Episode 04: Ron Caloss – My Mentor

[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 welcome to lunch duty.

I have here with me a very special guest. His name is Dr. Ron Caloss. He is my mentor. I think I’ve known you about close to 30 years now. Yes, sir. Now, what are you doing right now?

[00:00:53] Ron: Retired. Fully retired. Now,

[00:00:57] Andrew: how long you been a superintendent now? I

[00:00:59] Ron: was one 24 years.

[00:01:01] Andrew: 24 years. And you know, I’m looking at your background there, your nice bookcase, and I don’t see a picture of me.

I don’t know why that didn’t happen. I know I’ve got to get you a picture. We have a picture of, you know, of us together.

[00:01:14] Ron: Yeah, I know. But you got hair. I don’t have hair.

[00:01:17] Andrew: Now, did you, had hair when you began the superintendency back in the day?

[00:01:21] Ron: Oh, yeah. Little thinner than yours, but I had some.

[00:01:28] Andrew: It was jet black, wasn’t it?

To jet black. Now you, you didn’t grow up wanting to be a superintendent when you’re a little kid. Did you?

[00:01:37] Ron: I had no idea who his superintendent was.

[00:01:41] Andrew: What did you want it to be when you grow up, when you were thinking about your future? Well, I

[00:01:46] Ron: wanted to, be successful, you know, I don’t know that it was actually an education, but I, I had ideas of, you know, running a company, running a business, having my own business, you know, something where I could make some money.

Well,

[00:02:05] Andrew: you went to the Navy after high school.

[00:02:08] Ron: 17 years old. I joined the Navy, graduated from high school at 17, joined the Navy, got out at 19, not no 20, right at 20.

[00:02:18] Andrew: And did you go straight into teaching after that? Or what did you

[00:02:22] Ron: do? No, no. I went to school, moved to San Antonio. And you went to school? Yes, sir.

Started at San Antonio. I went to San Antonio Junior College. I graduated from high school in Florida.

[00:02:36] Andrew: That’s right. That’s right.

[00:02:38] Ron: I got to. Got out of high school, went in the Navy, got out of the Navy, went to move to San, to Dallas, the Dallas area, went to college here, graduated from St. Mary’s. And were you

[00:02:52] Andrew: thinking about education at that time?

Or were you thinking about the business world? I was, I

[00:02:56] Ron: started teaching. Yeah. You

[00:02:58] Andrew: did? Mm hmm. You liked it. Do you like teaching or, did you think that yeah, I

[00:03:02] Ron: liked it. Yeah, it was all right. It was good. It was all right. I liked it. Became a principal pretty, pretty young. I think I was in the classroom seven years.

[00:03:13] Andrew: Well, how did that come about? How did you go into, who nudged you or who, asked you to go become an administrator or did you just

[00:03:19] Ron: do it on your own? salaries. And I said, God, if you want to make a living in this profession, you got to become an administrator. You know, I had gotten married, had one or two kids, had three kids all together.

But I said, damn, if I’m going to stay in this, I better become a school administrator. So you

[00:03:37] Andrew: decided, you know what, I’m going to stay in education. And I’m going to go into administration.

[00:03:41] Ron: Well, I, I wanted to get into administration to make enough money, but I hadn’t totally decided that administration was going to be my gig.

[00:03:50] Andrew: Yeah. How’d you know

[00:03:52] Ron: that? I was pretty successful in a hurry. Became a superintendent. And, I was a superintendent 24 years.

[00:04:01] Andrew: Now, did they just, now you moved up pretty quickly being a superintendent because, you also moved around a lot too, though.

[00:04:08] Ron: I started in Bandera, went from Bandera to,San Antonio Southeast School District went from San Antonio to Lamar Consolidated in Houston.

I went from, yeah, I was superintendent in, Southeastern, went to San Antonio to Lamar Consolidated. You

[00:04:30] Andrew: started out in King’s ranch though. I started,

[00:04:33] Ron: yeah. Started in Rivera and I went from Rivera as superintendent to Southeastern in San Antonio. Then I went from San Antonio to, Houston and I was at, Lamar consolidated Houston, and I went from Houston.

[00:04:49] Andrew: To, where you wind up, retiring from the purse.

[00:04:53] Ron: Yeah, I was there at my last, eight, nine

[00:04:56] Andrew: years. And then, of course I met you when I was a young assistant principal at North Dallas high school and Dallas ISD, and you were a professor teaching. At the University of Texas at Arlington. Yeah, I was

[00:05:13] Ron: I saw you right away.

