How a Good School Leader Can Inspire and Influence Others with Dave Schmittou

Working in a school can be challenging - there’s no doubt about that.  And we’ve seen - and for many of us experienced - how these challenges have affected the profession and all in it.  When leaders don’t understand their influence and how a good leader can leverage their role to inspire and influence others, the school environment is impacted.  This is why knowing how school leaders (whether that be a principal, teacher leader, or some other administrative position) inspire and influence others during times of frustration and overwhelm creates supportive environments that combat burnout.

In this episode, I’m talking with my friend,  Dave Schmittou. I can relate so deeply to the topic of discussion today which is all about ego, swallowing pride, and keeping the focus on the focus.  As someone who is always moving the goalposts, who always wants to do better, who always wants to serve harder, it is so good for me to hear the message that Dave shares with us today. 

I'm going to introduce you to my friend Dave here in just a second. But before we do that, I want to let you know what's coming up on the Burned-In Teacher podcast for this summer (I’m so excited!) I know it’s not summer yet, but I need to let you know now because there's a little bit of preparation involved for you. 

During the months of June, July, and then through the beginning of August, I am going to be hosting a FREE Hacking Teacher Burnout book study on the podcast all summer. Starting on June 3rd, we are going to kick off this Hacking Teacher Burnout book study by talking about the book’s introduction and getting yourself set up for success to not just read the book over the summer, but take the actions that you need to take in order to start the new school year in August or September with a completely renewed sense of self. You don't have to register or sign up for anything because I'm hosting it here on the podcast. 

There are, however, two things you need to do to prepare yourself for the book study. 

1. Get yourself a copy of the book Hacking Teacher Burnout. You can purchase it on  Amazon or through BarnesandNoble.com. 
2. Grab the Hacking Teacher Burnout Book Study Guide from my TpT store! This book study guide is a brand new TpT resource that we just released a few weeks ago as I'm recording this. This resource was created to help guide you through the action steps that you have to take if you are going to tackle your teacher burnout over the summer. 

So just two things, get the book and get the book study guide on TpT, then you’re ready to get started (and you can get started right after this episode if you’d like!) Each week over the summer, I'm going to release a short episode dedicated to helping you to move through this book and take actions that maybe you've never even thought about taking before so you can navigate your way out of burnout. Remember, this starts June 3 and we hope that you will join us! 

Alright, back to my interview with Dave! I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Dave Schmittou. Dave has served the K through 12 space for 25 years having positions as teacher, assistant principal, athletic director, principal, assistant superintendent, and college professor. He was the 2014 Michigan Administrator of the Year and the 2018 College Educator of the Year, but his greatest accomplishment is playing the role of dad to his four incredible kids. I am so excited for you to listen to this episode! It’s really going to help you to be more self-reflective, and I truly believe that self-awareness is one of our biggest superpowers. 

So, without further ado, let's dive into my interview with Dave Schmittou!

Amber: Hello Dave! Thank you so much for joining us here on the Burned-In Teacher Podcast! Dave and I actually met a week ago, when he interviewed me for his podcast. (Click here to listen to my interview on his podcast)

For those teachers that don't know anything about you, can you tell us a little bit about you as a person, as an educator, and anything outside of that that you'd like to share?

Dave: Absolutely. I've been in education for close to 25 years now. In that time, I've done just about every job. I started off as a middle school teacher back in the late 90s and then quickly went through the ranks of athletic director, assistant principal, dean of students, middle school principal, elementary principal, assistant superintendent, and college professor. A couple of years ago, I decided to make some shifts.  At the time I was working with people from coast to coast and didn't have a lot of time to devote to those people I was rubbing shoulders with every single day. So I decided to transition, and now I work full-time with educators all over the place on a variety of things from strategic leadership for administrators down to classroom engagement and assessment with classroom teachers. I absolutely love what I do and who I get to work with. 

On the personal side, I’m a father of four kids. My oldest is a junior in high school and my youngest is in second grade. I've got a fourth-grade little boy as well, a middle school daughter, and an incredible wife that holds everything together and keeps us all in check.

Amber: Wow, that's incredible! Four kids and working in education and doing the work that you do! That's a lot. 

So I have to ask first, with all of your background and your different roles in education, did any of those shifts in your roles come from you being burned out at all? 

