leadership

Kerri Russell-Channer – Owner & Founder of Russell Aquatics Swim School

Kerri Russell-Channer – Owner & Founder of Russell Aquatics Swim School
About Kerri Russell-Channer

For over 20 years, Kerri Russell-Channer has been at the helm of Russell Aquatics Swim School, providing families with exceptional swim instruction and fostering a love for water safety and skill development. Her passion for teaching and commitment to excellence have made Russell Aquatics a trusted name in the community.

Outside of work, Kerri loves spending quality time with her husband, Titus, and their three active children, often shuttling them between various sporting activities. A travel enthusiast, Kerri enjoys exploring new destinations and creating unforgettable family memories.

A fun fact: Kerri has had the privilege of working alongside her sister and co-owner, Kristi Russell, for the entirety of her swim school journey. Their shared vision and dedication have made the past two decades an incredible adventure, both professionally and personally.

Connect with Kerri Russell-Channer: Email | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Russell Aquatics Swim School

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma

Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host, Sam Demma, and today we are joined by Kerri Russell. As the co-founder of Russell Aquatics Swim School, Kerri has dedicated over two decades to providing exceptional swim instruction and promoting water safety within her community, working alongside her sister, co-owner Kristi Russell.

Throughout her journey, Kerri has established a trusted reputation for quality teaching and skill development. Beyond her professional accomplishments, she balances her entrepreneurial pursuits with family life, enjoying travel adventures, and supporting her three children, supporting activities alongside her husband, Titus. Kerri, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Sam Demma

I need to be a student of your swim school because I learned in my grandfather’s backyard and I’ve learned that that’s not a good way to learn how to swim properly.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Hey, that’s okay. Did your grandfather teach you or did you get lessons in your grandfather’s backyard?

Sam Demma

It was a soft push into the shallow end.

Kerri Russell-Channer

It was a throw in and sink or swim situation.

Sam Demma

Sometimes an educator has these aspirations to do things outside of their role as an educator in a school building, but it feels like entrepreneurship is a sink or swim situation. Tell me a little bit about what inspired you to start your entrepreneurial pursuits years ago.

Kerri Russell-Channer

So I started when I was 17 years old. So I grew up as a competitive swimmer and I then transitioned to teaching swimming and I was working for the city and I absolutely just loved teaching children. I was, my plan was to go to school to be a teacher.

I was teaching adapted aquatics. I loved how I could make a difference and truly saving lives. And I loved connecting with the children and helping them get over fears and then seeing them succeed and their parents coming in all anxious.

And then you just developed this like beautiful bond as they move through something that they were very fearful of. So I knew from a young age that I just, I loved helping people and I loved teaching. But I also grew up in with a lot of my friends, their parents were entrepreneurs and I loved the freedom they had.

I loved the creativity that they had. I really was inspired young by entrepreneurship and when I, you know, was presented the idea to write up a business plan, a business plan in my grade 12 class, there was because of swimming was such a huge part of my life. I thought, why don’t I start a swim school?

My parents backyard pool. And it was just that simple business plan. I got a grant and I, I started that summer and I never looked back since.

It’s going to be 21 years this June and I’ve loved every moment of it. It’s been quite the adventure, but yeah, there was a lot of times where I fell sink or swim and I still feel like that today. You go through growing pains.

Sam Demma

And there’s an educator listening who has another idea of something they want to do, maybe not in their parents backyard, but their own backyard or a passion project outside of the classroom. But they think that they can’t, they think that it’s not possible for them. Can you walk me through how you overcame your own, maybe limiting beliefs or how other people can overcome their own limiting beliefs when it comes to jumping into an entrepreneurial pursuit?

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, people have a lot of limiting beliefs. You know, it’s just start somewhere and just it’s small steps every day. You know, whether it’s a dog walking business, whether it’s car washing, car detailing, just something on the side.

You don’t have to go and quit your job and start a business and, you know, throw it all in and say, this is it, start slow. And it’s really one day at a time. But for me, it was personal growth and development.

And I threw myself into becoming a different person. I had to work on my mindset. I had to get over limiting beliefs.

I had to get over, over fear. I mean, I was 17 when I started my business. I didn’t know much, but then I look back and I’m like, maybe that was perfect because I just jumped in and just did it impulsively because I was young.

But I think that like anybody can do that. It’s the story we tell ourselves. And I think we all, if we can focus on ourselves and, you know, podcasts and books and a lot of personal development conferences, this stuff shifted my mindset and really once I started, there was no looking back, I didn’t care what it was going to take.

And I still don’t care what it’s going to take. I’m, I’m going to do it.

Sam Demma

When you think of the conferences you attended, the books you’ve read, the podcasts you listened to, the seminars, are there any resources that have been foundational? Like you, you attended this event or read this thing and it really opened your eyes or do you think it was more a combination of all of the experiences?

Kerri Russell-Channer

I think it’s all the experiences. I think there was definitely certain things that stood out to me and certain motivators that really spoke to me over others. But I, I really think that it’s cumulative.

It’s also the people you meet at those conferences and the network you start to build. Entrepreneurs think different. We just do.

And we gravitate towards each other and you can lean on each other for support. And I thought that like once I, I was actually a, I got involved in my early twenties in a network marketing company and you know, I didn’t, I don’t do the network marketing company today, but the leadership and the conferences and the people I met, there was so much valuable information that I took away that I feel like kind of like really threw me into the next phase of entrepreneurship, um, in my mid twenties. So there was so many amazing speakers there that, um, really just touched me and, and, and moved me forward and motivated me. Um, yeah.

Sam Demma

There’s a author and speaker named Jim Rohn who I was going to actually mention him when you just said that he, he was big in herbal life. And I still listen to his lectures on YouTube and the information is so rich and so valuable and it’s accessible right there. The guy I recently had, well, we had a sink in our, in our basement break.

And my dad called one of his friends, Jimmy, cause they’re not here right now, uh, who has the, the know how to fix it. And I was handing him tools to help. And he looks at me and he’s like, Sam, can you believe that before I came here today, I bought seven books for $3 and 50 cents.

I was like, what? And he’s like, yeah, I stopped at thrift stores and I get books that are like $24 at Indigo online, but I get them for 50 cents and I read like two to three books a week. Honestly, it’s there, it’s there for people, but most don’t have the drive to kind of, you know, crack them open, um, and like dive into the learning, not to make a swimming analogy.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, but it’s, it’s true. And, and even if it’s not, um, it’s not reading for me, I, I listened to a lot of, um, audibles and I walk. So audibles are massive for me and I just walk and I listen and I get my exercise in and I find that those are, you just have to find what works for you, but all of these books and what you fill your mind with is who you become.

Um, there was a, the email that changed everything for me. Um, Simon Sinek was another one. He was a massive influencer.

He still is. I’ve seen him speak about four times. Um, but when I read the email, I think that really took me into a different level of business.

Um, and start with why it was one of the ones that I, I really resonated with from the beginning for the educator, who’s not familiar with your work today, tell us a little bit about Russell aquatics now.

Sam Demma

It started in the backyard. Um, give us a high level of view of the company now.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah. So Russell aquatics started my parents backyard pool with me as the only instructor with probably about 70 kids the first summer. Um, as it grew each summer, my sister joined me, my best friend joined me and we kind of like grew our, our instructors.

And we started not only teaching from my parents backyard pool, but we rented other people’s pools and we traveled to other people’s homes. Um, we got to a point where we were doing about 500 kids a week in the summer. And that’s when I knew I was graduating teachers college that I wanted to expand this business and go full year.

I started renting out of hotels, gyms, anywhere where I could get a pool all season long. They weren’t the best situations. I didn’t love the facilities, but I knew I needed a way to expand the business and push through that.

And about seven years ago, now we built our own 6,000 square foot custom facility with an in-ground pool. And now we teach about 3000 kids a week. And we have a staff of over 70 part time.

And I think we’re at five or six full time right now. And we’re just seeing those growing pains again. Now looking for another location, looking to expand.

Um, and it’s not always easy. I run through a lot of challenges trying to convince a landlord to put an in-ground pool in their unit. It’s not the easiest thing to do.

Um, but you know, we, that’s where we are now. So we are hopefully going to expand to multiple locations around the GTA. And, and we’ve grown this like beautiful team of people and this beautiful community of people who love Russell aquatics.

And we saved over hundreds of thousands of lives. And a lot of these people I’m still very close with today. I started teaching their kids when they were babies at the city and now they work for me.

Sam Demma

It’s such a beautiful facility filled with amazing human beings. I enjoyed meeting some of your staff and, uh, just seeing students and families so excited to show up and swim and learn. Can you walk me through how you attract such amazing human beings on your team?

There, there might be a superintendent or a principal listening who wants to get more, uh, enthusiastic staff in their organizations, but I’m not sure how.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, I think, um, we live and breathe our core values and, you know, Christie and I, Christie is my sister. We’re not at the facility every day now, but we work a lot with our leadership team to resemble the kind of leaders that we are. And we lead with passion, integrity, love, care.

Um, and really like we put each other first and we put our customers first. And it’s like, how would you treat family? How would, and that has to be in your, the back of your mind.

We do a lot of customer service training, um, white glove service. And we just really, I think at the end of the day, when you lead with love and passion and integrity, the rest of your team want to lead the same way. And that is a culture that you create and we’re big on our culture in our swim school.

So whether it’s our team, whether it’s our families that come to us, we want people to feel a sense of belonging. And we want them to experience having a certain type of experience that we’ve curated for them. And that all starts with putting others first and really leading by our core values and our integrity as a company.

Um, and yeah, we’ve been super, I mean, I want to say we’ve been lucky, but we’ve worked hard and we’ve held people accountable and we’ve, you know, just created this culture and family that everyone just wants to be a part of. And it’s, it’s being like such a beautiful journey.

Sam Demma

I think it’s something you’ve attracted. Jim Rona always says success isn’t pursued, but attracted by the person you’ve become, and it sounds like you and Christie and the team, role model, the behavior you wish to see in the staff you bring into your facility and then hold them accountable to those core values in education, there are unhappy customers, which are usually parents calling to speak to a principal or to speak about the way their teacher handled a situation, and it’s the same or very similar in a swim school. If you have an unhappy customer, it’s a, it’s a parent of a young person.

Um, what is your philosophy around dealing with those challenging conversations when someone’s expectations are not being met or they have a challenge or an issue?

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah. And I’ll just quickly to go back to what you just said as well about Christie and I and emulating, um, and then people following lead by example. We also bring our leadership team to a lot of different conferences.

So we expose them to that greater sense of leadership from experts. And we’ve done that for our staff as young as 17. Um, and we bring a lot of people in to have those talks with them.

So I think that’s really important. If you’re not helping your, your team get better. We always say, even if you leave Russell aquatics one day, you’re going to leave better, you’re going to lead, lead, leave as a better leader than what you came in as, and that’s the impact we want to have on your life.

So I’ll just say that quick. And then handling difficult clients, it’s not easy. People management’s hard.

Um, and you can’t, not everybody’s going to love you, unfortunately, but we listen. And we try our best to come to resolutions. And we own up to our mistakes when we’ve made them and we make, and we try and do things right.

We don’t deny when we’ve made a mistake. We take every complaint, every feedback very seriously. And we have internal meetings and when we need to change our processes or change the way we’re doing things, then that’s what we do.

We pivot, we learn, we go, we’re not stuck in mud. Um, we’re not afraid of failing. We fail forward and we learn and we listen and we move forward.

And it’s not always easy because emotions are difficult and people management is difficult. Um, and we’re not, we don’t always do it perfect, but we’re learning.

Sam Demma

You said we listen, we own up to our mistakes and we try our best to make the best decision we can moving forward. I think those are, those are really the keys, you know, you listen to the person intently, you own up to where you fell short, and then you try and make the best decision moving forward. Um, I also think that we improve our decision-making and the actions we choose to take based on the mentors we have in our lives, you know, Luke Skywalker had Yoda and, um, the Karate Kid had Mr. Miyagi and Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. And, um, most of these high performing people in life had a coach or like a mentor, someone who really helped them. When you think about your career, isn’t anyone who was a really great mentor to you, who played a really significant impact on the way you think about things and the way you show up? And if so, who’s that person and what did they teach you or do for you?

Kerri Russell-Channer

I would probably say it’s pretty cliche for me because it is my parents and it’s my dad and my dad was actually, um, in leadership and development for Hallmark Canada for over 30 years. So from the time we were very young, we were, um, thought about accountability, about leadership, about attitude, um, and about how you just show up. So I think that those lessons influenced my sister and I so greatly that we became these strong leaders from a very young age.

I mean, when I was in grade four, I won this speech contest on an ICANN attitude and, um, if you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can’t, you won’t. And, um, that was ingrained in me from a very, very young age. So I would say that my dad had a massive impact on me becoming a leader and really like believing in myself.

Um, and then I have a community of swim school owners, other swim school owners that have the very similar story to me. And very young in our very early on in my entrepreneurship journey, I reached out to them and I said, this is who I am. I wasn’t afraid to ask for help for people who had already paved the path.

And I think so much of the time we’re so afraid to lean on people in our industry and we’re threatened, or we feel nervous to kind of, to reach out to those people, because we think that they won’t want to help us. But if you do that, you find that you can have built some incredible relationships and those people really, really, really help to propel us into the next phase of business. And also introduced us to a whole network of other owners in the same industry.

Um, so some of the problems that we dealt with, we were able to lean on people who had already done it and were more than happy to help.

Sam Demma

Are you still in touch with many of those people as colleagues now?

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah. So I’m a part of the Canadian Swim School Alliance. We actually founded that association in COVID.

Um, so we’re very close there. And then I have a lot of people that I’m friends with and mentor me that are from like Australia, a lot of Australian swim school owners, Philippines, the United States, and we’ve built this like network worldwide throughout our Canadian Swim School Alliances, or not even just Canadian, but US, the International Swim School Alliance. And these people are all owners and leaders and we’re all about mentorship and helping each other and not just helping us as owners, but also helping our teams.

Sam Demma

Tell me a little bit about balance. Um, and maybe it’s not balance, but it’s about, uh, integration between your work and your family life, because there’s an educator listening who is wanting to do more. And the first thought that pops in their head is if I do more, I’m going to die.

Like there’s just, there’s not a space for it. What, what boundaries have you set? What systems do you follow or what things have helped you, um, manage the demands of all the other buckets you have in your life?

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, balance is tough. And that’s something that I’m always working on. I think I’ve gotten a lot better as the years go, have gone on.

But as a mom of three, I can tell you, I’m so happy. I set that foundation, um, when my kids were pretty early, cause the burnout was real and as a woman entrepreneur, it’s, it is very difficult running, um, your business, running your family, being a good mom, being a good friend, being a good wife, being a good leader, and it’s very overwhelming, but I had a mentor in the swim school industry tell me, um, just before COVID, I was really struggling from burnout. My son was one years old. Um, he’s my second.

I had opened our swim school on his first birthday and I was completely burnt out, um, and I was, I was breaking. And he said to me, he had me read the email and he said to me, do you want to be queen or do you want to be rich? And he goes, you have to get out of your business and stop working in your business or your business is never going to grow.

And it’s never going to function without you. And I read that book and it was the biggest wake up call for me because what I started doing is I started trusting my team more and we put people in place to help us to run our business so that we could take a step back and not work in our business as an employee. Cause that’s what I was doing.

I was working as an employee within my own business. Um, and I started to work on the business and the business, I took a step back, I wasn’t in the swim school all the time. I, I reorganized my hours.

I reorganized my life and we grew the business probably double within that year because we had the opportunity to get out of the pool and start working on what are some of the issues? How do we market better? How do we communicate?

How do we lead our team better? How do I trust my team? And it was hard because a lot of the years I did everything myself because as this is your baby, you think you can do it the best and you can do it the best, but I needed to trust my team that they could do as good of a job, if not better.

And thank God I learned that lesson because honestly, today with my kids in rep sports, I don’t know what I would do.

Sam Demma

You’d be losing it.

Kerri Russell-Channer

I would be a mess. So I think that that’s, you know, people always say to me like, oh my God, like you have this business and you’re, you have flexibility and I’m like, yeah, I’ve created my business to be able to operate without me. And that’s a huge, huge lesson.

Sam Demma

One of my mentor says a business you can sell is a great business to build. And it hinges on that whole idea that it could exist without you being there. So I’m going to go reread the email. Thank you for the recommendation.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Yeah, the email is amazing.

Sam Demma

I think what’s really exciting about your journey is that, you know, it’s been 20 years or just over 20 years and there’s many more years to come, but you’ve done, you know, two decades of work in this, in this space, at least. And when you think about the time, what are, what is maybe one accomplishment or achievement so far that you’re most proud of and what vision do you have for the next decade?

Kerri Russell-Channer

Oh gosh, there’s so much. We just celebrated our 20th year last year. So I think about this a lot, but, um, I don’t know.

I think having taking the risk of opening that facility was definitely the biggest. I was in my late twenties at the time and it was very daunting and I took out a big loan and it was scary. Um, and I, it was, I didn’t know what I was doing.

And again, it was one day at a time. And I think that’s just knowing the belief in myself to take the risk. Um, the belief in myself when not many other people had a belief in us and didn’t really believe that we could do this or we were making a huge mistake or we are going to put ourselves in debt and the risk and the state, like just everything.

And I think that me just believing, no, this is, I know I’ve got this. I know I can do this and just continuing to move forward. Um, I think that, that definitely is a huge one for me and what the next 10 years look like.

It really is about growing now. It’s not just growing this business for Christie and I. It’s about growing it for our team.

We want to give our team the opportunity to grow into different positions and for them to experience growth with our company. And, um, if we don’t grow, we’re not just doing a disservice to Christie and I, but we’re doing a disservice to the people that have put their blood, sweat and tears into this business alongside with us. And we want it, we want to bring them on this journey.

So the next 10 years we’re grinding it out and we’re expanding and, um, it’s going to come with its own set of challenges, but we’re excited for the challenge. We, we, we look forward to challenge and it, I think that’s what helps us to grow even more. And I don’t like sitting stagnant, so, um, I’m, I’m really looking forward to the next 10 years and those growth opportunities and what what’s to come.

Sam Demma

It’s an exciting thing to witness. I can’t wait to follow the journey. Keep up the amazing work that you’re doing.

Thank you for taking the time to come on the podcast and share some of your entrepreneurial ideas and insights and your own journey. I know it’s inspiring not only to me, but to everyone who’s listening. Um, I’ll see you soon and until then keep up the amazing work.

Kerri Russell-Channer

Thank you so much. Thank you again for having me

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Kerri Russell-Channer

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.

