by Dr. Kathy Short and Dr. Teresa Kennedy, and every school board has one of me. And we have a mandate to actually do youth engagement, parent engagement, mental health literacy, mental health supports. And School Mental Health Ontario has been a great resource. And everything we do there, Sam, is evidence-based. It’s not like we go on Dr. Google and pull this strategy because we know that some of the work that was done pre-School Mental Health Ontario was actually doing harm to kids. We were bringing in programs that weren’t based on evidence, weren’t based, and all good intentions, don’t get me wrong, but all good intentions, but actually they were harming children when they left, right? So that’s why Dr. Bruce Ferguson and Kathy Short actually went to the ministry and said, you need this in your mind in Canada. We’re actually one of a kind, I think, around the world. And it’s been instrumental in my learning, because they have professional training. Constantly, they’re putting out resources constantly and a teacher, they have a lot of resources, which I would call add, water, stir, you open it up, you do the you do the activity, and there you there you go, you’re done, right. So it’s a really, really good resource that people can Google online if they wanted to or go into online.

Sam Demma
You said earlier in the interview that if an adult listens to a young person for 10 minutes, based on research that you cited, that it could really change the trajectory of their life. And I’m curious to know, when you were going through school, or even in the start of your professional career, or even now, was there an adult or caring mentor that listened to you and had a big impact on you?

Sam Demma
And if so, who was that person or who were a few of those people and what did they do for you?

Christine Preece
Well, that’s a really good question. I’ve had a few, yes, I’ve had a few. I had my former director of public health, Diane Buick, was so instrumental in my work in public health in Middlesex, London. She taught me so much about having quality standards for work and implementing those quality standards to the best of your ability, but also how it impacts others.

Christine Preece
It’s not about me and my, what I think is best and what I want. And sometimes I see that we can get caught up in that in society. well, I need this, I need that. But what are the, what do those people that you service need? And how are you helping them? So for in public health, she was always putting what we call the client at the center, right? The client was at the center. Now over in school health, and I did work primarily in school health in public health, but now over here in our school board is the student at the center. And we have to bring people back to that because it’s a tough job in education, right? It’s a tough job. And I’m not gonna say that it’s easy to do. It’s a tough job. And there’s a lot of things that are coming into education that weren’t here before. And as I would give an example, Sam, is we are a microcosm of larger society, right? So you see larger society and what’s happening in larger society in the world, we’re a microcosm of that because we have our own community.

Christine Preece
And you see those things coming into our schools and it’s how do we help support and build the best environment possible for the people that are in that system? And that doesn’t just mean students, but it also means staff. They need to be well in order to teach students. The support staff, the EAs, the ECEs, the custodians, the secretaries, the bus drivers, the yard supervisors, they all need to be supported and know how to support students as well through their own actions. So it’s a big role. And education is definitely, it’s changed since COVID. That’s all I can say.

Sam Demma
Yeah, you echoed similar thoughts and sentiments that a lot of people I’ve talked to regarding that on the show or in private conversations. One thing I’ve noticed about your career journey from what I know about you and what I’ve read and others who have spoken on the show before is that volunteer work has had a positive impact on their lives. Tell me a little bit more about your volunteer work and do you think there’s a connection between volunteering and even feeling good?

Christine Preece
Oh, yes. Definitely. Bruce Ferguson did. I don’t know if you know who Dr. Bruce Ferguson is. He was also a person who changed my life, but he wrote the early leaders report. And in his data, in his report, he found that students that volunteer actually have better mental health, right?

Christine Preece
And so if you’re giving, and we know that around mental health, it’s not about receiving, it’s about being able to give, it’s about gratitude, it’s about forgiving, those kinds of things. And volunteering has taught me a lot of that, is that I don’t need to be paid all the time to do this work. I have volunteered for a long, long time. I first started, as I mentioned, on the Canadian Intramural Recreation Association, and then went to the Ontario one. Then I was a chair of the Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition. And I’m still continuing to volunteer.

Christine Preece
I’m locally volunteering and then on Water Polo Canada. I really believe, one, for me, it helps you grow and become much more open-minded and have a growth mindset as opposed to a closed mindset. But it also helps you realize that there’s so many different kinds of people out there. And what I love is I meet many different people that aren’t always from the same field or background, right? You know you meet people that are Financial advisors or you meet people that are lawyers or you meet and they’re all very different and they think very differently But when you come together for common goal, you can make a collective impact and through volunteering and so it’s made a huge huge, huge difference in my life. I would never, ever say I’ve regretted one minute of it.

Sam Demma
The Early Leavers Report, is it something that is accessible or do you have to purchase it to read it?

Christine Preece
I don’t think so. If you Google it, Dr. Bruce Ferguson, he wrote about the Early Leavers Report and why students left school early. He talked about having part-time jobs, volunteering, I forget the other things. There were some key areas in his report that actually inspired the development of School Mental Health Ontario as well. And Bruce, I mean, I think he’s retired now, living somewhere in Ottawa, has been really an angel in my eyes to children and youth and what they need in their school system. Because he’s shown a lot of research that students who may be involved in, are involved in youth engagement are less likely to think about self-harm and suicide, those kinds of things. So he’s really taught me a lot about children, youth, and mental health and what they need, those positive, positive protective factors and how we can develop and support those through education. I mean, education, as you can see, Sam, plays a very important role in the knowledge and development of children. And right now, what we’re seeing is people have a lot of information through social media and internet and all that, but do they have the knowledge? Do they have the factual knowledge, right? And I think that’s really key, and that’s a really important part of education to give children those skills and youth.

Sam Demma
I had a teacher who fundamentally changed the course of my life, who listened to me at a time where I was struggling, and almost no one at school really knew about it except for this individual. And if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Sam Demma
And I can’t thank him enough. I fortunately stay in touch with him and his wife and have lunch with him in Bowmanville on their porch at least once a year. And it’s almost always the highlight. And we have such a lovely conversation. And one of the things he taught us is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Sam Demma
And I didn’t realize that maybe there was something going on in my brain at the time, but I always felt so good doing it. And I believe it’s one of the ways I refound myself after my own adversity when I was a senior in high school. And so I’m looking forward to reading this report. I appreciate you sharing it. Yeah, he’s a ruthless.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I mean, not was. He’s still alive, but he really was a trendsetter for sure around this area and particularly in education because he worked out of Sick Kids Hospital, right? He was a child psychiatrist, right? So he saw a lot when he, people that came through his door. So.

Christine Preece
I got you.

Sam Demma
This has been such a stimulating and informative conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time, Christine. If there’s someone listening to this that wants to connect with you or ask a question, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Christine Preece
They could email me at my email. It’s been a pleasure. I thought you’re gonna ask me about Hawaiian pizzas because you had that question on you. And it was I was gonna say well Sam. Did you know they were invented in Chatham? They were. Which is you know where my school board is.

Sam Demma
I have been to Chatham. I want to say someone told me because I strongly dislike them I may have had selective memory. I don’t like them.

Christine Preece
I love, I love Hawaiian pizzas.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Christine Preece
That’s so funny. That’s so funny. I was waiting for the question.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Christine Preece

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.

Michelle Jarvis – Teacher at Morrin School

Michelle Jarvis – Teacher at Morrin School
About Michelle Jarvis

Michelle Jarvis’s story begins in the small, rural community of Morrin, AB where she was born and raised. From her earliest memories, Morrin School was more than just a place of learning; it was a cornerstone of Michelle’s childhood. Michelle was a student in Morrin School for her K-12 schooling, moving through the grades with the help of dedicated teachers who nurtured her curiosity and encouraged her dreams.

Growing up, Michelle was the kind of student who thrived on the excitement of learning new things. These experiences planted the seeds of Michelle’s own desire to become an educator, and Morrin School was the backdrop of her formative years.

In 2005, after Michelle earned her teaching degrees and gained some experience in other schools, she felt a pull to return to her roots. The opportunity to teach at Morrin School was a dream come true. 

Michelle’s journey as an educator at Morrin School began with teaching grade one. It was a delight to witness the unfiltered enthusiasm and wonder of young children as they embarked on their educational journey. Over the years, Michelle has taught every grade from kindergarten through tenth, each level presenting its own unique challenges and rewards. Whether it was helping a kindergartener learn to read or guiding a high school student through choices that will impact their futures, every moment was a chance to make a difference.

Being deeply rooted in Morrin, Michelle understands that education extends beyond the classroom. She is committed to not only fostering academic growth but also to strengthening the ties between the school and the community. Over the years, Michelle has been actively involved in organizing and participating in various community events. From being an executive member of the Local ATA, Morrin Figure Skating Club, volunteer for Homecoming, to leading the after-school enrichment programs, Michelle’s role as a teacher has always intertwined with her passion for community service.

One of the most rewarding aspects of her career has been witnessing the growth and achievements of her students. Each year, as Michelle sees the development of students’ skills and confidence, she is reminded of the profound impact that education can have. Michelle cherishes the moments when a student who struggled with a concept suddenly grasps it, or when a hesitant young learner gains the courage to speak up in class.

In the end, teaching is about more than just imparting knowledge; it’s about building relationships, fostering a love for learning and helping each student realize their full potential. Michelle is honored to be a part of her student’s educational journey, and she looks forward to many more years of learning, teaching, and growing with the wonderful community of Morrin School.

Connect with Michelle Jarvis: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Morrin School
Alberta Teachers’ Association

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 I am joined by a good friend, Michelle Jarvis, who I met a few years ago and then had the pleasure of visiting her community at Morin School, whose t-shirt I now proudly wear while training for marathons. Michelle.

Michelle Jarvis
You recognize it.

Michelle Jarvis
Hi.

Sam Demma
Take a moment to introduce yourself. Hi, everyone.

Michelle Jarvis
I’m Michelle. I’ve been at this teaching gig for 26 years now and yeah, we saw Sam at a conference and wanted him to come share his info with our students. So, we came to the little town of Mourne, and we all see when you wear our school shirt proudly when you’re working out in training. We love it.

Sam Demma
One of your students, I remember when I came, gave me a chain to wear while I was speaking and I wore his necklace.

Michelle Jarvis
Yes, yeah.

Sam Demma
And the taco lunch was a big highlight after we finished too.

Michelle Jarvis
It was great. Yeah, the students still talk about that day. It was awesome.

Sam Demma
26 years ago, did you know that you were going to get into teaching or like, how did you find this vocation?

Michelle Jarvis
Since I was a little kid, my mom had one of those memory books, you know, you put your school report card in and what you want to be when you grow up. I always said teacher. There’s other things on there, but teacher was always something I wanted to do. And I had teachers that I loved. I’m like, I want to be just like them. So that’s kind of where it came.

Sam Demma
After that realization, what did your path as a student and into an early professional look like?

Michelle Jarvis
As a student, I just tried to mainstream my courses for university or whatever I needed. And then I applied and got in, and just right from the get-go, I was like, I’m doing this. And I was so excited when I got into education. I volunteered and did different things for the community, working with students and youth. I picked up summer jobs like Summer Fund or working at a teen center and just hanging out with students and trying to build relationships that I thought would benefit me with my teaching career. And then, yeah, I went to the university and got my degrees.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. And after the university experience ended, did you come straight back to this community? Or where did you go?

Michelle Jarvis
I was hoping to come straight back. But the principal here, he was my principal at the time too, when I was in high school, he’s like, “You know what, you need to go somewhere else, experience different places.” So, no, I went to Northern Alberta to an amazing Mennonite community. There were a lot of First Nations up there also. I stayed there for seven years and then I moved back and just slowly started substitute teaching and doing some work at the school here until a position opened up and I applied and got it.

Sam Demma
That’s so cool. What was different about school in that community versus the school you’re at now?

Michelle Jarvis
Not too much because they’re both smaller communities. The Mennonites, they were just an amazing group of people. They have a very strong faith base and strong community, like togetherness, building things and doing stuff for the school, the churches, and just the town itself. So I guess the difference would be the faith-based community because I’m in a public school here now. They were just, they’re amazing. You just, if you needed anything or if there was some event, they’d try and include you in it and bring you into the community activities.

Sam Demma
And it’s just very closely knit, I guess. That’s awesome. When you did come back here, did kids start pointing at your graduation photo on the wall?

Michelle Jarvis
Yes.

Sam Demma
Wow, that was you?

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, they did. It’s really cool. We just moved into this new school, which you presented in. But in the old school, we had less glass with a lot of walls, and they had all the grad photos up from all the years. My mom and dad’s grad photos were in there and then myself and my siblings, and we loved it. We don’t have room for them here, but we downloaded them and we put them on the TV that we have in the school so students can still see them. They asked grades, and they were like, “You graduated when?”

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Sam Demma
When I arrived at the school for the performance, I remember walking into the office and there was a picture of six students on the wall. I was like, “Oh, are these your kids?” And the principal was like, “No, no, that’s our graduating class.” And I was like, “That’s awesome.” I think there’s such a unique thing that happens in smaller communities where the connections you make with kids are just that much deeper because you know their parents, their grandparents, where they shop. Everyone knows each other. What are some of the things you love about small tight-knit communities like the one you’re teaching in now?

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I like the small communities. I did some practicums in the cities, which is great, but because I grew up here, I think I’m just more comfortable. I guess the thing is, yeah, you know generations of families, you know, like their grandparents and their aunts and uncles, and you just have that relationship of family, even though you might not be related, blood-related. It’s just these deep roots, I guess, and the whole time going by and deep roots and connections that I really enjoy.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. And you also attended school at this school, which is super unique. I think it’s awesome that you’re serving the same school that served you growing up.

Michelle Jarvis
Kindergarten to grade 12.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Sam Demma
When you think about teachers you had that were super inspiring or made a big contribution in your development, who comes to mind and what did those people specifically do that made such a big impact?

