[00:00:00] Andrew: Schooling is one of the few experiences majority of Americans share. Yet how much do we really know what goes on behind the scene? And what’s up with cafeteria lunches? I team up with developmental psychologist David Yeager to explore the personal side of education by speaking with superintendents.

I’m Andrew Kim, and I consider myself an accidental superintendent for the past 15 years. So grab your lunch money, and And welcome to lunch duty.

Welcome to lunch duty. Dr. Jose Parra, my good friend. Um, been a good fan of yours, of course, from years ago. I just appreciate you finding the time on a Friday afternoon. What’s up? What’s going on? You’re doing all right.

[00:00:52] Jose: I’m doing quite well. Thanks for asking. How about you?

[00:00:56] Andrew: I’m doing good. I’m doing good. So, um, you and I go back some time ago.

Uh, you were down here in central Texas. Of course, when I was a superintendent, of course, here in the command school district, you are a graduate, a distinguished Graduate of the school district. I was lucky enough to be the superintendent. Am I right on that? Come

[00:01:17] Jose: on. So if I listened to what you said properly, it sounded to me like you were the superintendent when I graduated.

And so if that’s the question, the answer is no. But, uh, if you’re saying that you’re the superintendent and a school district from which I graduated at one point, I would say yes. That’s correct. Now I will say this, uh, there’s a difference between the two words, uh, distinguished and extinguished, uh, depending on who you talk to, maybe the latter.

[00:01:47] Andrew: You are, but yes. Uh, you’re one of, well, you’re one of the best. You are always articulate and, uh, man, I’m, I’m great to see you and of course, uh, appreciate you making the time for me. So, um, you know, when you, uh, went to school here and decided to, uh, grow up, I mean. Was a superintendency in the cards. I mean, education, the cards, what, uh, what drove you to, uh, getting into the education?

I mean, do you remember that?

[00:02:14] Jose: Well, I’ll tell you what, it’s really kind of an interesting thing to me, Andrew. I never, I never really woke up one morning and say, I’m going to be an educator necessarily. Uh, I remember when I was a kid, little kid. I remember thinking that I wanted to be a lot of things. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, thought I wanted to be a lawyer, thought I wanted to be a scientist, thought I wanted to be an astronaut, thought I wanted to be a professional athlete of some sort.

I don’t know why I thought that one. Um, but, uh, a priest, I thought I wanted to be a college professor. I, you know, you name it. I wanted to be all those things. And it wasn’t until later on in life, you know, and I, I actually made the, the move into education, which I’ll tell you about who’s kind of influenced me that direction, uh, that I’d been in education.

And once I got into the classroom and started working with students, kids and teaching that I realized that I was being all those things I wanted to be as a kid. So all of those things that I wanted to be were all bundled up in that one role. Wow. Yeah. So that was pretty, uh, pretty amazing experience for me when I thought about it, but, uh, in school I had a lot of people who really influenced me in a lot of ways.

They didn’t even know they were influencing me. I think, you know, I think, uh, I’m a product of the inaugural Head Start program in Texas. And when I say that I’m talking about the very first year of Head Start in Texas,

[00:03:43] Andrew: I

[00:03:43] Jose: was part of that in, uh, That place we call Carmel and Penn School District.

[00:03:49] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:03:51] Jose: Jose,

[00:03:52] Andrew: when you talk about this moment that you recognize that. Everything that you wanted to be was wrapped up in being an educator, a teacher. Do you recall that moment by any chance? Do you remember where or what by any chance? I’m just kind of curious.

[00:04:08] Jose: You know, I don’t know that it was necessarily a specific moment in time.

I think it was more an accumulation of glimpses over a short period of time. So it was like, okay, so you wake up, not to wake up, but you look up one day and you say, wait a minute. I’m getting a chance to be essentially a counselor of sorts.

[00:04:29] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:04:30] Jose: And then the next time you’re looking around and you’re saying, Oh my gosh, I’m really having to kind of work this out like a, like a scientist would.

Yeah. So all of those things that, you know, the accumulation of moments where you kind of identify things that you want it to be within a particular moment in time. Uh, I would say probably within my first year. Of teaching. It took a while, though, because the first year was kind of rough. I really had to learn the ropes.

It took me pretty much the entire year to do that. It wasn’t really until my, I would say my second year, maybe, third year that I really realized all those things that I just spoke about.

[00:05:13] Andrew: Did you, uh, what did that make you feel? Obviously a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, um, obviously a sense of relief, maybe

[00:05:25] Jose: you need to get past your one.

Yeah. Well that too. Yeah. I get past your one. That’s, that’s a critical thing, but, uh, I don’t know that I necessarily felt a sense of accomplishment or a sense of achievement necessarily. Uh, it was more of a sense of. Feeling like things were aligned,

[00:05:43] Andrew: you

[00:05:45] Jose: know, all these different pieces that were hanging out there, all of them kind of came into alignment in that experience.

So that’s the way it worked for me. I never went out and said, okay, I’m going to achieve this or I’m going to accomplish this. And, you know, uh, maybe I would have achieved more if I had done that, but that that’s never really what drove me. Yeah. I think what really drove me all. The time in education was this idea that this desire I had to have positive impact on the lives of people.

And you know, uh, when I was working in the classroom, that was with students all the time. And then later on, you know, as I moved into administrative ranks, you know, I was interested in impacting, you know, adults, impacting communities, impacting, uh, lack of, uh, lack of, I guess, maybe humility here. I really want to impact the world.