I knew I liked you.

[00:05:16] Andrew: Well, I was your best tutor, right?

[00:05:18] Ron: You smiled at me. I put you on the front seat. In the front row and you smiled at me and I said, this guy’s gotta be okay, .

[00:05:26] Andrew: Well, you needed somebody to laugh at your jokes every day, so, you know, every time we had class. So I think that was the. And that was my job.

That was your time. So at Rivera ISD, tell me about that experience. you know, I got

[00:05:39] Ron: to, it’s a small rural district, Rivera independent school district, just South of Kings. Yeah, I was there as a teacher. They moved me into high school principal for two years. And then to the superintendency,

[00:05:57] Andrew: that’s the board, the board made those decisions.

Yes,

[00:06:00] Ron: sir.

Yeah, that’s true. When it comes to hiring administrators, you know, they have the last thing

[00:06:08] Andrew: they do. You’re right about that. Now, did you have a, other staff that you, started working with or were you doing it all by yourself in a small school district like that?

[00:06:16] Ron: Well, at a small district, you don’t have any assistants.

So I had a high school principal, a middle school principal, an elementary principal. You know, and, and, I, I, I, I did okay.

[00:06:30] Andrew: Well, you moved out quickly. Yeah, you moved out quickly from there. And you got, you got a

[00:06:35] Ron: superintendent at 29, I think. Or were you? Yeah, 29.

[00:06:41] Andrew: Well, you started moving pretty fast up into larger districts and you got more people.

And how was that working with more people starting out from Rivera ISD? You recall that? What was it like to have more people around you and working with more people, especially a central office? Yeah,

[00:06:59] Ron: it’s just. The job changes, of course. You get more help. You know, when I was at, Herschula’s Bedford, I had a couple of assistant superintendents.

you know, the high school had principal, assistant principals, and so forth. And, and, So you, so you get more help with the bigger districts. The job is probably a little more intense in the small districts because you do it all. Yeah. And appeal goes directly to you from principal. It comes right to you.

Yeah. And in the bigger systems, you have assistants that handle stuff. And if they can’t weed it out, then you have to take care of it. I had good assistants.

[00:07:46] Andrew: Well, I want to talk to you about that. And, but also kind of want to talk to you about this, straight line in a small school district. which you, which one did you prefer, you know, a small school district where they can come directly to you or, and you solve it?

[00:08:02] Ron: Yeah, I prefer, I preferred the larger districts. You did. Um,there was more help. I got to do, more planning to work more on a master plan. And, but, the small, I learned the business in a small district. I learned how to handle people. Well, that’s

[00:08:24] Andrew: an interesting comment. So in a small school district, because you were obviously interacting with a lot of folks.

What are some of the things you think that, you took away as a lesson learned at Rivera or Bandera ISD, and then as you moved out to the larger

[00:08:41] Ron: district?well, you, you learn every day. You know, every incident you have, you make mistakes, you do things right.you learn from those mistakes.you set a pattern on how to handle people.

You know how to, you know, Listen more than you speak. Yeah. But when you, when you speak, nail it, come in with some savvy stuff and, and get it on the line,

[00:09:12] Andrew: how did you, how did you acquire some of those savvy comments for you?

[00:09:15] Ron: I think you, you acquire that by. Doing it, going through the actions with different people, you know, you have the parent that thinks the system is against them, that the system doesn’t care about their kid, that they just want to wipe their kid out.

Then you have the parent that threatens you with attorneys and, you know, they’re all different types of people. And as a superintendent, you got to learn how to soft pedal these people. In other words. Try to get your message across to them in a stern manner that doesn’t turn them completely upside down.

It’s not always easy. You know, it’s a challenge.

[00:10:05] Andrew: Well, what kind of, you know, person you think personality did you have that suited you for that? I mean, you know, cause sometimes you kind of bark orders at me sometimes, you know, yeah, you know, you gotta be patient with that.

[00:10:18] Ron: You can do that with your personnel in closed doors, but now when you’re in with parents, you got to handle it a little differently.

You can be stern, you can be direct, but you just have to approach the incident in a much more diplomatic method that you’re not going to give ground, that you’re going to administer the right thing to the child, not be unfair and not try to wipe the kid out.