Michelle Jarvis
I had great teachers. There wasn’t any that I, you know, sometimes you have favorites or whatever. I did enjoy all my teachers. Things that stuck out with some, like Mrs. Vahidi, she was our grade three teacher and she made memorizing multiplications a thing, and we had to do it in 15 seconds and rattle them off and just made it games. And then after junior high and high school, just they cared. They wanted you to do well. So if you weren’t or you were struggling, they were like, “What can I do to help? Where are you?” You know, they just reached out and being smaller classes, they had that time and the ability to do that. So just things like that, and they made it fun, project-based things, different. Our biology teacher did a huge bio project. You had to choose something – the study of the meadows and plants and life that lived there. Another couple in our class did one; they did a pig dissection because one of the pigs had died. So they rebuilt the whole skeletal system. Just really cool things like that, that we were able to do.

Sam Demma
It sounds like experiential learning was a big part of it.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, definitely.

Sam Demma
When you think about students you’re serving today in your school, how do you go about trying to build rapport and relationships with young people?

Michelle Jarvis
My son would be embarrassed, but I try to get up on all their knowledge in slang and use it. Totally embarrasses them. I also try to do project-based stuff or learn what the students like or the way they like to learn. I know like, you know, note-taking is not really a thing anymore, or lecturing. It’s like, okay, how can we get into this deep thought? And I try to relate it to real-life situations. Like, you know, often as a student in math class, it’s like, “When are we ever going to use this, Mr. Haslam?” And he’d be like, “You just gotta do it.” So, when I get asked that, I’m like, “Okay, let’s see, when will we use this?” We try to relate it back to real-life situations where, yeah, you actually may need this someday.

Sam Demma
That’s a good strategy.

Sam Demma
I was the same student asking those questions to my teachers, and I think that extra step reinforces in a student’s mind that this matters and that you care as their teacher. And I just had some teachers that were so passionate. They could have been teaching me about anything, and I would have been locked in because I was just overwhelmed by how passionate they were about what they were teaching. They could have been teaching us about paint drying, and I would have been like, “Whoa, this is amazing.”

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, you can tell when it’s something they love, right? Like, there are certain units I teach that I really like, so they can tell because I’m excited, like body language and just everything. Yeah, you’re right. There’s those teachers that resonate with you because it’s like, yeah, you could definitely make anything exciting.

Sam Demma
Now, a lot of teachers at this time of year are excited because the school year is starting, but also overwhelmed because you’re coming out of the break of the summertime. This may be a tough time in your life based on things that are happening outside of the school. How do you get through those challenging moments as an educator?

Michelle Jarvis
Myself personally, we have a great staff, and I know there’s people I can talk to, even our men team. I can go and talk to them about things like that. So, yeah, when you’re just kind of stressed out or feeling burnt out because it’s so overwhelming – the excitement of coming back and, like you said, you’re off a break and that – but it’s also “whoosh,” here’s all this work now. Yeah, I’m very fortunate. All the schools I’ve ever worked at, the staff and the administrators have been phenomenal, and I’ve been grateful that I have those people and those supports that I can reach out to. They understand, and they’ll either listen or give me some resources or things that might help me in those times.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome that you have that support system.

Michelle Jarvis
It is.

Sam Demma
Outside of your experiences as a teacher, you’ve been involved in the community, and you’ve been involved in coaching, volunteering, and with teacher associations and conferences. Where does this never-ending energy come from?

Michelle Jarvis
Oh, there are days I’m a zombie, but I don’t know. It’s just, it’s a passion of mine. I love it. I love being a part of the community and the school. And it kind of feels like being a rock star. I went to Homecoming last year, and I ran an alumni volleyball tournament at the school. All the past students that I had came back, and people were like, “Wow.” They’re just so excited to see you, and I’m like, “No, I’m excited to see them too.” I don’t know. It’s just there. It’s just something in my heart, the passion about it. And, yeah, even when you’re tired, though, you just push through it because you know the benefits and the outcome are just so rewarding – to see them and to see the students succeed and grow up. And they come back and visit, and it’s amazing.

Sam Demma
When I talk to educators, I ask them why they got into this work, and most of them tell me they want to make a difference. They really want to support and amplify young people. Can you think of a student who was really struggling before you started teaching them, or even just someone you noticed? And through their experiences in school and in extracurricular activities, you saw them make a really big improvement. You can change their name if it’s a serious story, but the reason I bring it up is because I think a lot of educators forget how much of an impact they’re having on young people. And sometimes that young person doesn’t come and tell them right away. So hearing stories like these ones just remind them why they’re doing this work in the first place.

Michelle Jarvis
There are a few students that come to mind. I guess one is just struggle – came from a tough home, not, you know, just kind of didn’t have a high economic status. Maybe both parents had to work a lot of jobs. The kids came to school with what they could to eat. They liked to hunt and do different things to help provide for their family. School wasn’t his favorite thing, of course, but he got through it. He worked really hard, got his grades, and was able to graduate. After, like two or three years later, I ran into him at my niece’s graduation in another town. And I’m like, “Oh, hey, what are you doing here?” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m friends with this graduate.” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s great.” And he’s like, “You know, I gotta tell you, you made a difference in my life. You’re the reason I actually graduated and finished school, and I’ve gone on and done really well for myself.”

Michelle Jarvis
And teachers often don’t realize sometimes the impact we’re having on students. And I said, “Well, what did I do?” And he’s like, “You were just there, you listened, you tried to build relationships and connect with me. I don’t think you’re a big hunter, but you would ask me, like, ‘Oh, how did hunting go this weekend? What did you get? How many geese? Or did you get your deer or your moose or whatever?’ And you just always encouraged us to follow something, our dreams or something that we were passionate about.” And he’s like, “And I’ve done that.”

Now I haven’t talked to him in quite a few years, but I know he was working as a hunting guide. Visitors would come from the United States or different parts of Canada and come out here, and he would guide them, show them where to go, and get permission from the landowners. I didn’t realize sometimes that we, as teachers, impacted students in those ways. They don’t often always come back, but he just, despite some of the challenges in his life and growing up, continued on. He finished school, and he went on, and he’s successful and contributing to the community.

Sam Demma
That’s so awesome.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah.

Sam Demma
It’s funny how sometimes we don’t even recognize we’re making the difference.

Michelle Jarvis
Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes it’s just even talking to them or saying hi. One principal we had said, “Okay, every morning, I want you to connect with certain kids.” So we kind of did like a hockey pool draft, and I’m like, “Okay, these are my kids.” We’d say hello to all of them, but I’d focus on these ones – just make sure they’re okay and check in with them. And it was great because then we got to see them, and they got to see us outside of just the classroom. Just saying, “Hey, Sam, how you doing today? How is your mom or dad?” Just, like, on a personal level – even two minutes every day – just kind of checking in on them and reaching out.

Sam Demma
I remember a time in my life where I was really struggling. I had just started my career as a speaker and convinced my parents that it was a good decision to put my post-secondary education on hold to give this a go. I hired a coach because if I wasn’t investing in the formal education path, I told myself I was going to invest in education. I found a gentleman who was 25 years ahead of me, who had been speaking for 20-plus years. Then COVID hit. I had 30 presentations canceled, and I was bawling my eyes out, sitting on this hill near my house.

I called him – his name’s Chris – and I said, “Chris, this is the worst decision I’ve ever made. I can’t work with you anymore. I should be back in school.” And, you know, the whole 40 minutes, this guy barely said anything. He just listened. By the end of the phone call, I felt like all my problems were solved, and he didn’t even really say anything. It made me realize that sometimes people aren’t actually looking for us to solve their problems; they’re just looking for us to listen. They’re looking for us to be there.

So when someone’s struggling and they start telling me about their struggles, I’ll try to remind myself to ask them, “Hey, are you looking for a solution, or do you just want me to be an ear?” I feel like 90% of the time, they just want you to be there and hear them out. Despite the fact that you’re not a hunter, you took interest in that young man’s passions. I think there’s nothing more impactful that we can do when talking to young people than to care about the things they care about.

Michelle Jarvis
And they teach us, too. There’s another student that’s into football, and I’ve watched football, but not a lot. I just ask, “Hey, how was the game on the weekend?” He’ll tell me what position he plays, and I learn something from them also daily. I agree with you – just listening sometimes to the person. Even myself, like you said, at the beginning of the year, we’re overwhelmed. I’ll go talk to my coworker, and she’ll just listen. Then, after, I’m like, “Oh, thanks, I feel better.” She’s like, “You’re welcome.”

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. When you think about conferences you’ve attended or events you’ve been to, which ones stick out in your mind that had a big impact on building community and also taking back some important lessons to bring to the school?

Michelle Jarvis
When I was in university, we did a leadership conference in education. I was part of the planning committee, and we just brought in these speakers. It was exciting to see it from that side as an organizer and see how much it takes and the organization required. But when it all came together, it was just an awesome experience.

Of course, when I saw you and Savio at the Middle Years Conference, I was like, “This is something that’s fun and entertaining, but also connects to real-life situations that everyone deals with.” Another one, I think you’ve met her – Dr. Jody Carrington. I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s down-to-earth, and she says it like it is. That was another one. And Shelly Moore is another person that resonated with me. She struggled through school, and we just had her again the other day.

She’s there for those students who struggle. She says, “Hey, school isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But while you have to be here, we’re going to make sure you succeed. We’re going to make accommodations. We’re going to find your strengths, and we’re going to focus on those, not on the areas where you may struggle, because you’re great just the way you are, and you have things to contribute to us, too.”

Sam Demma
That’s awesome.

Michelle Jarvis
Yeah, those are the people that resonate with me. I always want to attend their conferences or hear their speeches again.

Sam Demma
When you think about educators that may be struggling right now, if you could give them a word of advice, what would you share with them?

Michelle Jarvis
It gets better. Sometimes it just feels like it’s never-ending, but remember why you started. Yes, the paperwork, the files, the IPPs, and all these new systems for report cards are part of it. But remember why you started. You started because you love kids, you want to help them follow their dreams, and we’re here for them, not necessarily for all the administrative stuff.

So always refocus on that. Yes, that’s just part of our job, but what’s the reason we chose to do this job? That always helps me. I think, “I’m here for the students, and I want to be a good role model for them. I want to make this experience, from kindergarten to grade 12, a safe place where they feel comfortable and know I’m approachable.”

Sam Demma
Michelle, thank you so much for taking some time to come on the show, talk about your educational journey, your philosophies around building relationships with young people, the importance of listening, and the advice you’d share with someone who’s not feeling the greatest in the vocation right now. I hope you continue to find meaning in the work you’re doing and make a big contribution. I look forward to crossing paths with you again very soon.

Michelle Jarvis
Thank you for having me. Yes, I hope I can continue to do this for a few more years because I do love it and I love the relationships I build. So thanks for having me.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michelle Jarvis

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.

Norman Gaudet – Head of School/Chef d’établissement at TFS – Canada’s International School

Norman Gaudet – Head of School/Chef d’établissement at TFS - Canada's International School
About Norman Gaudet

Norman Gaudet is a bilingual educator and an accomplished leader with an invaluable international perspective. 

As Head of School, M. Gaudet leads a team of 300+ teachers and staff members to offer the best educational experience to the 1,500 students of TFS. M. Gaudet brings his determination toward bilingual education to the school that suits its identity and vision for its future. His passion for academic ambition is felt school-wide through his innovative and informed ideas and programs.

As a proud “Fransaskois,” he began his career in education 30 years ago in the Saskatoon public school system as a Gifted Education Specialist. For the past 20 years, he worked in various leadership positions, starting in Yemen as Athletic Director in 2001. He has also held positions of Director of Curriculum in Nigeria, Head of School in the Republic of Georgia and Principal with Le Conseil Scolaire Viamonde here in Toronto. He joined TFS in 2015 as Principal of the Senior School before stepping into the role of Executive Director of the Learning Forum in August 2020, and becoming TFS’ Head of School in July 2021. 

M. Gaudet holds a master’s degree in educational administration. He speaks French and English. 

Connect with Norman Gaudet: Email | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Toronto French School (TFS)

Le Conseil Scolaire Viamonde

Canadian Association of School System Administrators (CASSA)

Ontario Ministry of 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. Today, I’m joined by Norman Gaudet. Norman, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. Please take just a moment to introduce yourself.

Norman Gaudet
Sure. So, pleasure to be here. My name is Norman Gaudet. I am currently the head of school at Toronto French School here in Toronto. And I’ve been at this school for going on my 10th year. I’ve been an educational leader for about 20 years and in education for about 30.

Sam Demma
I haven’t interviewed many people who have worked in Yemen, in Nigeria, in Georgia, and now in Canada. Why has your educational journey taken you to so many different places? Tell me more about that.

Norman Gaudet
Basically, curiosity. So, I grew up in small-town Saskatchewan here in Canada, and it became clear to me very quickly that the world is a lot bigger than the little farm that I was growing up on. I just started to get curious to know what was out there. But I didn’t really understand even that that was going to be possible until I became a teacher. I was working in Saskatchewan, and a VP showed up at my school—vice principal—and he had just come back from working in Saudi Arabia, and my mind was blown. I was like, “How can a Saskatchewan boy end up in Saudi Arabia?”

Norman Gaudet
He told me about the pathways to take to go into education abroad. I jumped in my car, drove 23 straight hours to a job fair in the States, and found myself in Yemen one year later. From Yemen, the world just opened up. I had this amazing experience in Yemen. I was there as athletic director. The principal that I was working under, the head of school, ran schools all over the world and asked me right away, “I think you’d make a really good head of school.” So he talked to me about the Republic of Georgia and said, “You know, it’s a small school, great place to start.” And I immediately said yes. That was the beginning of my career in administration and leadership.