[00:06:41] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:06:43] Jose: You know, my belief has always been that, you know, whenever I go somewhere, I want to be able to leave that place in better shape than I found it. Doesn’t mean it was ever bad, it just means that I think we can always do better.

[00:06:57] Andrew: Right.

[00:06:57] Jose: Can always improve situations for students, the community, for You know, for the world at large.

[00:07:03] Andrew: Where do you think that comes from for you? I mean, where did that, is that some, uh, an upbringing? Uh, was there something, uh, spiritual or is there something that you saw in your grandparents or something? I mean, what, what, what do you get that to you think?

[00:07:17] Jose: Well, I think maybe, you know, uh, my mother really was one of those people who wanted to be a caregiver

[00:07:24] Andrew: in

[00:07:26] Jose: her life, you know, but she didn’t have that opportunity to be a traditional caregiver like, uh, She always wanted to be a nurse, but, uh, she didn’t have that opportunity for a variety of reasons.

You know, uh, part of it was the time period that she was, you know, uh, coming into coming of age, if you will, things like that, and then family and all of those things. But, uh, so I would say that she influenced some of that for me. Uh, but then I think reading. Hmm. Reading. I mean, I’m a, I was a voracious reader at one time.

Yeah. I’m more racious reader. Huh? I mean, I’d have four or five books going at a time. Is that right? I couldn’t keep them. I mean, I couldn’t keep enough books,

[00:08:10] Andrew: library. We’re talking about library, going to the library, a lot,

[00:08:13] Jose: library books, textbooks. Uh, I will tell you when the most impactful experiences I had growing up was when my parents, my brother, uh, you know, Almost a decade older than I am.

And so, uh, he was going to be going off to college and my parents thought it would be a really good idea. Which I’m not sure I understood the math, the logic on this one, but they thought it would be a really good idea to get a book, a set of world book encyclopedias.

[00:08:39] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:08:40] Jose: For him, yeah. And these were the world book, the old real bound ones, the, the faux leather bound.

The reddish color. No, these were white. So this was even before that, Andrew.

[00:08:51] Andrew: Yeah. I, uh, I have a great story about that, but go ahead.

[00:08:55] Jose: Yeah. So they were, they were white bound. They’re fake kind of leather graininess, whatever. And, uh, inside they would have, you know, nice, beautiful, glossy kind of pages.

[00:09:04] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:09:05] Jose: Uh, and then I don’t know if your version has, uh, had this, but The version that we had had the, uh, a lot of the insert type things that were like the, they were like transparencies with the color layer, body parts, the stuff like that. So the age, the

[00:09:21] Andrew: age, the whole layer of the, uh, sort of transparency, uh, you know, paper that, uh, overlays,

[00:09:31] Jose: it was great.

It was great. But anyway, so. Andrew, I read the entire set of world book encyclopedias. A to Z. Yeah, no, I’m not kidding. I read them all every volume.

[00:09:43] Andrew: No, you, uh, I did the same thing. Uh, my parents, we, uh, obviously we went to God, there’s a place called Winn Dixie, I think it was a grocery store, you know, uh, you could spend, you know, you get these sort of.

Stamps, every time you got it, you got one volume every time you got enough of those. And so that’s the only book that I grew up having is a world book encyclopedias, 1980, by the way, uh, the red leather volume. And I read that cover to cover. Wow. Yeah. So we have something in common with that. And you didn’t think we had anything in common.

Oh, we have a lot in common, but, uh, so, um, you read that just like I did over and over again. Huh?

[00:10:27] Jose: Yeah. And well, I mean, I read that and then I’d go on to, you know, they used to send out the, uh, the year in review or something like that. Yes. It’s always a one volume or two volumes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

And then I would go into that. Yeah,

[00:10:42] Andrew: we only bought two of those because I think we couldn’t afford it anymore. But, uh, it was, uh, we only had, we only bought two. You could add on the 81 and 82. And every year you could add on to it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:54] Jose: And I think, I think we were in the same situation. I think my parents figured out that, you know, the idea of supplementing those encyclopedias when my brother wasn’t in school.

Right. Yeah. Our town, you know, I think they kind of pulled that one together and so I don’t remember it after, you know, a couple of years, maybe like you’re talking about, and I never, I never understood why, but now I remember,

[00:11:19] Andrew: yeah, did you, um, so I grew up, uh, enjoying more nonfiction, I think as a result of that, in some sense, is that true for you, uh, I

[00:11:28] Jose: would say, And no, yes.

And by that, what I mean is I always veered toward, uh, fiction, but I love just knowing the facts and so, you know, um,

[00:11:49] Andrew: and you’re like that today, you know, by the way,

[00:11:51] Jose: am I really? So I’m not sure about the fiction piece, but you can tell me about that.

[00:11:58] Andrew: Well, you became a superintendent. Come on now. You got to tell some stories,

[00:12:02] Jose: you know, I’ll tell you what, I think, uh, Was it Aristotle said this?

Uh huh, maybe. I think Aristotle may have said something and I’m going to paraphrase it here. It was something along the lines of, uh, You’re thinking. Yeah, I better come back to that one. I’m going to mess that one up. It’s alright. I live in the world of poets. That’s my, that’s, that’s my, that’s my tendency anyway.