June 3, 2025 by Director of Education 0

Meagan Morris — Vice Principal at St. Joseph High School in the Ottawa Catholic School Board

Meagan Morris — Vice Principal at St. Joseph High School in the Ottawa Catholic School Board
About Meagan Morris

Meagan Morris is the current Vice Principal at St. Joseph High School in the Ottawa Catholic School Board, where she has served for nearly 25 years. Her career with the OCSB has included roles as a classroom and resource teacher, coach, guidance counsellor, and administrator. She has a particular passion for supporting students in grades 7 and 8.

Meagan is a firm believer in servant leadership and is deeply committed to supporting others in achieving their full potential. A strong advocate for extracurricular activities, she has coached the school’s Girls on the Run program, among other initiatives. Meagan believes that student success is rooted in positive relationships with every member of the school community, and she strives to create an environment where students feel seen and heard. Recently added to the OCSB principal eligibility list, Meagan is eager to continue her leadership journey as a principal.

Connect with Meagan Morris: Email | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Joseph High School
Ottawa Catholic School Board

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 Meagan Morris. As Vice Principal at St. Joseph High School in Ottawa, Meagan brings nearly 25 years of diverse educational experiences to her role, having served as a classroom teacher, resource teacher, guidance counselor, and coach. Her dedication to servant leadership and particular passion for supporting intermediate students has shaped her approach to creating an inclusive school environment where relationships are at the heart of student success. Recently added to the principal eligibility list, Meagan continues to demonstrate her commitment to fostering student growth through both academic support and initiatives like Girls on the Run. Meagan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Meagan Morris
Thanks for having me, Sam. I appreciate it.

Sam Demma
Do me a favor, share a little bit about who you are with the educator listening to this and how you got into education.

Meagan Morris
Okay, so I am actually born and raised in Ottawa and I am a product. I work for the Ottawa Catholic School Board but I’m also a product for the Ottawa Catholic School Board but I’m also a product of the Ottawa Catholic School Board. So from K to 12 or OAC back then, I attended schools in the OCSB and you know when I was graduating high school I wasn’t really sure about what I wanted to do,

Meagan Morris
which is not unusual for high school graduates. And I had a friend who encouraged me to apply to the concurrent education program at Queens. And he said, if you don’t get into the teacher’s college portion, you’re still gonna do an undergrad at Queens. And so I applied thinking,

Meagan Morris
this could be a good opportunity. And through the application process, you have to identify your work that has supported education, you know, in jobs and volunteering. And by going through the process of the application, I realized just how much work I had done with youth, and how that was an area where I felt comfortable, and it was sort of an area that I was drawn to. So I ended up being successful and I did the concurrent education program at Queens, but then I still wasn’t convinced

Meagan Morris
that I wanted to be a teacher. I just, I think sometimes when it’s too obvious, you tend to doubt it a little bit. Yeah, so I took some time and I took a year and went traveling. And I actually was offered a teaching job

Meagan Morris
by email when I was in Thailand. So I was in Thailand. Yeah, I was backpacking through Thailand. And a principal emailed me to offer me a position. And I was skeptical at first. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go back to Ottawa.

Meagan Morris
I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I remember going out for dinner with a group of backpackers and mulling over the idea. And to them, it was a no brainer. I mean, this was a career that I was going to be starting and it was secure and it was a job and I hadn’t had none of that. So I said yes. And I started in 2001 and never really looked back. So that’s how I got into teaching.

Sam Demma
You mentioned that you traveled. Did you travel because people in your life told you you should? I think that travel is such a beautiful opportunity to see the world, expand perspectives, build our personality and character. Tell me a little bit more about that decision.

Meagan Morris
You know what? Actually, it was a bit of the opposite. Nobody encouraged me to travel. And it was something that I think I just felt like I needed to do. Partly, I think, because at the risk of sounding cliche, I just wanted a new experience that would provide me with a different perspective. And I felt like, you know, this was an hour and ever opportunity and I had no one to go with. The timing didn’t work out well that I could have friends who would could travel with me.

Meagan Morris
They were starting careers and things were happening. So I actually went by myself. And so I traveled through New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, all on my own. And that was such an incredible experience. And I remember my parents being quite nervous about me going. I was still relatively young, I think I was about 23.

Meagan Morris
And my mom actually kept copies of all the emails that I sent her. And I recently, she gave them to me, I recently read them. And it was such an incredible time in my life. And I, and to be honest, I was really scared. I remember getting off the plane in the first country I landed in New Zealand and not having a clue about what to do and just made my way and it was, it was really cool.

Sam Demma
That’s how a lot of educators feel in their first year working in a school. They’re trying to figure it out. You have this passion and this idea and this motivation to get started. And then when you land in the classroom for the first time, you’re like, whoa, this is new. I got to figure out the next step I need to take. And I think it’s the same for any new experience that we have. When you think back to your first year teaching or working with young people, maybe it was even outside of the school walls, what advice do you think you needed to hear that in hindsight you could share with a person who’s just getting started in education now?

Meagan Morris
You know, I did get good advice in my first year because you are right. Your first year of teaching is like no other. And I think the advice that I got was not to be so hard on myself. So it was to invoke a bit of self-compassion because of course I was going to make mistakes. I was going to deliver lessons that would flop. I was going to mishandle classroom behavior.

Meagan Morris
There were things that were gonna happen that I was certainly not expected to do perfectly. And instead of wasting time and energy on doubting myself and chastising myself for not handling it maybe in a way somebody else would, I needed to just forgive myself and move on and learn from it. And I had a resource teacher that worked with me and she had quite a few years of experience and she was the one to say, you need to just put it in a box and move on and forgive yourself and take what you can from it, but don’t beat yourself up over it. And I think that’s the biggest piece of advice. Nobody wants you to be perfect. They just want you to try.

Sam Demma
You mentioned when you were filling out the application for teaching, you had this reflective moment where you realized I’ve done so much with youth already. I’ve worked with so many youth. 

Meagan Morris
Yeah. And I was really young, like, I think I was probably 10 or 11. And I had moms in the neighborhood probably thinking I was a lot older than I was asking me to watch their kids. And it just came natural. I mean, I gravitated towards the energy of kids. And just the feedback that I got, because there’s so much, you know, there’s so little restraint in terms of the positive and the negative. But then that moved into positions where I was working at afterschool literacy programs.

Meagan Morris
When I was in high school, I was doing sports camps. I was lifeguarding. I was doing all of these things that just, you know, I sometimes just fall into. So one experience would get me the next and often I was tapped on the shoulder.

Meagan Morris
And it was just a really happy place for me to be around that energy. And I remember my mom telling me that that was a bit of a gift that I have. And I guess I didn’t see it because when you’re looking at it from the front end,

Meagan Morris
it can be overwhelming to look at all your options. But in this case, it’s proven to be the absolute right decision.

Sam Demma
It sounds like serving others is a philosophy you follow, whether it’s working with initiatives like Girls on the Run or wanting to help and support young people, and now even the staff in the building. Where did that idea of, or philosophy of servant leadership originate for you in your life?

Sam Demma
Was there a role model or, you know, I think of my grandfather when I think about servant leadership, and I think that’s where I got it from. Where did that philosophy start for you?

Meagan Morris
It started with my parents. And my parents were, my parents are both retired now, but they were civil servants, but they believed in civic duty. They believed in being part of a community. They were great neighbors.

Meagan Morris
They are excellent friends. And they instilled in me, and it’s something that I have three kids of my own and it’s something that I share with my kids. And I can remember my two things that my parents would say to me, are one to be true to yourself. And the other was to give more than you take. And the idea that we’re put on the earth not to be takers, but to be givers. And that, you know, we have to share this space with billions of people, and we don’t have the right to take away. We have a responsibility to give. And that was the message that I got from my parents regularly. Certainly they said it, but they acted on it. So it 100% came from my parents. I have a brother who’s a criminal prosecutor. I have another brother who’s a criminal prosecutor. I have another brother who’s a police officer and my other brother’s in civil service. So we were just taught that that’s the way you operate.

Sam Demma
I love the value of giving more than you take. I also think that a lot of happiness and fulfillment comes from the providing and giving more than it does the receiving or taking in my personal experiences. So I think it’s a really big win-win scenario where you feel really good about the work you’re doing and so many other people benefit from it.

Meagan Morris
But 100% and I think that’s what makes it a vocation, right? Is that you believe in the work that you’re doing. And we know, I mean, there’s, we know that people, you know, get so much satisfaction by contributing, by being a contributing member brings that level of purpose and satisfaction that gives your job, quote unquote job meaning, you know?

Sam Demma
Yeah, you have a particular passion for supporting intermediate students, you know? Yeah. You have a particular passion for supporting intermediate students, grade seven and eight students. What unique challenges do you see in this specific age group and what opportunities exist for impact?

Meagan Morris
So when I first started teaching, I was teaching at the intermediate level. So I taught at the intermediate level for 10 years. And I taught at a school that was, we consider a family support school. So there were a lot of economic challenges.

Meagan Morris
There were a lot of socioeconomic needs. And that was new to me. Like I was a suburb kid who back in the nineties when I went to high school, it was predominantly white. And so I didn’t have that experience with diversity. And so I remember leaving that school and saying that, the students at this school taught me more than I could have ever have taught them. And particularly at the intermediate level, they’re really finding their way. They’re not elementary level, they’re not K to six level in the sense that they’re still following rules because the rules are in place. They’re starting to question things, they want autonomy, they’re dealing with hormones, they’re dealing with interpersonal skills, they’re thrown in our case with our board being a seven grade seven to 12 model, they’re technically thrown into a high school and learning to navigate that. There are so many challenges that it creates a sort of perfect storm of potential behavior, but also for growth. And they’re still young enough that they are so impressionable.

Meagan Morris
So it’s a great time to take even those behavioral moments, even, you know, dysregulated actions. It’s an opportunity for learning. And I just feel like they are really special. A lot of people can be intimidated at that intermediate level for all those reasons and can shy away. But I just think it’s a really special time because they’re really in flux. And so it’s so important that they have people in their lives that see them and hear them and validate what they’re going through.

Sam Demma
You’ve worked as a teacher in intermediate and junior high, high school. You’ve worked as a coach. You’ve also worked as a guidance counselor. How has your experience as a guidance counselor shaped your beliefs around leadership today and ensuring students feel seen, heard and supported?

Meagan Morris
So that’s a great question because when I first, you know, as I was moving through teaching, my end game was always to be a guidance counselor. I didn’t envision myself being an administrator, it was sort of the leadership piece that moved me in that direction. But my real passion was that sort of guidance, counselling support.

Meagan Morris
My undergraduate degree is a psychology degree. And so at some points, I thought about going in different directions and maybe pursuing a master’s in psychology, but in the end I went the teaching route and so it lent itself really well to being a guidance counsellor. and it just the perspective you get when you are able to have some one-on-one time with students and understand them, understand the motivation behind their their choices and their successes and and perhaps lack of successes is so important because you can you put things in perspective and you also remember that you’re teaching and working and supporting the whole student, not just the academic side. And I think in the classroom, sometimes teachers don’t know the whole story. I think it’s important to get to know your students, but sometimes you don’t know all the details. But I think teachers have to assume, you always have to assume that there is something you’re working with.

Sam Demma
It’s that backpack.

Meagan Morris
It’s the, and I, and that’s why when you came to our school and gave your presentation, I thought this is resonate so well with me because everybody has a backpack, everybody has something. And they’re never going to be able to work with that backpack unless they feel like somebody understands what’s in it. And a guidance counselor, being a guidance counselor, I would also say that being a guidance counselor before being a vice principal has given me a level of empathy, which is needed. I mean, you know?

Sam Demma
The question I’m curious about, and I think another educator might be thinking the same thing, is how do you build that trust and relationship with a student where it gets to the point where they’re comfortable sharing with you as the caring adult, some of the things that are in their backpack? I think there’s a lot of educators that would love to be able to support their students. And not that every teacher can be a counselor, that’s not possible. But for them to have some of that context would be helpful.

Sam Demma
I think that there’s something special about guidance counselors and the way they approach those conversations that enables those students to feel safe and feel supported. What are your thoughts on building relationships with young people?

Meagan Morris
So I think, you know, sometimes what we do is we rely on our own experiences with school. And a lot has changed. And our experiences, and that’s one thing that I learned, my experience was completely different than a lot of the students that I came into contact with.

Meagan Morris
And I think it’s really important first to be vulnerable, to understand that I’m not teaching them necessarily. Sure, there’s things that, there’s curriculum that I’m teaching them, and I’m mentoring them, them and I’m supporting them and I’m an example in the classroom, but we’re kind of learning together. And so you have to be vulnerable enough to show them that we’re learning together. I’m learning about you. I’m learning about who you are, how you learn, how this works with you. So I think you have to be vulnerable. And one thing that I always say to teachers that I work with is you can’t take behavior or dysregulated actions as personal. It’s not about you. We know that every student wants to succeed. And when they’re not succeeding, it’s because something is happening that is preventing that. And nine times out of ten, it’s not about the teacher. And so you have to have that level of unconditional support.

Meagan Morris
And when they know that you’re still going to be there after they’ve had a dysregulated moment, or they’ve, you know, done something that’s not appropriate, if they know that you’re still going to be there, then they start to trust you. And then that’s not appropriate. If they know that you’re still going to be there, then they start to trust you. And then that relationship starts forming. But at the end of the day, it can be, behavior in a classroom can be frustrating.

Meagan Morris
It can be exhausting. It can be, you know, but behavior comes from somewhere. And understanding that it’s not about us really takes the pressure off us, but it also helps us to continue to support those students.

Meagan Morris
And that’s how you build relationships is by having them see you as somebody they can trust.

Sam Demma
I’m assuming one of the other ways you build trust with young people is giving them some time. Is that one of the reasons you got involved in extracurricular activities, running programs, like girls on the run? Tell me more about when in your career, you started getting involved in more extracurricular activities and what prompted that?

Meagan Morris
So when I first started teaching, I was a phys ed teacher. So that lends itself to a lot of coaching. And it’s actually a nice segue into counseling because when you are a phys ed teacher and you’re a coach, you are always seeing students in an unstructured environment. A phys ed class in grade seven and eight can be organized chaos. So you’re often seeing students in their natural habitat. And so it allows you a way of getting to know students in a way beyond curriculum delivery. And coaching also lets you see the skill set that students may not be able to demonstrate in the classroom. They can show, you know, when they’re on a team or when they’re part of a club, they can demonstrate leadership, they can demonstrate teamwork, they can demonstrate collaboration, compassion, all of those things. And so I got started out of necessity, because when you’re a phys ed teacher, you coach. But then I never really left it. And I had the opportunity this year to run the Girls on the Run program, which is basically a run program for students who identify as female. And in addition to training them to run a 5k, we also work on the social emotional side.

Meagan Morris
So you do a little bit of running, a little bit of internal work, and then it culminates in a 5k race. So super empowering. And I think it’s just, especially now as a vice principal, it’s so great to be working with students in a proactive role instead of a reactive role.

Sam Demma
That program sounds amazing. I remember when I was graduating from elementary school and starting high school that I ran cross country for the first time. And some of my fondest memories from elementary school and starting high school that I ran cross country for the first time. And some of my fondest memories from elementary were running the perimeter of the fence in our schoolyard after the school day ended with our cross country teacher. We didn’t have the social emotional learning aspect of it, but I enjoyed those moments and I remember them a lot. I’m sure you’re creating moments like that for all of the girls for all the students who identify as female students in that program. So that’s has it been around for a while? Is it a new program?

Meagan Morris
Well, apparently it’s been around for a long time. It started in the United States, but it just recently came on our radar at the OCSB. There was a principal in the elementary panel who kind of put it out to the OCSB and a bunch of us jumped on it. And it’s really, really cool. But I mean, I agree with you, we know that getting involved in extracurricular has protective factors, right? It supports mental health, and it supports well being. What’s happening in the classroom, obviously, is paramount. But those are the things that students remember. They remember extracurriculars. They remember field trips. They remember those connections They made with their coaches and their club, you know leaders That’s what makes and you know, if we learn nothing from Kovac that’s what makes the high school experience what it is because When we don’t have that we’re not having different forms of connection, which is so important.

Sam Demma
As you prepare for this next step, I know you’re a vice principal now, you’re filling in as a principal this week. As you prepare for that next step, what vision do you have for creating a culture that balances academic excellence and strong relationship building?

Meagan Morris
Well, I think like you mentioned in the introduction, I do believe in servant leadership. And that does come back from what I know. But I think when you are leading a school community, it’s like an inverted pyramid. And the administration is actually at the bottom of the pyramid.

Meagan Morris
And our job is to be of service to every level above us. And that’s your staff, that’s your students, that’s the family, that’s the community. And so that is going to help those relationships build. And that is going to get the best out of your school. Like right now, I’m responsible for supporting the intermediate panel, which is a love for me. But one of the things that I’ve done this year is I’ve done a monthly lunch and learn. So we have a lot of new teachers. And I recognize that, you know, when you’re in a really big school, like we are, it can sometimes be hard for new teachers to connect with mentors. So once a month, I bring everybody together. We order pizza, we hang out and we talk about different topics, because I know that if I’m supporting the teachers and the teachers feel like we have a solid relationship, they feel seen and heard. That’s only going to translate to the connections those teachers are building with students and their families. So my job really is to make sure the staff is in a healthy position to do the best and to do right by the students that they work with.

Sam Demma
That whole concept of inverted pyramid is such a powerful way to think about leadership, not only in the context of a school, but any organization. I really appreciate you sharing that. For anyone listening to this who wants to ask you a question or reach out and connect, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Meagan Morris
Well, I shared my Instagram, but also I would almost say email. Email is the best. Yeah.

Sam Demma
We’ll make sure to pop that in the show notes for anyone listening. Meagan, this was a lovely conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time, sharing your journey into education, some of your beliefs around building relationships with students and administration. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Meagan Morris
Well, thank you, Sam. Well, thank you, Sam. I really enjoyed it too.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Meagan Morris

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

May 22, 2025 by Education Educator Vice Principal 0

Kathy Archer — Leadership Development Coach

Kathy Archer — Leadership Development Coach
About Kathy Archer

Kathy Archer knows what it’s like to constantly put out fires, question every decision, and carry the weight of an entire organization. She was once that overwhelmed nonprofit leader, teetering on the edge of burnout. Now, she helps nonprofit leaders stop drowning in work, doubting themselves, and carrying it all alone, so they can lead with confidence, set boundaries, and finally take control of their leadership and life.