[00:10:49] Andrew: Now, you know, I learned these things by listening to you a lot.

over all these years. Now, where’d you, where do you think you gained these knowledge from? I mean, was there, was there mentors that you had or,

[00:11:00] Ron: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I learned from some pretty good people. Yeah. I, I worked for a couple of good superintendents and, and I learned some things from them and how they handle people.

And, you know, you, you, you get a system down to where your secretary helps say, let me, Dr. Kalos, let me tell you what this gentleman’s like,He’s very irritable. He’ll come at you right away. You know, you, you get these tips from him and you weigh that when you go into the conference with him, you kind of expect how to react to this guy, you know, some, you got to be very, very forceful with others.

Say, Hey, look, I, I’m not opposed to your child. What your child did was wrong. And he’s got to pay the consequences for it. You think

[00:11:52] Andrew: that, this, the, the ability to have good relationships or to understand diplomatically way of dealing with people, it doesn’t come naturally to people, I don’t think. No,

[00:12:03] Ron: it does not come natural.

You learn by. Experience handling personnel yourself, handling parents, you know, handling teachers who are excitable and get upset, you learn, it’s a process that you learn. Through just going through it.

[00:12:29] Andrew: Well, is there, is there not a preparation program then a book? I mean, what were you always leaning on when you had to make those tough decisions?

[00:12:39] Ron: I knew a couple of superintendents and I rely, rely, relied on quite a bit. Very experienced. Very good. Yes. But you got to watch who you, you contact with that. You know, you got all kinds of personalities out there. You got superintendents that are just irate all the time. You got superintendents that are mild all the time.

You got all different sizes, shapes, and you got to pick what you want to be and and and find the person you think you want to be. And Be honest when you deal with parents, always be honest, say, Hey, look, you know, I know you’re upset and I realize you have a reason to be upset, but you need to be upset at that young man some too.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it’s telling that teacher that

[00:13:31] Andrew: yeah, what do you say to

[00:13:34] Ron: you? Let me tell you something I feel pretty sure he did or I wouldn’t be here right now. That’s a great

[00:13:45] Andrew: line Yeah, you

[00:13:47] Ron: know you but you got to have the person that you got to fit your personality You know, you don’t want to be a, a, a renegade and overbearing tyrant.

You don’t want to be a soft push either. Yeah. You know that you’ve been there.

[00:14:06] Andrew: Yeah, I have, you know, I think I try to take as much of a lesson from you and listening to you talk about, these experiences. And, you know, I think I relied on that on a day to day basis. I think on the job, not, not to say that I did it right all the time.

but,

[00:14:25] Ron: No, none of us do. Hey, I made my mistakes. Don’t misunderstand me. I wasn’t pure and clean, but as you get more experience, the better perfection you have,

[00:14:39] Andrew: you know, the, the, the job hasn’t changed much, but it’s also changed a lot, if that makes sense, how do you think the job has changed a lot today?

You know, I know, I know it’s been a while since you’ve been in the seat, but, what, how do you look at the job today?

[00:14:55] Ron: I think things have changed. Absolutely.they’ve changed since I’ve got out. I’ve gotten out of the business. I mean, it’s not, schools are not the same as they were when I was in it.

Personnel have changed. Parents have changed. I think that today you see more, parents that feel like they, they, They know the system, even though they don’t, you know, that they’re in more control over what happens with their child. They’re in control of how their child acts most of the time, but they’re not in control of how the system reacts to what the child does.

You know, you have school boards that write policies, you have administrators that administer, administrate those policies. Yeah. Some of those people differ. Yeah. You know, you go to one high school and they’re doing one thing and you go to another one of your high schools and they’re doing something else.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. You know, one of them is, is, is putting every kid that has a weapon. And suspension and the other school is, Hey, don’t bring that to school anymore.

[00:16:14] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s, there’s a, definitely a, differences depending on where you go. even in. Even certainly, it’s more visible like that in our state because it’s so big and there’s such a reasonable aspect of it, no doubt.

Absolutely. Now, what do you miss, what do you miss about the Superintendency? Can you say something like that? I know you miss, I know you miss the people.

[00:16:40] Ron: Yeah, I miss the, relationships I had with staff members, fellow superintendents, assistant superintendents, fellow superintendents, and the building level superintendents that I had.

You know, you miss those friendships. And, and you miss, a lot of the people that you knew. Yeah, I, we had some outstanding teachers, good people. You have, I think, I think school people are a brand of their own. We have, we have our downbeats. We have those that shouldn’t be in the business, no doubt about it.