[00:12:33] Andrew: So how do you think that all helped or, um, I don’t know. Did it help in the job of the superintendent? You think, I mean, did it help you as an educator, especially in a leadership position as demanding as a superintendency?

[00:12:46] Jose: Yeah, I think, I think it did. Uh, I think it sometimes, uh, can be a challenge to make sure that you’re not rearing too far off into that land.

Uh, but I can, I can tell you this, uh, you know, how oftentimes super time superintendents have to, uh, speak on their feet. Yeah. We haven’t talked about anything. And so what, what I was looking at,

[00:13:09] Andrew: what’s that you have to dance on your feet, as I like to say,

[00:13:13] Jose: yeah, dance on your feet. Uh, yeah. But, uh, so. Having an aptitude of fluency with words and language is really always helpful.

Yeah. But you’ve got to have some grounding in facts. Yes. And the key for a superintendent, I think, is taking these really complex thoughts or not thoughts, but complex, uh, situations, ideas, rules, requirements, if you will, and making that understandable. Yeah. In a human way. Yeah. For, you know, whoever your audience is, whether that’s.

You know, room full of, uh, business people, a room full of, uh, senior citizens who are, you know, uh, wondering about taxes and things like that, or whether it’s a, you know, room full of students that, you know, uh, third graders who were, you know, really not even sure what’s going on around them, you know, but that, that’s the beauty of having the ability to, uh, Yeah, live in the world of poetry, but function with the, how should I put it, the factual angle of a scientist or a mathematician.

[00:14:22] Andrew: It’s interesting you say that. Um, I think that, you know, superintendents have to live in the world of, Metaphors and analogies, um, because to your point, your consistency is so wide and varied among parents, students to business folks, to policy makers. Um, and so I think that. And education itself is such an abstraction, in my opinion, while it is a very concrete school and teacher and principal, the learning and what goes on in it and the way we go about making that work is, in my opinion, very, uh, abstract in some sense, it’s more of an art.

Um, and, and I think you have to, and trying to explain that to people and how that works and leadership is really an abstraction. It’s not, while there’s a lot of science to it, in some sense, it’s really, there’s a lot of, really a lot of variables involved in that. Um, it’s a really unknown. And I think as a result of that, it, it comes with a lot of levels of, I like what you’re saying about being a poet.

And, uh, understanding that world in some sense for the job.

[00:15:38] Jose: Well, I, I appreciate that. I think, uh, I’m going to say it this way. Um, you know, the idea of let’s say mythology, yeah. Mythology was what was created in order for humans to explain factual phenomena.

[00:15:57] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:15:58] Jose: Right. Yeah, sure. So, you know, what, what superintendents do is they are essentially, and I don’t want to say it in this way, in a way it’s going to come across as a negative.

We are the mythologists, in a lot of ways, of a community, for a community, of an entity. Because we have to take the phenomena around us and put that into terms, into a story that others can understand and relate to, if all that makes sense. I mean, that’s the way I would say that. The work of the superintendent, uh, tends to lean,

[00:16:36] Andrew: you know, uh, do you think that’s why, you know, superintendents had to be global in many ways, you know, um, you know, I started out a course and I think I’m sure you have to, we were detail oriented people that we were good at and we got moved up.

And we found ourselves in the next step. But when you get to the, when you get to be the superintendent, you really have to abandon that. I remember struggling with abandoning, working on the work, so to speak, and now be more global about things. And as you talk about crafting the storyline, um, you know, while I think I, you know, eventually migrated towards that, um, it’s, it’s a different world in terms of, to your point, to your suggestion, to your, um, You know, uh, characterization that the superintendent has to really, uh, uh, craft the message, craft the storyline, and that’s a very tall task in many ways.

[00:17:31] Jose: It is. I think, uh, the thing I always had to try to stay aware of, though, is this, because, and I would tell, you know, the, our administrators, our team, this, I don’t want to spin anything. Right. And I don’t want to be a spin doctor. I don’t want you to be a spin doctor. However, what I want you to do and I try to do is I try to take a situation and frame it.

Yeah. And by framing, I mean put it into the right context for understanding it as it is, not as we’re adding emotional layers to it or anything like that, but really understanding a situation.

[00:18:13] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:18:13] Jose: For what it is, putting it within the right frame, the right context. Okay. So that people are understanding it the way it should be understood.

[00:18:21] Andrew: Yeah. Hmm.

[00:18:22] Jose: No,

[00:18:24] Andrew: it makes perfect sense. I mean, I, I think I’ve been certainly a guilty of sort of spin doctoring, if you will, like you mentioned there. Yeah. And I don’t know, but don’t you think that there’s a fine line between that spin doctoring and, you know, because in framing it, I think the receiver is always going to say that you’re, you’re spinning it to some degree, even though I think in my opinion, I was trying to frame it, but you know, in fairness, I don’t know how it came off in that way.

I don’t know. I don’t know what the receiver

[00:18:51] Jose: was feeling. Well, and I will say this in the situations where it’s most intense, uh, the people who don’t necessarily buy into what you’re saying are going to call you on it or attempt to call you on it.

[00:19:03] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:19:04] Jose: So that’s a great opportunity to, to reframe it in a way that’s understandable to the person.

Now, here’s the other thing I used to tell administrators, your job isn’t to make people accept things.

[00:19:18] Andrew: Your

[00:19:18] Jose: job, like mine, is to help them understand things. You know, you can’t force acceptance. All you can really hope for is understanding. Because that gets back into that whole perception thing that you’re talking about, really.