Connect with Kathy Archer: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Kathy Archer

Character Driven Leadership For Women

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 Kathy Archer. Kathy knows what it’s like to constantly put out fires, question every decision and carry the weight of an entire organization. She was once that overwhelmed nonprofit leader teetering on the edge of burnout. Now she helps nonprofit leaders, educational leaders, stop drowning in work, doubting themselves, and carrying it all alone so they can lead with confidence, set boundaries, and finally take control of their leadership and life. She is the author of Character-Driven Leadership for Women, and she is now a friend of mine. Kathy, thank you so much for coming on the show here today. You’re very welcome.

Kathy Archer
I’m so excited to be here and yeah, talk to you because you have such a brilliant mind and a brilliant way of looking through your mind at the world and I’m excited to talk about things today.

Sam Demma
Well, I appreciate you being here and I would love to just start with the new book. Please tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write it and why you’re excited to get it in the hands of more readers.

Kathy Archer
Yes, character-driven leadership for women is a five-step framework for helping shape your management style with strong values, ethics, and morals. So when I was in leadership, I hit two big leadership lows and I fell out of integrity.

Kathy Archer
And I don’t just say that, like my staff said that twice in performance reviews. Like Kathy lacks integrity. I’m like, what? That’s not me. And so I spent about 25 years in the nonprofit sector, got introduced to coaching the second time I hit my big leadership low and the staff had filed a grievance against me. And I fell in love with coaching and I learned that we need to come back to how we’re leading, the way we’re leading, not just what we think we’re supposed to do in our work, but how we’re doing that in our job.

Kathy Archer
You know, I know you know this, there’s a difference between being and doing, and we do a lot of doing, you know, we tick off the boxes and checklists and go to the meetings, but how are you doing that? And so character driven leadership comes back to the who’s behind the work, and how we lead in a way that’s authentic to us, aligned with our values, our missions, our visions, all of that kind of stuff.

Sam Demma
Kathy is a business-minded individual, which is why she chose the niche of serving women. But let me tell you, it’s not a book only for women. It’s for everyone who wants to build more ethics, morals, and values in their leadership styles. Something we talked about before the podcast began was that we’ve really learned about

Sam Demma
leadership in an inauthentic way and in all the wrong ways. Can you speak about that a little bit and how you want to shift that conversation?

Kathy Archer
Only if you answer me one quick question. Name the top three to five motivational speakers that you listen to, follow. I mean, Jim Rohn, who else?

Sam Demma
You know I love Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn is one of my favorite lecturers and speakers. I have a personal mentor who’s not so known in the world, but he’s one of the people I look up to the most. His name is Chris Cummins. I also listen often to Alan Watts and Tony Robbins and I’ll stop there.

Kathy Archer
Yeah. Yeah. Napoleon Hill, think and grow rich. In the leadership world, we’ve learned to lead from masculine role models. If you look at any of the business schools, the leadership stuff, the motivational stuff, 90% of it is male, white male, and was written 30, 40 years ago, and definitely pre-COVID.

Kathy Archer
And so part of what’s happened is we’ve missed the softer edges of leadership. We’ve missed, and this is both true for men and women, we’ve missed the feminine qualities of leadership. I cannot tell you how many times a woman says to me, and again, I primarily coach women leaders, but I also coach in the corporate sector, and I coach male and females alike. So I experience both. But I just I coach male and females alike. So I experienced both, but I just want to shut my emotions off. I don’t want to bring my emotions into that meeting. I just wanna, right? And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We need to manage our emotions, but our emotions are guides, they’re clues, they’re so valuable to us. And so we need to do that. Or, you know, if you bring compassion in or kindness or fairness or any of those things that somehow you’re soft as a leader. And so we’ve learned to lead in this very rigid, stiff sort of way, right? And we need to come back to but what’s my way? What’s my way of leading? And I am a crier, I’m gonna admit, I’m a very emotional person. And so it was very hard for me to shut my emotions off over the years.

Kathy Archer
I’m compassionate. I love to do things like craft and crochet and take care of plants and nurture things. And when I was in leadership, it became a very do this, go to the meetings. And while I wanted to have this really strong relationship with my staff When I got busy, I felt like I had to push that aside and that’s where the the disconnect and integrity came Family’s important to me, but I was the one traveling when you know, my kid was in a car accident and I didn’t come home You know work-life balance is important, but I’m sitting there on a Sunday doing time sheets. So I had lost my integrity. And now I’m confused about the question we were on, because I went on a whole challenge.

Kathy Archer
Oh, authenticity. So we need to come back to who we are and find our way of leading. And this comes back to, and I’ll pass it back to you, Sam, the self-reflective work, which I know you do all the time, it’s so important that we connect to who we are through that self-reflective work.

Sam Demma
I’ve had some of my greatest breakthroughs after experiences unfolded and I wrote about it. And maybe it’s through my conversations with Kate, who happens to be a close friend and my therapist, who encourages me to write things down. And those reflective journal entries end up providing you with some big breakthroughs, which lead to shifts in the way I live my life and the choices I choose to make. So reflection has been a massive part of my philosophy. And maybe it was borrowed a little bit from Jim Rohn, who always talked about the importance of journaling and how you’re, you know, one of the most valuable things you can hand to somebody else when you leave this planet is your journals. You are someone who has worked in the space for a long period of time. You’ve worked with lots of individuals, many of which have likely experienced burnout.

Sam Demma
You yourself have experienced burnout. What are some of the key turning points in your journey that help you like recognize when you’re reaching that point and to get back out of it?

Kathy Archer
Yeah. The first time I ever hit it really hard was when I was sitting in the doctor’s office, getting prescription for antidepressants. That was a big turning point for me. Right.

Kathy Archer
It was like, Ooh, Kathy, do you want to keep doing this? And I had one of those moments where I was like, do I wanna leave the career? Like it’s hard, right? I was just new to leadership, but I came back because I had that strong passion for the work I do, very committed to it.

Kathy Archer
And what shifted for me then and what has always shifted for me was that’s when I started my degree. So I had a college diploma, but I’m like, no, I don’t know anything about leadership. I knew the work. And this is true for, you know, educators as well. We’re good teachers, but we move into leadership. But do you know, but have you learned leadership? Right? It’s different. It’s not the same as teaching. Certainly very, you know, similar things that you do. But so I went back and I started working on my degree and it took me eight years to get my management degree because I was raising four kids at the time and working full time. But education, learning, growing has always been foundational for me and shifting. And so the same was true when I hit that second really big low. That’s like I say, when I decided to become a coach, but it was not the same kind of, I mean I took courses to do coaching, but I really started to dive into learning and and many of the same mentors that you have learned from and again, this is why I come back to teach women because women don’t have enough role models out there. We’re learning from men and and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re just wired differently. And so, I would dive in and I would dissect the term integrity. Like what does integrity actually mean, right?

Kathy Archer
What’s moral courage? Or when you’re really demonstrating compassion, what does that mean? And I started to really learn more about that and started to create goals. Like I wanted to really learn more about that and started to create goals. Like I wanted to do this more. You know, I’ve always been goal-driven, but when you start to really identify specific goals, it starts to shift what you’re doing, I think.

Sam Demma
What about setting goals and having something you’re aiming at has been helpful in getting out of that state of burnout when you’ve gotten close to it.

Kathy Archer
Yeah, yeah. We’re teleological beings, so we want a target, right? If we don’t have a target, we spend our time head down. I always talk about whacking the moles, right? Meeting, email, right? That’s all we’re doing. That’s our only target is just hitting those things that are like this close in front of us. So we need to create goals. So for me, yeah, it was creating goals, not just about what I wanted to accomplish, but who I wanted to be. And those kinds of goals really is what started to drive the change for me is anybody can run a meeting, but how do you run a meeting, right? Anybody can give somebody some advice or critique their performance, but how are you doing that? You know, you think about a good coach that you’ve had over the years, there’s a way of being, not just doing there. And that’s what those kind of goals, and when we look at, you know, our performance appraisal kind of goals, it’s like, yeah, I want to, you know, finish this and complete that and do that. It’s different than that. It’s that, but it’s more than that. And creating goals like that really helps. So for me, I wanted to, at one point, I really wanted to learn how to be better at forgiving.

Kathy Archer
Forgiveness for me is not easy, right? And there’s things that happen in our lives with people that kind of hurt us. And you know, when I started going, oh, forgiveness isn’t about them, it’s about me. Oh, okay. Okay. That changes it, right? You know, back to journaling, then I can start to go, okay, am I better able to understand forgiveness? You know, thinking cognitively, am I better able to understand it? Okay, I’ve met that target, right? I may be not better at doing it yet, but I’m better at understanding it. So there’s that target. Then I can journal about ways that I’m doing it or practicing it. And so, yeah, you start to grow personally as well as professionally.

Sam Demma
It sounds like it would be a wise decision for us to create our own professional and personal growth plan? Is that something that you have?

Kathy Archer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the book, I talk about your character plan, right? So create your character plan, but I’m often talking, I have a membership for leaders and I’m often talking about creating your own personal and professional learning curriculum.

Kathy Archer
So, you know, what are you learning? When are you learning it? Cause if it’s not on your calendar, there’s a good chance you’re not going to learn it. How are you learning it? And then what’s your measure? And when we’re talking about maybe being a more organized leader, okay, so what does organized mean, right? And so it might simply be jotting down the number of times you actually plan staff meeting before staff meeting. Because I can’t tell you how many times I’d run into a meeting like frazzled and last minute and bringing agendas with me while nobody else had a chance to prepare. I’m just dumping stuff on them or it’s a monologue and I’m just, that’s not what we need from our staff meetings, we need some engagement. So are you planning those meetings? Maybe you’re looking at setting better boundaries. Okay, so how often are you leaving the school at five o’clock, right? Like that’s a measurement, right? So having those measurements is incredibly important part of it.

Sam Demma
I’ve personally experienced it to be very difficult to create boundaries when you love the work so much and you just want to show up. And I’m assuming it’ll be particularly difficult in the nonprofit space as well, where people are very heart-centered or any person who’s in a leadership position is likely there because they love what they do and they want to serve and they want to support.

Sam Demma
What practical strategies have you found very effective in helping people get comfortable creating those boundaries?

Kathy Archer
So you’re right, it is hard. And I love the work I do and it’s easy for me to get sucked in, evening and weekends. I don’t typically, because I create other things that are interesting and exciting. So I know we’re both Toastmasters. So, you know, if I have a Toastmasters meeting that night, I’m definitely going to end work because I want to do that. Health and wellness is incredibly important to me. I need to get my walk in every day and do some of those other things. But you know, I think about family when the sort of the year of COVID, you know, I knew that it’s like, how do we get together? And I have five granddaughters and it was just tough. And so the goal I created that year was to create 12 experiences with our family. That was it, right? So sledding was one, right? Like we all went sledding for the day. We went to the pool another day. You know, it didn’t have to be anything big, but I had to be intentional. And again, back to that teleological, if your focus is the passion at work, you’re gonna go there, but if you create a target over here too, there’s gonna be a pull because we’re just drawn to hitting targets. There’s gonna be a pull to go, okay, I also have to do that. So yeah, you’re less likely to do work on a Saturday afternoon to do that. The other thing I will say is we often think about taking care of ourselves as an afterthought or something that happens after our work day. And we have to learn, and there’s a big component in the book around wellness, and I talk about weaving in wellness throughout your workday. You are not going to be patient, you’re not going to be focused, you’re not going to be able to manage your emotions or say what you need to say when you’re hangry, when you haven’t left your desk, right? This is stuff you can’t lead from an empty tank. Throughout your workday you have to weave in wellness and so again if I’m so passionate about what I do, then I also should be so passionate about my wellness because it will raise this level here.

Sam Demma
I recently added a few new practices to my day-to-day life and recognized that I didn’t want to do some of them during the workday because I wanted to save that time for meetings with people and conversations and meetings with my team. And it got to a point where I recognized, hey, Sam, you kind of have to, you kind of have to choose. You know, there’s, there’s only so many hours available in the day.

Sam Demma
And so I started going to bed a little earlier so I could do some work in the morning and the quiet hours of the morning. But I’m close to capacity and I’m curious to know, how do you decide what you prioritize each day or each week? Because there are a set number of hours we have.

Kathy Archer
Yeah, yeah. But the most important things early in the day. I love that you say that. I’m a 5 a.m. riser, 9 p.m. bedtime. Like you bookend it, right? But also, the other part, and again, I talk about this in the book, is a weekly review as well as a daily review. So each week I look at what’s on my calendar, what appointments do I have, and I talk about which ones can you ditch, defer, or delegate, right? Like, can somebody else take that task on?

Kathy Archer
Can you get rid of it? Like, you know what? I mean, there are things that we do just because we’ve always done them. Do we still need to do them, right? Or defer, okay, that’s important, but I just don’t have the energy or bandwidth this week. I’ll move it out. And we sort of assume what’s in our calendar, we have to do. Do I have to go to that meeting? Do I have to go to the full meeting? Right? Can I just show up and hand my stuff over or show up at the end? And that’s not always fair or the right thing to do, which goes back to who am I, right? How am I having those conversations? But I do, I think we have to look at, you know, I only have X amount of energy in a day and time in a day, and they’re different things, right? I only have so many hours in a day, but you’re running out of energy. And if you’re doing some of those things with, you know, mediocre energy, you’re just not doing them well. And so again, that comes back to who’s doing this job, who’s doing this work? If it’s, if I’m, can I say half-assing it? If I’m half-assing it, I’m not being my best self. And if I have to look in the mirror every day, and again, this is why the journaling is so important and the self-reflecting is, am I being my best self today? And if I’m being my best self today, does this schedule match. And it might be, and this is the other thing I talk about, is micro moments. Like one or two minutes. What can you do in one or two minutes? Like I, maybe more than two minutes, but I used to walk around the block, like a five minute walk. Like that was enough to recharge me. Stretch, like get up and stretch your arms. Like, you know, do a squat and, you know and do something. I would do squats at the photocopier. I don’t even know if they still have photocopiers. Today I would do squats at the photocopier.

Kathy Archer
Waiting for things. But yeah, like micro moments of wellness, a drink of water, something to eat, connection with nature, a little prayer, meditation of one minute. Like something you can weave into your workday is gonna bring that energy back up.

Sam Demma
Those micro moments seem small, but have a massive impact. I talk about it all the time with small consistent actions. One of the little things I love to do before I start the workday is even if I’m still inside, position myself near a window where the sun can hit my face. If it’s freezing, just seeing the sun, it has an impact on how I feel. I work out every morning. I love reading and journaling and meditating. And those four habits have a really big impact on how I feel. Are there any other micro moments or habits that have been very influential in your personal development?

Kathy Archer
Microelements of learning. We often think I need an hour to sit down and read a book. Three minutes. Like I am, I can read like three paragraphs and go, hmm, and think about it and write a note about it. And then it’s going to simmer in the back of my mind. A micro moments of learning, hugely, hugely important. Again, sometimes you need those deeper dives, but you can take in just a little piece, a podcast.

Kathy Archer
You know, I’m listening to a podcast where I’m folding laundry. Like it doesn’t take a ton. But those micro moments of learning are going to stimulate creativity in you, you you, awaken that, oh, I could try that over here or that over here or different things. So, I mean, your podcast is a great example. I was listening to some of the past episodes

Kathy Archer
and I can imagine a teacher or a leader in a school going, oh, that’s a good idea, I like that. And it’s like a two minute conversation that they listen to and it’s like, bingo, there’s an idea.

Sam Demma
Always digging for the insights.

Kathy Archer
Always, always, always, always, yeah, yeah.

Sam Demma
This has been such a lovely conversation. I wanna say thank you for taking the time to share some of your insights, talk a little bit about your book, discuss the difference in leadership styles the world needs right now, especially with a little more feminine energy. I would love for you to share where people can connect with you and purchase your book because I know they’re gonna wanna read it.

Kathy Archer
Yeah, yeah. So I’m at kathiearcher.com is my website, Kathy D as in Diane Archer on all of the socials. Instagram is my favorite place to hang out. You can grab the book on Amazon or wherever you buy books. It’s available March 3rd. The audio version is out there too, so listen in. And I have a, this is my second book. My first book is Mastering Confidence, so it’s also on on all of the the platforms as well. So yeah, please connect with me. I love to work with, you know, leaders who are interested in growing themselves, growth minded, engaged leaders who want to leaders who are interested in growing themselves, growth minded, engaged leaders who want to not just do better, but be better. 

Sam Demma
Kathy, this is lovely. Thank you so much.  

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Kathy Archer

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

May 13, 2025 by Coach Speaker 0

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

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

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

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

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

Connect with Jacqueline Butler: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Holy Trinity School

The Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline Butler
world.

Jacqueline Butler
Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline Butler
Right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline Butler
We appreciate you. I loved it.

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

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

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Jacqueline Butler

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

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

Robert Audet — Ottawa Campus Director at Lambton College

Robert Audet — Ottawa Campus Director at Lambton College
About Robert Audet

Robert Audet is an innovative leader in the educational sector with over three decades of experience. His entrepreneurial spirit has been a driving force behind his commitment to enhancing student services and educational opportunities. Robert’s most notable achievement is spearheading the establishment of an International Campus for Lambton College in partnership with Saint-Paul University in Ottawa, a project that reflects his dedication to expanding access to education.

Throughout his career, Robert has demonstrated a unique ability to build sustainable business models that serve students effectively. He began his journey by launching the first bookstore at Collège Boréal as a multi-stakeholder co-operative, successfully integrating various student services such as a cafeteria and temporary employment agency. His work with Desjardins and Laurentian University further underscored his commitment to fostering cooperative development and supporting individuals in their entrepreneurial pursuits.

At Cambrian College, Robert had the privilege of bringing together six areas of student life and services under one umbrella. This experience deepened his understanding of Indigenous culture and values as he collaborated with the Wabnode team. The knowledge he gained is something he is eager to bring forward in his current role, working with the Indigenous Centre at Saint-Paul University.

Robert is a firm believer in nurturing talent and guiding individuals along their unique paths to success. He emphasizes the importance of supporting both students and employees, recognizing that everyone has their own journey. By focusing on individual strengths and providing tailored support, Robert ensures that each person can thrive in their educational and professional endeavors. His collaborative approach and commitment to stakeholder engagement create an environment where innovation and growth flourish, ultimately leading to a more enriching educational experience for all.

Connect with Robert Audet: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Lambton College
Saint-Paul University
Collège Boréal
Laurentian University
Cambrian College,

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 special guest, Robert Audet. Robert is an innovative leader who has dedicated over three decades to transforming the education sector. His entrepreneurial spirit has consistently driven improvements in student services and educational opportunities throughout his career. Most notably, Robert spearheaded the establishment of Lampton College’s international campus in partnership with St. Paul University in Ottawa, demonstrating a commitment to expanding access to quality education. He also spent a lot of time this weekend shoveling snow. Robert, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast here today.