Norman Gaudet
Then, just after that, I really wanted to explore different places—places that weren’t Saskatchewan—which is why I went to Nigeria. And from there, I have children, and they were being introduced as the “little Canadians” everywhere we went and didn’t really understand what it meant to be Canadian. So I said, “Okay, let’s go back and explore Canada.” But I said, “Let’s explore exciting Canada. Let’s go to Toronto.” So that’s what we did. Ended up in Toronto.

Norman Gaudet
That was probably about 20 years ago, and I’m still here.

Sam Demma
23 hours straight driving. You have to be pretty driven to make that kind of a drive. What was it about that situation, that time in your life, that drove you to do that, and what drives you now? What is the “why” behind the work that you’re doing?

Norman Gaudet
That’s a great question. So I was teaching history and felt like I was not really understanding what I was teaching if I wasn’t in the places that I was teaching about. I was following the same path that he told me. He said, “You have to go to this job fair.” I discovered later there are job fairs all over the world, including Canada. I followed exactly what he said because I wanted to make sure it worked. That has been my mantra probably my whole life: figure out what works, what path you need to get to what you want to do. And don’t give up; just keep doing it. It might be hard—let me tell you, 23 hours, I was tired, stopped for a bit to just close my eyes, but I just did it because I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go where I wanted to go. And so I had to do it. When I came back home and told my wife at the time, “We’re going to Yemen,” she just looked at me, and she said, “No, we’re going to Yemen because it is a place steeped in history where I can learn so much about and become a better teacher.” And let me tell you, there are no regrets. We went there; my children were one and three at the time, and absolutely no regrets. It was the beginning of a very long and fruitful career in education that taught me about the power of community, what education can be, and how kids all over the world are just kids. They’re amazing. They all want the same kind of thing out of a school: they want to be taken care of, they want to be loved, and they want to learn. And that’s what I was able to bring to all the different schools that I’ve been at.

Sam Demma
You gave me a flashback when you said you went home and you told your wife at the time, “We’re going to Yemen,” because I don’t have a wife yet, but I six months ago walked upstairs into my family room and said, “Mom, Dad, I’m going to Kenya.” And they were like, “What?”

Norman Gaudet
Why Kenya?

Sam Demma
I had this curiosity in my heart that was pulling me to go. We spent six weeks over there in the summertime visiting schools. And like you mentioned, it blew my mind to see the same challenges that a lot of students are facing here were similarly experienced by students over there. And I think when we lead with genuine curiosity, we realize that we have way more in common with other communities and people than we do different, and we start to get a glimpse of the humanity in other groups of people. It’s really cool to hear about your international journeys. Figuring out what works, following the path, I think is such important advice, especially for educators. I’m curious: when it comes to educational leadership in your building, you’re leading 300 staff and lots of students. How do you effectively manage other people and lead a school?

Norman Gaudet
Well, that’s a question so many leaders ask themselves. I believe in a few things. I believe that if you love where you are, people will sense that. People will begin to believe in what you’re saying. But then you have to roll up your sleeves and show them that you’re ready to put in the work if you’re asking them to do the same thing.

Norman Gaudet
And then I really believe that if you dig down deep, everybody has a purpose. Everybody has a reason why they’re there. Sometimes they need to be reminded; sometimes you need to tweak and find the perfect spot. But if they’re in a school, it’s because they love kids. Somewhere along the line, they realized that they could make a difference and wanted to work in an environment where that can happen.

Norman Gaudet
If you can find that common purpose, it allows you to lead and have people want to follow. You know, there’s an old saying that as a leader, you don’t necessarily want people to follow you. What you want to be able to do is create other leaders. If you can find their purpose and help them see that they can be as impactful as you are, your job is so much easier because you’ve got a whole bunch of great leaders. In my own life, whether it’s athletic coaches, teachers who’ve made a significant impact, or administrators in my high school that I really looked up to and had close relationships with, what are some of the things you think leaders who have made a big impact in your life when you were growing up or who’ve mentored you have done that made a really big difference for you?

Norman Gaudet
So, a lot of these are going to sound like clichés, but they’re so real. It’s about that feeling you get when somebody believes in you, especially if it’s in something you never thought about before. I remember a principal I worked with when I was a teacher in Saskatchewan. I was doing the best job I could, but I never thought of being a leader. I never thought of going further than the classroom. She brought me into her office one day and said, “You know, what you do, you can have an impact on all the kids in the school, not just the 27 kids you’re working with. Have you ever thought about that?” I replied, “Well, I don’t understand. How would I have that impact?” She said, “Watch me.” She was new, but she saw so much potential in me. I had never seen that in myself before. So, I started watching what she was doing, and I thought, wow, she does have an impact. If I can do that, that would be a dream. From that day forward, I started doing everything I could to gain more experience and leadership opportunities because she believed in me when I didn’t even think that was something that could happen.

Norman Gaudet
And I see this all the time with kids. They may feel like they’re bad at math for five years in a row, and then they have one math teacher who tells them, “You know what? You can do this. I actually see something in you; there’s a spark there.” Their whole world changes because somebody believes in them. That’s so powerful. I remind everyone I work with that we have so much impact on kids and the people around us. We need to be really mindful and intentional when we say anything at all, because as much as we can be powerful for the good, we can unfortunately be powerful for the bad. So being intentional when we’re speaking and passing messages should be top of mind for anyone working with kids.

Sam Demma
I talk about it all the time: every human being has a giant invisible backpack strapped to their shoulders filled with stories, beliefs, challenges, and struggles—all of which we have no insight into because we can’t see each other’s backpacks. Every action we take or every word we use either adds weight to someone’s backpack, or if it comes from a place of love, compassion, kindness, and genuine curiosity, it hopefully removes something and helps them live a bit of a lighter life. In French schools, we say, Vide le sac à dos. I have one regret in my backpack, and it’s that growing up, I didn’t embrace the French language as much as I wish I had. As a proud Canadian, I wish I had taken that more seriously. Can you speak a little bit to the importance of the French community and the French language and how valuable a skill that is?

Norman Gaudet
Oh my gosh, I tell people all the time that it’s a superpower. You’re not just learning a language. Many teens find that a language that isn’t their primary language of emotion, which is typically English, isn’t as cool, so they begin to lose interest. I have a short motivational speech I share with them about the superpower they’ve gained without even having to work for it because they were placed in an environment where they absorbed a language. They didn’t even have to work at it; their parents made this decision for them. Now they’re bilingual. I encourage them to go home and thank their parents because they’re the reason they have this superpower. They may not realize its power at 15, but they will when they leave school. In a school like ours, they’re surrounded by bilingual kids and may not realize that the rest of Toronto isn’t as bilingual. When they go into the workplace—now the world is their workplace—they can end up anywhere and find themselves at a huge advantage because they’re fluent in multiple languages. Thankfully, our students are fluent in English, they speak French fluently, and we have a third language as a mandatory course, so they might be taking Mandarin, Spanish, or German. Many of our students even speak a fourth language, so they’re polyglots. That is rare, powerful, and special. It positions them with advantages in every aspect of their lives.

Sam Demma
You’re absolutely right. Language opens doors, career opportunities, and even pure enjoyment—being able to speak to someone in their language unlocks parts of the world you wouldn’t otherwise have access to. When I was in Kenya, I didn’t speak Kikuyu, one of the 42 tribal languages there. But I was so interested that I kept asking our local connection, Kamata, to teach me some words. In these very rural villages, where the road is dirt and uneven, and you drive no faster than five kilometers an hour, kids would be walking beside the car. They don’t often see Caucasian people, so I would roll the window down, and they would open their mouths wide in amazement. As I started learning some of the language, I would wave and say, “Kwite nĩna,” which means, “How is everyone doing?” Within five minutes, they would run away and come back with their entire family, so excited that someone took the time to figure out how to communicate in their mother tongue.

Sam Demma
There are so many words in Kikuyu that don’t have an English translation—phrases, sentiments. You actually unlock a whole other world. What if your soulmate doesn’t speak your current language? You could be opening up opportunities for so many things. As I grew up, I realized how much of an opportunity I missed, but I won’t let that stop me from reconnecting with languages as I move forward. I know it’s important to your school community, and I wanted to mention it. I also know one of the things unfolding in the world right now is the challenge around mental health and well-being. I know that at TFS, it’s a priority. What are some things you’re excited about that are shifting the conversation around mental wellness in your school?

Norman Gaudet
Mental health is absolutely a priority for us. In the past, schools—including ours—looked at mental health as a “band-aid” solution. We waited for crises to happen and then put strategies in place. But now we’re focusing on prevention, breaking down what causes a healthy mind. We all know the causes of unhealthy minds, but we want to ensure we’re putting everything in place that fosters a healthy mind. We’ve broken it down into three areas: intrapersonal health, interpersonal health, and academic health. We focus on how students feel about themselves, providing opportunities for self-acceptance, embracing their individuality, and celebrating their roles. Interpersonal health addresses social skills, building friendships, and the critical skills for happiness. For academic health, in a competitive world, kids face pressure and perfectionism. We need to ensure they feel they’re in the right place, learning at the right level, and not falling behind, which is often a source of stress. So much of it comes from how we talk to the kids. It’s the words that we’re saying to them. So we have to make sure that, again, that intentional talk, that every time we’re passing messages, we know what we’re saying. We want the kids to hear that these are the priorities we want them to build on. It’s all about healthy minds. To support that, we’ve introduced mindfulness, integrated yoga in our phys-ed programs, and even set up zen corners in every classroom so kids can take a moment, reflect, think, and process why they’re feeling the way they’re feeling. How do they manage those feelings? Do they have the strategies they need? And if they don’t, where can they find them?

Norman Gaudet
At TFS, we have a strong academic focus. We’re known to be one of the top academic schools in Canada. But I also want to make sure that while the kids are reaching their academic potential, they are mentally and emotionally healthy through it all. We start young and ensure they have the skills, strategies, and tools to manage everything that comes their way. The zen corner is one small part of that environment. Not every student will use it every day, but some students might need it right after recess or following a disagreement with friends. It gives them a moment to think, understand why they’re feeling a certain way, and decide what they want to do about it, so they can refocus and keep learning. Often, these feelings can become barriers to learning, and having these strategies helps them get back on track.

Norman Gaudet
Mental health today is top of mind for everyone, and kids are not immune to the pressures around them. Unfortunately, we’re seeing these pressures affect kids at younger ages. We have to start teaching mindfulness and self-regulation early. We’re working with our youngest students on mindfulness, yoga, and self-reflection. If they can master these skills and build them into their routines from a young age, they’ll be much better equipped to handle the emotional ups and downs that come with adolescence and beyond.

Sam Demma
I love how intentionally you’re using the phrase “causes of a healthy mind” because whenever I’m feeling challenged, burnt out, or a bit off, I always pause and ask myself, “When was a time in my life when I felt really good, on top of the world, and everything was working well?” I then think about the habits I had in place at that time that might be missing now. Sometimes, just reconnecting with those positive habits helps push me back toward that place of healthy mindfulness. It sounds like TFS has a really proactive approach, and I hope this next year continues to be a phenomenal one for both students and staff.

Sam Demma
For an educator who might be listening to this and feeling a little burnt out, or maybe it’s their first year working in a school and they just graduated, what do you think you would have needed to hear on day one that might benefit someone listening?

Norman Gaudet
I genuinely believe that every teacher needs to remember that if they’re struggling, they will never be able to be what they want to be for their students. Teachers need to look at all the different aspects of their well-being and take care of themselves. I actually shared this with our teachers on the first day of school, reassuring them that we care about them as much as we care about our students. I completely understand the connection between how teachers feel and the impact on our kids. If teachers are healthy and thriving, it’s going to positively affect our students. But if they’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed, unfortunately, that’s going to be felt by the kids as well.

Norman Gaudet
We’ve put systems in place at TFS to support our teachers, and if a school doesn’t have that, they should ask for it. Find the resources, whether it’s someone to talk to or simply taking the time they need to manage whatever they’re going through. It’s okay to ask for help. Schools need to recognize that teachers are our biggest asset. Our kids won’t flourish to their fullest potential unless our teachers are as strong as they can be. Taking care of our teachers isn’t just a priority; it’s essential.

Sam Demma
100%. People often say, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Thank you, Norm, for all the work you’ve done over the past few decades in education and for the work you’re continuing to do. I wish you a phenomenal year ahead. Thank you so much again for coming on the podcast. I look forward to meeting you in person at some point soon.

Norman Gaudet
Thanks, Sam. Have a great day.

Sam Demma
You as well.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Norman Gaudet

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.

Laura Beltran – Principal at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School

Laura Beltran – Principal at St. Joseph's Catholic High School
About Laura Beltran

Laura Beltran is the Principal of St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Windsor, Ontario. She has worked for the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School board for the past 31 years. She started her career at Holy Names High School and then moved to a permanent position at St. Joseph’s for the next 12 years. She moved into administration as a vice principal in 2010 and was appointed principal of St. Thomas of Villanova High School in 2021.

She strives to meet the board’s vision of “empowering, inspiring, and knowing her students”. Being kind to one another is a regular part of her daily announcements and reminders to students and staff. She believes that the school can be an example for the larger community of what peace and kindness can do to show young people a world where they are valued and cared for. She coaches a Hockey4Youth program for young women who face the financial challenge of not being able to play hockey or learn to skate. She also loves every opportunity to hold her benevolence cafe where she treats the students to hot chocolate or lemonade while getting to know them. She has a passion for creating a school environment that focuses on equity and inclusion where all students can meet success.

Connect with Laura Beltran: Email | Facebook | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Joseph’s Catholic High School

Windsor-Essex Catholic District School

Hockey4Youth

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 a very special guest, Laura Beltran. Laura and I met after doing an engagement at her high school, and I have to tell you, the moment you walk in the doors of St. Joseph’s High School, the energy is palpable. It is something that staff, students, and herself have cultivated. Laura, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show here today. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Laura Beltran
Thanks, Sam, I appreciate it. Looking forward to it.