How the person perceives it to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s why you never try to convert someone in that way that we think about you just try to help them understand. Yeah. Because people know when you’re trying to sway their thinking.

[00:19:50] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:19:51] Jose: Yeah.

[00:19:53] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I think, uh, certainly I’m guilty of probably.

Overconversationalization, I guess is a word, uh, to, you know, I try to always not to give too many directives because to your point, I want somebody to have the same sort of belief system or same type of understanding as I did. Um, I think part of that was then I can be reassured that whatever they say really mimics what I’m saying just as well.

And I don’t have to worry about it. Yeah. Um, but if you had to script everything out for everybody, Um, then you really are really, you can’t, you can’t manage that. You can’t manage scripts in my opinion, while, while script counterintuitively, you think that you can manage by scripting everything out, but in reality, we’re all human beings and everybody has an opinion and everybody will say whatever they want to say.

So,

[00:20:43] Jose: yeah, well, I’m going to go ahead and play with that one a little bit, if you don’t mind. No, please. So here’s this whole idea of. Education. Yeah, education. And this is something we always talk about. You know, it’s not about the rote memorization of facts, right? Yeah, it’s about being able to take an understand knowledge and apply that knowledge, right?

Right. So if you think about it, this is the way I used to think about it. You know, when I would work with administrative teams. What I talk about would be explaining to them how I thought about things, how I thought about situations, how I thought about what we need to do, things like that. And I think probably they got a little sick a bit at times, um, maybe, but here’s my point with them.

I would tell them those things. I would tell them how I thought about things. And then I would always make sure to let them know, I want you to understand the way I think about things. Yeah. So that way, when you’re faced with situations, you know how I would think about them. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not telling you what to think, but you know how to think.

Right. I said, because then you can make better decisions much more rapidly. Right. Than you’re used to. Yeah. If you need to.

[00:22:03] Andrew: You know, I, I kind of, once again, going back to this notion of analogies, you know, and metaphors. Um, you know, I read a lot about football coaches, especially college football coaches.

And it seems to me in that world, everybody knows a certain college coaches philosophy about the offense or the defense or how they want to run things. And as a result of that, people are, are. Either attracted by it or people don’t like it or whatever the case might be. But people generally know those things about athletic coaches, you know, even basketball, college basketball coaches, right.

You know, what kind of offense they like to run defense or whatever. But when it comes to like, you know, philosophies or superintendents in terms of like, how you like to run things or how you like to do things and whatnot, I’m not really sure if that’s really that prominent out there. I, and I really appreciate you saying.

What you’re saying, because I never known how Jose Parra as a superintendent of Lockhart Independent School District or Irving Independent School District superintendent ran your school district. You know, it was unknown to me. I knew, I knew who you were and who you are as a person, but in terms of like how you ran things and how you went about and did that, I, I didn’t, I don’t know.

I did not know that until now. I think in some sense,

[00:23:18] Jose: well, I’m going to share this with you, Andrew. Superintendents don’t talk to each other about those things. Why do you, why do you, you have an opinion about that in terms of why? Because we’re busy in the work. Yeah. We’re busy in the work. We’re busy practicing what we’re going to say to our communities.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s what’s going on. Andrew, you think about a lot of the conversations that you’ve had with superintendents over the years, like in a conference or whatever, what happened? Yeah. A lot of times you can sense when they’re shifting into, this is what I’m going to say to other people, right? Or this is what I have said to other people.

And so, you know, we’re also at fault individually as superintendents because we don’t ask, Hey, how do you do things? Right? Because the number one, we don’t think about it that way. Number two, we tend to already know how we want to run things, right? We’re not that interested in how somebody else does it.

Right. Uh, but we, the things that we talk with each other about tended to be or tend to be, uh, Hey, what are y’all doing about such and such? Right. What are you doing to, you know, accelerate achievement here? What are y’all doing to with new tech high schools, that kind of stuff? Sure. We talk about those types of things.

We don’t talk about the, the philosophical approach to how you run an organization. Yeah. How you, how you create the culture in the way that we need to. You

[00:24:54] Andrew: know, I think, uh, you know, and when you think about all the literature and certainly you’re in a place now at Texas A& M commerce as a professor, by the way, um, these are very important topics.

I think that, um, you know, I think, um, future. educational leaders had to sort of grapple with and think about. I think the context of the job has gotten, you know, I will say tougher than, um, even in my tenure and it’s always been tough as my mentor would say. But, um, I think that’s more appropriate now.

It’s, it’s even more critical to have a philosophy about how you’re going to run things and so forth.

[00:25:33] Jose: Yeah, I think if you like the analogy idea, it’s, uh, I’ll probably dissuade the people from pursuing the supertensity of what I’m about to say. Uh, I think the analogy here is the supertensity has always been a by script.

Wow. The difference is the amount of torque that you put on the device.

[00:25:55] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:25:56] Jose: And so what’s happened over time is especially now things have been kind of ratcheted, you know, forced down. The torque is higher, greater, if you will. And so it’s the same job it’s always been. It’s just the twerking, if you will.

And so, the advantage people have who are kind of in this world right now, coming into this world, is it’s the only world they’ve known. True. And you know, we’re all creatures of habit. We’re comfortable what we’re used to. Absolutely. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Right. So, it doesn’t make it easier. It just makes it more of the normal for them.