Robert Audet
Good morning, Sam. It’s my pleasure. I was looking forward to this chat and leaving the snow behind. Please take a moment to introduce yourself and explain what got you interested and involved in education. You kind of covered a little bit of what I’ve been doing. I guess I got hooked into education back in the 90s where I was working for a financial cooperative and then I got an opportunity to work for Laurentian University in a special project to help people on social assistance create their business plan, teach them some courses, some life skills that they needed to start a business and actually help them start their business. And so it was a very small team. So I got to teach courses. I got to bring in guests with special knowledge for our students and actually see them through the incorporation of worker co-ops and actually see them start their own businesses. And that got me hooked because the feeling of seeing them progress and getting their independence and just doing so well, that was enough for me. So when the French college in Sudbury opened up and opened up their first campus, Collège Boreal, I had the opportunity to go there and start a multi-stakeholder cooperative to run a lot of their student services. So I jumped on that opportunity real quick, started their cafeteria, their bookstore, their pub, their food services for the daycare center, et cetera, et cetera. So it was so overwhelming at the time, but at the same time, so challenging, so it just hooked me right in. And I’ve been mostly in the educational sector or there for a couple of years for most of my career after that.

Sam Demma
When you were helping with the student run businesses, would you consider your personality more like Robert or Kevin O’Leary?

Robert Audet
Not Kevin. I definitely always, I mean, especially, you know, that first initial project was done as a multi-stakeholder co-op, which was the first in Ontario. We were breaking ground. I had to make sure we had partners from the student body. First of all, I had nine students on my board of directors. I had three people from the college. It started with people, high-profile vice presidents in the college. And then I went out into the community to make sure to get some partners in there as well. So, you know, you try to get the expertise around the table. So, you know, you try to get an accountant at the table, you try to get a lawyer at the table. Little ways of saving money when you need some advice from your friends in the community, but it was such a collaborative approach, you know, creating it as a multi-stake cooperative, multi-stakeholder cooperative, that, you know, it was really about building all those relationships more than anything else.

Sam Demma
I think that’s the heart of education, building relationships with stakeholders, with community partners, with the students we’re aiming to serve and support. And you’ve been doing it for over three decades in education. I’m curious over the 30 years, like what fundamental changes have you observed in students’ needs and expectations? Maybe first when you started, what’s different about education today than it was then?

Robert Audet
I mean, I think what’s different is that we have a lot more diversity on any of the campuses right now. And there’s a lot of changes happening to international students coming to Canada for the last little while, let’s say since January. But so that’s different in the sense that, you know, some of the needs of the students could be different adapting to a new country, et cetera. But at the end of the day, it hasn’t really changed. If you really, if you really go down to what’s important when you’re dealing with students over there, like, like you mentioned three decades, I feel old now. No, it’s experience, it’s wisdom. But if you think about it, the reason I say it hasn’t changed is you have to take each student for who they are and try to bring them to the next level. And every student has their own journey. Yeah, they have a common thread of being in a certain program together or they have a common thread of coming from a certain area or, you know, they’re varsity players or whatever, whatever brings them to your campus. That’s just the start. Now you gotta, you gotta build trust with that student. You gotta make sure that they understand that they have someone on campus that they can go to if they meet any barriers or struggle with anything. And once that is built, then you can actually help them, well, actually to be able to help them to get to the level they need to be, you need to understand them. So too often people will say, we’re just here to lecture them. They have to figure it out their own way. But once you understand, and then I have the luxury of having a smaller campus here in Ottawa because we’ve just started a year ago, but the beauty of that is that you can actually meet your students. You can actually have some conversations, see what they’re struggling with, and make sure that they’re connecting with someone on the team. And that hasn’t changed, whether I was working for 20 years in student services at Cameron College or here at Lambton College in Ottawa, that has not changed. You have students, like I’ve met some students over the years, so many great relationships, you know, and I’ve learned probably more from them than they’ve learned from me just because they were growing through at times easy stuff, but at times very difficult things. And the fact that they trusted you to be there along with them to get them through that, I probably gave more to my worth of life and appreciation for life than anything else. And so I’ve worked with students at all levels, whether it was just to try and pass a course so that they can get to the next level, or whether it was to help them fit in to the college system because they had no friends, or whether it was to become one of the provincial leaders influencing where education is going.

And all of those were just as important as the next one because that’s where they were and that’s where they need to be. And then you look back and I guess I get to look back because it’s been 30 years. You look back at how well some of those students are doing. It’s just so much, it’s so rewarding. It’s just, that’s all I can say, very rewarding.

Sam Demma
That’s such a key idea that the external changes, the environment may change, the technology may change, the technology may change, the subjects we focus on may change, but the human being is the human being. We have similar human needs, whether it was 30 years ago or now, and making people feel like they have a person on campus who can support them, building trust, building the relationship, those things haven’t changed. One of my favorite speakers and authors is a gentleman named Jim Rohn, and he’s passed away now. In one of his lectures, he would always tell a story of a company that hired him to come and deliver a speech at their company to talk about the future of their industry, because they thought he had some great insights on it. And he said, he went and delivered a speech and he said, folks, I can confidently tell you that the industry is gonna be just like it’s always been. Unless you change, unless you change. And that made me think of what you just shared now about the fundamentals of building connections with young people. And that makes me curious when it comes to supporting young people and building that trust, what things can educators do to ensure that that trust gets built and they do feel supported and, and encouraged.

Robert Audet
It comes down to listening and listening to actually absorb what they’re going through, not just listen to pretend you’re listening. It’s really that simple. It’s making connections with people. And sometimes it’s harder. The bigger your campus is, like we had, my last campus, we had 6,000 students. I can’t say I knew every student. It’s just not possible, right? But the team that I led, though, we made sure to stay open to any student that would. So we wouldn’t say, oh, you know, if a student comes to me and it’s not my area, but they’re comfortable talking to me, we wouldn’t say just turn them away. We would make sure to bring them, actually walk them to the service they need, make the connection with them. And if they still felt more comfortable coming by my way first, my door was open, right? So it’s really about just listening and making that connection because the needs will vary drastically from each student.

Sam Demma
I think that listening is difficult in a world where there’s a distraction everywhere we look, whether it’s our phone buzzing, another conversation, an email popping on our computer screen. Listening sounds simple, but it’s sometimes very difficult to do. So I appreciate that reminder and I think it’s a timely one. When you started the role, I’m assuming someone didn’t pull you aside and say, Robert, it is your responsibility to build a partnership with St. Paul University. Can you talk about how that partnership was built and the value it’s provided to both campuses today?

Robert Audet
That’s a great question actually. And no, that’s not how that went down. The relationship was already started when I was hired on to come and start the campus, I guess, and manage the campus. They even had hired a few employees. And we’re a very small team right now in Ottawa, to come and start the campus, I guess, and manage the campus. The AIA even had hired a few employees, and we’re a very small team right now in Ottawa, seven plus our faculty. But it is a fantastic partnership. We’ve been growing the common areas, we’ve been growing how do we help each other in doing wellness activities, how we collaborate on different things, how we potentially work on research projects together, et cetera. But the idea was to develop a public to public institution partnership so that we can offer great programs and have the resources we needed in Ottawa to quickly be able to welcome new students. So they had room in their residence, for example. So we negotiated some rooms in their residence. So when students showed up, if they didn’t wanna stay on campus, that was fine. We would help them with housing as well, but they would have an opportunity to go there. So everything’s nice and close until they get used to our snow, our mountain of snow, since our first term was in January. But last year was nice.

Robert Audet
It was an easy winter. But you know, that’s just an example. We’ve collaborated at so many levels and having, being in this historical building here in Ottawa, I mean, I won’t be able to quote you on what year it was built, but I’m pretty sure it was in the 1800s. And it’s slowly being, you know, redone and modernized here and there, but while keeping its charm, right. And so every time I get visitors from our Sarnia campus, which has been there since 1966, they go, I can’t believe the atmosphere here. I want to move to Ottawa just to work in that building. And I go, yeah, I agree. It’s small enough that, you know, it’s a friendly atmosphere with the three partners, actually, Collège Boreal is on campus as well. And we’re building that relationship and we’re having a blast. We’re doing an EDI event in March coming up. And it’s fun because, you know, I had to take a step back when I was approached with the idea, would you apply for this job? Because my wife had just accepted a job here in Ottawa. And I’m like, yes, I should, and I will look into it. But what’s interesting is I had to take a deep look inside myself and go, I’ve done a lot of startups.

Robert Audet
Like even when I went to Cambrian College, it was a new startup, was a new student’s life center. Then I took on, I kept growing the department, right? It became six departments in one. And it was just, for me, it’s all about startups and making those relationships. So I was like, do I have another startup in me? That was the question. And I was like, yes, I do have another startup in me. I think I go to Ottawa and I have some fun. I meet some new people and I’ve been meeting some interesting, our faculty that we’re recruiting, industry experts, we’re having a blast with that. Like developing the relationship with St. Paul, like, you know, going to skate on the canal, uh, you know, building those relationships just to be able to have those conversations and build those relationships. Uh, Ottawa is just fantastic to be in. I I’m going to enjoy it until I, uh, until I retire here in Ottawa and then, and then I’ll go back home, but I have to visit Ottawa now that I know it.

Sam Demma
It sounds like you might have another startup in you after you leave this role. Maybe it’s something related to a business that you’d like to start after you finish. I don’t know, but I get the sense that maybe you will continue doing something.

Robert Audet
It’s funny you say that because I have, I was talking with one of the researchers from the university the other day and he goes when you do retire, you know You have a very good skill set on organizing people and getting stuff done So he says it’d be a shame for you just to put that to rest and I’m like, I’ll have to give it some thought I was thinking retirement man. I’m going cycling. I’m going kayaking But but time will tell right

Sam Demma
When it comes to entrepreneurship, I think there are so many skills that are so important for educators and students to carry forward. It sounds like you’ve surrounded yourself in the startup world and in the entrepreneurship world for a very long time, whether it was helping students start their businesses or literally building and starting departments on campuses. What are a few of the entrepreneurial traits that you think are important for educators and students to live out and carry forward each day?

Robert Audet
This almost sounds like one of my, it’s a different question, but I love the question, but I’ll spin it back a little bit. I’ll spin it back to a question I got when I was doing the interview for this position. I was asked, what are your number three traits that you’re looking for in an employee? And I remember saying, initiative, initiative, and initiative. And they’re all going, well, that’s one. I’m like, yes yes now let me explain right so so initiative is you know if you know something needs to get done get it done or find the right people to get it done or build the relationships that will get you there sometimes people try to take shortcuts though they try to get it done quickly and sure it gets you a quick result but if you time take the time to build the relationships around it not only will you get. But if you take the time to build the relationships around it, not only will you get it done, but you will get it done with buy-in. You will get it done with people that are wanting to see you succeed as much as they wanna succeed, because usually you help them succeed. If you’re entrepreneurial, I’ve had a few small businesses in my early career as well. If you wanna succeed, you only succeed by helping others succeed at whatever your services are. So in education, we’re helping people create careers. They come back and support the college as with the foundation or even just come in and do a presentation, support our students, take a co-op for our students, employ one of our students that’s just graduated. So you should never take a shortcut. It goes back to building those relationships, getting buy-in and building that respect.

Robert Audet
I have no doubt in my mind that if I ever in need of something, I can pick up the phone and call one of my many friends that I’ve made over the years and say, you know, do you have a contact that could help me with that? And we’ll find a solution. The one thing I have used in my entire career, well, I shouldn’t say my entire career, but after I heard it, which is probably close to 30 years ago, is, I don’t know who the author was, but it’s a statement that says, there’s no such thing as a problem, only opportunities to find solutions. You know, that inspires me every time I hear it, even though I’ve known it for like probably close to 30 years.

Robert Audet
Because if you go in with that mindset, you’re not just stopping at, I did my task today. You’re looking at how else can we make this better? You’re looking at who can I bring make this better? You’re looking at who can I bring in that will develop this with me? How can I surround myself with people that are smarter than me, that are better than me in so many skills, especially as I get older? I’m like, you know, you asked me what’s different and I said nothing. Well, that’s not true. I’ll tell you, technology is different. We just had a session on AI and then a session on academic integrity and how AI can impact it, etc. to help our faculty understand all the changes that are happening. And you know, am I the best person to actually offer that session? No, but I surround myself with people that have that high knowledge of AI, right? So it’s really about creating all those connections and always trying, if you’re entrepreneurial, stay a step ahead of the game. Wake up before everybody else, start your work before everybody else, try to know what’s coming ahead at you so you’re not surprised. And you’re likely finishing your day later than most people do. And as you get older, I guess harder.

Sam Demma
I’m taking a big theme away from all that around preparation, you know, preparing, taking initiative. I had a conversation with my uncle about, you know, how do you identify talent? And, and, um, the word for initiative he used was hungry, you know, same, same idea, like you go and get the work done. And he said, hungry, humble and smart. And the humble piece is also huge, you know, just reminding ourselves that we still have learning to do. We we are always students of the of the craft we’re working towards. And I think it’s just such an important reminder. There’s been moments in my life where I’ve really burned the midnight oil and read all the books. And then moments where I stopped reading as many books as I used to. And, and I catch myself every once in a while, why, why did I stop? You know, why did I, why did I get out of the game? You know, and, um, it’s, it’s, it’s really cool to hear about your passion for education.

Robert Audet
It’s not just about the books. The books are important, don’t get me wrong. There’s ways to fast track them nowadays too. Compared to the good old days when you read every word. I think for me, I’ve learned I learned more from everybody I meet, which is why I was looking so much forward to this interview, right. Then having a chat with you, because it doesn’t matter who you’re meeting with. If you’re actually taking the time to, to sit in and be present in that moment, you’re going to learn something every time. And I don’t care how old you are, how young you are. When sometimes people tell us stuff and we’re not ready to hear it or we’re not ready to absorb it and it comes back to us later and that’s okay but that and I guess that goes back to when I was saying you take every student to where they are and bring them that extra level right so sometimes it could be taken a student that is you know just barely surviving and you bring him up to you know oh I pass all my courses and they’re celebrating and they’re happy with that. And then you see them again two, three years down the road, now they’ve learned how to learn and they’re actually able to take on bigger challenges. And sometimes it’s actually just trying to keep up with a student that is so brilliant. You can’t keep up with them, but you support them and you eliminate barriers for them to make sure that they can keep running as fast as they can because they’re just a shining star going through the world. And you do your best to support that, like even though you can’t keep up. And you know what, that makes me happy because that’s the future. If I can’t keep up on with some of our students, that’s, that’s, that’s awesome.

Sam Demma
The mark of a great leader is when their students surpass them in many ways, you know, that’s why you build people up and lead them. And I am so grateful for you taking the time just to be here today to share some of your ideas around education, some of the things that have stayed the same and things that have adjusted or changed over the years, the importance of collaboration in working with other partners in the community and other educational institutions to drive forward common goals. Your passion for education is very obvious, and I hope as long as you continue to work in it you feel the same way about it and after you finish I will look forward to watching your business unfold. forward to watching your business unfold.

Robert Audet
Absolute pleasure, thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Robert Audet

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

April 24, 2025 by Director of Education Education Student Leadership Student Success 0

Brandi Kelly – Superintendent at Mt. Olive School District

Brandi Kelly – Superintendent at Mt. Olive School District
About Brandi Kelly

Dr. Brandi Kelly is an accomplished author, speaker, podcaster, coach, and consultant with a passion for building thriving organizational culture. With over 20 years of experience, Dr. Kelly is dedicated to empowering leaders to inspire growth, create positive change, and cultivate environments where success thrives.

As a Superintendent, Dr. Kelly has received numerous accolades for her leadership, including the NAESP Distinguished Elementary School Principal Award and the Middle School Principal of the Year Award. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Maxwell Certified Coach. Recently, she was honored as a Marquis Who’s Who Honored Listee, a testament to her impact in education and leadership.

Dr. Kelly’s mission is simple yet powerful: to spark hope in every individual and organization she works with. By fostering strong leadership, creating supportive cultures, and encouraging hope-driven success, Dr. Kelly helps others reach their fullest potential.

Connect with Brandi Kelly: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Mt. Olive School District

Spark HOPE Edu LLC

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 a friend, a colleague, and a soon to be author. I’m so excited to read her book. Her name is Brandi Kelly. Brandi, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show here today.

Brandi Kelly
I’m honored to be here. Thank you, Sam, for having me.

Sam Demma
One of the highlights of my trip to Mount Olive was sitting and eating lunch with you. I loved hearing about your life story, some of your reflections on past experiences, and just some of the advice that you shared with me that day. Can you just for a moment explain to the audience who you are and why you got into education?

Brandi Kelly
Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ve been in education for over 20 years. I started out as a school social worker and then I became a principal and now I’m a superintendent. And you know, my story really began when I was 15 and my brother Brandon drowned. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and he and my baby brother were riding horses. And Brandon went into that creek on that rainy Saturday and he never came home. It was prom night for me. The next day was Mother’s Day and divers pulled his body out of the creek on Monday afternoon. It changed our family, as you can imagine, forever. And the good news is it didn’t end there. From that tragedy emerged goodness, and the goodness, really the community. The community rallied around our family. We had an amazing community and an even more amazing school community.

Brandi Kelly
Brandon was blessed to go to school with some pretty amazing people. He was that kid, right? As teachers, we’ve all had that kid. He was mischievous. He was a class clown.

Brandi Kelly
He was always getting into trouble, but he had a heart of gold. And his classmates really loved him. And they filled the basement of the church the day of his funeral. They honored him at graduation. They really exemplified what it means to be a community. And that tragedy not only bonded me to that community, but them to each other. And it was a powerful bond. And it’s one that they still share today.

Brandi Kelly
That’s why I got into education. I wanted to give back. I was always drawn to kids kind of like Bub. His nickname was Bub. And I wanted to help those kids. I wanted to help the communities and the families that experienced loss or tragedy or trauma. And so that’s why I became a school social worker, but then I wanted to do more. I felt like I could have a bigger impact. And so that led me into school administration. And so in a nutshell, Sam, that’s who I am.

Sam Demma
There are situations in life that define our path and the situation you went through could have taken your life down a totally different path, yet it’s been a source of hope and optimism now for others and inspiration for others and service for others. You talk about leading with hope on your podcast and it’s a big part of your work. Tell me more about where that idea came from and how you found hope in that challenging situation.

Brandi Kelly
Yeah, I think leading with hope really did come just from my mindset, you know, knowing that bad things happen all the time but we have a choice how we look at those circumstances. And I was the oldest child of three. My youngest brother was with Brandon when he drowned.