But I would say 85, 90 percent of them are true blue

[00:17:23] Andrew: people,

[00:17:24] Ron: true good people. Yeah. They want to do good. They want to produce, they want kids to learn. And, that’s hard to beat.

[00:17:36] Andrew: That is. Well, what do you miss about it? I mean, what do you, not miss about the, the superintendency? I should say that

[00:17:42] Ron: there are a lot of things there.

There are certain things you never miss, you know, the, appeals that you get, the parents that are upset, you know, you, you, you try to point some things out to them and you get them one on one without the kid. And they’re usually pretty good then. Yeah, but then they get the hidden room and they lose it, you know, not always.

I’m not saying that you’ve got great, we got great parents out there, predominantly speaking. Now we have our downbeats, you know, and, and, but, but, I, I miss the relationship with parents and fellow administrators and teachers, kids. So when you become a superintendent, I always had student advisory committees, you know, but it’s, it’s never at the extent of when you were a building principal and I was at for a while, not long, but, but I, I miss those relationships because I met some unbelievably good people.

[00:18:53] Andrew: Yeah. You’re a people person for sure. I have no need to be. Someone who engages and talk with people all the time. And, you know, when you decided to, you know, decided to, retire, that must’ve been somewhat of a hard transition though.

[00:19:11] Ron: Oh, yeah, it was. I mean, my first four or five years were tough, you know, I miss people.

I miss being around them, the contacts, the meetings. And everything. I missed it all. But after I got used to it and got away from it a while, I said, Hey, this is the place to be, you know, my best year

[00:19:32] Andrew: gone. Yeah. Well, don’t say that. now, did you miss, did you miss making tough decisions? Or did you like to be in the, in the fire, making those tough decisions?

[00:19:44] Ron: I didn’t mind making the decisions. All right. I tried to do as much as I could to get all the information I could to make those decisions, but I don’t, I didn’t miss making those decisions. Did I make mistakes sometimes? Yes. And when you make enough of them, you’re going to make some mistakes. And I made some, but you learn through every instance you go through.

You know, whether it be a student, whether it be a teacher. A parent, whatever it might be, you, you, you learn something every time, how you should have reacted, how you could have replied, you know, and, I, as I grew and as I got more experienced, I think I use that quite a bit and then

[00:20:33] Andrew: help me. Yeah. Yeah.

You, you’ve, certainly have given me. A lifelong’s worth of advice about not just being a superintendent, but just being a, a good, a good person.certainly I, you know, I think, I hope that I’ve done half the stuff that you, you know, try to impart with me, but there was a. A great advice that you gave me about, I asked you a question.

Hey, when do I know I need to step away from the job? Do you remember your answer to that by any chance?

[00:21:06] Ron: Well, it could have been one of several.

Well, I think, you know, I think you, you, you weigh that. After you’re in it a while and you start seeing the pressures of the superintendents under and you understand, hey, you know, I’m not going to satisfy every board member I work for totally, I will, I need to satisfy a majority of them or I won’t be around.

Yep. But you, you, you realize, Hey, you know, this is a business. People are not going to always like what you do, especially those that you’re punishing in a way, you know, they’re not going to like it. and you can’t expect them to like it. No. You can expect them to go along with it. Yeah. They, okay. I need to pay my dues.

Yeah. But, yeah, I, I, I, the job is tough. It’s a gut check. It was a gut check when I was in it and I think it’s tougher now. You know, I think it’s tougher every year. I, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not easy. No, not everybody’s cut out to be a superintendent. Yeah, you know, there’s certain personalities are very fine in school people, administrators very fine that are not superintendent material.

Yeah, you know, good high school principals are good middle school principals, but, but, but they’re not cut out to deal handle those seven, nine board members that you have with all different ideas. You sit down with a policy sometimes and you have seven people that feel the policy ought to be different in seven different ways.

It’s possible.

[00:23:06] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:23:09] Ron: We got to say what’s best for our Children. What’s best for the

[00:23:13] Andrew: system. You told me just to answer that question that I recall about when you should step away. You pull me aside and you said when little when little things starts bothering you

[00:23:28] Ron: little things. But yeah,

[00:23:30] Andrew: yeah, then it probably is a good sign that you should probably either move on or let go.

[00:23:36] Ron: Or start thinking about. Yeah. Now you spent how many years in, in, come on. Oh,

[00:23:44] Andrew: I was there 10 years and then,

[00:23:45] Ron: see that that’s a long time for super sure. 10 years as a superintendent in a district that size is a long time. Well, I was really lucky. I mean, in 10 years you’re gonna make enough people upset.