[00:26:38] Andrew: Yeah. You know, um, this is right up my alley in terms of the talk and this is why I love talking with you all the time. And I know lately we’ve been talking a lot, but I do want to go back to what you said a few minutes ago about this, uh, seemed like you had a person that inspired you. Um, who was

[00:27:00] Jose: that?

Several. I mean, I can remember almost every teacher I had. Started with Head Start. Oh. Yeah, I remember Mrs. uh, I think it was Mrs. Garza then. Back then. And, uh, Head Start. And then I had uh, uh, Edna Frazier, who you well know as the namesake of Frazier Elementary.

[00:27:21] Andrew: Yeah, good one to Frazier Elementary School.

Yeah. Combined.

[00:27:25] Jose: Exactly. And I had Mrs. Winkler, and I had Mrs. Wiegand, and I had Mrs. uh, Uh, only Langendorf, you never knew, did you know Langendorf? I know the name. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I didn’t think, I thought that lady never liked me, Andrew. I thought she, I thought she did not like me at all. I thought she did not like me at all.

But you know what happened is this, uh, There used to be a blockbuster video.

[00:27:53] Andrew: Yeah. Uh, for the listeners who don’t know what that is, oh, it used to be a, a store where you can actually rent this thing called the beach, VHS videos, even. And it

[00:28:04] Jose: went up to DVDs.

[00:28:05] Andrew: Yeah. DVDs. Even. It went to DVDs for a while there.

Yep.

[00:28:08] Jose: Yeah. But anyway, they used to be when there on. 46 and 35. They have an intersection.

[00:28:14] Andrew: Yeah, right here. Yeah. It

[00:28:15] Jose: was like a jack in the box there at one time. I don’t remember how it worked. It was something like that anyway. But, um, I remember walking in there one day, this is years after I’d finished school and all that.

And I walked in there to get a video or something and they asked to see at that time, they used to ask to see your license, right? Yeah. I don’t remember how they did that exactly. But yeah, you give me your license and the, uh, the girl behind the counter looks at it and she says, Did you go to school at blah, blah, blah?

And I said, yeah. And she said, I think she said her grandmother, her grandmother used to talk about me all the time. Wow. Get this, get this. Her grandmother had like a folder, a box. I don’t know what it was, but it was clippings.

[00:29:07] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:29:08] Jose: Of the news from the newspaper. Like, you know, whenever. Like you had, you were in the honor roll or whatever happens.

She had all those clippings and, you know, spelling, be champion and all that. And she had all those clippings of me. Wow.

[00:29:24] Andrew: Whoa. A little scary right now. They’re Jose. Come on. Yeah.

[00:29:30] Jose: So this is a different time. So at that time, it didn’t scare me quite the way it does now, Andrew. But, uh, no, but, but I guess that’s to say I had no idea.

Yeah. So. Yeah, I think, yeah, and, you know, I think she shared a connection with me that I wasn’t aware of in that way. Yeah, but, uh, I mean, she was always, I mean, she wasn’t mean to me or that, but I just didn’t think she, I just didn’t think she had liked me at all. I don’t know why. But anyway, so my point in all that is, I think for educators, we have to work at helping students understand that we like who they are as people.

Yeah, even when their behaviors aren’t likable, that makes sense, because I think, you know, you and I would agree that, you know, you don’t set out to want to work at people liking you, right? But work is always easier when people like you. So make sense?

[00:30:33] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:30:33] Jose: So, you know, I think, I think the same holds true for teachers in the classroom.

Students work better for teachers they like. Yeah. They don’t want to be easy necessarily. They just want to know that that teacher likes them, cares about them. Yep. And then they can be more open about things. Yeah. Then they can connect.

[00:30:54] Andrew: Yep. Yep. It’s interesting you mentioned about being liked and all that.

I, I think I always said, obviously it didn’t probably come across in many ways, but I always wanted to be, um, fair. And I wanted to be known as somebody who was going to do the work, um, put in the hours. Uh, but really fair, I, I didn’t really chase the, sort of the like or dislike as much. Obviously I had my fair share of dislikes.

Um, every time, as my mentor would say, every time you make a decision, you’re, you know, somebody’s not going to like it. Right. Um, so, but, uh, but that comes with the job territory and, you know, I certainly, uh, Uh, thought beyond that to know that as long as I knew that students were going to benefit directly or indirectly, that was the ultimate goal for me.

[00:31:48] Jose: Yeah. So, you know, I’ll make a way to put it this way. So for me, I always want one of my students to know I was interested in them as humans. Uh, that I was going to have, I’d be somewhat demanding at times, but that I was always fair about it.

[00:32:09] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:32:10] Jose: And it always recognized the effort. Sure. Right. Right. They made the effort.

Here’s the effort to do this, even if you didn’t necessarily get to a certain level, whatever it might be. Yeah. And so in the superintendency, you kind of had to learn to, uh, to get rid of this, you know, everybody’s going to like the idea.

[00:32:29] Andrew: Yeah, I know. Yeah. Very,

[00:32:30] Jose: very quick, very quickly. Oh yeah. Very quickly.

And so, you know, I didn’t mind if people knew me as firm, but if they also knew me as fair. Yeah, that’s what you, that’s the most you can hope for in that one. Yeah. They had no, they never had a question when I made decisions. It was because that was what we needed for our students. Right. You know, student needs adult wants.