Dave:  As I reflect back on it, yes. But there's also this extra layer that I want to make sure I'm fully transparent about.  A lot of those transitions didn't necessarily come because I was feeling burned out at the time, but rather because I was feeling super arrogant. I was constantly chasing greener grass, constantly thinking that I needed to do something different - something better - and I could do it better than everybody else. 

After my first year teaching first year in the classroom, I decided that I wanted to become a principal because I looked around me and thought, I can do this better than everybody around me. They don't know what they're doing. So after my first year as a teacher, I went off and started pursuing my master's degree and after my third year of teaching, I went on 16 job interviews to become an administrator and didn't get a single second interview for any of them. 

At that point, you would have thought I would have been reflective and I would have looked at myself in the mirror and said, What did I what am I doing wrong? How come I'm not ready?  Instead, I got super stubborn and thought These people don't have any idea how great I am. These guys are idiots. So I decided I was going to go to law school and become a lawyer that sues school districts because of their incompetence. 

Long story short, I met some mentors that grabbed me by the collar and said, Dave, you're not even a good teacher yet. There's no way you can be a good leader. So I doubled down to try to do the best I could in the classroom, then doors started opening and I started transitioning because of my ability. But it started truly from this place of just sheer arrogance, this place of thinking I knew it all. And when I became an administrator, I carried a lot of that with me.  I felt like it was my responsibility to have all the answers at all times to all the things because if I didn't, there was no way I'll be able to get the next promotion. And thank god, I'm at a place now where I can slow down and reflect and say, Man, what a shame, I could have been so much better for the people I was serving. I missed out on a lot of amazing opportunities as a result.

Amber: I appreciate how honest you are about the reflective practice you've done. I relate to it myself because that's how I felt when I was at my first school district (the one I was at before I left the first time).  At the time I was super arrogant, I thought I could do ALL of the jobs better than anybody else. This mindset was also part of my burnout. The Burnout Type I can relate to was Burned and Bored because at the time I was constantly chasing that “next thing”, and for all of us overachievers - those people who are futuristic - we are always moving those goalposts. When we reach one thing we’re like, Okay, I've done this, now I'm ready for the next thing. I was burning myself out just with those arrogant thoughts, and I know that there are some teachers who are listening to this that can totally relate. 

Dave: One of the things that separate you and me is that you got to the place where you found yourself bored because you had already done good work. You thought, Okay, now I can do something else.

For me, I wasn't even accomplishing something good. I just thought I could do what they're doing. When I had that mentor tell me, Dave, you're not even a good teacher, and I know that because nobody's talking about you, I simply thought I could forget about teaching because I'm going to be an administrator. Or when I was a principal, I stopped serving because I was constantly trying to chase the next thing. I wanted to be seen as a district-level leader, but I oftentimes forgot about the people that were right next to me - I was always looking up as opposed to looking next to me.

Amber: So, I have to ask - I know you're an author of five books - was Bold Humility your first book?

Dave: No, but actually the writing of that book probably slapped me across the face more than anything else. The first book I wrote came out 15 or 20 years ago - it was a novel that I just wrote sitting at home in my home office when didn't have kids, or maybe I had one newborn at the time. Then I wrote another book that explores student engagement called It's Like Riding a Bike, and it’s about the idea that learning has to result from doing, otherwise, it's wasted learning. 

But Bold Humility was the book when I realized that humility is actually what drives change and that transparency is what allows you to lead. It was going through that reflective process where I started putting my thoughts down on paper that led to that book and to where I am now.

Amber:  That's really why I wanted to have you on the podcast! I was listening to other podcasts that you’ve been on and listening to your podcast and I learned about your perspective, and I thought, This is so perfect! Here we have someone who's been in all of these roles, and who has self admittedly had a very big ego that has hurt themself and their own future at one time. 

Something that I feel strongly about is that, in order for us to move through burnout, we have to first be self-reflective and identify if we are, in fact, making things worse for ourselves. I can say that with confidence because that's what I was doing. I had zero self-awareness during my first probably eight, nine, or maybe even 10 years of teaching. I blamed everybody else for every problem that I had. I believed down to my core that I wasn't the problem, but I know now that was total BS. I was definitely contributing to some of the problems.

Before we jumped on this interview, I asked you a couple of questions. I asked you: What are some key points that we can talk about to help teachers if they are feeling stuck? Either they want to have upward mobility but nothing's happening, or they want to see change but they're not seeing anything happen.  You mentioned that teachers should remember that their voice matters and the best way to drive change is to ask questions and not preach from the mountaintops. 