Sure. To where they’re gonna say, guy, do we have the right guy here?

[00:24:06] Andrew: Well, I was, I got lucky there. I, I appreciate you saying that. I think, and you know, you visited me quite a bit to, make sure that, you, I

[00:24:14] Ron: was doing, I think you rat a fine system. You were a good superintendent,

[00:24:17] Andrew: Andrew. Well, I appreciate you saying that.

especially coming from hug.

[00:24:21] Ron: You were, you handled things well. I mean, I, there were a lot of things that I think people look to you and respected what you did.

[00:24:29] Andrew: Well, I, I try to copy everything that you’ve done,

[00:24:35] Ron: but you were your own man.

[00:24:37] Andrew: Now, you know, the one thing, I couldn’t copy you is that, you always were, you always were a sharp dress guy better than I could ever, be.

Always wearing now. Well, you are wearing some comfy clothes right now. .

[00:24:54] Ron: I dressed all right. Yes, sir. Now you

[00:24:57] Andrew: have, I dress nice. You have always, now you have paid it forward many times over. I know many other guys and gals that owe a, huge, debt to you for, being there for them. But, your own son, Scott is a superintendent, correct?

Now, how do you feel about that? You feel good and proud?

[00:25:17] Ron: I’m proud of him. I think he’s doing a good job. You know, Hey, I don’t live there. I don’t make the policies or have anything to do with them. But I, from what he tells me, I think he’s doing all right. He hasn’t been fired yet. So I can see hanging in there.

He’s a good guy. He’s a good kid.

[00:25:36] Andrew: He’s a great guy. He’s a great guy. a little bit taller than you, but he’s a great guy. Definitely. I hope

[00:25:43] Ron: he’s taller than me.

[00:25:46] Andrew: So, were you always looking for one of your kids to become a superintendent? Did you, is that something that you, wanted them to go

[00:25:53] Ron: or what?

Well, you know, my other son’s a surgeon, medical doctor. He’s a DBS and an MD. He’s a oral maxillofacial surgeon. Very bright kid. Yeah. And, Two good boys. I have a good daughter. Yep. All three of them graduated from UT in Austin. Yep. They, went to good schools. They applied themselves, but, you know, I, I think you get a kid to school, you get them a degree and you say, Hey, do what you gotta do.

Do what you feel

[00:26:26] Andrew: best with. And did you encourage Scott to go into the superintendency or education or were you just, let him make that decision? He

[00:26:34] Ron: made that decision. I don’t think I encouraged him, no. I mean, he came to me and asked me some questions once in a while and I gave him my, you know, the superintendency’s tough.

It’s not cut for everybody. You’ll know when you get in it whether you want to stay in it or not.

[00:26:51] Andrew: Well, I mean, obviously, Well, like you said, the job was emotionally tough. You’ve

[00:26:56] Ron: always said that. Very, very tough. You’re dealing with a staff. You’re dealing with teachers. You’re dealing with principals, you know.

You’re dealing with students. You’re dealing with parents. You’ve got all those elements. You’ve got to tie together in the system.

[00:27:13] Andrew: I didn’t, I didn’t sleep well sometimes. Did you sleep well after, during your superintendency? Not all the time. Well, I didn’t sleep after board meetings. I stayed up all night after school board meetings.

Did you,

[00:27:25] Ron: enjoy the rest of the evening?

[00:27:28] Andrew: No, I, I stayed up watching read runs, a sports center. I think part of that was, you know, board meetings can be very intense and they’re, it’s, it takes a lot of adrenaline to, handle that meeting. And so I think it took a long time to, sort of come down off of that.

And, you know, I think it was hard to sleep as a result of that.

[00:27:50] Ron: Yeah. I was usually done about two o’clock in the afternoon the next day. Is that right? Yeah, my brain was just washed, you know, I, I don’t know that it’s that big anyway, but I mean, it just, I mean, I was, I was hammered. Yeah. I’d go home four or five o’clock in the afternoon and go to bed.

Yeah. You’re tired. Take a shower and go to bed. Yeah. I, I didn’t sleep much after.

[00:28:15] Andrew: Now, did you do anything, as a hobby? I mean, you’ve always encouraged me to get a hobby, but I don’t have one, you know, and I don’t know. You know,

[00:28:23] Ron: and then you’re exactly right. I didn’t have, you know, I worked out, wait some jogged and ran and took care of myself pretty good physically, but I didn’t have any real hobbies or anything I could go to.