Yeah. I was going to be student needs. It’s where it goes.

[00:32:57] Andrew: Yep. Yep. And, uh, you know, I think, um, you know, if it, this is why the job is so hard, because I think it gets that tug of war that happens, that dichotomy there that is really difficult to sort of, and I know that it sounds easy enough to say, well, of course I’m going to make decisions on behalf of kids.

Um, but when you’re in the, uh, the moment of it. I think, uh, certainly there’s always tension there. Um, and that tension is something that you had to overcome in many ways, and it’s hard, very difficult. Um, Jose did, but Shirley, um, you someone else that sort of Oh, yeah. Oh,

[00:33:31] Jose: sure, sure, sure. Or pushed you

[00:33:33] Andrew: into the superintendency.

Um,

[00:33:35] Jose: well, let’s, let’s talk about that a second then.

[00:33:36] Andrew: Yeah. Who, who, uh, who, what was, yeah.

[00:33:39] Jose: So what was that? What was that like? Yeah. Was that, so I think I’ve been in the classroom about four years.

[00:33:46] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:33:47] Jose: You know, uh, and. I, I don’t know, position came up with Central, I became Director of Special Programs, that’s what it was.

Right. And where was this? That was in New Braunfels. Oh, okay. Coordinator, Director, that type of thing.

[00:34:01] Andrew: Oh, the, uh, Unicorn Clan, you were there, huh?

[00:34:04] Jose: Yeah, so I went to Canyon High School, graduated Cougar, and taught in New Braunfels.

[00:34:09] Andrew: Which is a major rivalry. Two different school districts for people. Don’t you noticed?

[00:34:15] Jose: Yeah. Yeah. Very, very much. So it’s going to be interesting now that the new brawl has two high schools. They do. Right. Yeah. So it’s gonna be really interesting. And Canyon, as you well know, uh, being the, uh, the architect of a lot of that growth, uh, yeah,

[00:34:30] Andrew: no, it’s the command high schools. Yeah. Yeah. I was lucky enough to build two high schools there.

Sure.

[00:34:37] Jose: Yeah. Two high schools. So, you know, and yeah,

[00:34:41] Andrew: total of five high schools, uh, five comprehensive high schools,

[00:34:45] Jose: that’s a lot, but, uh, anyway, so, uh, I started going to school. Let that goes. I mean, when I moved to central office, I needed to get my mid management thing, whatever it was, mid management certification.

And I think I started at Texas state, maybe. Yeah, I was Texas at the time, I think. But, um, anyway, uh, ran into somebody, uh, I was actually the, the, uh, the mother of one of my students and we were talking and she said, where are you, where are you working on your administrative stuff? I said, I told her, and she said, why don’t you go to Trinity?

Oh, and I said, well, that’s a little out of my price range. And you know, I don’t know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it’s a lot of money. And she said, well, what do you get a scholarship there? And I said, well, I started looking at it then. Well, long story short, I ended up going there. Wow. At about a 50 percent scholarship.

[00:35:48] Andrew: Is that right? That’s

[00:35:49] Jose: great. Yeah, I mean, it was all because of that conversation I was having with her. Oh. Who wasn’t even in administration. Really? But she worked over there. Is that right? Yeah. In the, in the education department, so, uh, Anyway, so I went over there and started working on the, the mid management stuff, and Uh, one of the professors there, Ivan Fitzwater, I don’t know if you remember Dr.

Fitzwater, Dr. Fitzwater. I know the name. Yeah. Dr. Fitzwater was the, you know, world renowned expert on time management. Yeah. First thing he’d always tell you though, is it’s not time management, it’s self management.

[00:36:24] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he wrote a pretty big, decent article about all of that.

[00:36:29] Jose: Oh, he wrote numbers of books, numbers of books, lots of speeches everywhere.

Remarkable. Great man. So anyway, he, he said, you know, said, well, he said, what are you going to do if you get this, you know, this management thing. And he said, I said, well, you know, I don’t, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that far, far in advance. And he said, well, he said, you’re going to need to become a superintendent.

Wow. That early on. He said, yeah, but first he said, before you become a superintendent, he said, you need to be a principal. And I said, Dr. Fitzwater, I said, that’s very nice of you to say that. And good advice. Thank you so much. But. You know, he kept after me with that. And I said, you know, I said, I’m at central office already.

Yeah. I said, that’s kind of a step back. You know, and he said, well, Jose, he said, uh, you may think so. He said, but you need to be a principal. He said, because when it’s time to interview for super tendencies, they’re going to want to know that you’ve been a principal. He said, they will never ask you if you were a good principal and awful principal.

Mediocre principal, this or that. I just don’t want a human principal. He said, because teachers need to know that you’ve been a campus administrator. Campus administrators need to know that you’ve been in their shoes. Yeah. And so I kept putting him off and putting him off. And then all of a sudden, uh, I got offered an assistant principalship in Wiley, Texas.

A friend of mine had gone out to become principal there and said, well, will you come? I was like, what is that? I don’t even know where that is. And, uh, I don’t know. About two weeks later, I was out there. You’re

[00:38:16] Andrew: talking about Abilene Wiley? No, no, no. I’m talking

[00:38:18] Jose: about the one near Plano. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:22] Andrew: Wow. Okay.

[00:38:23] Jose: Yeah, Wide Awake Wiley, as they called it.