Do you have a specific example of how you have learned that lesson in your own life? And how can people bring that practice into their life?

Dave: Where do I begin… I'll start by telling you an anecdote about my own life and a personal story that might paint the picture a little bit, and it's going start off from a place of arrogance. 

In 2014, I was named the Michigan Administrator of the Year. As a result of that, I got the opportunity to start speaking at a lot of places and traveling quite a bit, and met somebody that ended up offering me a position to move to Florida to work in what they call a “turnaround school”. In Florida, every school is ranked “A” through “F”, and the school that I was asked to take over was a school that would have been ranked “F” for 18 consecutive years. 

When I started working at this school, I thought I could just bring all the things that worked for me in Michigan, plop them into this school that I was going to be taking over, and - like magic - everything would turn around. I mean, I'm Dave Schmidt! I was Michigan's Administrator of the Year!  

When I got started, I just tried to do this “plug-and-play” operation that involved me putting practices and protocols in place that worked in my previous district.  But nothing was working! In fact, the people at the new school in Florida looked at me and thought, Who are you little arrogant Yankee? You don't know anything about our school. You don't know our kids. You don't know our community… Not only was I failing, but I was being met with resistance for the first time in my career. I would just preach, You don't understand this worked up in Michigan…You don't understand this work in my little suburban school in Michigan, so it's going to work here at this urban school in Florida

But it wasn't working. I got to a place where I was literally in a hallway crying one day and the superintendent found me and had to counsel me and explained to me that, sure, I had all the practices and I had all the protocols. But I'd forgotten about the people. I was in a place where I couldn't even list some of my teachers' first names on a sheet of paper.  I didn't know if any of them were married. I didn't know if any of them had kids. I didn't know them as people, I just saw them as pawns in my game. 

It wasn’t until I got to that place where I was able to recognize that they were people that I could start championing for them and recognizing that they were truly the experts and bringing their voice into the conversation that real change happened. I believe that it’s the leader's job not to make all the decisions, but to put the right people around the table to make the decisions.  When I started focusing on bringing the right people around me and allowing their voices to be amplified, true change happened and were able to turn that school around. When I started, we were a school that had a 40% turnover of teachers. By the time we left, zero people wanted to leave there. People wanted to stick around because they recognized that their voice mattered. 

They came together as a “family”. Yes, they were a family that disagreed with each other that would scream at each other, but they were still a family. They came together and it was them against the world, and they made it happen.

Amber: That’s fantastic! I really appreciate you sharing about the turnaround you experienced after your conversation with your superintendent. I don't think there are a lot of people out there that would be that humble to be able to say, Wow, I really messed up, but admitting that you need to change as well is such an important part of the process. And obviously, that benefited everybody involved.

Dave: It's still a struggle, right? It would be completely fake advice if I said, Oh, I'm a completely different person. Yes, I'm a different person than I was, we're all different every single day, but I still carry a lot of that baggage. 

The last time we spoke - which was last week - I was sitting in this same seat and I was wearing a hat. What your listeners might not know is that anytime I talk to somebody that's not my family, I always wear a hat to hide the bald head underneath it. You see, it's in my head that it's a weakness that I have to try to cover up. And I think that there are a lot of us that live our lives with proverbial “hats” on our heads.  We live in this facade where we don't want people to see our mistakes and errors and imperfections - or so we perceive them as such - so we try to cover them up and mask them somehow. That's what I had done for 15 years of my career. I walked around with these “hats” covering up everything so that people couldn't see the thing that they could all see. 

But now, I'm at the place where I'm still wearing a hat, but every once in a while, it creeps up and you can see a little glimmer of the dome. I'm starting to let people in to see the flaws and to see those mistakes so that they can feel encouraged to do the same thing.

Amber: I'm getting two sides of this first topic that we're talking about, and that is that, yes, your voice matters, but teachers’ voices matter.

So, if you're a leader listening to this podcast episode and you’ve been coming up with all of the answers and you feel like you know everything, remember to listen to your teachers.  They know what is going on in the depths of your school. 

Dave: You’re spot on. I’m going to geek out a little bit for our administrators that need data and best practices to prove anything…

John Hattie was a researcher that did a meta-analysis where he explored 200,000 classrooms all over to try to figure out what works. In chapter two of his book, he identified that 95% of the decisions that teachers make on a regular basis are good for kids. 