Brandi Kelly
And it was just recently that I saw on a television show, a broadcaster talking about post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. And the difference between the two is a choice to heal. There are people that experience that post-traumatic stress and they stay stuck in that. And some of that has to do with the way that affects our brain, but it shows on brain scans that if we have a more optimistic mindset, we choose to heal. And that directs us towards that post-traumatic growth. And as I said, it’s a choice. And I think that early on, I had a very optimistic outlook. That’s always kind of been in my DNA, who I am. And then through the choices I’ve made over time, it’s just strengthened that. And then my educational experiences, I didn’t stop at, you know, a bachelor’s or a master’s. I kept going.

Brandi Kelly
I love to learn. I think that has helped me as well. And I was turned on to really three key constructs, if you will, through my educational studies. One, of course, was Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. He talks about self-efficacy being a conviction that we can make a better way. We can improve the lives of ourselves and others. The other one was Dr. Rick Schneider’s hope theory. He talks about agency, willpower and waypower, pathways and goals, ways that we can make things better. And I really love that. And then finally, as a social worker, Castle’s SEL framework. So they talk about self-awareness and self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, social awareness, all of that in a nutshell kind of goes into Lead with Hope as we are building a system of self-efficacy through the habits that we choose, through an optimistic outlook, through that idea of purpose fueled by passion, but that requires perseverance as well. And then the outcome is excellence. Just that continual process of getting better day after day after day. And it’s just put everything that I know into a book and I am sharing with the world, which is a little bit anxiety provoking, I’m sure. But I’m sharing with the world, the stories, you know, personal stories about myself or my brother personal stories about my mom’s battle with cancer stories about students that I’ve helped and communities that I have been able to serve. And just the powerful sense of belonging that comes from the work that I get to do every day. And hopefully, I’m doing what everybody wants to do. I’m making a difference and helping others to be the best that they can be as well.

Sam Demma
It’s admirable and I’m very excited to read the book. If it’s an extension of our conversations, I know it’s gonna be absolutely amazing. When the book is released, do you know how people will be able to purchase it? I’m not sure exactly when it will be. So I wanna make sure that’s as a part of the episode.

Brandi Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. So it will be available on Amazon. And so once it’s released, if people are following my website, social media, that kind of thing, I’ve got a Lead with Hope Facebook page, and then I can also be found at www.sparkhopeedu.com.

Sam Demma
You mentioned there’ll be stories about you and your brother and also the students you’ve served and supported. When you think about the impact the work has created on the lives of young people, are there any students that come to mind that you think have been transformed during your time in education that may ignite a light in another educator listening to this to remember why

Sam Demma
their work in education is so important? And if it is a serious story, you can change the name if you need to.

Brandi Kelly
And I did in my book to just to protect their privacy. And I hope I don’t get emotional because when you were saying that, Sam, I kind of felt a little bit of emotion well up within me. But the student that I think of a lot is is a girl who I will call Reagan. rough background. Her mom was an addict. She was being raised by her grandmother and she really didn’t have, she didn’t have any hope. She kind of had lost her way. And I started counseling her. That was back when I was a school social worker. And when I first started working with Reagan, she was like, you know, I’ve talked to other counselors. This isn’t going to work. I’m not going to talk to you. You’re just wasting your time. And there’s power in just showing up, continually showing up. And she didn’t talk to me for the first couple of sessions, but I just kept showing up.

Brandi Kelly
And Sam, I don’t know why, but with that kid, maybe it was because she was around my daughter’s age at the time. I’m not sure. But with that kid, she, she was in a lot of rough spots. She went to a mental hospital. She went to a residential home. She was in a lot of different placements. I always made it a point to go visit her. And we are still in touch today. Fast forward about, oh, five to seven years. And this kiddo shows up in my office when I was still a counselor at Effingham Junior High School. And at first I didn’t know who she was. And I had to take a second look. And she came back to visit me. And you know, there’s nothing better than a kid. You know, you’ve made a difference in that kid’s life when that kid comes back, and they visit you. And they tell you about their life and what’s going on. And they just want to keep that connection with you. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about relationships. It’s about connection. And I’m just thankful that she’s been part of my story.

Sam Demma
I think about the difference you’ve made in her life. It’s impossible to measure. You know, I think the most important thing we can give any young person is our belief in them or belief in themselves and that changes every choice a young person makes. And it sounds like because of the time you spent showing up, it shifted the way she thought about herself for what was possible for her and then built a different life.

Brandi Kelly
No, I really hope that that is what happened for her. And watching her family on social media, that’s the one good thing about social media is I can follow as she has become a mother and a wife, and she’s doing some amazing things in the world. At that point in time, I had to hold hope for her, but now through her story, I believe she is holding hope for somebody else and serving, helping others reach their fullest potential too.

Sam Demma
It sounds like showing up is one of the ways to build a connection with a student, to show them that they matter and are appreciated and valued and that there is hope for them. How else do we as educators build connections with young people?

Brandi Kelly
Yeah, I talk about the trauma that class, they call themselves the 95ers now, how that trauma bonds them together. And I don’t know, when you think about walking through a funeral line, a visitation line, I mean, a lot of people feel very awkward and very uncomfortable with that. But part of my story as an educator has been really not only showing up, but also providing resources and support for the kids and the families who have gone through a significant loss. I was looking through some pictures this afternoon and one of those kiddos was at Ramsey grade school whenever I was a principal there. And it was a friend, a daughter of a friend of mine from high school. So it was doubly meaningful for me. But she lost her daughter, my friend lost her daughter. And she had two younger kids that were going to my school at that time. And I got a book for them just a book about what happens after you die. And I gave it to the kids, I sat down and I read with them. And one of those kids, she’s graduating from high school this year. She still talks about that.

Brandi Kelly
And she tells me how meaningful that was, that I took the time. And we don’t think that’s a big thing, Sam, but the time we give them, the resources we give them, tangible tokens that we give them can make a big difference in their life, especially when they’re suffering.

Sam Demma
And when it comes from somebody who they don’t expect to consistently show up, right? Not that we don’t expect our educators or teachers to show up, but sometimes we don’t expect them to go above and beyond outside of the class hours or outside of their professional responsibilities to make those things matter to them. I just think about some of the teachers who had a massive impact on me growing up, and they gave their time and they gave their presence when they could have placed it anywhere else. I think that’s really the biggest reason I looked up to some of the educators that had a difference in my life. It created a lot of hope for me. When you were growing up, can you think of educators that did the same for you?

Brandi Kelly
Yeah, yeah. And I write about this in my book. One of them is Mr. Kingery. He was my English teacher. And both of my parents dropped out of high school. Neither of them graduated from high school. So Mr. Kingery, whenever I was going through high school, I really didn’t think about what was after high school until probably my senior year. But of course, he did. He absolutely did. And so he fostered a love of words, a love of learning, a love of just researching and being a better human being. And for me, Mr. Kingery was that person that made going on to college seemed to be a possibility for me. And then interestingly enough, the one that solidified it for me, and I won’t mention a name for this one. It’s a positive story, but it kind of came about in a negative way. So when I was a senior in high school, my high school sweetheart, who is now my husband, proposed to me. And I got married very young. My husband and I got married very young. And this teacher told me, Brandi, if you get married, you will never make anything of yourself. Challenge accepted. Probably why I got my doctorate degree because that voice in the back of my mind and the love of learning, of course, but she really solidified my desire to continue and to make a difference. And so the two of them together, one positive, one more negative, have really solidified who I am and why I show up, because it’s important. It’s important to continue learning and growing and being the best that you can possibly be.

Sam Demma
I think it’s something we share. For me, I’ve recognized I feel the most at peace in pursuit of progress, whether it’s improving at a skill or working on my physical fitness or working toward a goal or a dream I have. And I’ve recognized that it’s not really about the destination. It’s not even so much the journey, but the person that I become in the process, because sometimes the journey is challenging and it sucks, and things aren’t working out the way you want it to,but just the fact that you’re on the path is changing you. And when you change yourself, people around you start to be impacted by it. There’s a speaker I absolutely love. He’s passed away now, but his name is Jim Rohn. And he says the best contribution you can make to a friendor a partner is your own personal development. Because if you improve yourself, you can bring so much more to a relationship, so much more to a conversation, so much more to an interaction with a student. And I had a friend in my house recentlywho was fixing a broken pipe underneath a sink in our basement. Some of my dad’s work buddies and I was handing him the wrench and was fixing the pipe. And he turned up, looked at me and said,did you know you can buy a book at the thrift store for 50 cents? I was like, yeah, Jim, I know. I love books. I bought many. He goes, I bought seven books this morning for $3 and 50 cents, Sam.

Sam Demma
It’s like the world’s information is right there. And I was like, well, soon you’ll be able to buy Brandi Kelly’s book too. So stay tuned. It’s coming out soon. But he just, he didn’t mean to, but in that moment, he just reminded me like, keep working on yourself, stay in the study. Continue being a student. And it had a profound impact on me.

Brandi Kelly
Yeah. And you talk about this in your, in your speeches, but it’s those small, consistent actions. And just the simple things in life make such a big difference. That pursuit of excellence is just that continual process of progress. And it is so, so important that we not only invest in ourselves, but we invest in others. And, you know, you asked me, how, how do you show up for kids? What has made the difference with kids? It’s been that it’s been those small, consistent actions. It’s been showing up. It’s been modeling kindness and optimism. The gold is in the small things that we do every single day.

Sam Demma
Brandi, I’m so excited for the book. I know you’re also helping and serving school districts with keynote speeches and cultural assessments. If anyone’s interested in the book or connecting with you and working with you, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Brandi Kelly
They can reach out to me on my website, www.sparkhopeedu.com, or they can find me on most social media platforms under Brandi Nash Kelly. And there is a Lead with Hope Facebook page as well.

Sam Demma
I’m so grateful to know you. I hope you continue doing the work you’re doing. I look forward to reading your book when it’s released, And I hope you enjoy the rest of this lovely February day. We got a lot of snow here in Canada. I’m not sure what it’s like out there, but enjoy it. And we’ll talk soon again.

Brandi Kelly
All right, Sam, I appreciate you as well. Keep serving and growing and leading. Keep serving and growing and leading.

Sam Demma
Thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Brandi 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.

April 23, 2025 by Author Coach Education Speaker Superintendent 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School/Middle School

Roselawn Elementary School

Barron County Restorative Justice

The Transcript

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

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

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

Janis Volker
Good morning, thank you for having me.

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

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

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

Sam Demma
What about psychology intrigued you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sam Demma
So I appreciate you sharing that.

Janis Volker
Yes, thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

Sam Demma
Awesome. Jan, just keep taking photos.

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

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

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

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

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

Janis Volker
Thanks, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Janis Volker

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

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

Russ Sommerfeldt – Principal at the Magrath Junior/Senior High School

Russ Sommerfeldt – Principal at the Magrath Junior/Senior High School
About Russ Sommerfeldt

Russ Sommerfeldt is a dedicated educational leader with over a decade of experience in K-12 education. He is currently the principal of Magrath Junior/Senior High School, a role he has held for 3.5 years, where he oversees a student population of 430 students from grades 7-12. Russ has a strong background in educational leadership, having previously served as Vice Principal and Athletic Director at the same school.

In addition to his administrative roles, Russ has been actively involved in athletics. He served as the assistant coach for the Senior Varsity Zeniths basketball team, helping lead them to back-to-back zone championships in 2017 and 2018. His dedication to coaching and mentoring students instilled teamwork, discipline, and resilience in the athletes he worked with.

Throughout his career, Russ has demonstrated a passion for teaching and integrating technology into classrooms. He holds a Master of Education degree from Walden University, where he focused on the effective integration of technology in K-12 education. He also earned a Bachelor of Education/Bachelor of Management from the University of Lethbridge.

Russ has taught a variety of subjects, including social studies, science, and robotics. His interest in emerging technologies and their potential to enhance learning drives his approach to education. As a principal, Russ is committed to fostering a positive learning environment, supporting student success, and helping his staff grow as educators. He is also a devoted family man, finding joy in outdoor adventures with his wife and five children.

Connect with Russ Sommerfeldt: Email

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Magrath Junior/Senior High School

Walden University

University of Lethbridge

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 Russ Sommerfeld. Russ is the principal of McGrath High School. We met a few months ago. I was telling him about a marathon that I was going to be running in October, and we have since ran the marathon.

Sam Demma
I’m still alive. The legs are still moving. He gave me some great advice because he’s run a few of them with his brother, from what I remember from our previous conversation. He’s passionate about education, passionate about athletics.

Sam Demma
Russ, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show here today.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Hey Sam, I really appreciate it, it’s an honor.

Sam Demma
Tell us a little bit about how you got involved in education.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, so I actually, my father was an educator, so I followed in his footsteps. He started out as just an ordinary classroom teacher. He went on to become a guidance counselor. And then from there, worked his way into administration as a vice principal, and then eventually

Russ Sommerfeldt
as he ended his career as a superintendent. And so I’ve always looked up to my father. He’s been a role model in my life and he definitely inspired me to go into this field of work and showed me how rewarding it can be to help kids and to help them succeed.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And one of the greatest things he ever taught me was the greatest gift that you can give a kid is confidence and building their confidence. And so I’ve tried to keep that as a motto and remember that throughout my career thus far. Because I think it is key, the world in so many ways tries to pull people down and diminish who they are and what they can do. And we play an important role as educators to help kids believe in themselves and inspire them to think that, you know what, despite all that noise out there in the world, they really can do great things.

Sam Demma
My teacher, Mr. Loudfoot, gave me belief in myself and I still think it’s one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me as a student in this classroom. Now I also was given that gift from my parents, but I more so expected my parents to give it to me and when the teacher was just as certain that I should believe in myself as my own parents were it just, it took my belief in myself to a whole another level because I expected it from them,

Sam Demma
but didn’t really expect it from him. So I couldn’t agree more as a young person who’s closely removed from school and can still reflect on that experience pretty clearly. I think you’re so right. Did your dad also run marathons or are you and your brother the two athletic beasts in the family?

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, you know, my dad isn’t necessarily a runner. My brother was the one that got into it and then he inspired me. It was actually just coming off of COVID, tail end of COVID. I happen to be visiting him. He lives down in Arizona and he said, you know what, I’m running this marathon, why don’t you start training? You got time, we’ve got six months till this thing happens. And so he says, there’s this app you can download and we can communicate, you know, you’re in Alberta, Canada, I’m in Phoenix, Arizona, and we can train together. And so I thought, oh, that does not sound like fun at all. But there was something about that conversation that day that kept coming back to me.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And so I did, I said, let’s do it. And the rest is history, I guess, in terms of me becoming a runner. Because I was not a distance runner in school growing up. Track and field, I would do the 100 meter and nothing longer. So I didn’t ever see myself as a distance runner, but now I would say that I am, and I really enjoy it.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Especially with a leadership position at the school, and I think all leaders could say the same thing. There’s a lot of things that happen in a day. There’s a lot of stresses and a lot of things on your mind and it’s a great outlet to let go of some of those things and to really take care of yourself for your own wellness.

Sam Demma
When you think about your journey through education, sounds like you were inspired by your dad and loved the idea of making a positive contribution in the lives of young kids. What was your first role? And take us through that journey that brought you to McGrath today.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, so it’s funny enough, but when I went through university, my last teaching internship before I became a full-fledged teacher was actually at McGrath High School. Oh, no way.

Russ Sommerfeldt
I just had an awesome experience. I loved the school so much. And so basically, after I graduated, they didn’t have a position right at that very moment, but I went and taught at the high school I attended when I was in high school for a semester, and I enjoyed every minute of that, but the teacher that I was filling in for was coming back. And then later on, six months later, four months later, they had an opening at McGrath and I was like, you gotta be kidding me, this is awesome. Like I can go back to the place that I love. And so I started out teaching social studies, science, and I started out as a classroom teacher here. Loved every minute of it. Got involved with athletics through coaching, predominantly coached some basketball. Started off at the grade eight level in junior high. Just tried to figure out where can I help out because a school does not run without a lot of volunteer hours from teachers and community members. And so I got to know a lot of people through that process. It’s also interesting how you get to know kids outside of the classroom too.

Russ Sommerfeldt
When you go on maybe a trip with them or at a practice, that influence that you can have have goes much deeper when you see them, and when they see you in a different light as well, not just someone talking at the front of a classroom or trying to teach them something, but the relationship that’s forged is way deeper when you can work with them in a few different ways. And so yeah, I mean, I fell in love with McGrath and then eventually some things opened up in terms of people retire and so on and so forth. And there was other opportunities that presented themselves as well at the school.

Sam Demma
When you think about folks who have helped you in your professional development as an educator, I mean, it does again sound like your dad played a really big role, but is there anyone else that’s top of mind that you think this person really changed the way I thought about certain things?

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, there’s lots of people. And I feel like we live in a great… I feel like I live in a great area of Alberta where there’s a lot of really good educators. And so just the people that I would brush shoulders with in my…we used to call them a professional learning community. And we would meet every quarter or so, and just rubbing elbows with those teachers who were veteran teachers that would show me, hey, have you ever tried this? Or what about this? And those people really shaped the way I thought. On a professional level, like some of the books that I’ve read, I would say Todd Whitaker, his work is incredible, What Great Teachers Do Differently. His work really resonates with me a lot. And he actually came to our school division to start the year off this year, so we heard him speak to us in person, which was great. So I think his work’s been instrumental in kind of my thought process and some of the things that I’ve implemented in my own practices. Throughout my master’s I read a few books by a guy named Will Richardson who he was he’s a very innovative thinker. He talks a lot about how the traditional model of school is broken and how we need to change it and so that having that in my mind has has made me take some risks and try new things and try to figure out how we can better prepare these kids for the future because essentially the school system has been the same since the industrial era, right? It’s almost like the factory model of we’re mass producing kids, you know, and it doesn’t necessarily work.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And so we have to be creative in our thinking and in the way we do things in education now.

Sam Demma
When you think of students within the schools you’ve served, is there any that come to mind that were really struggling and over a period of time made some significant improvements in their own self-confidence? And if it’s a serious story, you could definitely change their name. The reason I bring it up is because a lot of educators don’t get physically thanked by the students themselves because maybe they don’t have the confidence to even walk up to the teacher and tell them how big of a difference they’ve made in their confidence, or they realize it 10 years after they graduate and have no way of getting back in touch with that individual. And so there’s an educator definitely listening to this right now who may be doubting the impact they’re creating and hearing about a story of how education or a teacher or even yourself had impacted a student might remind them what’s possible.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, and I probably don’t have any monumental stories right off the top of my head, but I’m reminded of one even this year. I had a student come into my office, has since graduated, and this particular student didn’t really like to attend school all that much. Attitude-wise, they were kind of, eh, I don’t know if school is important. But when they came back to my office this year, at the start of the school year, as a 23 or 24-year-old person that’s in university, they had a huge smile on their face, a whole bunch of energy around what they were doing. And they were currently in university, and they thanked me. And I was like, well, I don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary other than being here every day. But I think the impact that we have on kids is way more than we know.