Sam Demma
So where does your energy come from? Because out of all the principals I’ve crossed paths with or people in education, you got this magnetic energy that doesn’t seem to expire. Where does it come from?

Laura Beltran
I don’t know, I guess it’s my sense of purpose and knowing that this is what I was meant to do. And I have joy every single day I come to work because it’s not like I have a job. I have a vocation that I am absolutely privileged to be able to do and to work with young people. I feed off of their energy and enthusiasm every single day.

Sam Demma
Did you know when you were a student yourself that one day you would be in education, or what brought you down this pathway?

Laura Beltran
No, I absolutely did not. My path was very zigzag in the way that it looked. I always wanted to be a pediatrician. And so I graduated high school, I was a Canadian biology scholar, and that was my pathway, the only pathway I ever thought of. Then I didn’t like the competitive nature of the program. I moved on to sociology, found it interesting but a little too easy. I moved into criminology. From there, I wanted to be a police officer. I applied to Teachers College thinking, well, maybe there is something in there for me. I got into Teachers College, which was highly competitive at the time. I came out as a primary junior teacher teaching little kids and got called to the director’s office within six months of coming out of Teachers College. They said, “We need someone to teach OAC Law and you’re the only one, so are you a good teacher?” I looked at him and said, “I’m a great teacher.” I know that because when I get up in the morning, I want to come to work.

Sam Demma
When you think about great teachers you’ve had in your life or the amazing educators in your own building, what do you think makes a great teacher?

Laura Beltran
Great human beings make great teachers. Those that really care for the students entrusted to them. They get to know them, want to know who these individuals are, and want to help them succeed. They want them to choose pathways of success and go above and beyond every single day, whether in the classroom, outside the classroom, or through extracurricular activities. Those opportunities allow students to really fulfill their purpose in life, be happy in their own lives, feel joy, and achieve success.

Sam Demma
I think going above and beyond and also taking care of your own well-being is important. Because it’s such a challenge when you have this heart of service and want to give, give, give. Sometimes we give so much that we have no health left for ourselves. How do you balance that?

Laura Beltran
That is really true, and I see that with my staff. One thing we do with our staff is always look out for the well-being of others, especially our students, but also ask, what are we doing for ourselves? How do we take those breaks and really take care of ourselves? Sometimes during professional development days, we will take opportunities for mindfulness activities or allow staff to be in one another’s company to revitalize and remember why we do this work every day. Taking those opportunities is really, really important.

Sam Demma
When I was at your school, a lot of the initiatives were student-led. Even the organizing of the entire event, the creation of graphic images, the introductions, the thank-yous, it was all student-led. Where did that perspective or philosophy of making sure students are as involved as possible come from in your educational ideas?

Laura Beltran
I always tell my students that this is their home away from home. Many of our students feel this is the only place that is safe, comfortable, and free from stress or some of the challenges they deal with in their lives. If they can take ownership of this school, it becomes a home, not just a building or a facility. When they know their voice matters and have opportunities to lead activities within the school, you’ll see them rise, shine, and bring out the best part of themselves. That is what we want to see in our kids; then we know we’re successful.

Sam Demma
Do you have an example in your mind of a student who was shy or introverted and, through a leadership opportunity, really saw themselves shine or embrace their skills?

Laura Beltran
I do. I have a story that I will never forget. This was back when I was teaching in a classroom. I found out the day before that I was moving into administration, so I had to tell my students I was leaving and wouldn’t be their classroom teacher anymore. After everyone said their goodbyes, one student stayed behind. This student rarely spoke in class. She said, “I want to thank you because my mom talks about how negative her job is at dinner every night, and it stresses me out. I want to be happy. I see you come into work every day, so joyful, and that’s what I want for me.” This student helped me with a project we did called the Veterans Memory Project. We interviewed local veterans, wrote a book, and presented it to the Windsor Historical Society, the War Museum in Ottawa, and our local legions. She said, “I know my purpose. I won’t waste time finding a job that doesn’t make me happy because every moment counts. You taught me that.” This was a student who didn’t really participate in class, and then you realize the profound effect we have on kids.

Sam Demma
It’s so true. There was one occasion where I delivered a presentation, and a student faced the wall instead of the stage. I thought he wasn’t paying attention. But that night, he emailed me, sharing how much he needed to hear those stories. I created this entire story in my head, feeling annoyed and frustrated, but he was actually connecting deeply. So many teachers pour their hearts and energy into students, wondering if it’s making a difference, but it is. Your story is a beautiful reminder to educators that words, actions, and even our energy matter. In your case, it was the joy you brought to work. Speaking of that, how do you think we best support young people today?

Laura Beltran
There are a few things we do that we’re proud of. First, we provide mental health supports at our school with child and youth workers, psychotherapists, and mental health and addiction nurses. We do Lunch and Learns where our child and youth worker and psychotherapist collaborate on topics that help students, serving them lunch and discussing subjects like productivity and stress management. Additionally, every Friday, we host “Hot Chocolate with Ms. Beltran,” or in warmer weather, “Lemonade with Ms. Beltran.” The kids love it. They line up, and yes, it’s free. We chat, I get to know their names, and I absolutely love it. I wear an apron that says “Hot Chocolate with Ms. Beltran,” and every Friday becomes the Beltran Cafe.

Sam Demma
I’m sure you get some of the best ideas or feedback from students in those spaces.

Laura Beltran
I do. It’s casual, one-on-one, and informal. They bring their friends, we chat, and I get to know them better. I think they understand through that experience that I’m available to them, that there’s no barrier to talking with the principal. Often, they offer to pour their own drink, and I say, “I know you can, but I want to do this for you.”

Sam Demma
In leadership, it’s often said that being visible and accessible—spending time in the school rather than staying in the office—is key. Who has inspired or supported you on your own journey as a leader?

Laura Beltran
I’ve been very fortunate to have colleagues who mentored me and educators who excel in their work. Reflecting on the most effective teachers I had, they were individuals who showed that they loved what they did. There was humor, laughter, and fun activities. I’ve always carried that with me.

Sam Demma
The joy piece is so important. But I imagine there are days where, like anyone, you have to choose joy despite challenging circumstances. How do you center yourself to ensure you show up for people?

Laura Beltran
When I’m having one of those days, I’ll go for a walk around the building or spend time in the hallways, seeking out students. I’ll visit students on spare, kids involved in activities, or go to my life skills area to chat with kids. That grounds me. It reminds me why I’m doing this, gives me a breather, some laughs, and allows me to refocus.

Sam Demma
Do conversations with students help shift your emotional state in those moments?

Laura Beltran
Absolutely. That’s why we got into this—to interact and build relationships with kids. Through those everyday conversations, I learn so much about who they are, what they carry, what they love, and even how they feel about their school and what we could improve. I’ll ask, “How was the game last night? I know you didn’t win, but you played great.” I also try to attend all team games, at least once or twice each season.

Sam Demma
Nice. How’s the team looking out there?

Laura Beltran
They work really hard. And I always tell them, “It’s not about the score but how you carry yourself on the field.”

Sam Demma
A friend of mine told me once, “We’re not just teaching curriculum; we’re teaching character.” And that has stuck with me.

Laura Beltran
Absolutely.

Sam Demma
When dealing with challenging situations, how do you approach difficult conversations with students?

Laura Beltran
It’s important to show them that you’re human, that you don’t expect perfection, and that mistakes are part of growth. We make mistakes, I make mistakes, and young people will make mistakes too. It’s about acknowledging the mistake, discussing how to make it right, and considering what we’ll do differently next time. Discipline is only one part of the process; the educational component is where growth truly happens.

Sam Demma
I made a mistake in grade seven or eight, and a friend got blamed for it instead of me. At home, I started crying. My dad took me back to the school, I confessed, and the principal handled it with restorative questions, giving me an in-school suspension. If my dad had gone straight to punishment, I wouldn’t have learned from it as I did. So it’s wonderful that you focus on humanity and solutions in those moments.

Laura Beltran
Absolutely. I appreciate that you mentioned restorative practices. Sometimes, we bring students together in peer mediation, and they realize the impact of their actions on each other. It’s amazing to witness those “aha” moments, where they truly understand how they’ve affected someone else.

Sam Demma
Empathy is a challenging thing to teach, especially when the brain is still developing. But when a student understands, it makes the work even more fulfilling.

Laura Beltran
It does, and it brings a sense of hope. I tell our students every day, “Be kind to one another, take care of one another.” We can be an example to the larger community of how to treat one another and create peace and hope.

Sam Demma
For an educator listening who might feel burnt out, nervous, or new to the profession, what advice would you give?

Laura Beltran
Don’t give up. Reach out. There are so many educators with experience to share. This is my 31st year, and time flies. The first years are the hardest, but that’s okay. Nobody needs to reinvent the wheel—ask for help, and don’t be afraid to lean on others.

Sam Demma
If someone wanted to connect with you or ask a question, what’s the best way to reach you?

Laura Beltran
You can reach me by email (laura_beltran@wecdsb.on.ca) or on Instagram (@fastballcoachlaura) and Facebook (@lauratillie).

Sam Demma
Laura, this has been such a lovely conversation. Thank you for sharing your beliefs about education, and how giving students time and energy helps them grow. I appreciate it. Wishing you all the best with the school year and coaching. Talk to you soon.

Laura Beltran
Thanks so much, Sam. Take care.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Laura Beltran

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.

Rhae-Ann Holoien — Superintendent of Schools for the Battle River School Division

Rhae-Ann Holoien — Superintendent of Schools for the Battle River School Division
About Rhae-Ann Holoien

Rhae-Ann has over 30 years of experience as an educator and is in her second year as superintendent in the Battle River School Division. She is passionate about fostering educational excellence, supporting staff and students, and ensuring all students have access to high-quality learning opportunities. In addition to her professional role, Rhae-Ann is a dedicated mom, wife, daughter, sister, and grandma.

Connect with Rhae-Ann: Email | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Battle River School Division

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. Today we have a very special guest, Rhae-Ann Holoien. And I go back, I want to say a few years now. She is a ball of energy. She is someone who, if you speak to her long enough, you’ll want to run through a couple, not just one, but a couple of brick walls. She is passionate about education and has been serving young people and educators for a good amount of time now. Brianne, take a moment and just introduce yourself. Thank you, Sam.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
So I’ve been in education for 31 years and you are extremely kind in your introduction of me. I do try to ensure that I have a thought always on my mind that it’s about the students. It’s like that’s our end result. What kind of journey, what kind of experiences do our students have? And I think when you say people will join me, I think those of us in education, we always want to reflect back on that. And that’s why people join us on that journey so we can make it great for students in our schools.

Sam Demma
Did you grow up playing teacher to a dollhouse as a kid and knowing that you wanted to work in education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
No, but I did grow up, I did a lot of coaching, I did swimming lessons, kind of all of those other things, but I thought I would be a lawyer. Yeah, it kind of changed in my post-secondary journey that I really decided that I loved being teaching and supporting students and being someone who could make a difference in somebody’s life.

Sam Demma
What changed for you in post-secondary that had you alter your pathway?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Maybe some life experiences, and knowing that we need great people in the classroom, and I’m very fortunate to work in a school division. We have great people in the classroom, but that was something that really kind of made my decision for me. I wanted to be one of those people that really stood up for all students and ensured that everyone had great opportunities in schools.

Sam Demma
I think the idea of making sure that every student feels like they belong, like they’re supported and advocated for is so important. Absolutely.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I think having my own children made me a little more humble. It kind of opened up my experiences as well because I’ve had to advocate for my own children as well and I think I know the education system and sometimes it’s difficult navigating and knowing where the answers are where the support can be so I think I really appreciate that we need to be that person for all the students in our schools and those students in our classrooms. We have to support them so they have those great opportunities to succeed and let the parents know how to advocate and how to ensure their kids are being successful.

Sam Demma
One of the things I observed with you and your team is you’re always looking for ways to improve student well-being and support the students in the classroom. It seems like every conversation you have relates to that and involves data and making the best possible decisions for young people. What drives that passion?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
What drives that mission? You know, and that has been something I can say that even prior to the pandemic, I have been very focused on ensuring we take care of ourselves, that we’re healthy. I come from a background where I was a student athlete and a university athlete. I’ve raised my kids to be healthy and think of their overall well-being. There’s not just one aspect of well-being. And I think, again, some of the things that I know I want to translate and support so all our students and staff can be healthy and ensure there’s positive well-being in our entire division. If we look after our staff, we obviously look after our students, but there’s some things that we can do along the way. And, you know, hopefully we make a big impact in that.

Sam Demma
You and I were just chatting before we started the podcast about some of the things we strive to do each day to make sure we can show up to the best of our abilities. I was telling you about blocking out lunch and making sure I honor that time on the calendar and having the humility to ask for help when you know you need it, but might not want to ask for it. What are some of the practices you put in place in your own life as a leader to ensure that you can show up at full capacity and to the best of your abilities?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I appreciate that question because last year I tried to do a few things and now I’m more intentional this year. So I wake up an hour early this year and I go for a walk. I’m trying to ensure that I can have a decent break and have that lunch or that reflection time as well. I like to, you know, a mentor once told me, we carry our weather. It’s leaders. People look at us. They look to you to see how a meeting is going to go or how you’re approaching. And so the quote is, we carry our weather. So before I enter the room, I like to check myself. We carry our weather. I want to be positive. I want people to know that we’ve got this. We’re a great team. We can support each other. And I hope when I go into the room, that’s the perception of the people in the room, that we’re supporting each other. And so, that is something that I do.