I want you to hold on to that - 95% of the things that teachers do on a daily basis are good for kids. And it's low-hanging fruit for us (administrators) to say, Well, what about the other 5%? Well, unfortunately, administrators, that 5% tends to be the stuff that you make them do. This research shows that, when teachers are allowed to do the stuff that matters most and we allow them to carry the weight in the room, they're doing good stuff. 

One of my biggest mistakes, when I was an administrator, was trying to get people to do things the way that I did them. I think there are a lot of administrators out there that are doing the same thing.  They think they’re an administrator because of how good they were in the classroom, therefore their teachers should just do it the way they did.  I'm here to tell you there are a lot of people leaving education today because they don't want to be you. They want to be them.

Amber: Truth bombs! This is awesome. I was going to say there are two sides of this topic. The other side is that, as a teacher, your voice does matter. 

Dave, you might not know this but Burned-In Teacher is not about keeping teachers in the classroom, and it's not about getting teachers out of the classroom. It's about helping teachers to make healthy, clear decisions about what their next step is for their overall well-being, fulfillment, and happiness. And if you feel like your voice doesn't matter and you've asked questions, as you suggested, but you're still getting nowhere, maybe that specific leader in that building isn't the one for you. Maybe it’s time for you to seek a leader that is willing to listen to what you have to say. Would you agree with that?

Dave: Yes! And want to be clear on this too, when we say “asking questions”, we have to ask questions in the right way, and in the right space, and at the right time. You don't want to be that person at every staff meeting where everybody is ready to go that says, Hey, I have one more question. Why are we doing any of this? You’ll never get headway doing that. You have to ask questions that allow people to save space and save face. 

But if you get to that place where this still isn't working, one of the understandings you might walk away with is that your talents can be used elsewhere. When you got to pull a LeBron and take your council to South Beach, that's okay. You can still be the greatest scorer in history by moving on somewhere else.

Amber:  Thank you so much for that.

The second concept that you are bringing to the table as a “disrupter of education” is to identify the hill you will die on. Sometimes our voices get silenced if we have too many opinions, so focus on the focus. 

This is the perfect transition from the topic we just talked about. Tell us what you mean by “identify the hill you'll die on”?

Dave: To answer this, I’m going to talk a little bit about what I do. A friend of mine LaVonna Roth, I don't know if you're familiar with her work or not, is an absolutely amazing educational coach consultant. She helps teachers elevate their voices and she's helped me tremendously as well. She has told me, Nobody needs to be a jack of all trades. When they pick up the phone and say, Hey, I’d like to talk to Dave Schmittou, they want to know what it is that Dave Schmittou does. And it's the same thing in classrooms and in schools in general as an administrator. I want you to be able to tap into your strengths, your passions, and your curiosities. I don't want you to be a person that complains about literally everything because when I know that this is usually what you do when you start talking I’ll tune you out. 

When I say “choose your hill”, what I’m saying is choose the thing that you need to amplify. What is the thing that you need to dig in your heels on? That's the thing that you're most passionate about. That's the thing that you're curious about. That's the thing I need to learn from you. 

So identify what that thing is. What's the thing that really drives you and makes you tick?

Amber: I can relate to what you're saying so much. With my background of what I've learned and what I do outside of being a kindergarten teacher, I have learned so much about your delivery and how you approach things that you feel strongly about. The one thing for me is the use of The Science of Reading to teach kids how to read. It's all been exposed recently with the podcast series “Sold a Story” and I had already seen the need for change in our phonics instruction. I’ve taught for 14 years but I’ve never been a kindergarten teacher I’ve never had to teach kids their alphabet. Last year was my first year teaching here, I was like, I'm not trying to make waves here. I'm brand new to this school, but this is not okay. I'm not teaching the kids the letters or sounds or anything, so how am I going to expect them to read? 

Like you said earlier, 95% of the decisions teachers make are for good for kids. So I went out and I did some research on how should I be teaching kids to learn to read and The Science of Reading kept coming up over and over and over again, so I just went for it. 

Now this year, things have come up and I've been gently just putting in little specks of my opinion here and there where it was warranted.  The Amber of 10 years ago would never have done that, she would have been like, I am not teaching this! This is garbage. And I'm doing something different!  I would have come in with that arrogance and ego thinking I know everything and everybody needs to be like me where now I understand that I'm not going to change anybody's mind, but I know I can change things in my classroom with my instruction which does way more to support and to create change.  And you know what, we've seen a lot of changes already this year simply because people asked and I shared. I didn't go in storming the gates. 1

Dave:  I think that's a great lesson even for life. 