Russ Sommerfeldt
Even if it’s nothing specific that we did, it’s just believing in them each and every day and never giving up on them. And so, yeah, that comes to mind as one. But there’s a lot of kids out there, too, that, you know, some, they don’t have the support at home necessarily. And so they come, they walk through the doors here at school and the adults here are really the only champion that they have or so that they feel. And I’m sure that their parents are rooting for them as much as they can, but whatever, for whatever reason, the relationship isn’t quite what they would like it to be. And so we play a huge role that way too, just to, you know, listen to kids, be there for them and keep cheerleading.

Sam Demma
I think it’s so important too. There’s some situations where kids are coming to school looking specifically for learning and connections with other kids. And there’s other kids who are coming to school looking for a safe space and looking for food to eat and looking for a totally different set of needs than what other young people might be looking for. And it’s important to recognize that every kid is carrying a different backpack, that they all have different, they all have those different challenges.

Sam Demma
I think that education is one of the most important ways to shape the future, and you’re doing amazing work, and everyone at McGrath is as well, but it comes with its own set of challenges also. What do you think some of the challenges are in education these days?

Sam Demma
Well, I think I’ve noticed that student engagement is a really tough thing.

Russ Sommerfeldt
You know, kids, when they go home, they can learn what they want to learn instantaneously on YouTube or on TikTok. And it is so engaging that when they come to school and maybe the method or the model of that learning is different, it’s hard for them to really engage with what it is. And so I think just helping kids understand the value of what they’re learning and trying to make it applicable to their real life, because honestly, as a part, like with the work that Will Richardson did that I referenced a little bit earlier, a lot of people just learn on demand now. It’s not that they feel like they have to read a whole textbook to learn. No, they can, you can get specific and really good information on specific things that you’re interested in. So I think just helping kids see the importance of what we do here every day. And even when it’s not so engaging or interesting, I think the bigger lesson is learning how to stick to something, even when it’s really hard. Similar to what probably you learned and what I learned through this process of training for a marathon. There’s days when you think, man, this is tough, this is hard, why am I doing this?

Russ Sommerfeldt
And as you stick to that process, the end result is beautiful. And I think a lot of times kids won’t see that until after they’re gone. And that’s why we don’t always see the impact that we have as educators.

Sam Demma
And there’s also opportunities. Like there’s definitely challenges and I think being aware of them is important so we can think about ways to shift certain things, which it sounds like you are, which is amazing. What do you think some of the opportunities are each day in the school system right now? Oh, there’s so many.

Russ Sommerfeldt
I think that a school is kind of a mini society, so to speak, or a mini community. And so, you know, we have a really excellent extracurricular program, athletics program, and on any given night almost at our school, because we’re a seven through 12, we have 10 athletic teams that are playing, whether they’re playing here or elsewhere. But here in the school specifically, there’s a lot of opportunities for kids to get involved and to learn real life skills. So some of them, I know we have an entrepreneur class where kids are making yogurt, frozen yogurt for the game.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And then we sell them at the game to help support these programs that we offer. So they’re actually learning that skill. They could also come work in the concession where they’re taking people’s orders, communicating with them that way, giving that information to the people in prep and getting food out the door so that people can watch the game. We also try to make it a kind of a big production.

Russ Sommerfeldt
So I got kids that are working with our streaming and they’re learning the tech side of things. They’re learning how to do instant replays of a whole broadcast thing and that type of thing. from the behind the scenes stuff of people getting, you know, when we run a tournament, they’re building these, we call them either swag bags or a little care package for each of the players that come. So it’s pretty cool to see all the goings-ons in the building, and that’s just one example. Like, we have the same thing with drama and band and fine arts, where kids can get involved and do a lot of good that’s not academic necessarily, but as a hidden curriculum, it’s very valuable.

Sam Demma
When you think of your community, your mini society of this school, is there anything that you think is very unique or that your school does that may be very unique from other schools? And maybe you don’t even think it’s unique, but for a school in a different province, it could totally be something they’ve never tried or done before.

Sam Demma
Does anything come to mind that you think would be worth sharing?

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, you bet. So we’re unique in the sense that we have kindergarten through grade 12 basically under the same roof. Wow. The elementary school, so K to six, is in its own part of the building.

Russ Sommerfeldt
It has its own administration, it’s its own school, so it’s run separately. And then over in my end, we have seven through 12. But from the moment these kids enter kindergarten, because of the proximity and because we’re such a small community and people know each other so well, they feel a part of the high school. They feel a part of this mini society right from the get go. Specifically with the extracurricular activities because the kindergarten kids, the grade one kids, they get read to by the senior varsity basketball players on occasion. They’re invited to our pep rallies. So they learn the cheers, they’re wearing their blue and gold, they’re decked out. We’ve even had alumni make trading cards of the kids and these little kids will be getting autographs of these players after the game. So it’s unique in a sense that high school sports is much bigger in a really small town than maybe even some of the larger centers because everybody in the whole community is behind it. And it’s really cool. At any one of our games, there may be a thousand people at these games.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And I’ve been to other high schools across the province and even in other provinces, and the crowds just aren’t that big. You’ll get the parents and maybe some family members, but people that aren’t even related to a single player on the court, they’re here because it’s the main event. There’s nothing else going on in the town, so they come, they support. And so in that sense, I think we’re unique, that the school community is basically the hub of the entire town.

Russ Sommerfeldt
And we do a lot of things here at school that spill over into other aspects of the community, which is really cool.

Sam Demma
More rural schools, more rural schools. That’s cool. I love that. Did you grow up in the same area as the school? Or are you from elsewhere?

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, so I grew up in Carsten, which is about 30 minutes southwest of here, very similar culture, where small town and community involvement’s key. And so, yeah, it feels like home, even though it’s half hour away, right? So it’s very similar.

Sam Demma
A lot of other schools struggle to engage their parent communities. It sounds like the parents of these kids show up for things. Aside from the fact that there may be nothing else going on, do you think there’s other things that contribute to people in the community getting really involved in their kids’ school activities?

Russ Sommerfeldt
You know, I think a big part of it is building that relationship with parents and just asking them. I think we forget sometimes that people are willing if they are clear on what it is that is needed. And so figuring out a system and just turning it over sometimes to the parents. And you got to be a little bit careful, but with some planning and with some preparation, they can do a lot better job than I ever could. So I’m the type of leader who wants to engage and bring in as many other people as possible because me, myself could do it one way, but there’s a lot of other people that have lots of great ideas, probably much better than mine. And so I like to bring all those ideas to the table to make it the best possible experience for kids.

Sam Demma
And we only have two hands too, right? So every person brings two more and a brain. So you put it all together, you can move mountains and do some cool stuff. This has been a lovely conversation, the time’s flown by. I just wanna say thank you so much for investing the time into the show to talk a little bit about your educational journey and some of your beliefs around education. If there’s an educator listening to this and wants to reach out to you or get your training plan for running their first marathon, what would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Russ Sommerfeldt
Yeah, definitely send me an email. Russ.Sommerfeld at westwind.ab.ca. I’m sure you can link that into the notes. I won’t give my cell phone number out over a podcast, but my email for sure, or our school website, mcgrathhigh.ca, and they can find me there as well. Happy to talk to anybody who’s interested.

Sam Demma
Awesome, Russ, thank you so much for taking the time. Keep running, keep up the great work, and we’ll talk to you soon. and we’ll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks a bunch.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Russ Sommerfeldt

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

March 6, 2025 by Athletic Director Education Principals School Administration Student Leadership Student Success 0

Todd Nesloney – Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association (TEPSA)

Todd Nesloney – Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association (TEPSA)
About Todd Nesloney

Todd Nesloney is the Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association (TEPSA). He has also served as an award-winning principal of a PreK-5th Grade campus of over 775 students in a rural town in Texas. He has been recognized by the White House, John C Maxwell, the Center for Digital Education, National School Board Association, the BAMMYS, and more for his work in education and with children. Todd has written six books, including the runaway smash Kids Deserve It and his newest book Building Authenticity: A Blueprint for the Leader Inside You. He is passionate about doing whatever it takes for our students and teachers and helping others tell their story

Connect with Todd Nesloney: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

TEPSA
Kids Deserve It
Building Authenticity: A Blueprint for the Leader Inside You

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 Todd Nesloney. Todd is author to six books. He is a culture fanatic. He seems to be a superstar fan with the sweater he’s wearing in this interview. Yeah, all right, Star Wars fan, I should say.

Sam Demma
And although we’ve only known each other for a few minutes, has so much positive energy. Todd, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Todd Nesloney
Hey man, I’m super excited to be here and to get to chat today. So thank you for asking me to be here.

Sam Demma
Why teaching? Why education? Tell me more about your passion for creating the next generation of young leaders and principals and teachers.

Todd Nesloney
You know, I love when I get asked this question because I get to kind of reflect on my own path and know that, you know, my experience in school was one where I wasn’t really in trouble because I knew my mama would come up to that school and handle me. So I wasn’t ever going to get in trouble for any kind of reason. I had good grades. I did what I needed to do. And so because of that, I kind of like blended in really easily with the rest of the students.

Todd Nesloney
And so I don’t remember any of my teachers from school, not for good or for bad. I didn’t have any terrible teachers, but I don’t remember any teachers that really ever saw me. And so throughout school, when I was like, what do I want to do with my life?

Todd Nesloney
I was like, I want to work with kids in some capacity. I want to work with kids where when they leave me and working with me, they at least feel seen. And so I thought it was gonna be social work until I learned very quickly, I cannot disconnect myself emotionally

Todd Nesloney
from that kind of work, so it’s not for me. And I was like, teaching, I have several people in my family who are teachers, I can impact kids that way. And so I became a teacher, fell in love with it, never thought I would do anything outside the classroom. And then this opportunity to go and get your masters

Todd Nesloney
while you’re teaching came up and my co-teachers and I were like, let’s all do it together. It’s all virtual, we can work together and we did that. And then from there on, it just led to opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. And I’m the kind of person where if I’m feeling challenged

Todd Nesloney
by something, I wanna pursue it. And so I was like, well, you know what, I’m feeling really good right now in teaching. I feel like I’ve got a really good flow. I’m not really being as challenged as I have been in the past.

Todd Nesloney
Let me jump into this and try this. That looks fun and challenging. And so that led to me being a principal, which led to me speaking and presenting and consulting and also now with my to work at the Texas Elementary Principal Association.

Sam Demma
It sounds like needing to have a challenge is a consistent theme in your life. We just talked about it before we hit the record button regarding some of the books you’ve written and how those were big challenges and you never imagined you’d write the book and maybe that’s the reason why you did the first one and what a gift to the world. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your books that are relevant in education?

Sam Demma
Kids Deserve It, of course, we can start there maybe and then a few of your other projects.

Todd Nesloney
Yeah, you know, Kids Deserve It was crazy. I will never forget sitting around the table with my co-author at the time and hearing him. We were talking about like, let’s write something together. We were writing blog posts, it was really easy. And the phrase, Kids Deserve It,

Todd Nesloney
came up in the conversation. And we were like, hey, that’s a pretty cool phrase. And like, we could really run with that with a lot of these ideas that we have. And so the book was born from that and it took off far more than we were anticipating. Like I

Todd Nesloney
was like 12 copies this next year, that’s my goal. Like if I can sell 12, success! And then it just created this entire community, this movement, and when I wrote it I was like I’m done. Like I put everything into there, I will never write another book, that was so much work, my whole heart is on the page. And then, because I also don’t want to put something out into the world that there are so many versions of already. Like, I like to feel like I’m trailblazing or trying something new or pushing the boundaries, which is part of our tagline in Kids Deserve It.

Todd Nesloney
And so when my publisher kept saying, you’ve got more ideas, you’ve got more ideas, I was like, yeah, but I don’t have like a unique hook right now or anything. And that’s where the next book was born, which out of all my books, it is probably the one I’m proudest of. And that’s just because it’s called Stories from Web,

Todd Nesloney
because I worked at Web Elementary. And when I wrote my second book, it’s written very similarly to Kids Deserve It, except I utilized some advice one of my mentors gave me. His name’s Jimmy Casas, one of the most incredible speakers and authors in the world.

Todd Nesloney
And he said, Todd, I want you to remember that no matter how big of a microphone you are given, I want you to continue to amplify others louder than you amplify yourself. And that has always really stuck with me. And so when I was writing the second book, I was like, I only want to write this because I’m working with the most incredible people on the planet. Like these teachers at the school that I’m at,

Todd Nesloney
they’re doing amazing things and nobody knows because they’re not on social media or they’re not out there speaking. They’re like just nose to the grindstone, getting it done. And so I said, if I’m going to write a book, I want to feature their stories throughout it.

Todd Nesloney
So every chapter features stories from the custodians, to the teachers, to the instructional aides, to the assistant superintendent, just a reminder that everybody’s voice matters and every story matters. And then from there it led to a book about literacy because I started to fall in love with that, then to a book about student leadership, and then during the pandemic I got to write a book

Todd Nesloney
just filled of hope and inspiration. My first book, not for educators, just for anybody, that anybody can pick up and just get a dose of art and words on the page to inspire them. And then my newest book is all about leadership and how every one of us is a leader, whether you are leading at work, at home, or in your friendship circles, just with strategies on how to do that and do it well.

Sam Demma
When do you sleep, Todd?

Todd Nesloney
Great question. Now I don’t sleep at all because we’ve got three-and-a-half-year-old twins. But, you know, it’s funny because I get asked that a lot, like, how do I do all the things that I do? And I am very protective of my personal time as well. So I have really, my wife and I have communicated a lot

Todd Nesloney
about what is non-negotiable family time or any kind of those kind of things. But what I, this is where my ADHD becomes a superpower instead of a detriment, is that when I get super focused on something or attached to something, I can knock it out much quicker than when I’m distracted

Todd Nesloney
by a thousand things. So when I’m writing, it’s like when that inspiration hits me, I gotta shut the world out, give me two and a half hours, and I can get like 30 pages done. And so, and then when the inspiration’s gone, I’m like, well, I’ll be back in a week or two.

Todd Nesloney
Hopefully it’ll hit me again and then I can continue the work. Um, I I’m so jealous of like those authors who like locked themselves in a cabin for a week and come out with a book. I’m like, nah, I could never.

Sam Demma
You mentioned Webb, the school and the amazing staff. It sounds like the culture in that building is phenomenal. You’re someone who talks about culture, consults on culture, lives it, breathes it, and it’s a word that’s used so often in schools. How do you describe culture

Sam Demma
and how do you think you build a meaningful culture in an educational institution? You know, I think this came,

Todd Nesloney
this started with my classroom experience, coming from that idea of, I never want a student to leave my classroom and not have at some point had their core need met, which was, at the core of each of us is we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard, and we want to feel valued. And so my goal always is with interactions that I have with people, especially for an

Todd Nesloney
extended amount of time when I’m working with them or living life with them, I want to make sure that the things that I’m putting in place to connect with them is meeting one of those needs. Am I helping them feel seen? Am I helping them feel heard? Or am I helping them feel valued? Because if not, it’s just like icing on a cupcake. It’s just like it washes away. It’s sweet. It’s gone. Whatever. And so in

Todd Nesloney
the classroom that was so important. So when I became a principal, I was actually hired as part of my job was to fix the culture of the school. Because they had a 50% turnover every year. Scores were in the trash. And it was a lot of it was just the culture. Teachers didn’t believe in themselves, they didn’t believe in each other, and they didn’t believe in the kids because they’d been broken by the system. And so I was like, you know what? This is my new classroom. These are my new students. And so it’s always been

Todd Nesloney
such a passion of mine because I’m such a heart guy. And so when I work with people now, whether it’s in the corporate world, whether it’s in the education world, or even in a classroom experience, it still goes back to those three core needs.

Todd Nesloney
And my thing is, is like, you can do a lot of nice stuff. I’m from Texas, in the South, we have this phrase of you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. And you know, it’s kind of that idea of you can do nice things, but if you are still a jerk, your nice things make no difference. And so when I work with administrators, one of the examples that I use is I saw something go viral a few years ago. Fantastic idea.

Todd Nesloney
I did it. And it was the snack cart where they put all these snacks and drinks on a cart and they roll it down the hall and they’ll knock on a door and say, hey, we got some snacks and drinks for you. And I tell people, we as teachers, we love two things, free stuff and spending somebody else’s money. Like those are our top two things.

Todd Nesloney
And so I’m like, you bringing the snack cart, that’s not a bad thing at all. People will open their door, they’ll be excited about a free chips or a free drink. It’s not gonna change the way they feel about you because if I had a terrible supervisor

Todd Nesloney
and they brought me free chips, I’m still going to take your chips. I’m not going to like you anymore, but I’m still going to take your free stuff. And so I said, you know, that cart in and of itself does not impact culture. It’s not a bad thing. I’m not telling you not to do it. Everybody loves free stuff. But what I’m telling you is a cart full of random snacks and drinks does not make anybody feel seen, does not make anybody feel valued, or does not make anybody feel heard.

Todd Nesloney
The way you level up that idea is, one of the things we did on our campus was at the beginning of every year, I would send out a survey to my staff that said things like, who’s your emergency contact, t-shirt size, all that stuff we collect. But also, what’s your favorite salty snack?

Todd Nesloney
What’s your favorite sweet snack? What’s your favorite, if we had a local coffee shop, coffee from this coffee shop? If you’re gonna get a snack at a fast food restaurant, what restaurant are you gonna go to and what are you gonna get?

Todd Nesloney
And then we have something down here in the South that’s real big with teachers, and that’s called Sonic. That Sonic drink stop, I don’t know what it is about that Root 44 Diet Coke light ice with one squeeze of lime, but it’s like Oprah showed up at their classroom with a free car. Like it made people like break down in tears.