Sam Demma
I love that quote. I also was thinking, I had a young person walk up to me after a presentation recently at a school in Richmond Hill, and he said this quote to me. He said, “The way the world sees us is the way we see the world.” And you have such a positive outlook on the world and you have such an optimistic outlook on the world that I’m certain when people are perceiving you, they’re looking at you in the same way you’re looking at the world. So yeah, I have no doubt that every room you walk in, the perception is awesome.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, again, that is very kind because I do see the world as a very positive place. I feel that we can overcome our challenges and sometimes we just need a little more support to be able to do that, but I also believe we’re not alone in that. And as educators, as a leader in the school division, I honestly believe I can support people to overcome their challenges to be successful.

Sam Demma
And that’s really the role of a great leader, is to remove those obstacles from the people you serve, whether it’s the students or the teachers. How do you manage people effectively? What are some things you keep top of mind when dealing with other humans?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, one, I think deep in our hearts we have to value all the work that people do. People work very hard in our school division. I’m very proud of the work we do. I continue with the message that it’s every student every day of success. That’s the vision of Battle River School Division. And that’s honestly the message that I carry forward. We need to think of every student every day. So, part of it is just ensuring that people are valued, people are respected. If you’re having a conversation, sometimes they are tough conversations that we need to have, but it’s ensuring that people feel that we’re listening, we hear them, and we’ll work together for the best end result we can have.

Sam Demma
You have been in many different positions in education, in a few different school boards. What are some of the moments in your career that were pivotal for you? Maybe it was a mentor you’ve had or a change in a role that opened up your eyes to some new opportunity for impact and to be of service. Is there any pivotal moments in your educational journey that you think about?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
You know, I do have some amazing mentors that have been very positive and supportive and, you know, made me reflect and maybe do things a little bit differently. And so it’s great to know there’s other, there’s great adults out there that are looking after our students. But some of the pivotal moments are with the kids. And when the students notice that they can make a difference and they want to share that with us, and they want to share their learning and share celebrations of success, those are the pivotal moments that I know we are making a difference.

Sam Demma
When you think about students and the pivotal moments when they approach you or a teacher and share passionately their interests or their curiosities or their ability to make an impact, are there any students, and you don’t have to name any of them, but are there any student examples that really come to the forefront of your mind of a young person who maybe was really struggling and through education found a new beginning or made some great improvements?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Absolutely. I can think of a number of students who, and they might not have approached me, but they might have approached a teacher, a principal, an EA, a bus driver, and you hear those students, you hear that story. And it fills our hearts that somebody has made such a difference that they now feel successful, they now feel that they’re able to learn or able to go to school without a challenge. And someone has been there to support them, absolutely. I have a list of students who I’m so proud of the work staff have done to work with our students.

Sam Demma
What do you think some of the opportunities or challenges are that exist right now in education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I think opportunities are, you know, the career pathways that students have. I reflect back to when I was graduating from school, and I’m not sure we were directed, you know, into all the various things that one could possibly, you know, do when they grow up. There’s so many opportunities for our students to be successful in life, and there’s different learning, different travel, different volunteerism, different ways to fill one’s heart to be successful for the rest of their life. And I think that’s a great opportunity for our students. I’m very positive about the future. I think we have great students in our schools, great student leaders, great teachers working with them, and I’m just very positive for the next generation of leaders and people in our world to take care of what’s going to happen.

Sam Demma
I think the challenges are also opportunities if you look at them as obstacles to be overcome. Are there any challenges that you think are prevalent today with young people or education?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Well, one of the challenges, you know, will be mental health. I think, you know, although I might see the world through rose-colored glasses, I think right now we’re living in a time where people need additional support and there’s probably not the support needed for mental health in our system. And hopefully we’re addressing it, hopefully we’re supporting our students, hopefully they know when they transition to adulthood, they know where to go to obtain support of the ways people need to be aware of to navigate life successfully.

Sam Demma
Yeah, it’s so true. And I think if people started thinking about their physical wellness the same way, thinking about their mental wellness and mental health the same way they do their physical health, we would have so many more conversations about those challenges and how we could improve that aspect of our lives. And you’re doing a great job with Stephen and the team to work on those things. And what are some of the things you’re excited about this school year with the Bow River School Division?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Oh, I am excited about the learning opportunities for our students. Last year, we revised our three-year education plan. So we are diving into well-being. That’s one of our priorities. So, I’m really excited about that. And supporting our team to be able to support our students in our schools under that well-being priority is great. Our other priority is student success for all, which is great because we continue, as you say, to look at data, make decisions based on where our gaps and where our weaknesses celebrate our successes. And our other priority is enhanced learning and working environments. And I’m very excited about that as well. We didn’t just want it to be the learning environment. We have so many schools and facilities that we also want a positive working environment. So then the adults know that that’s very important as well. So I’m excited about all of those things moving forward into this year. It’s some great work we are doing.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I’m excited to hear about the improvements and iterations to programming, but also the physical spaces that students and staff and teachers are using. When you think about resources that have been helpful to you among your journey, I know you mentioned mentors have been pivotal. Has there been any resources that have also been really instrumental in your own learning or development that you’d like to share with others?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
Absolutely, there have been some resources. Some of the same resources across our province, which is generally very supportive for collaboration. But a couple things that are near and dear to my heart, I have this book with me, it’s Beyond Monet, and it talks about pedagogy and high yield instructional strategies. And I’ve been probably using that book for 15 years. And that’s near and dear to my heart. We always want to talk about engaging students in the classroom and we talk about what is going to make a difference for each and every student. So that’s kind of a book I have near and dear but we do talk about other resources for engaging students in the classroom which is so very important to me.

Sam Demma
One of the things I remember is when I was with you and Stephen and we were doing some work, you enjoy every opportunity you have to visit the schools. What are those experiences like when you do step into the school buildings?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
So positive. I really like to get back to what are we about, we’re about the kids. So when I am in schools, I like to visit with students. I visit with staff. I ask them about like right now What are they excited about for the school year? What’s happening in their schools? How was summer? So that positive energy It makes it, you know, kind of goes back to I’m not just somebody working in an office, but I have the ability to impact all of these students and I like that. They know who I am. I like that they can have a conversation with me about the great things that are happening in the schools or what should we do differently. So I have already been up and out in our schools and talking to students and, you know, seeing what’s going to be exciting for them this year.

Sam Demma
Lots of exciting stuff going on this year? Or who you got?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I believe that in this office, I need to cheer for the Oilers because we have a lot of Oiler fans. We have a couple of brave Calgary flame fans and I give them lots of credit for wearing their flames jersey on the Jersey days. But my son probably wouldn’t forgive me either if I don’t say yay, Oilers.

Sam Demma
Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about the year ahead, some of your journeys and steps through education, the resources that have been helpful. If there is an educator listening to this right now who’s feeling a little bit burnt out, they are uncertain about the future or doubting their own abilities to make a difference, what words of advice would you share with them as we wrap up today’s conversation?

Rhae-Ann Holoien
I would say to reflect and think about why they got into education in the first place and how can they make a difference in each student’s life because when you’re in the classroom, when you’re driving the bus, when you’re working with kids, there are some challenging things. But when we think that we have the ability to impact students every moment, every day, for all of their school career, we’re really making a difference, the work that we do. And they need to sometimes step back and enjoy those small moments of success.

Sam Demma
Brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I hope you have a phenomenal year ahead.

Rhae-Ann Holoien
You too, it’s been great chatting. I think you’re such a spark of positive energy that I always appreciate talking to you so I can get back to reflecting what’s important in our work and you help spread that message. So thanks, Sam.

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David Kelly, Ed.D — Principal at Nixa High School

David Kelly, Ed.D — Principal at Nixa High School
About David Kelly

David Kelly has spent the past 20 years in secondary education serving students across multiple districts in Southwest Missouri. He received his Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Social Studies Education in 2005 and began a teaching career in the Dallas County R-1 school district. Following a three-year stint there, he began teaching social studies at Nixa High School in Nixa, Missouri.

In 2012, Dr. Kelly earned a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Evangel University. That fall, he accepted his first administration position as an assistant principal at Hollister High School in Hollister, Missouri. In the fall of 2013, he returned to Nixa Public Schools, where he served as assistant principal.

Dr. Kelly earned his Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership in Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology at Evangel University in August of 2018. Since 2019, he has served as the Principal of Nixa High School. During his tenure, Nixa High School was named a Missouri Gold Star school and was awarded a National Blue Ribbon by the US Department of Education.

Dr. Kelly has been named the Missouri Administrator of the Year by both the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association in 2021 and the Speech and Theatre Association of Missouri in 2022. He was just named the Southwest Missouri Principal of the Year by the Southwest Missouri chapter of the Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals (MoASSP) and will move forward as a nominee for Missouri Principal of the Year.

In addition to his role as principal, Dr. Kelly works with new administrators as a mentor and facilitator with the Missouri Leadership Development System. He is passionate about developing teachers and creating a climate where students maximize their potential. He currently resides in Nixa, Missouri, with his wife, and two-time Evangel graduate, Dr. Morgan Kelly, and their three children, Addison, Ansley, and Grayson.

Connect with David Kelly: Email | Facebook | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Nixa High School
Evangel University
Missouri Leadership Development System

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 David Kelly. I met David maybe a year ago at Nixa High School and just heard that their football team has kicked off the season this year with two wins. They have a 2-0 record.

Sam Demma
David, how is that making the school culture shift? And please take a moment to introduce yourself.

David Kelly
Yeah, so I am David Kelly. I’m a principal of Nixa High School in Nixa, Missouri. We’re located in the southwest part of the state. There are approximately 2,000 kids in our school and we serve a community of about 30,000 people. But yeah, we thought we were going to have a pretty good football team.

David Kelly
We had our first test last Friday and ended up beating a team that has won, I believe, it’s 16 state championships since 2000, so they’re always good, always competitive. And we beat them 55-21, and so a pretty good gauge on where our year is going to go, barring any major injuries or anything. But in the United States, anytime your football team is off to a good start, it just helps the whole culture of your building. It helps your community. It’s something everybody can rally around and get excited about.

Sam Demma
So it’s a lot of fun. Sports and actually not even just sports, but extracurricular activities students can get involved in, have such a tremendous impact on your character building, on your leadership development. Why do you think extracurricular activities in sports are pivotal for young people, especially students to get involved in?

David Kelly
So I think for most kids, the teenage years for a lot of kids are years where they’re very self-centered and I don’t blame teenagers for that. I just think it’s where they’re at developmentally, and sports clubs, extracurricular activities, band, choir, whatever it may be, it becomes about more than just yourself and I think it helps you learn that there is more out there than just you, and the world is a bigger place than just you. It makes you accountable to other people, so your decisions now aren’t only impacting you, they’re also impacting your team or your organization. Those students also understand, like, when they go somewhere, their team is represented on their chest. And so, it’s not just about the team, it’s also about their community, and the way that they act, the way that they behave says something about their community when they have it, you know, written across the front of their chest. So yeah, I think honestly here it’s probably one of the best at-risk programs we have and just as a way to keep kids engaged, keep them excited about school. And you know, those kids we have found here, over 70% of our students are involved in some sort of club or extracurricular activity. Their GPA on a 4.0 scale is usually around 3.4.

David Kelly
Their attendance rates are better, higher ACT scores. So there’s a direct correlation that we can provide the evidence of that kids that are involved just do better. But I think it’s about realizing that there’s more to this world, there’s more to this community than just me. And it helps them to be more empathetic, more responsible. And those are character traits that we want all of our kids to graduate from and carry

Sam Demma
with them into the world. You don’t know this, but I did a presentation for a conference in Idaho. No, this one was in Arkansas. And at the event, I wore the red Nixa shirt on stage. And people were asking, did you see these photos? I wore the merch proudly. And everyone was asking me afterwards if I went to this school and where it came from. And I said, I got this shirt from where Jason Bourne is from.

David Kelly
That’s right, that’s right. So the birthplace of Jason Bourne. So yeah, no, I actually saw a post that you had put on Facebook, I believe. And I was like, oh man, he’s wearing our shirt. So anyway, yeah, that’s awesome. Very proud, very proud.

Sam Demma
Tell me about your journey into education. Did you know you always wanted to work in education?

David Kelly
So here’s the deal. I actually love telling this story because I think it’s a lot of young people, it’s kind of their path. My mom is an educator. She was an elementary teacher. She did it for over 40 years, which is a long time. I went to college and majored in accounting. And between my sophomore and junior year, I was sitting in a baseball game and I ran into my high school principal. And it just happened. I had a younger brother playing. And so I went and watched my younger brother play. My high school principal was there. He had a son playing. And we talked for two hours from before the game all through the game. But the gist of our conversation was he asked me, he goes, what are you majoring in?

David Kelly
And I said accounting. And he goes, oh, my goodness, that is the boring thing that I’ve ever heard of. And he goes, you’re going to be so bored in that profession. He goes, what are you doing? And he just, he kind of was just giving me a hard time. And I go, what, you have a better idea? And he goes, yeah. He goes, you need to be a teacher and a coach. And I go, man, I’ve thought about it. And I said, but he goes, let me guess. He goes, you don’t want to be poor. And I said, well, honestly, that’s probably the number one reason. Like, teachers don’t make much money. I’ve heard accountants make decent money. Um, and, uh, he goes, he told me at that time, he goes, money doesn’t buy happiness. And, uh, anyway, long story short, we had a two-hour conversation about it. Um, this was between my sophomore, junior year.

David Kelly
I went back that fall, changed my major, um, to education. And so that’s how I, that is really how I got into education. I had always thought about it. Um, had always been a direction I wanted to go, but it was just, I could never commit to it, um, until I had that conversation with him. So, uh, it’s kind of neat that my high school principal is the one that, uh, set me on this path. Um, and then now here I am as a high school principal. So it’s kind of a neat, neat transition for me. Um, but really I got into, I really wanted to coach. I was an athlete. I played college baseball. I like any kid in America, or anywhere in the world, you know, you want to play professional sports. And I thought I had, that was the dream. And I had two injuries in college that made it very obvious that wasn’t going to be the path for me. And so I decided coaching would be where it was at, but I quickly fell in love with the classroom and with teaching because on the coaching side, you really get to know one type of kid, but on the teaching side, you get to know all kids. And every kid has a story, and every kid deserves a chance. And that’s what really built the passion for education in this career and me was working with kids across all spectrums. So I need to take a drink of water real quick.