[00:38:25] Andrew: Yeah, Wiley the, yeah, I know that Wiley well, as well as the Abilene Wiley, there’s two Wileys.

[00:38:30] Jose: Oh yeah, yeah, I always forget that. But uh, but anyway, so I went out there and then became principal out there, eventually. Uh, stay there for five years as a principal and, uh, Superintendent, uh, H.

John Fuller, who you probably know. I do know Dr. Fuller. Another, another great mentor of mine. Yeah. Uh, he, you know, when I was interviewing out there, he took me on a little tour of the high school. He said, well, he said, if we hire you, we have to have, I have to have a two year commitment from you. Oh, wow.

Which was different. And I said, hmm. Hmm. Hmm. I thought, you know, two years, I can do two years. I said, yeah, I’ll do two years. I thought, figured do that two years and be on my way. Right. Eight years later, I left. Wow. Because I was, I kept getting opportunities there. So I would say that Ivan Fitzwater, the university level influenced me to go the superintendency route.

H. John Fuller certainly reinforced that idea.

[00:39:24] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:39:25] Jose: And, uh, he gave me opportunities that I would really probably would not have had elsewhere. And I was exposed to a lot more,

[00:39:32] Andrew: you know,

[00:39:33] Jose: certainly Dallas, Dallas, Fort Worth areas. I mean, things happen here.

[00:39:37] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:39:37] Jose: Right. So those people really impacted me in terms of the administrative growth.

[00:39:42] Andrew: That’s great. And

[00:39:43] Jose: thinking, thinking about the superintendency.

[00:39:45] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:39:47] Jose: So I’ve heard people sometimes in interviews and things, and you’ve talked to people like this, uh, Andrew, you, maybe you were one, uh, who, um, They say, okay, I knew when I started, I was going to be a teacher for two years or three years or the minimum was, yeah, then move into being an assistant principal for a year, then become a principal, you know, for two or three years.

And then, you know,

[00:40:10] Andrew: yeah.

[00:40:11] Jose: So by year 12 or nine or whatever it is, I’ll be a superintendent somewhere.

[00:40:15] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:17] Jose: I never, I never dreamed when I went to the classroom, I never dreamed of leaving the classroom. Right. Right. That was where I could be all those things. I wanted to be right.

[00:40:28] Andrew: You know, um, in many ways, uh, it’s another thing that we have in common.

I think I consider myself an accidental superintendent and, uh, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a job choice or career choice by any means at all whatsoever for me. Um, in many ways, it sounds like, uh, you didn’t really, that wasn’t your thing either. You were just doing your thing, doing your job.

[00:40:51] Jose: Absolutely. And you know, the more you do, the more people see you, the more they think of you in terms of what you could be.

[00:40:59] Andrew: Right.

[00:41:00] Jose: So I can’t tell you how many of the opportunities I’ve had, Andrew, you know, you’ve been to administration, all that were a result of somebody, and I call them guardian angels, uh, of somebody saying, Hey, have you ever thought about, yeah. Dot, dot, dot, and then whatever role the next step was, uh, is what would follow.

[00:41:21] Andrew: Well, and you know, I’m, I’m actually proud to say that you still, I see you do that all the times, even now. And, uh, I think you are, uh, you are paying it forward. Um, and I appreciate you, uh, you know, saying things to me about those things as well as others I’ve seen you in, you know, in mixed company that we hang out with here on the errands.

So, uh, I see you living that, uh, Living exactly what you are talking about right now. So I think that’s a, that says a lot about who you are as a person there. Well, thank you so much.

[00:41:53] Jose: Yeah, I’m good for a hundred thousand

[00:41:57] Andrew: miles now. Yeah, exactly. You got just to tune up there. Um, so I certainly, uh, taken up enough of your time and, you know, but we do always try to end this, uh, Jose with.

a particular story of a lunch duty that you may have because you know all all any administrators that we’ve been in the business we’ve all done some lunch duty teachers have done lunch duty so uh it’s a part of a common thing that we’ve all been part of in the school system so any particular lunch duty story or thing that you remember by any chance that uh you uh care to share with everybody

[00:42:33] Jose: yeah can i can i say something i just remembered yeah no please So, uh, earlier I couldn’t remember the quote I attributed to Aristotle.

I can’t remember if it is or not, but, uh, I think the quote is something along these lines. Uh, the historian speaks of what is, the poet speaks of what could be. Nice. So the superintendent by nature of the job really is going to be a historian and a poet. Nice. I prefer being, you know, leading the poetry.

Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I can’t, can’t be a prehistorian as well.

[00:43:12] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.

[00:43:13] Jose: Makes sense.

[00:43:14] Andrew: Oh, it makes perfect sense.

[00:43:16] Jose: Yeah. Well, I didn’t say it to begin with, so.

[00:43:18] Andrew: No, no, no. And, uh. Yeah. That’s uh, I think I’m pretty, uh, well, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even know who to attribute that to, but it sounds very Aristotle like in some sense.

[00:43:28] Jose: Well, you would know you’re the, you’re the medieval, uh, literature or languages? I can’t remember.

[00:43:35] Andrew: No, I was a medieval study. So I did all things related to the, what’s 475, uh, uh, uh, uh, AD to about 1475,

[00:43:45] Jose: the great thinkers, uh, yeah, the core. So let’s do it. Yeah. Let’s do these stories is, and, uh, the thing I, you know, you know how it is when you’re a secondary administrator, lunch duty always hits right when you’re in the middle of something else.