As I mentioned before, I live in Florida now and we know that Florida is a different place. We've got amazing weather, but there are also interesting people and interesting decisions made on a daily basis. But I think that in life in general, there are a lot of us that spend too much energy trying to convince others how to live their life. We're in an age where we are told for safety to close our doors every single day. So close your door and do what you want to do. There are certain things that you know, are non-negotiables - I get that - but spend your time trying to convince yourself to do what's right and lean into what's best for you and your kids. Then when people come and ask you questions about the amazing results you get, then you can share. Don't spend all of your energy worrying about the person across the hall or your entire school, try to change all that change YOU first. Then go from there.

Amber: And this is not being insubordinate or rude; I have noticed there's a lot of power in silence. As teachers, we want to share everything that we are doing, and what I have learned over the last several years is that sometimes the best way to speak your truth is to say nothing at all. People eventually notice and if they want to know they will ask. I'm not in the business of changing anybody's mind. 

Dave: We need to be in the business of being educational missionaries where you plant those seeds, never knowing when they're going to sprout. 

Amber: I love that, and I love this last thing that we that we're going to chat about which is that you recognized that your job is not to create smaller versions of yourself (which we already alluded to). Identify your areas of bias and work to amplify those in front of you as they are. I love talking about bias because I enjoy talking about beliefs and how they can transform our next step. When you shift your biases, you change your beliefs. You can change your world within a matter of days. 

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Dave:  So this is where you might need to want to tell me to stop because I'm going to get rolling here!  

Back in 2020, it was everybody was talking about their biases and their beliefs, and there were a lot of big ideas that we talked about. But a lot of times it's the micro ideas that we have a hard time giving up on. You mentioned the Science of Reading and that is a big one. There are Whole Language people out there who when you start talking about changing reading are going to dig in their heels. 

I would challenge your listeners to do this activity. Next time you're around the dinner table with your loved ones, ask the adults to name something that they learned as a kid that they later had to unlearn as they got older. You might get people talking about that jolly guy on December 24, that comes down the tree, you might hear people talking about the little fairy that comes in and places money under your pillow when you lose a tooth. They'll joke about those things, but then ask your educator friends, What is something that you used to believe to be true about teaching during your first couple years of teaching that you no longer believe? It is much more difficult for people to identify those things because we have in our heads this belief that if we say that something we used to do is wrong, then that means we did something bad, or we were hurting kids, but that's not the case. It's okay to evolve your thinking, to change your mind, and to realize, Wow, I was biased in some of the stuff I did simply because it was easier for me. 

I had a professor who that said every day there are 4000 books published, and anybody can publish a book about anything and proclaim to be the expert. Don't believe it just because you read it. I mean, don't believe it just because you're hearing me say it, question things including your own words. Recognize that you are biased. You have beliefs that taint your actions, and it's okay to explore those and figure out what your true motivations and intentions are.

Amber: That's what I'm in the business of doing with Burned-In Teacher because I had to do that myself - I still have to! For example, when I start to get riled up about something, I now have coached myself and done enough thought-catching to be able to say, Stop. Is this the truth? And if it is, in fact, the truth, then what is it that I can do about it within my own control and not trying to control other people? There are plenty of opportunities in education to practice this. 

Dave: True. We have a lot of things in education that we pretend are “the way” when in reality, it's simply A way.

I remember when I first started off as a classroom teacher - in those first couple years where I was arrogant and I thought I had all the answers - my mentor, was a former Vietnam veteran turned Marine drill instructor, who then transitioned into the classroom. I remember him telling me grades are going to be my greatest weapon and to pass them out like they were candy and then take them away just as quickly because it was going to motivate kids to do things. And I bought into that hook, line, and sinker.

For my first two or three years as a teacher, I was passing out points like they were nothing and snatching them back.  And it wasn't until I did some unlearning and realized how harmful that truly was. It wasn’t until I read the research and reflected on my practices that I changed my behaviors. 

Now what I spent the bulk of my time talking about are grading and assessment, but it wasn't until I was able to confront a belief that somebody told me -  a belief they held with the best of intentions. They were not trying to be mean or manipulative, they truly thought that was best and I bought into it. There are a lot of things that we do every single day just because we've always done it or because somebody told us to, whether we truly know why or not.