Sam Demma
Yeah, you know, it was so obvious that you had this passion for education when I came and visited the school because every hallway we walked down, every student knew your name, you knew every student’s name. It was such a cool thing to witness. How do you build strong relationships with young people?

David Kelly
So I think that’s the whole key to this whole thing. And it really speaks to our why though. And I just, I mean, I think we just have to, if you built relationships with kids, they will walk through a wall for you. They’ll do about anything for you. And, but part of it is just showing that you care. And, you know, I know that there’s kind of an old mindset of kids should just respect us because we’re older than them. And that’s just not the way the world works, to be honest. And a lot of kids, if you just treat them with respect, they’re going to show respect back to you. So I think a big component of it is modeling. You model the behaviors that you want to see, and you model the expectation that you want to see. And when you set a really high bar for kids, they will live up to that expectation. And I’ve seen that over and over again, but I think it’s just showing compassion to kids, being real with kids. They need to see us as people and not just educators. And I think the more that you can do that, the more moments that you can have with kids. Where they’re just seeing you be a person, being a human, and the way that you carry yourself is something then that they see and they’re like, you know, this guy does, he does care about me. He doesn’t just say it. But when I see him in the halls, he says hi.

David Kelly
Um when I when i’ve had issues I and i’ve i’ve been able to talk to him and he listens and um, I think those are things that you know, I think over time i’ve been I mean I am fortunate i’ve been here for Uh, this is my 15th year in this district. So i’ve had a lot of time here. So i’ve had siblings i’ve had um I actually this is crazy, but one of the girls that I, when I first started teaching here, she actually has a daughter that’s a freshman this year. So anyway, so I, it’s, it’s a little early, but I am in that point in my career where that’s starting to happen. I also have a daughter now here that’s a freshman. So, so I know some of her friends, but it’s just, I think it’s just about how we carry ourselves and how we approach each situation and recognizing that each kid’s unique, each kid has a story to tell and we can’t treat them all the same because they are all different and carrying.

Sam Demma
Different things in their backpacks. I appreciate the pulling of the metaphor and analogy. What are some of the resources that have been pivotal in your own development or things that have inspired you to continue to grow and evolve as a leader yourself?

David Kelly
So I think for me, I do like to, so I wish I was an avid reader, but I’m like a cliff notes guy. So like I like to find the synopsis of the book and then that leads me to the main point. And so I do read a lot. I love leadership stuff, anything about leadership. And I think you can take leadership concepts and you can apply them to the classroom. And every teacher is a leader, whether that’s in their classroom, whether that’s in amongst their colleagues. But a lot of those principles that we have that you can learn through those books are things that you can carry with you no matter where you’re at in your life. So I will tell you one of my favorite stories, and really it’s my why, and that’s something that I try to. Convey to teachers all the time, is what is your why? Why do you do what you do? Because, you know, you may love math, but at the end of the day, to be a great math teacher, you also have to have a passion for kids and for them being successful.

David Kelly
So, one of my favorite stories on my why and why I think it impacted me to the point that I carry it with me every day. I had a student my first year, I was teaching in a very rural school, honestly it was a high poverty district, and they had great kids, they worked hard, most of their families were hard workers, but it was just in one of those depressed areas of the country. And there was a kid and this kid would come to school every day. He worked really hard, he played football. He wanted to play basketball, that wasn’t really his sport, but he played baseball. And so I knew him from coaching, but I also knew him as a student in my class. And one day I noticed that he was sleeping through my class and he was a high energy kid and that just wasn’t normal. It was a Monday morning. And so after class, I just pulled him out in the hallway. I’m like, man, I said, everything okay? You know, are you doing all right? And he goes, you know, he said, Coach Kelly, he said, I’ve been, he said, this weekend was kind of rough. And I was like, well, tell me about it. I said, you know, cause you’re not gonna sleep through the whole day here at school. Like you got stuff you gotta do. You got practice after school. And he said, well, he said, we ran out of food over the weekend and he said when we ran out of food, he said all we had was a bowl of sugar in the house. And he goes, so for starting for lunch on Saturday, I got a spoonful of sugar for lunch. And he said he had three siblings. He said my mom, my dad and the siblings, we all got a spoon and we got one spoonful of sugar for each of the meals and I’m like oh my goodness I’m like Dustin I can’t even imagine man and I said are you I said what what do you need obviously you need food I said let’s go get you some food I’m gonna find you some right now so he’d gotten breakfast that morning at school but we got him with the counselors we got him some food he honestly was a kid that he he always kind of you know he wasn’t all he was never dressed the nicest, but his clothes never looked awful. We were able to get him on a backpack program where we were able to supply food through the weekends. A couple of weeks later, one of our football coaches, because I let all the coaches know at that point, like, hey, we need to keep our eye on this kid. His circumstance is not good. And so one of the football coaches is driving home from practice and sees him walking. And he was about five miles from the school. And so he pulls over. He’s like, man, Dustin, what are you doing? He’s like, well, I’m walking home. My parents said, if I want to play, I have to find my own ride home. And nobody would give me a ride home. And we were like, man, you’re not going to walk home ever again. Like we’re going to rally around you. So we came up with a schedule. So there was a different player that drove him home. Unfortunately, his house was a ways out of the way for everybody. But we got him a ride home every day after school. We made sure he was fed on the weekends. If the team did anything that cost money, we made sure he didn’t have to pay for any of it. And that kid, he was a freshman that year and I left after my his junior year I came to Knicks.

David Kelly
After his junior year but like that kid I still stay in contact with that kid and that kid is a he is a like a middle manager for a company here in Springfield which is the the big town close to us and he he made something out of himself and he broke that cycle of poverty for him and his family and like that is my why. You know I love finding those kids and just finding a way and really doing everything we can to make sure that those kids are successful because you know that kid had he not I don’t know I don’t know how his story ends but had he not been falling asleep in my class on that that Monday morning and I don’t take the time to take him outside the classroom and talk to him, like we have no idea. And eventually you hope somebody would have caught it, but you also never know. And so him and I are still in contact. He has a, he actually has a couple of little girls now.

David Kelly
And it’s awesome because he’s not living a life, he’s not living the life that he grew up in. And to me, that’s what a public educator is all about, is taking kids and breaking that cycle for them. And in the United States, we’re so lucky. We’re so lucky that we have public education, because without it, that kid, just that cycle just continues to repeat for that kid. And he’s living a life that he probably never imagined that he would have lived. And it’s not me. It was the school that rallied around him. But it was an educator that took just two seconds out of the day to take him outside and be like, man, you don’t normally sleep through class, what’s going on? And from that point forward, really take some steps to rally around him and change a kid’s life. And to me, that’s what it’s all about. And that happened, where I’m fortunate as an educator, I feel like, is that happened to me my first year of teaching. Some educators, it takes their whole life before they have a story like that. And I’m just, I feel like it’s such a blessing. Like that kid, I know, and he’s told me before that I’ve been a blessing to him, but I’m like, no man, you’ve been a blessing to me. Because I, like telling that story right now, I get goose bumps thinking about it. And it gets me fired up.

Sam Demma
The thing I think about often is the students who, we have no idea how much they’re going through and the way an educator is showing up is making a difference and the educator has no idea. So sometimes you don’t get that story, but the way you show up every single day has an impact. Regardless of if you find out what’s going on in the life of that student. And of course, the goal is to always get to know your students, but even the students in other classrooms that you don’t teach, that you walk past in the hallway and you smile and give them a compliment or ask them a genuine question for you. It may seem insignificant, but for that person, it could be this little moment in their day that they remember for the week or that they talk about later that evening and you go home not even thinking about it, but it was a meaningful moment for them and yeah, I think that’s what education is.

Sam Demma
All about. It’s like creating these meaningful moments in the lives of young people that help them see their potential and move forward and building better humans. Like that’s really what school is. And I just, I wanna say thank you. For the way that you show up and all of the staff at NXA. There may be an educator listening to this right now so inspired and just covered in goosebumps and they wanna connect with you. What would be the best way for them to get in touch or reach out or ask a question?

David Kelly
So, I found out like I think this year’s been the year I’m kind of getting old. So, unfortunately, I’m going to say this answer, you’re going to be like, you’re old. But anyways, honestly, email is probably the best way. And that’s davidkelly@nixaschools.net. And Kelly is just K-E-L-L-Y. There’s no E and it’s not E-Y. That’s a mistake a lot of people make. But that’s probably the best way. I do have a Facebook, I have a Twitter. DavidKelly10 is the Twitter handle. But I actually love talking to educators. I love sharing stories. Because one thing that I’ve found is a lot of educators have a story also. And so, so here and there a while. So that energy just feeds off one another and really builds.

Sam Demma
Capacity for what we do. Thank you so much, David, for taking the time to share some of your philosophies around building better relationships with young people, supporting students, making a difference in their lives. I hope that things continue to progress well with the football team this season.

David Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. Keep up the amazing work. It’s inspiring. Yeah, well, thank you, and I appreciate you having me on and giving me a chance to share some wisdom but also share that story because it is a story worth telling, and there’s hundreds of those across our country and educators everywhere, but I think anybody can make an impact on kids, and I just always tell myself, too, a lot of times we pick on the next generation, but this generation. Is truly going to change the world. They are going to change the world. They’re a great group of kids. Their vision, their mindset, I really believe they’re going to change the world for the better, but they need good adults in their life that are going to be positive role models and help drive that change and build in them the desire and the power to make the changes happen.

Sam Demma
You and I share that belief, and I think you’re at the forefront of leading the change.

David Kelly
So keep up the great work, and we’ll talk again soon. So keep up the great work, and we’ll talk again soon. All right, sounds good, thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with David Kelly

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.

Tom Hamer — Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division

Tom Hamer — Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division

About Tom Hamer

Tom Hamer, Deputy Superintendent of Palliser School Division, has been bringing his unique blend of big ideas, a growth mindset, and joyful warrior leadership to the role since August 2014. He believes in gently guiding his staff by “planting seeds” and fostering a workplace culture that embraces being “perfectly imperfect.”

Tom began his teaching career in Quebec, teaching math and science. Before attending university, he worked a patchwork of jobs and initially planned to study environmental sciences. However, his curiosity and love for learning led him to pursue education instead—a decision that would later shape his teaching approach.

Though he loved being in the classroom and building relationships with students and school communities, Tom’s desire to improve education on a broader scale naturally led him into leadership. His email signature, Semper ad meliore (Latin for “always to the better”), reflects this drive. He progressed from Vice Principal to Principal before joining Palliser as Director of Technology, where he championed educational technology, assessment, and inclusive practices to enhance learning environments for both students and staff. His innovative work earned him the 2015 AAESQ Award of Merit for outstanding local service.

As a passionate advocate for education and a lifelong learner, Tom holds multiple degrees: a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from Bishop’s University, a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, and a Diploma in Education.
Now residing in Coaldale, Alberta, Tom continues to inspire positive change in education through consensus building, while focusing much of his time on supporting diverse and effective learning strategies within his community.

Connect with Tom Hamer: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Palliser School Division
Bishop’s 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 Tom Hamer. Tom was connected to me through a friend, Marie. Tom, thank you so much for being here. Please just take a moment to introduce yourself.

Tom Hamer
My pleasure Sam. Thanks for having me on your show. I look forward to this. So my name is Tom Hamer. I am the Deputy Superintendent with Pallister School Division right now. Now that sounds like, what does a deputy superintendent do?

Tom Hamer
I guess would be the question most people are asking. And I actually oversee all of learning services for the district. I’ve been doing this role for the last five years. This is finished my sixth year now doing it. And I didn’t start out thinking I would be a deputy superintendent. I can, if you want, I’ll jump into a little bit of the origin story if you’d like.

Sam Demma
I don’t think there’s any person who knows exactly what they’re going to be doing, you know, 10, 15 years in the future. So I would love to know where you started and what brought you to where you are now.

Tom Hamer
Awesome. Yeah, I started, teaching was not actually the path I had thought I would end up on. I started in university in sciences with this dream of being a veterinarian, was volunteering at a vet clinic in the summers doing road trips, that house call type thing in a rural area in southeastern Quebec and did that for a couple of summers and realized, I don’t want to do this and had that, I guess, challenge of what else? So at the time, that was sort of early 90s, environmental sciences was just starting to pick up at universities and transferred to a beautiful little university, Bishops University in Southeastern Quebec. Loved it. Class sizes were great. And along the way there, going through my science degree, I thought I’d be a park ranger, work for Parks Canada.

Sam Demma
Oh, wow.

Tom Hamer
And then thought, you know what? Great way to get into that would be start volunteering with some youth. So I actually volunteered at a local youth center and saw a lot of troubled kids coming in and out. And the kids were troubled not in the sense that they had lives that were, I guess, any more difficult than anyone else. They just didn’t have a significant adult in their life that could help guide them. And that was sort of the common theme I kept hearing. And then the stories they would tell about school weren’t great either. They hadn’t connected with somebody at school. So, lo and behold, I ended up in an education program and started teaching math science in a rural community in English Quebec, English-speaking Quebec. So, we would have kids busing two hours into classes at the extremities each week. And it was sort of that, I guess, one place where kids could feel that they belonged. And that was the way I sort of approached it from teaching. It was, how do you connect with kids first? Because without that connection, there’s not going to be any learning going on. Or at least you’re not going to be able to influence the learning.

Sam Demma
That idea of having a caring adult in your life to guide you is such a powerful idea. I’ve been fortunate to have a really supportive family in my own life and some phenomenal educators. And I think when we take responsibility and ownership for our choices, and you combine that with beautiful support systems, magical things start to happen. How do you make sure you are that caring, guiding adult in a student’s life in your classroom if they don’t have that at home?