Todd Nesloney
And so we always had asked, what’s your favorite Sonic drink? So what we started doing on our campus was, instead of just bringing a random assortments of snacks and drinks, I would go to Sonic or to the store or whatever and grab that person’s favorite drink. So when I showed up at their door I’m like, hey I know it’s been

Todd Nesloney
rough this week, I can tell, I’ve heard it, I see it, I wanted to go and get you your drink at Sonic today and just tell you I hope your day gets better. And in that moment it has nothing to do with the drink and that’s what I try to help people see. It’s not about giving people free stuff because in that moment for the person that’s receiving their favorite drink, all that’s going through their head is, really, you thought of me uninitiated,

Todd Nesloney
and not only did you think of me, but you remembered something I shared with you about myself and brought something specific for me. That’s where you start to change culture slowly, is when people can see that you are invested in them, not invested in the whole.

Todd Nesloney
Because when you’re invested only in the whole, people go, oh, so if I don’t show up, nothing really changes because nobody even noticed I wasn’t here. And that’s how you get people who start to not work as hard,

Todd Nesloney
who start to take days off for no reason, who start to look for jobs elsewhere. My campus that I worked on, we could not offer the salary that districts 20 miles up the road from us could offer. We could not offer some of the resources.

Todd Nesloney
But when I hired people, I told them, what I can offer you is a place where I will work every day to fulfill all those needs you have as a classroom teacher and celebrate you and build you up and give you the resources. We’re not perfect. Nobody is. But I can promise you that we work hard to invest in our people here.

Todd Nesloney
And that was kind of one of the selling points. And so when I work with people in all kinds of leadership positions, and if you’re a classroom teacher listening, you are in a leadership position. So don’t think you aren’t, just because you don’t get paid, when some of those leaders up top get paid. People are still watching you, ears are still listening to you,

Todd Nesloney
you’re still leading, whether you want to or not. And so it’s all about how are you making others feel seen, valued and heard.

Sam Demma
Can you think of an experience where someone made you feel seen, valued and heard? And maybe you are not expecting it. And the reason I bring it up is because sometimes what seems insignificant to us can mean the absolute world to another human being because we have no idea what someone else is going through. In the context of a school, sometimes we do know if someone’s having a rough week, but sometimes the moments that have the greatest impact is when we have no idea

Sam Demma
that someone else is struggling and we go out of our way to try and make them feel seen and heard. And it could be something they remember for the rest of their lives. And I’m just curious, have you had a moment like that in your life that’s inspired you to do more of this work?

Todd Nesloney
You know, I can think of little things along the way. Something that’s always meant a lot to me is just the acknowledgement of my presence. I think sometimes when you spend a lot of time pouring into others, you also spend a lot of time trying not to be the focus of the moment or the space. And my personality, I’m super, super introverted. And people don’t believe that because they see me present, do all this other stuff, and I’m like,

Todd Nesloney
no, that’s the extrovert time, and then it’s gone. And then I need quiet time in the car or whatever. So when I enter spaces, I often shrink myself because it’s like I’m uncomfortable, I am just trying to pour into others, I’m not focusing on me, and so it’s very easy for me

Todd Nesloney
to leave some of those spaces and not feel like anybody even noticed I was there if I wasn’t trying to be the focus. But at the same time, one of the things I talk about in a lot of my messages is the power of a phone call. And how it’s a completely free resource that you have, but how we were doing it with our students. And then I realized, oh, my gosh, if things weren’t great for students, they will work great for the adults, too.

Todd Nesloney
And so I started this positive phone call thing with the adults on our campus. And my assistant principal was one of my first ones that I did. I called home to his mom with him there on speakerphone, celebrated him in front of his mom. He said it was the coolest experience just to have somebody you that’s in your life celebrate you in front of somebody that you love so much.

Todd Nesloney
And he’s like, as adults, people don’t do that. Like that’s a kid thing. And he said, I’ve never felt that emotion before. And so I talk about that in my messages about how I think all of us anytime we enter a space with more than three or four people we should pull out our phone and be like oh my god Julie you are freaking amazing who can I call right now to celebrate you in front

Todd Nesloney
of and I said people are gonna say oh you don’t have to do that and we trained our staff to be like no that’s what we do here let us love you and it takes a minute to two minutes of the time. So I was sharing about that at a presentation. Afterwards, I finished, everybody went and did their thing. I was talking to some people afterwards, and this gentleman came up and he was like, I really loved what you had to share about that phone call. He said, I want to do that for you now.

Todd Nesloney
Who can I call? And I was like, um, no, no, no, no. Like I talk about this. Like you don’t have to do this for me. Like no. And he was like, no, what do we say Todd?

Todd Nesloney
Let us love you. And I was like, and I got so uncomfortable. I was like, oh my God, like I talk about this, but I didn’t want people to do it to me. Like what, what the heck? This is where my introvertness like takes over. And I like, oh my God.

Todd Nesloney
And so I was like, I don’t know, I guess my wife. And so he was like, okay, call her up, put her on speakerphone. And so in the midst of this foyer, of this space, where all these people are coming and going, I call my wife and she’s like, hello.

Todd Nesloney
And I was like, you are on speakerphone, I am fine. I was like, because she knew I was at work, she’s like, what’s going on? And I was like, hey, somebody wanted to talk to you real quick. She’s like, okay, and he takes the phone and he was like, Hey, I just gotta say your husband just spoke to us. It was

Todd Nesloney
incredible. You are you’re so lucky to get to have him and we’re so thankful that you shared him with like all the stuff that I share, like how we did the phone calls. And I got so emotional in the moment, feeling that reciprocated what I had talked about doing for others and what we had done for years at our school. And as soon as we were done, I was just like, I didn’t know what to say. Like, I was like, thank you, that really meant a lot. And this was like, probably years ago. And I still think about it at least once a week. And anytime I talk about this, I had spent so much time pouring this idea into others and sharing that it not had always been reciprocated for me, which I wasn’t time pouring this idea into others and sharing that it not

Todd Nesloney
had always been reciprocated for me, which I wasn’t asking it to be. And so I don’t want that to be part of the story. But when it had been done, and I experienced it as well, unexpectedly, like not part of a, oh, yeah, this is Tuesday, who are we calling kind of thing. It was, it was game changing for me. And so I think that that was one of those moments that I was like, okay, yep, I got to

Todd Nesloney
experience it from this other side, instead of being the one experiencing it, the excitement from seeing the joy on someone else’s face. I got to feel that deep emotion of being celebrated and then having my wife call me hours later and be like, that was so cool. Like, why did you do that? Like, did you tell him to do that? And I was like, no, I was not going to listen to the president. I did not want that to be done. It was so uncomfortable, but I loved it at the same time.

Todd Nesloney
Like it’s so, and sometimes those really uncomfortable things, we do need to put ourselves through because it leads to so many great things down the road.

Sam Demma
I love the story.

Sam Demma
I hope it’s in one of your books. It sounds like you have so many phenomenal ideas, not only for educators, but this idea of celebrating folks with the people that matter most in their lives over the phone can be done at any point,

Sam Demma
any day with anybody. And I love it. If you could wave a magic wand and change, you know, certain things in education across the globe, are there any things you would start with or things that you think, if these three things shifted

Sam Demma
or these one or two things shifted in schools that would have a massive ripple effect? If so, what would those things be?

Todd Nesloney
Sam, do you have like three more hours? That’s a pretty big question. No, you know, there’s so many different elements and I feel like it’s shifting some of those, some of the things that we are dealing with are shifting continually.

Todd Nesloney
And with my role now in education, especially where I get to work with administrators across the state on a daily basis, in addition to all my speaking and consulting that I do worldwide, I get to hear a lot of different sides of what’s happening.

Todd Nesloney
And so I think the answer to your question is, I think there’s a big change I would make in the administration world, and there’s some big changes I would make in the teaching world. For teachers, specifically,

Todd Nesloney
we have to be trusted to do what we do. And I feel like there are a lot of things we could complain about in education right now, but to me, a lot of it boils down to we aren’t trusted to do our jobs. Whether that is the books we choose to read

Todd Nesloney
in the classroom, the discipline and social emotional things we put into play, the lesson planning, the curriculum, there’s so many elements that it’s like, you aren’t trusted to do this, so we’re gonna have this committee decide it for you, and then we’re gonna need you to write six pages

Todd Nesloney
over how you’re gonna do this, and then we’re gonna need you to grade it all, and then we’re gonna need you to meet for all these meetings, and then we’re gonna need you to have all the data that you’re gonna organize and write a report over as well, and it’s like, okay, when am I supposed to teach?

Todd Nesloney
Because, like, all the things you want from me suck out all the joy of why I got to do this, which was teaching. And so, I mean, we could go into the amount of discipline that we’re dealing with right now. We could go into lack of support from admin sometimes.

Todd Nesloney
There’s a lot of elements and I think everybody experiences the education profession a little bit differently, but I feel like there’s so much more celebration that needs to happen with those humans that are giving their lives up

Todd Nesloney
and often their family relationships, their friendships, to invest so deeply. Because I think that was an unexpected element for me when I became a teacher, was how deeply emotionally invested we get in your children.

Todd Nesloney
And I think that so many parents don’t realize that. And are there bad seed teachers? Yes, but there’s bad seeds in every profession. I mean, go to McDonald’s, there’s somebody there not doing their job. Go to the grocery store,

Todd Nesloney
there’s somebody there not doing their job. Like, that’s not unique to teaching and there’s always gonna be people who make poor decisions and that reflect on all of us. But when I think of administration, what I would say to teachers is, I thought I knew what an administrator did until I became an administrator. And I think administrators often get a bad rap because of decisions that they have to make or split second things or anything like that.

Todd Nesloney
And are there bad administrators? Yes. I mean, we just said there are bad people in every position everywhere. But on the whole, it is so much harder being an administrator than I ever imagined because of the weight that they carry that nobody else can help them carry. As a teacher, I can carry weight and lean on my colleagues, reach out to my supervisor, talk about brainstorm. As an administrator, like I have to deal with it or I have to go in to court and talk about a CPS case. I have to deal with parents berating me or staff upset or community. I mean, it’s a lot. And so for teachers listening, I would say, if you have an administrator that you

Todd Nesloney
respect at all, let them know how much you appreciate them. Because administrators spend at least 75% of their day being told what they’re not doing right or what they’re not good enough at. And that is so emotionally draining that when you have a great administrator, you better build them up and hug them and love them because they are using the 25% they have left to give you all of it. And so I think sometimes we forget about that.

Todd Nesloney
And this is not saying that teachers don’t also give, this is not a us versus them. We have to get out of that mindset. What I’m saying is, as a teacher, I swore I knew what that principal or assistant principal was doing.

Todd Nesloney
I swore I could get in that job and do things differently or better, and until I was actually in that position, I realized I had no idea. And I went to my principal after I was hired and was a principal for a year,

Todd Nesloney
I went to my previous principal and I apologized. And I told her, I said, I did not tell you thank you enough. Like I did not see these little things you were doing that I thought were just naturally happening. And now I realized you were behind them

Todd Nesloney
and you weren’t telling anybody because that’s not what you do. And so if you think, well, yeah, whatever Todd, I do know what my principal does, it’s nothing. Well, I can guarantee they do something, but think about when you were in college.

Todd Nesloney
You swore you knew what a teacher did, that’s why you wanted to become a teacher. And then you got that first teaching job and you realized everybody lied to you. There’s a thousand more things that you have to do as a teacher than anybody ever told you about.

Todd Nesloney
So just the idea, let’s spend more time celebrating. Let’s spend more time giving each other grace, and building those relationships and really connecting with each other. I think that that’s where we can begin to see a change. So to answer your question in a roundabout way,

Todd Nesloney
there’s a lot that we can change about education, and there always will be, because there’s a lot when you get hired by any group that you will wanna change. But I think for me, I wish teachers were more celebrated, I wish they were more respected,

Todd Nesloney
and I wish they were more trusted to do what they need to do. And I think if those things happen, we would see a lot of other things fall more easily into place.

Sam Demma
Trusted, respected, and celebrated. Todd, I appreciate your time on the show. It’s been a pleasure. I look forward to staying connected and hearing about the work you’re doing in your world. Where can educators listening to this find you or reach out and celebrate you

Sam Demma
if they’re inspired by this conversation today?

Todd Nesloney
Well, I think my easiest place is my website, which is just toddnesloney.com. You can just Google Todd Nesloney. If you spell it wrong, it’ll come up. There’s only so many ways you can spell Nesloney. But I am active on every social media platform. Most of them I’m Tech Ninja Todd or Todd Nesloney and I’ve got blogs, videos, books, all that kind of stuff on my site too.

Todd Nesloney
So definitely would love to connect.

Sam Demma
Awesome, Todd, keep up the great work and thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. to come on the show.

Todd Nesloney
Thanks, man.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Todd Nesloney

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.

January 16, 2025 by Author Director of Education Education Student Success 0

Jeff Armour – Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the University Students’ Council (USC) at Western University

Jeff Armour – Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the University Students’ Council (USC) at Western University
About Jeff Armour

Jeff Armour is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the University Students’ Council (USC) at Western University.  Jeff graduated with a B.Sc. from Western University and after a few years of service overseeing the Wave and Spoke restaurant and bars on campus the USC encouraged Jeff to enroll in the Project Management program through Western’s Continuing Studies. Jeff was subsequently promoted to higher-level leadership position in the organization until ultimately landing at the COO role he currently holds.  Jeff also recently completed his EMBA at Ivey in July 2023.
 
Jeff has an extensive background in strategic planning, project management, operations restructuring and realignment, change management and financial strategy.
 
Jeff is married to Mindy and has three children, Kennedee, Ben and Brad.  He was born in BC but grew up in Peterborough, Jeff moved to London for school at Western and never left. 

Connect with Jeff Armour: Email | Linkedin | Twitter | Facebook

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

University Students’ Council (USC)
Western University
Ivey

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 Jeff Armour. Jeff and I, we met each other a few years ago and we’ve stayed in touch. Personally, I’m super inspired by the Student Union, the USC at Western that they operate and that Jeff organizes and supports.

Sam Demma
And they do incredible things in the post-secondary space. And I’m honored to have Jeff on the show again. Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

Jeff Armour
Hey, thanks for inviting me. I guess the first one you can get lucky on, the second one means maybe I did something right. So that’s good.

Sam Demma
I really enjoyed the conversation. And I know this is gonna be just as valuable. There’s so many ways we could take this conversation and different things we could talk about. One of the things I’m most inspired about with your leadership at the USC is every team member seems like the most phenomenal human being. I have some of the most memorable experiences working with you and your staff. Where do you find these amazing human beings? How, like, where do they come from?

Jeff Armour
Wow, there’s two different answers there, I think. The one that’s like maybe the romantic answer is, I think setting a culture and having a purpose-driven organization attracts certain people. That, you know, the old adage at McDonald’s where they say there were smiles on the menu and those were free, and they were selling burgers and fries, but what they were really selling was smiles. I think people come here because they know we’re selling smiles to students. So although they might be a great accountant or a great productions person or a great clubs facilitator or even the people in HR, I think everybody rallies behind the idea that we’re trying to make students smile and enhance the educational experience, which is our mission statement.

Jeff Armour
So that’s the cheesy, super inspirational, like “I’ve got it all figured out” answer. The more, maybe more real answer is, I think there’s a certain amount of luck there. There’s a certain amount of strong leadership about, you know, what type of behaviors and what type of people we want to have here, which obviously changes things a little bit. And then the final piece of that is, when you’ve got something good going on, people like to talk to their friends or the other people they work with, and it spreads pretty quickly. So that’s lovely to see when you’re bringing other people into the fold of what you’re doing.

Sam Demma
I think when it comes to teams, the teams that operate really effectively have cohesion and they’re all unified by that single mission or purpose. And they voice their thoughts and their feelings and have these thoughtful disagreements so they can come up with the best ideas and move forward as a committed, I guess, team of people. How do you think about building that team and encouraging cohesion amongst members of the whole organization?

Jeff Armour
Yeah, well, I think you said it right at the outset, what is ultimately the goal? In a for-profit entity, you get a lot of infighting, I think, because the goal is making money. And sometimes to make money, you’ve got to step on some toes a little bit. And there’s some one-upmanship going on there in competition, which creates perhaps a better value or more profit when you have that sort of infighting.

Jeff Armour
When you’re centered on purpose, and as long as the leader can set a pretty clear goal of, I mean, I guess I just talked about putting smiles on students’ faces, everyone can get behind that. And the one-upmanship is not stepping on other people’s toes, but it’s more like improv: yes and, you know, as opposed to no, but maybe we could do something else. You get a lot of yes ands. “That’s a great idea. And you know what else would be good is this.” So it’s more like piling on in terms of contribution as opposed to ripping it down to try and one-up to make sure that, you know, you get the promotion or the bigger bonus.

Jeff Armour
That is definitely a major focus around here. Failure isn’t the negative. Not trying is the thing we don’t want to see. Just keep trying. You make a mistake, great, we won’t have to make that one again. That’s another one off the list. So it creates a good environment where everyone wants to jump in and see what other ideas they’ve got or, you know, kind of do the yes and.

Sam Demma
I was recently golfing with my godfather and he’s a big reader of books, and he told me to check out this book called Principles by Ray Dalio. And it was all about his life and work principles that he had operated on for a long time. And one of them was, “We celebrate mistakes but don’t tolerate not learning from them.” They had this software in his organization called the issue log. And every time you made a mistake, it was your responsibility to log it and to share it.

Sam Demma
So you put the date and the time and the mistake you made, and the next sync with the whole team, you would talk about it openly so that everyone could learn from the same mistake that just one person made, and then talk about how to avoid it moving forward. And when you’re talking about celebrating mistakes, that whole idea came to mind. How did you build that culture of celebrating mistakes? Is it something similar? Or like, what did you do?

Jeff Armour
It’s just funny because when I took on this role as the COO, formerly the general manager, we were very, very siloed. So no one wanted to talk about their mistakes, right? Despite the immense amount of value. And so because of that, there was no history written. And because of that, we were destined to make the same mistakes over and over again, which is exactly what we were doing. Which was creating a lot of frustration in people that wanted to be here and improve on it and build towards those smiles and great experiences.

Jeff Armour
It was like, “But why are we… like I get it, but why are we… like I’ll try. You’re paying me. Why are we doing the same thing again? I have this other idea. If we could have just turned that one thing and made it better.” And I’m kind of blowing it here, but when I first took on the role, there’s many things that I did, starting with, like, I reintroduced myself to the team. Like literally did a PowerPoint and said, like, “You’ve known me because I was here for probably 15 years before that and reintroduced myself to the team, my senior management team, and basically said, so, you know Jeff, but you don’t, you don’t know Jeff.”

Jeff Armour
The next thing I did was quietly without labeling it—because I like that—what did you call it? A log of…

Sam Demma
They called it the issues log.