Amber: I always talk about questioning your why, and not just your why to teach, but the why that you do things the way that you do, or why you think or believe things the way that you do. That is the first step in challenging your own biases, and not just biases about what we do in education, but biases about our students and how they come into our classrooms and how things should be or could be if things were different. That can destroy you.

Dave: So true. Let me give people something tactical to hold on to…

In the course of my career, I've had the chance to hire several 100 teachers to work with me, and there are always three questions I ask at every job interview. They were: What are you passionate about? What are you curious about? But the hardest question that I ask any teacher at any job interview is: At the end of the day, how do you know if it's been a good day or a bad day? There's no right or wrong answer, but it’s a super important question for any teacher to be able to answer and articulate because that's going to share what your values are, what are the things that you resonate with, and that you fixate on that drive you day to day.

And again, there's no right or wrong answer, but be willing to think through that and identify it and own it.  Once you do that then you can measure it and figure out if you're actually hitting those benchmarks.

Amber: I love that. Well, Dave, I have taken away so many wonderful grains of knowledge, and I've been affirmed to because sometimes I always question my own biases and my own beliefs and I feel like you and I are on the same page about a lot and I really love everything that you've said. I feel that it's applicable to leaders to help them to be better leaders of schools and districts, but also really applicable for teachers to be leaders of their classrooms. And this is perfect because you have a podcast all about these things and bringing these two entities together. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your podcast?

Dave: Absolutely. It's called The Lasting Learning Podcast. It's a podcast that's gone through a journey - it's a podcast that I started because I thought it had a lot of great things to say and I used to just pontificate and I realized that nobody was listening and nobody cared what Dave Schmittou had to say.

Then I started seeking out people that I recognized had a lot more wisdom and a lot more understanding than I did about how life works and those big lessons that we all needed to learn. I've had the opportunity to talk to some incredible people, people that I truly admire as amazing people and I just try to explore their stories and figure out what makes them tick so that I can get a little bit better in the process.

Amber: I love that. That's exactly why I love having people like you on the podcast too because you stretch my thinking and you stretch my learning, and I know that it's going to help a lot of teachers that are listening to the podcast. 

So lastly, how can people find you and learn more about you?

Dave: Well, if you can spell my last name, you will find me in all the places because I'm @daveschmittou on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can look me up and if you are able to find me, you'll also find my phone number. It's my actual phone number and you can text me and call me. So reach out!

Amber: Well, Dave, this was such a pleasure to get to be on the other side of the mic with you and to get to learn more about you. I'm just so grateful for your time today.

Dave: Absolutely. Thank you.

Call to Action: Things You Can Do Tomorrow 

1. Remember your voice matters. The best way to drive change is to ask questions, not preach from the mountaintop.
2. Identify the hill you will die on. Sometimes our voices get silenced if we have too many opinions. Focus on the focus.
3. Recognize that your job is not to create smaller versions of yourself. Identify your areas of bias and work to amplify those in front of you, as they are.

Resources You Need to Get Ready for the Hacking Teacher Burnout Book Study (Starts June 3rd, 2023!)

• Click here to order a copy of my book: Hacking Teacher Burnout (to order on BarnsandNoble.com, click here)
• Get your copy of the Hacking Teacher Burnout Book Study Guide (on TpT!)

Resources Mentioned in This Episode 

• Dave’s Podcast: The Lasting Learning Podcast 
• Click here to check out Dave’s books
• Check out my interview on his podcast

Find our Guest 

• Instagram: @DaveSchmittou
• Twitter:@DaveSchmittou
• Facebook:@DaveSchmittou
• Website: https://schmittou.net/ 

Guest Bio

Dave has earned a reputation for being a disruptor of the status quo, an innovator, and a change agent. Having served as a classroom teacher, school-based administrator, central office director, and professor of Educational Leadership, he often uses real-life stories and examples of his own life and career to describe why and how we need to confront “the way we have always done it.” He is the author of five books, has earned his doctorate, and attended law school. He has served the K-20 space for 25 years having positions as teacher, assistant principal, athletic director, principal, assistant superintendent, and college professor. He is the 2014 Michigan Administrator of the Year and the 2018 College Educator of the Year, but his greatest accomplishment is playing the role of dad to four incredible kids.