Tom Hamer
Well, I think, certainly, I’m a few steps removed from a classroom now. But one of the things that I constantly remind staff is you need to wait in. You need to meet kids where they are. And in fact, our opening address this year for staff may always have props for it. And one year I had a little headlamp because it was why you got to go find kids where they’re at. Some of them are going to be hiding from you. They’re not hiding from you as the teacher. They just don’t know which adults they can trust. So you need to seek them out and you need to help them. So this year’s piece Was hip waders because what I find certainly post pandemic what a lot of people are lacking is that human connection? We’ve we’ve drifted into getting our connection through quick text messages Social media doom scrolling all of that and we’ve lost some of that actual physical connection when we’re standing in each other’s space. And that can get messy, that can get difficult. So the message was, wade into the swamp, and I wore hip waders now. Piece of advice for anybody thinking that that’s a smart thing to do, don’t wear hip waders if you’re not in sort of six or eight degree water because you start to get pretty swampy in the waders.

Sam Demma
I might have to borrow those because my dad and I take out the docks around this time of year. That’s awesome. Yeah. They’re great in the water, not on land. You taught math and science in rural Quebec and then your life took you to Alberta? Like how did this all come about?

Tom Hamer
Yeah, that was sort of one of those odd circumstances that just serendipitously worked out wonderfully. The school I was working at the time, we were the first school district in Canada to go one-to-one MacBooks, one-to-one computers. Back in the early 2000s. So I’d had a lot of experience using like tech integration, getting teachers using technology and we were on the bleeding edge. So I can certainly give lots of advice on what not to do. For anybody wanting to venture down that path, I certainly learned a lot of lessons of what doesn’t work. But then an opportunity came up in Lethbridge, Alberta, where they were looking for a director of technology. And it was sort of, I won’t say a whim, but it wasn’t sort of that plan, because in fact, the recruiting office, when I spoke to them, I said, well, I’d sort of be open to some other opportunities, but definitely not Alberta, definitely not Saskatchewan, definitely not Manitoba. We’re the three provinces, I said, I really, in my own mental understanding of those areas, was not an area I thought I would want to go to. I came out for the interview. The interview went really well, and lo and behold, 30 days later, I was a resident of Alberta, and that was a division office position. So, very different. You’re one step removed from certainly direct contact with students. But one of the things that was very clear, that I made very clear in terms of my vision of technology was that people are most important.

Tom Hamer
When we’re doing education, we can’t lose sight of that nexus between teacher and student. And we have to have as many adults possible working with the students the technology is a tool in the background that helps facilitate some So we we jumped right in with Chromebooks which lower cost but they work Quite well actually and allow us to put more people in front of kids It’s awesome I have a mentor and he always

Sam Demma
says you build the people and the people build the business or the people run the impact. And I think it couldn’t be more true in a position like what you’re doing at the school division. When you think about managing and leading other people effectively, what are some of the things that are typically top of mind for you?

Tom Hamer
Top of mind for me would be identifying what some of the obstacles are. And some of those obstacles might be external to improvement. Like one of the things in my tagline I have in Latin, semper ad milior. Most people don’t read taglines, I always read, I always read to the bottom. So semper ad milior is always towards improvement and that’s something I’ve always lived by. And I always tell people, if I have a day where I didn’t make a mistake, I wasn’t trying hard enough that day, I wasn’t trying to do things differently or improve things. So that’s sort of the mindset I bring to conversations I have with teachers when we’re looking at trying to do something even better. Not to say that what we were doing was bad, but we want to do something even better. And with that, it’s identifying what are the obstacles to people or to systems that prevent us from doing it even better. And that’s the conversation I have, and I’ll have the same conversation with students when I get that opportunity. But the big thing is identifying what those obstacles are, and then, okay, how do we creatively resolve that obstacle or find a way to go around the obstacle?

Sam Demma
Sometimes those conversations can be challenging. I think of mistakes I’ve made in my life, and the conversation I have to have with another human being to fix that mistake is always a little bit uncomfortable, but I know it’s going to be better on the other side of it. How do you navigate those challenging conversations? I think you have to approach them with grace.

Tom Hamer
And I always approach them really with one of the things I always consider when I’m going into a conversation, I think it’s going to be a challenging conversation because we’re or either on different point sides of an issue or from my perception a mistake has been made, I always think, what if I’m the one that’s wrong? And I’m always listening, I always really make an effort to listen to what they’re saying and really stay away from the yeah buts. And listen to what they’re saying, listen to what the challenge is that they’re experiencing, listen to them describe the situation and most of the time, they’ll come up with an area and an area where they see they may do something differently moving forward or come up with an even better if scenario. So it’s really just for give people grace and don’t rub their noses in mistakes after the fact. Like I’ve seen so many leaders that I’ve worked with over the years bring back previous mistakes that were made when you’re having a conversation with someone about a mistake that was just made today that really has no bearing on this current situation, but it’s this, I gotcha moment. And then you introduce shame into the dynamic and now you create a culture where the individual that makes the mistake doesn’t want to feel shame. So you create a culture where people hide their mistakes or don’t talk about their mistakes in an objective, open way.

Sam Demma
Or like you said, stop trying. Like if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. And I think it’s such a beautiful culture to build, one where people are encouraged to make mistakes and then openly talk about them so they can grow, learn, and evolve from those moments. That’s a beautiful perspective and I appreciate you sharing it. When you think about some of the challenges that exist today in education, what are a few of those challenges and obstacles that you and the team are working to overcome?

Tom Hamer
I think the biggest challenge, I would say, is the speed at which information is transmitted. And the challenge with that is when you think about the way information was transmitted, and it’s also a blessing in the same, it’s a curse and a blessing at the same time. When you think about information and how we would come across information a hundred years ago, that was vetted, that was curated, that was edited by multiple people along the way. Now, that can be great, but it can also be a bit of a curse. So, the biggest challenge is the speed at which information gets out there, because misinformation is now as prevalent as correct information. So, the challenge is having individuals and having groups recognize information that, wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right, and being critical with the information they get versus just blindly consuming it. I would say that is a really big challenge. I think another big challenge is, and this comes right from that public display of how we treat one another. It has become acceptable for the media to show the mistreatment of each other. And that is almost glorified and encouraged. And you see it right with our leaders. When people stand up in our Parliament and say that the government is a fascist government, first of all it makes me feel like our social studies programs aren’t teaching people really well about what fascism is. And it’s also sad to hear people sort of say that when that’s not really accurate.

Sam Demma
Yeah. The idea of misinformation is such a big challenge. Even not only misinformation, but people’s trepidation around if a person is actually speaking to them now. I reached out to someone on LinkedIn recently and they responded back, I’m sorry, is this actually you or am I speaking to an AI robot? And I was like, I had to go film a video for this person to show them like, hey, it’s me, I’m a real human being here talking to you. And I just think the speed at which technology is evolving is so fast that it must be hard to keep up. Is there any other issues among, maybe not the students, but maybe even leadership or the school board that you think is something you’re all working towards?

Tom Hamer
I think a big issue is, again, it comes back to giving ourselves grace. Yeah. For whatever reason, we’ve gotten ourselves into that, onto that conveyor belt of perfection. And if it’s not perfect, we can’t share it. If it’s not perfect, we’re not going to try it. And what that leads to is, I’ll say, the social media pictures of classrooms and these perfect classrooms and the amount of time some people will spend making something perfect. And then seeing the next day that, oh, well, this person did even better and now you get that sort of defeating weight that lands upon you rather than saying, you know what, this is good enough for what it’s for. The main part of this is educating children. So children need to see that sometimes things are perfectly imperfect and you need to start the journey before everything is ready.

Sam Demma
And it’s an analogy for the rest of their lives because that’s going to be a trend as you age and grow up and get into the working world. And so that’s a cool perspective to share. When you think about resources that have been helpful in your own personal development in education or as a leader, is there anything that’s top of mind or maybe you’ve revisited a few times or maybe think about often.

Tom Hamer
Well, do you mean like resources like developed by specific authors, that sort of thing?

Sam Demma
Or… Yeah, any resources.

Tom Hamer
I think I would say nothing replaces the resources of colleagues within your building. Collectively, and that’s what I always found. Now there’s always great source materials out there and the availability of that now is at your fingertips. And I think about any of the resources, there’s companies that have turned it into a business like Solution Tree that have an abundance of resources for teachers. But the most important resource are the colleagues that you have within your building and the collaboration that can occur in a building, not just in terms of what’s cutting edge educational theory, but what is really important around how do we build positive relationships with kids? How do we form positive, lasting attachments with our colleagues and with students? And anything around that attachment theory, I think is really important too.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. I love the idea of people being the best resource. I was talking to an educator earlier today, I was doing another interview, and she was telling me she would have lunch with two of her colleagues every day and it was a stand-up meeting they would

Sam Demma
have and some days people would miss it but more often than not they would sit down and talk about what was going on in their classrooms that day. And I think it applies not only to teachers in classrooms but to any workplace because sometimes the idea is sitting in another and all we have to do is have a conversation. So that’s a great reminder.

Tom Hamer
And then just connecting with someone from that cubicle over the classroom down the hall and sharing stories. And I remember times coming into the staff room when I was a teacher where the lesson flopped and you walk in and you have this complete shoulders are down, you’re just defeated. And you walk in and inevitably a teacher and a staff from where I worked would pick up on that and then ask a couple questions or start sharing some funny story about something. And then you’re laughing and it recharges you and you go back out and try all over again.

Sam Demma
It lifts your spirits, right? Sometimes it’s a laugh. That’s all we need to get back on track for the rest of the day if things have gone sideways. You asked me before we started, why did you start the show? I was thinking about it a little bit while we were chatting just now. I had a teacher who had a tremendous impact on me when I was in grade 12, and he had no idea that he made a big difference in my life. I think a lot of the educators I’ve spoken to during times in their career have felt as if they don’t know if they’re making an impact. And the act of bringing someone on the show to have a conversation gives them the opportunity to reflect and think through those challenging situations and obstacles. And yeah, I think that was really what inspired me to get it started. And for any educator who’s listening to this right now that’s also feeling inspired, hearing a little bit about your journey, and some of the ideas you shared, is there a way they could reach out to you if they’re in a different school board or somewhere else in Alberta in education and they wanna just have a conversation?

Tom Hamer
Absolutely, best way to reach out to me is through email. I have a very limited social media presence because I struggle with some of the content and terrible things that go on in social media. So my email, I shared it, it’s tom.hamer@pallisersd.ab.ca.

Sam Demma
Awesome. Tom, thank you so much.

Tom Hamer
You’re welcome.

Sam Demma
This was a lovely conversation. Keep up the amazing work.

Tom Hamer
Thank you, and all the best to you, Sam, and hopefully we can meet face-to-face again sometime.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tom Hamer.

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.

Carman Murray — Educator, Speaker and Author of Teachers First: A Guide to Avoiding and Overcoming Burnout

Carman Murray — Educator, Speaker and Author of Teachers First: A Guide to Avoiding and Overcoming Burnout
About Carman Murray

Carman Murray is on a mission to empower teachers and educators to prioritize their well-being, both inside and outside the classroom. With over 20 years of experience, Carman transitioned from classroom teaching to mentoring and supporting others on their healing journeys. Her passion lies in helping educators cultivate healthy habits that transform feelings of overwhelm into renewed energy and fulfillment.

Carman’s workshops blend both the professional aspects of teaching and personal development, offering a holistic approach to educator growth. As a dynamic and authentic speaker, she delivers engaging workshops and talks that inspire educators to rekindle their life balance. Beyond her work with teachers, she volunteers at Rockyview Leadership Academy and contributes to the Canadian Student Leadership Association’s events. Carman is also the author of Teachers First: A Guide to Avoiding and Overcoming Burnout, a resource dedicated to supporting educators in their journey toward wellness.

Connect with Carman: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Facebook

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Resources Mentioned

Canadian Student Leadership Association (CSLA)

Rockyview Leadership Academy

Teachers First: A Guide to Avoiding and Overcoming Burnout

Healthy Teachers

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 a very special guest. We have crossed paths multiple times and I’m so honored to have her on the show here today. Carman Murray. Carman, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

Carman Murray
Sam. I’m so excited that our paths have crossed in the past more than once and that I could be here with you today. You are…

Sam Demma
…doing so much amazing work across Canada, supporting educators and teachers and all human beings with their wellbeing. And you have a passion for education because you’ve spent over 20 years of experience in the education industry. You’re speaking at events in Kelowna upcoming, you have a book. Just tell everyone tuning in a little bit more about who you are and why you’re passionate about supporting the wellbeing of others.

Carman Murray
Thanks so much, Sam. So I love supporting other people with their health and wellness. I recovered myself from burnout. I taught for 15 years and hit a wall and decided I didn’t want to do it anymore and my body actually wouldn’t let me do it. And I actually was inspired at an Alberta Student Leadership Conference by Orlando Bowen when he talked about, and you might have been at that one, I can’t remember, he talked about letting people know there was a different way. So I really want to let teachers know that they do not need to stay in that rut of being burned out and doing everything for their students and doing everything for their classrooms and just putting themselves on the back burner until it’s too late. Because there’s so many amazing things we can do in our classrooms with our students and do them ourselves, and we don’t have to wait until we’re finished teaching, we can live a life alongside our teaching career.

Sam Demma
You mentioned you hit a wall of burnout, and I would imagine there are some educators listening to this right now who may be feeling the same way. How did you navigate that time in your life, and what were some of the things you did to improve or get out of that situation?

Carman Murray
Well, I maybe shouldn’t say this out loud. I left the teaching profession.

Sam Demma
Okay. This is not an advertisement.