Jeff Armour
Issues log. So I was regularly having meetings as I started to do some change management on the culture of our team—not change management like we’re getting into new products or whatever—it was more of culture change. And I would strategically every other meeting or every, you know, I tried to make it not rhythmic so people started to pick up on it. But I talk about, like, one of the mistakes I made early on. Like, “Oh, coming in this job, I know I, and I made this, I did this thing or whatever.” And what started to happen was they would laugh along with me. But not only that, contribute to ideas of how we could avoid that in the future.

Jeff Armour
And I say I’m kind of letting the lid off this because some of them will, if they hear this, will be like, “Wait, you were doing that on purpose?” Like, I don’t want to make it seem like it was contrived, but really, we weren’t talking about our failures. And when I say failures, I mean, like, it’s a chance to learn or otherwise. So instead, what we would do is someone who you would think would have no opinion on an item—let’s say it was something that we made a mistake in budget—and then someone who’s nowhere near the budget process would be like, “Why didn’t you just ask us about what we were going to… like, that would have helped you avoid that mistake three months later.”

Jeff Armour
And I was like, “Oh, that’s… you know, write it down. Then you make sure you follow up.” Then you start to… and suddenly people can see that change and improvement on mistakes. But not only that, subconsciously, they’re thinking, it’s OK if I bring up a mistake I made. Maybe other people have good ideas because no one’s ever asked me about the budget thing. And now I was able to contribute to a positive outcome, right? It’s like teaching. It’s like a learned behavior that you’re not explicitly teaching them about. Because if I came out and said, “We’re going to…,” they’d be like, “Oh, great. He’s read some books, and he’s trying to… whatever.” Instead, it was like mimicking the behaviors I wanted to see the entire corporation do, like everybody, right down to the person who’s cutting the bagel being like, “Why do we cut the bagels before the person orders it? Like, it takes three seconds, and if we had one of these little machines, we could just…” Great, let’s hear about that.

Jeff Armour
And no one should have their feelings hurt. You should have your feelings hurt if you’re not listening, or you continue to not learn from it—not by not trying, right? It’s just the effort that counts. So the reason I was smiling when you asked the question is because it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to have to tell them the truth, and it’s going to probably be a little whistleblower here on my behaviors,” but yeah.

Sam Demma
Well, I think at the end of the day, it also gives other people permission, like you said, to voice their mistakes. Like you’re actually, as the leader, leading with vulnerability by saying, “Here’s a mistake I made.” And that vulnerability you’re leading with is allowing other people at the table to say, “Hey, it’s OK to be vulnerable.”

Sam Demma
Because if Jeff’s leading us and Jeff’s being vulnerable, so can I. Do you think it’s really important that you did that first? Like if you didn’t share, do you think other people would have shared, or would it have taken a much longer time for that to unfold?

Jeff Armour
I think, yeah, it definitely would have taken longer for it to unfold. Yeah, that’s… I think that’s fair to say. I think I’ve also always just been a person that, like, if I’m going to ask you to do it, I better do it first. Like literally in, like, physical actions. Like if I’m telling you to move that pile of dirt over there, I better be the first person to put the shovel in the ground and, like, to help move the dirt. And then, you know, I always prefer when people that I’m working with or that, you know, are trying to buy into something to be like, “Hey, I’ve got this dirt thing. Why don’t you go over there and start to build that wall so then I can come over and paint,” you know, or otherwise.

Jeff Armour
Like once they can see why they’re doing something and how they fit into the bigger picture, to start to push leadership or someone who’s helping them into where they should be is way better than saying, “I’m in leadership. Do as I say and, like, figure it out on your own.” I don’t know, it just feels like that’s… I don’t know, yucky, kind of condescending, or I don’t know, more like a boss, right?

Sam Demma
Do you trust your intuition and gut on a lot of the decisions you make, or do you have principles or, like, certain guardrails that you think about before you make a decision?

Jeff Armour
Yeah. I’m learning to trust that more.

Sam Demma
Yeah.

Jeff Armour
Here I am at my age now, where I’m at in my career. And we actually, just last week, did StrengthsFinder with the senior leadership team here, the senior managers we’ve got. And my strengths, which make me uncomfortable—and I don’t think I’m sharing that out of turn—they make me uncomfortable because they’re kind of like traditional, hard strengths I’m not super comfortable with.

Jeff Armour
However, because of that, I haven’t really trusted it in the past, which I think has made me more of an authentic leader. Like that kind of… Are you familiar with the Gallup StrengthsFinder stuff?

Sam Demma
I don’t know too much about it, other than it’s like similar to other personality tests to figure out how people can deal with one another, understand how they operate. That’s why—but I could be wrong.

Jeff Armour
No, no, that’s basically it. I mean, the only real big difference is it’s a Gallup-founded test, which means there’s like a hundred billion data points that Gallup has because they do surveys all the time. So it’s like really… And it’s shocking how close it is. It’s amazing insights. So yeah, to get back to the question of, like, do I trust it? I don’t, but I think that’s actually what makes me good.

Jeff Armour
I’m naturally a pessimist with a very strong optimistic outlook. I can see the negative side, but I’m always like, there’s this terrible thing that could happen, but you know what? It’s going to be awesome. So I’m literally built to prepare for the worst and plan for the best. Like it’s ingrained in my DNA to actually do that. So yeah, I don’t really trust… I really trust the people that are around me. If I’m half-hearted into something or they’re not sure if I’m sure, they’ll either give me the resolve or push me a little bit to get to that solid place because I think they trust my instincts more than I trust my own.

Sam Demma
It’s probably not a good answer, but I mean, that’s the truth—is I’m a little cautious with my gut.

Jeff Armour
I think that that’s so important. I think it’s one of the reasons why the organization, the USC, succeeds because if you do just consistently put your eggs in one basket and you feel like, “This is the best decision ever, we’re doing the right thing,” and you don’t ever think, “Well, what if we could be wrong?” you might have some blind spots, and you overcommit too many times. Things can fall apart. Who do you ask, or, like, how do you ask when you have those thoughts?

Jeff Armour
I think the best part about it now, where we’re at, initially I had sort of a small group of people that knew me and knew who I was that I could be not just vulnerable with, but, like, weak. Quite literally just be like, “This is tough.” And early on in the job, there were several things that tested my resolve. And then, you know, middle of the bell curve was COVID, which again, tested things.

Jeff Armour
And in the first chat we had, we talked about my decision to bring everybody back in full. There was no hybrid, which now, I guess, it’s been two years since we did that podcast, I think, or a year or whatever. It’s just showing in droves how great the culture is here. And there’s no group at home and group at work and all of that. Great for… we’re really, like, for the listeners here, we’re really an in-person impact. Like the student walks into your office and says, “Hey, I need some help.” Really hard to schedule a Zoom with people when they’re just walking in. You know, you can’t predict when it’s going to happen. It’s kind of like, you know…

Jeff Armour
So yeah, that’s sort of when I started to realize that my gut instinct was probably pretty strong because I ask a lot of questions. I’m, I think, a good listener. I know where we want to go to. And so what happens is every interaction I have, whether it’s just walking through the halls or otherwise, goes into my brain, unfortunately. It doesn’t add stress to me, but it adds data points. And those data points help me formulate an opinion that makes my gut call a little bit stronger.

Jeff Armour
And this is all stuff that I’ve learned over the last, probably even like last two months as we’ve really gotten into the StrengthsFinder stuff and realized that that is the way I operate. I used to be afraid of it because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand where that gut… like, nobody just has gut instincts like that. The gut instinct comes from like listening and actively challenging, but also being a pessimist and looking out for the worst, but also hoping for the best. So all those things come together to make it, yeah, what I use.

Jeff Armour
Small group initially, and now I don’t even have to ask for opinions when I’m looking at making a decision or there’s something that’s challenging the group. Everyone feels very comfortable walking into my door and just being like, “Hey, I know this is a problem we’ve got, and I wonder if this would help. I found this article, and here you go. Do you want to read it?” And then you can go even deeper, like, “Oh, interesting, what kind of triggered you? Like, what made you resonate with this challenge that we’re facing?” And it’s like, “Well, I think it’s really important because I see every single day X, Y, and Z.” More data points to go in for the analytical, more information, more comfort with talking to what, in a traditional model, would be like the leadership.

Jeff Armour
And I use that loosely. Because I don’t necessarily believe in, like, there’s got to be one boss. I believe, like, the hive mind works to a certain extent, but at some point, someone has to make a decision, and I get that, right? So I really encourage that. And I think the open-door policy and willingness to listen, and not being afraid that someone has a different opinion than I do, and that means I’m not going to make a decision because they differ with it. I’m great with that because it’s just more data points, right?

Sam Demma
I mean, you’re sharing principles with me right now, like, you know, plan for the worst, but expect the best. The open-door policy, gather information, you know, be a good listener to make the best-informed decision. If I was to chat with members of the USC, other people on the team, and sit them down and say, “What does Jeff say to you most often?” Like, if you were to tell me, “These are Jeff’s, like, maybe not just Jeff’s, but these are the USC’s values or principles and things that we hear over and over and over again,” what are a few of those things or some that stick out in your mind that you think they’d share with me?

Jeff Armour
Yeah, well, some are very USC-specific, that were student-led. Yep. Which, that’s a value we hold—that at the end of the day, there should be a student at the table. I’m not just talking about the president—obviously, the president—but like a student. So if you’re making decisions around clubs, there should be members from the club system involved in making that decision, right? Because they know better than we do.

Jeff Armour
That’s the best way to protect against aging out in an organization that essentially—we’re vampire keepers. The vampires stay 22, 20 years old, and we get older and older, and they stay the same age, right? So the best way to insulate against that is to get as many of them around the table to make the decisions and help you with it. So that’s a big principle that used to scare us. Any student association, I think, would be scared because it’s like, “Wow, I personally am getting out of touch with what that generation wants.” Right? I don’t know what skibbity bathwater means. I don’t understand. Like, it was a couple of years ago.

Jeff Armour
But I don’t have to keep up with that. And the reason I know those words is because there are students around me all the time who are open to sharing with me, just like the clubs’ decision, just like if there’s something that’s going on around designing our menu. Don’t ask someone who’s 45 what they want on the menu because they want nachos and chicken wings, which I definitely want. But maybe the bowls are really hot, or maybe having halal chicken is really important to a large chunk of our… So all those things—students around the table. That’s the USC sort of thing—is that we’re student-led, OK?

Jeff Armour
For me personally, there are two things that are very important, and that is trying. I want to see people trying all the time because I believe that’s where the good stuff happens. Keep trying. I’ve already said it to you earlier on in the interview. You can see that they will hear that. And then from the management leadership realm, it’s delegate, right? Great. You’re great at that. Delegate it. Because I’ve got other stuff that I want to delegate to you. Delegate, delegate.

Sam Demma
And what would be the fear with delegating?

Jeff Armour
That they’re not going to do a good job, or it’s going to get done wrong.

Sam Demma
I still feel it. How do you—like, tell me more.

Jeff Armour
And so then they’re going to… Not just you making mistakes, you’re afraid to try, the people you’re delegating to are going to make a mistake, and you’re going to have to talk to them about that mistake. And not a lot of people have that type of ability to have a restorative, generative conversation with someone who’s made a mistake because they’re feeling bad, right?

Sam Demma
Yep.

Jeff Armour
You feel like you missed a step because you said they did fail. But changing the paradigm of that into a conversation where it’s like, “What did we learn?” And going back to the thing I did on, like, the second week, where I talked about the thing that I failed on—try and mimic that. Like, “Let’s get better together.” That’s a hard thing for people in general to—I mean, it sounds really easy here. I’m, you know, 20 minutes into the podcast or whatever, but like, it’s not easy to do.

Jeff Armour
Those are the conversations. That’s the good stuff in there—is when you can get someone, I think, like I’m trying to do, to press upon people, like, you know, go ahead and make mistakes, and then go and encourage the people that report to you to make mistakes, and then support them in it, right? Those are probably the two things that, like, is a Jeff-ism. And then the one thing is the USC thing—it’s like student-led is a big, important thing.

Sam Demma
That’s awesome. The idea of delegation is something that’s very real for me right now. And I’m sure a lot of the school divisions that I serve and support, their leadership teams delegate a lot. And I’ve been working with an assistant for a little while, and I’ve struggled with the delegation situation.

Sam Demma
And I have the best friggin’ team in the world. When things are going great, it’s her. She’s rocking it, you know, and things are not going great, it’s because I’m in my head, and I’m like not sitting in my best position and being a good leader. How did you build that skill yourself? Was it just the repetition of those types of conversations, or what did you find helpful?

Jeff Armour
I think… geez, that’s a great question. I don’t know where that started or when I started to do that. It might have been—we talked about it in the first one, I’m sorry if I’m repeating a little bit—the construction realm.

Sam Demma
Yes.

Jeff Armour
Right, where I had a high expectation of quality, right? And so then what I would do is—funny story, during COVID, we’re at home, and I quickly realized that the school was okay. Everybody was doing the best they could, just homeschooling and all the rest, but the kids weren’t getting the stimulation necessarily at the level that at least my children needed, which was like, “What am I learning that’s new, and how am I interacting with someone getting immediate feedback on whether it’s going well or not?”

Jeff Armour
So for each child, I had a different little thing that I would do with them. Like my youngest, for example, I taught him literally how to make coffee. Like we have a brewer at home where he would put the grind in. So he’s seven years old, eight years old—which is… that’s it. There’s hot water. You got to fill the water up, you got to hit the right buttons, and, you know, make sure it’s not coming out too hard, you know, too stiff or otherwise, it’s the right mix. Taught him how to do it, taught him where the cream was, and to put a little bit of this in and that sort of thing.

Jeff Armour
And so I would just go down, turn my Zoom on at 9:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m., whenever the meeting was, and get into it. And so people started to see this seven, eight-year-old bringing me a coffee. And to them, it was like, “What the… what are you doing to him?” He still talks about it today. He still talks about being trusted to do something for Dad, learning how to do it.

Jeff Armour
And he started to get better at it, right? And started to measure the sugar as opposed to just pouring in the sugar and starting to whatever, and then reinforcing that with feedback right away. “That might have been your best one yet. Surprising, because I normally like a lot of cream, but there wasn’t as much, and I didn’t put as much in this time,” right? And the reward that comes from delegation and feedback, positive or negative, and how that fills up the human spirit to continue to try—there’s that word again—I think is an algorithm, a formula that feeds the human soul that makes them want to even do more and more and more, right?

Jeff Armour
Because then the next question was, you know, “Do you want some eggs? Do you want to do this?” And suddenly it starts to grow. And, you know, some people may look at it like, “I was just happy my kid was getting through the day. This was a terrible time for everyone.” I’m like, “Here’s a chance for them—for me—to engage with them as their parent, but also for them to learn and get confident doing things that they wouldn’t normally ever do.” Same principles apply at work. Same thing applied at the construction job.

Jeff Armour
I think that delegation gives the opportunity to fail safely, grow as a team, and, on top of that, have good conversations about what the ultimate why is. Like, where are we going here? Why does Dad want a coffee in the morning? He has a coffee every morning, and if I can do that for him, he can get to work and get on the Zoom later. He might be able to spend more time with me in the morning doing whatever. And those conversations as well. There’s so much good stuff that comes from delegating, in my opinion.

Jeff Armour
It’s scary though, right? Like you’re experiencing it, to your point of, like, “Okay, well…” And also there’s the—I don’t know if you feel guilt about it as well, delegating a little bit.

Sam Demma
I do sometimes feel like it’s irresponsible of me to say, “You do that, not you do this, but can you please help with this?” And it makes me feel… it does make me feel a little guilty, yeah.

Jeff Armour
Because, well, from a selfish perspective, the time it took you to ask, “Hey, I want to move that one o’clock to a two o’clock,” you could have just done it, right? And then you think about how that person is that sees you move it and does it. And suddenly that person has committed their working life to you and being good for you. And suddenly it’s like, “Oh, like, maybe I did that wrong.” And maybe you didn’t catch it because you did it in a moment.

Jeff Armour
But the negative side of not delegating and making sure that that person’s feeling like they’re reaffirmed can also be super damaging. Like it goes both ways. And we don’t think about it that way because we don’t want to bother anyone. I don’t know if that’s Canadian or if that’s just general—the entire world can’t be the Mad Men series where it’s like, “Get me a sandwich.” But there’s some value in actual delegation of a task with some feedback, and I think it’s super important.

Sam Demma
When you are delegating a task, are you front-loading the conversation with “Here’s why”? Like, you know, when you give the example of your son making the coffee, that conversation around “Here’s why we do this” is very helpful because when someone knows why you’re giving them a task and why it matters and it’s important, it’s going to encourage them to feel good about the work they’re doing because it’s serving the greater purpose. But when do you have those conversations in the delegation process?

Jeff Armour
Well, if it’s not obvious, like at the outset—which has become more prevalent here anyways—people will see an opportunity, and often they’re like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if I could just do this thing for you, and then you wouldn’t be tied up with it, and we can… you could do that.” That’s happening more and more. But if that isn’t the case, and I’m like, “Hey, so I’ve been thinking about something, and one thing I noticed, you’re way more organized than I am in terms of getting in quicker to do this and that. What’s your bandwidth like right now? Because I think if you can do this thing, that would help me do that thing, and then the two of us would have a much better day. But let’s talk about it,” because getting them to opt into doing the thing is always better.

Jeff Armour
That being said, I think there’s enough understanding and trust in the tank right now that if I was like, “Hey, can you send me those things, and can you do this and this,” people would be like, “100%,” right? Because they know it’s not just because I’m randomly doing whatever. So there’s the two sides of it. It’s like them opting into it but also then building the trust that you’re not asking them to do something that is just, you know, flippant, I guess, is the word. That comes from, like, following up and saying, “Hey, I know I asked you really quickly about putting it in there. Thank you so much because I was running that meeting, and when I got there, I could just open it up and it was there, and it made me better prepared. So I appreciate it.”

Sam Demma
That’s amazing, Jeff. I love this whole conversation. I think we could go on for hours, but I want to respect your time. Thank you so much for your wisdom, your vulnerability, and just sharing your thoughts on leadership, delegation, and the culture you’ve built at the USC. It’s inspiring. I can’t wait to share this conversation with others, and I look forward to doing it again. Maybe we’ll have a yearly tradition.

Jeff Armour
Thanks so much, Sam. It’s always a pleasure to chat. These conversations challenge my thinking a little bit because sometimes I don’t know why I do things, but I love what I do, and I love making a difference in other people’s lives through sort of giving bits of myself and the opportunity for them to be the best selves that they can be. It’s super rewarding.

Sam Demma
Well, you’re doing it, so keep it up.

Jeff Armour
Thanks.

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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.

January 2, 2025 by Chief Operating Officer Education 0

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