It always does. And so you had to run over there and you have to take care of it. So you don’t necessarily head over there with the right frame of mind. But, uh, the thing I enjoyed the most about lunch duty was the interaction with students and the interaction with faculty in a different setting. Yeah.

You know, Wasn’t sitting there trying to get them to do their homework or turn this in or turn that in, or, you know, do certain things in the classroom. It was just sit and talk or stand and talk. Well, stand and talk for the administrators. Right.

[00:44:33] Andrew: Uh, pretty much. Yeah.

[00:44:34] Jose: Yeah. And, uh, I will say this, the most, one of the most memorable things, aside from those conversations I would have with students and other teachers, um, was actually not lunch duty, but breakfast duty.

Yeah, so I don’t know about the high schools you’ve worked in, but the high school that I was in, where Wiley, we had, uh, a situation where, you know, everybody would file into the back, pretty much all the students for the most part in the back parking lot, and they would be in the cafeteria. So we’d cram however many people it is into that cafeteria before school started.

And one day I was in there and we kind of had some levels and so I was kind of above on the upper level and I was kind of looking out and, you know, it’s one of the beautiful days where things are just perfect outside. And it’s crazy because everybody inside was quiet and well behaved and they were just, they were just, they were just.

Relax and, you know, those moments as an administrator when you look at it and say, It doesn’t get any better than this. And now I’m thinking, you know, this is perfect. And everybody’s coming in from outside, just, you know, coming in patiently and quietly and all that. Well, there’s one student that comes in, he’s not being loud, but he’s walking with purpose, Andrew.

He’s walking with purpose and I thought, okay, and you know how it is when you’re on duty, you catch those, you catch someone who’s not in sync with everybody else. That’s right. You do. And so I thought, I gotta watch this guy. Yeah. And so I watch him and he comes across with purpose to a table and I can’t remember if the student was sitting at the end of the table or like next to the end.

It must’ve been at the end. And Andrew, I have never seen anyone punch someone as hard as he hit him. Oh, wow. I mean, he laid him out just. Wow. The guy never got, I mean, he was sitting down and he just, just, you know, knocked the living tar out of him. Wow. And, you know, everybody scrambles the jets. We’re all over there.

We’ll get them separated. And, you know, trying to get them sorted out later. All right. And get them to some offices, whatever it is. Turns out they were brothers. You’re kidding. Well, no, I thought, I thought, you know, like this guy had taken this guy’s girlfriend or whatever the hell, you know, something like that.

No, they’re brothers and the, the, the guy who did the punching, I said, why didn’t you do this at home, you know, gave us trouble. Yeah. And he said, cause I’d get in trouble at home. I’d really get in trouble at home.

So, you know, if, if that was his way of solving problems, you know, the way they dealt with his problems was even worse.

[00:47:23] Andrew: Yeah, no, no. Yeah, I’m sure.

[00:47:26] Jose: A shocker. Right.

[00:47:27] Andrew: Yeah, no, uh, it’s funny as you were talking about how like, Oh, this is a beautiful day. It’s so peaceful. You know, I always knew that. Oh my gosh, here it comes.

This is not good. I was so always like, wait a minute, this can’t be. Um, but you know what, that’s what part of lunch duty. Right. And I mean, you know, as an administrator, uh, it’s insightful that you mentioned that you were aware of this kid because, uh, a good administrator, a good, uh, educator, You just know, um, something’s going to happen like that.

And you, you’re just really watchdogging that quite a bit. And powers, powers of observation is super, gets super sharp in my opinion. Um, so yeah, you get, you

[00:48:11] Jose: get Spider Man’s Spidey sense. Yeah. I used to say that.

[00:48:15] Andrew: Yeah, gosh, you know, you and I are saying the same stuff that, uh, it’s a little, it’s a little odd and scary there.

I’m a little bit scary about our conversation. Well,

[00:48:24] Jose: remember this, uh, Andrew, going back to the beginning of this conversation, you were the superintendent in Comal when I graduated from high school.

[00:48:34] Andrew: Yeah. And now you are looking younger and younger every time I see you. So, uh, you’re doing great. So

[00:48:40] Jose: so much.

I tell you what, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this.

[00:48:43] Andrew: Yeah, no, I appreciate it very much. And it’s a little bit of a nice little project to, uh, just capture, you know, folks that I know, folks that I don’t know, and just kind of talk about, uh, you know, just the job that we held, uh, that was extremely, uh, Personal, extremely, um, emotionally tough, um, and, um, and, uh, there’s a, there’s a need to, I think, in my, in my opinion, to share some of this information to maybe one or two people who might be listening.

We’ll see.

[00:49:14] Jose: Well, I, I appreciate you doing this, uh, and I appreciate your patience with me, uh, because you know this about me. I tend to talk about everything, but what you’re asking me to talk about.

[00:49:26] Andrew: Well, I love your stories and I love it. And, um, I think, uh, you share some, uh, awesome insight. It resonated with me.

So I appreciate that very much. Absolutely. Same here. All right. Listen, you take care. Thanks for joining Lunch Duty. All right. I’ll talk to you soon, buddy. Okay. Thank you so much, Andrew. Lunch Duty is produced by David Yeager and me, Andrew Kim. We thank the Lates Development Studio and the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin for their support.

Thank you for listening and please join us for our next episode of Lunch Duty.