Carman Murray
No, this is not an advertisement because I know like there’s so many teachers out there that are so passionate about what they do and they’re so good at it and they have such an impact on students’ lives. And what I would say to teachers that are feeling that they might be on the road to burnout, or just in general exhaustion, because that seems to hit before the burnout happens, is start doing things just for yourself. Hang out with people who are starting to have a different mindset than just students, school, all of the things you have to do. There is this balance which looks not balanced. It’s not this equal balanced scale. It’s like, how do we find the time to do some great things for ourselves and really set school aside?

Carman Murray
And then I feel like the other part of the equation, Sam, is how do we bring some of those things into our classroom? How do we take 10 breaths with our students each time they walk in our classrooms and sit in our desks so that it calms their nervous systems as well as ours? How do we take our students outside for five minutes a couple of times a day that aren’t recess, where they can just have some downtime because we live in such a fast-paced world? And you, I’m sure, have experienced this with all your speaking and everything that you’ve got on the go. How do we actually give the kids permission to slow down rather than trying to speed them up all the time? Because I really feel like we’re pumping out into our world anxious, overwhelmed students who might not have all the tools they need to function. And that comes from our classrooms and their own environment. I don’t want to just say it’s just the classrooms, but how can we combat that as teachers to give them those tools to calm their nervous systems down in the classroom so they can access their prefrontal cortex?

Sam Demma
Why did you take this knowledge and put it into the book? At what point did you say, like I feel this urge to write and to publish? Tell me more about that book and what an accomplishment.

Carman Murray
Well, I was not the kid that dreamed I was gonna write a book since I was 10. I had a thought, I’m like, oh, maybe I should write a book. And then I started hanging out with a few people who had written books. And then I actually, I joined a publisher with a coaching program and just started to write. To be honest, the writing part was the easiest part of it, the marketing part is way harder. You probably know that, may or may not have been your experience. But I really wanted teachers to know that they’re not alone. Because sometimes in our classrooms, we feel like we’re all by ourselves and we’re the only one that has experienced the exhaustion and the overwhelm that’s going on. Then there are things that you can do that don’t require a bunch of extra time. You’re already doing lots of them, you just need to slightly tweak them and tweak your mindset because I always used to feel that I was never doing enough. And that was something that was going on in my mind. Now I’m like this is what I’m doing and it’s great and it is enough. And so as soon as I switched my mindset and it’s really easy to say it’s so much harder to do, I don’t want you to think this is a magic pill, but to start to shift that mind of, I am doing enough, my students are doing well, and this is how I’m helping them rather than feeling like we’re always behind.

Sam Demma
You mentioned the thing you did that helped when you were really burnt out was take a step away. For the educator listening who’s feeling a little bit burnt out and maybe is not having the most positive mindset right now, but knows that like, I’m not, like, I’m not leaving. I don’t want to, I don’t want to leave. What would you advise them to think about or start shifting and changing to rebuild a positive relationship with their workplace?

Carman Murray
That’s such a great question. And there’s a few avenues you can go. So I feel like, so I mentioned this to you when we were talking before we started recording, is I do run a group for teachers and I do coaching on health and wellness as well as classroom dynamics. And so finding yourself a group like that, reaching out to me, is one place to start. Sometimes, though, we need to take time off. Like there needs to be a time away so we can actually fully recover from whatever it is we’re recovering because I feel like there’s so much more than just what goes on in the classroom. We as humans have a life outside. We have all of our own experiences that we’ve collected, and we might be dealing with some of our own trauma and unresolved issues that are being triggered in the classroom. So I feel like if teachers can kind of start to become aware of what’s going on with them, and doing some things like, like where’s your sleep at, would be another question I would ask is, where’s your sleep at and what’s going on in your nervous system? Are you able to respond to things like pause and kind of assess the situation or are you like reacting right out of the gate?

Sam Demma
The group you mentioned, is it for educators or is it open to any stressed and overwhelmed human beings? I know a few people that might not be teachers.

Carman Murray
That is a great question. So it’s open to everybody, actually. I kind of have half and half. I have half educators, and then I’ve got some people who are retired educators, and some people who are not educators at all. Because, like you mentioned, our world causes us a little bit of stress and a little bit of overwhelm. So it’s a place for anybody to land. I do have a particular component of it that is just for teachers, where we meet two or three times a month and we land and we troubleshoot teacher issues and then there’s other components to it where we work on our health and wellness and our mindset and other life challenges that show up.

Sam Demma
Let’s say a teacher is burnt out, they are returning to work after taking a little bit of time off to rebuild that relationship with themselves, improve their sleep. What boundaries do they need to put in place when they start at work again to ensure it doesn’t snowball the way it did the last time?

Carman Murray
Yeah, great. So I would say, so boundaries that teachers can set are, what do they have to offer? Like, what is your time at school? What’s your capacity and who’s your team? That’s another big one. I’m really advocating right now for teachers to use your classroom as a team. You don’t have to do everything. Have your students do their stuff. There are so many things that students can do that teachers just automatically do. And I believe we’re actually taking away life skills from students by doing everything for them.

Sam Demma
And, oh, I had another one.

Sam Demma
That’s a great one, though. I’m thinking about it right now, and I think it’s very similar in parenting. It’s like, let the student, let the young person fall in their hands a few times, let them get involved, let them get their hands dirty because it’s gonna help them build their character as well.

Carman Murray
Absolutely, and it also, like when we talk about boundaries, we also need to look at where are we over giving? Because if we only have, like if we only have 10 units of energy a day and we give away 14 or we use up 14 every day, we leave ourselves at a deficit. So who are the people in your own home that can help you keep things on track, right? It’s like, I had a discussion yesterday with annoyance about my son who left his stuff everywhere and he’s almost 19. And so do I pick it up, like, right? Do I pick it up and just do it myself because that’s easier or do I give him a little bit of flack and go, okay, buddy, deal with your stuff because he’s old enough to, and all of those things. So boundaries, boundaries are huge. And I think even those of us who aren’t teachers or those of you that are listening that aren’t teachers can also struggle with boundaries. What are you saying yes to? What are you saying no to? And I think more importantly, what are you saying yes to that you don’t really want to?

Sam Demma
It’s almost thinking like an entrepreneur and delegating the things in your life that are not bringing you joy happiness and fulfillment but still need to get done. What are some of the things that you think are top of the list hanging fruits that an educator or a teacher may think about letting go control over and delegating to a student or a colleague or another team member that might lighten the load a little bit?

Carman Murray
So back to having the kids involved. Yeah. Students, right? If you’re in a room full of 30 bodies, one of them is going to think that writing on the whiteboard is the best thing ever. And the other one doesn’t want to touch anything to do with it. Right? One of them is going to be super excited about organizing the bookshelves, the other one’s not going to touch it with a 10-foot pole. So I would say really talk to your people, like talk to your students. What is it that they want to do? How do they want to help? And I even believe that with like project planning. When I taught, I loved planning projects with my kids. In fact, one of the times we planned a project with my parents, one was a pilot for a private jet company, and we got to go to the hangar and sit in. Oh my. Right? There’s so many resources out there that are available. So how can we tap into that team and delegate to our students based on their interests as well as teaching them that there’s some things that you don’t really want to do that you still have to do in life, right? Somebody needs to empty the garbage. And then the piece of delegation, I also think that often schools are wanting teachers to do more, especially I live in rural Alberta and so there’s not a lot of teachers in my kids’ school, so there’s only enough teachers to go so far. So where are you accessing community involvement? And when teachers say no to things so they’re not over capacity enough times, then they have to start looking somewhere else. And if teachers are always saying yes and they don’t have the space or capacity to do it, then they’re like, oh, we’ve got the expertise in their building, right? Sam said he would do that. Sam said he would do this. Sam said he would run the lunch club and the library club and the game club when Sam really doesn’t have time to do all that. So where can they find other resources? And most places have resources in their cages.

Sam Demma
That’s such a great idea. I’m even thinking, what if at the start of a fresh semester or a new group of students, you wrote down on the whiteboard all of the things that have to be done in the classroom that are repeatable tasks that are typically done by the teacher themselves, which could be given as a responsibility and a growth opportunity to one student each in the classroom. And it’s like an auction, you go down the list and it’s like an honor to do the tasks. And people bid on it with their excitement. And maybe a few of them are assigned because no one may want certain tasks, but I think, I think there’s something there, like auctioning off, auctioning off classroom tasks to your students.

Carman Murray
Well, and I love that, because I love the auction part of it and I’m going to take it one step back, is brainstorm that list with your students. Yeah. Those things that they’re going to think of that you don’t think of.

Sam Demma
I love that, that’s such a powerful idea. What do you think are some of the, I’m going to shift gears for a moment, in regard to building relationships with students, we talked a little bit about classroom management, but what do you think are some of the best practices to build stronger relationships with young people as a teacher?

Carman Murray
That’s a really great question, because when you look at classes that have 46 kids in them, that’s a lot of kids, and you probably have four classes like that. For me, and this is my disclaimer, I’ve always taught in rural schools and I went to a rural school, is like when I taught, I knew all 325 kids in the building because we were a K-12 school. But there’s components of what are those kids good at? What conversations can you have with them that aren’t just about their assignments and what’s late or what’s not late? And what good questions do you ask them? It’s just like, how’s your day? What’s their response? And then is there more to read into that response? And I also feel like there’s opportunities within your classroom to find that information out. I volunteer with the Rocky View Leadership Academy and work with leadership kids and they’re phenomenal. And I love the experience. And we’ll often, we usually start in a circle with 30 to 60 kids and do a one word check-in. And so each kid goes around, they’re like exhausted, excited, tired, overwhelmed, you know, all the things that they come up with take less than three minutes. And it gives me as a volunteer, as well as the lady who runs, the idea of where the kids are all at, and it gives the people around them an idea of where they’re at. I also feel like you can give assignments that give students the opportunity to express where they’re really at. And real conversations. I loved doing assessment with students. I know it takes a little bit longer, but it really allows me, per se, in their head as to, you know, if I was going to give you a, this is a bit of an old scale, but if I was to give you a mark out of 10, what would you choose that mark to be? And they might choose like a six out of 10. And you’re looking at it going, I think maybe that’s more like an eight out of 10. It’s like, okay, why would you give it a six? And then they kind of unpack what goes on in their brain about their own learning and why they did certain things. So it gives you an idea. So those are some of the things that I’ve done and I would do in a class to support kids in getting them to know each other. Getting to know them as a teacher, but also getting them to know each other. Because I think that in a class of 46, you want your students to have more touch points than just you.

Sam Demma
On that idea of getting to know each other, phenomenal ideas around building relationships with the students. How do you think that you build relationships with your colleagues as an educator and a teacher as well? I find that sometimes classrooms can become these little silos in a bigger school building, where people aren’t collaborating as much as they could benefit from doing so. How did you build those relationships and leverage other educators when you were also a teacher?

Carman Murray
So we used to have a meeting once a week with, there was, I taught grade six and there was a grade five teacher and a grade four teacher. And we would meet the three of us once a week at lunchtime. And lots of times it was on the fly, and sometimes somebody couldn’t make it, or somebody showed up 10 minutes later or whatever. And we sat in a different room and just kind of like we had a bit of an agenda, different conversations we were having about what was maybe working, what wasn’t working, what projects are we working, how can we support each other, so that we know we’re not alone in that building, and we can rely on each other for two-minute conversations or 20-minute lunches so that you can get to know each other is one of the ways. And the other thing that I also did, and sometimes I got funny looks for it, is we know that sometimes a staff room is a place that can be challenging to be in, because sometimes it’s a negative zone or whatever it is. And I would sit at a table where people were having a conversation about other students or not staff members, but often students, and it would be like, I’d sit down and be like, oh, what was something you did that was cool today? And bringing the focus back to that actual person rather than them talking about students, because we know what happens. We know there is a need for a place to vent about them, but it’s just like, how do we use that staff room to build relationships with other staff. And I got odd looks all the time, and I’m okay with that. But I also am not okay to sit in a staff room where there’s a table that’s loud that’s talking about students, and not necessarily in a great way.

Sam Demma
Yeah, I also feel that it’s so important that you put a little bit of a protection around your energy, not only as an educator, but in any field, and recognizing that if those types of conversations make you feel less than and make you feel burnt out, then there’s no need to participate in them, right?

Carman Murray
I think there’s, yes, the part of don’t participate in them, but then I feel like for me, anyways, there’s a responsibility. Shut it down. Yeah, so it’s like, let’s talk about something else. Or what’s something cool that kid has going on? Or like just to start to redirect the conversation, which is so powerful because kids struggle enough. We don’t, right? We all, and I don’t say we all struggle enough. It’s helpful not to be talking about other people. And I think if you’re listening to this and you are like, oh, I’m that person, just start different conversations.

Sam Demma
I’m sure there’s multiple people listening to this right now thinking, this Carman Murray lady is speaking my language and I want to read her book and I want to hear more about her group. So can you tell us how people can connect with you, get in touch about the group, and check out the book as well?

Carman Murray
Yeah, absolutely. So my book is called Teachers First, a guide to avoiding and overcoming burnout in the classroom. It’s available on Amazon and it’s also available in Chapters. And my website is www.healthyteachers.ca. And my group, if you’re interested in my group or even having a conversation with me, there’s a chat with me button on my website. Just click on that and book a time and we can chat and see where you’re at and see if I can help you or support you or if we’re a fit. Because sometimes we’re not and sometimes we are. Absolutely no pressure in having a conversation and just getting connected. I also am on Instagram.

Sam Demma
Nice.

Carman Murray
And Facebook and LinkedIn.

Sam Demma
Thank you so much for investing the time to share some of your insights on the show. I hope you continue to spread this message as far and wide as you possibly can. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk again soon.

Carman Murray
Absolutely. Thanks so much, Sam, and you as well. You’re doing amazing things in this world and creating a great ripple effect.

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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.