I just worked. Yeah, I know. I mean, I busted my buns every day and night and then, you know, the job is so intense. You got something on your plate every night. You got this, you got that. There was

[00:28:54] Andrew: something, somewhere to be for the community and for the kids. Every night and every, and Saturday mornings too, by the way, cross country runs.

Yeah,

[00:29:03] Ron: you’re right. I know I got You got an activity on Saturday, you got Things that the track and you’ve got, you know, you got everything you did. Just it’s, it’s a continuous job. I

[00:29:15] Andrew: know a couple of my board members would always want me to be at that cross country meet on Saturday mornings. And it was hard sometimes hard to be there.

[00:29:24] Ron: Yeah.

[00:29:25] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:29:26] Ron: Awful too. I wonder if they didn’t give you a suit, make you suit up and run.

[00:29:31] Andrew: They should have though, cause that probably would have given me a better way of, keeping my health up a little bit. You know, like you. Yeah. Cause I didn’t have much of a hobby and I still don’t have a hobby. And so I, I worry about that sometimes.

And

[00:29:43] Ron: you know, Andrew, that’s a, that’s a great point. That’s the same point I had my whole career. Get something you like to do, fish. Hunt. I’d go hunting a time or two and then it just, I never got anything that I got into. Play softball, do something. I do know. And I never, very important. He gets your mind relaxed.

[00:30:10] Andrew: Yeah. I do think it’s a very important thing. I don’t think that the, I don’t think that, people know what type of, mental processing you’re doing constantly as a result of the job. Well, that’s true. I mean, you’re thinking about the job, you’re thinking about everything all the time. I don’t think there’s a moment that you just stop not thinking about it.

Sure.

[00:30:34] Ron: It’s a continuous cycle. Yeah. It just evolves daily. Problems come up daily. Minor problem. Major problem. Major problems develop into appeals, board meetings. You know what I mean? Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s hard to get your, and the bigger the system, the more you have up now, the more people you have working on guarantee.

But when you’ve got 24, 25, 000 kids and you know, you’re a pretty good size district and you’ve had some

[00:31:12] Andrew: problems. Yeah. I want to ask you about, you know, this podcast is called lunch duty because lunch duty. Yeah. Lunch duty. I came up with that because I think all good administrators or really all teachers for that matter, we’ve all done lunch duty sometime in our career.

Yeah. Yes, sir. You recall a lunch duty that, you either enjoyed or hated, in your career?

[00:31:43] Ron: Oh, I can think of several of them. Sure. I mean, you know, Telling kids to quit messing around and sit down and eat. You know, you just, you have those challenges every day. Kids dropping their plates. food going all over the floor.

Yeah, it’s, you know, you’re, you’re dealing with kids and you’re going to have those kind of problems.

[00:32:07] Andrew: I would have loved to seeing you doing lunch duty. Maybe you can, maybe I can meet you at a school district somewhere and let you kind of do that a little bit so I can see your technique.

[00:32:18] Ron: I don’t know if I have any more techniques.

[00:32:22] Andrew: I know that I’ve taken up a good portion of your evening time here. But if you have to give, Some advice to another young superintendent coming up the ranks. You know, what would that

[00:32:33] Ron: be? I would say, be patient, be direct, listen. Listen to your staff, listen to your course, listen to your board. When you agree with people, you tell them.

When you don’t, you tell ’em Mm. In a good fashion way. Look, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t agree with that. Here’s why it could lead to that, this, this, that. But you gotta, you’ve gotta try your shoes on and you gotta see what shoes fit and which ones don’t. Yeah. You know, and, and, and go from there.

And, and if you have good intentions, if you’re truthful. The truth is very important. When you’ve made a mistake, say it, look, I dropped the ball. Hopefully that won’t happen again. Most likely it will in some aspect, right? You know, you’re juggling so many balls a day, but you got to go to your staff. You got to depend on your staff.

You got to back your staff. The staff you hire is. It’s everything. If you’ve got good people around you, you will look good. If you have bad ones, you will not look good because they’ll put you in a position and make you suffer. They’ll tell you, I’m totally agree with you. Then walk out the door and jump ship on you, you know, and there are people like that.

They’re just human beings you’re dealing with and, and you got to understand that and you got to handle it the right way, get them in, talk to them. If that doesn’t work, move them out.

[00:34:22] Andrew: I’ll tell you what, I learned a lot by, just listening to you talk always. And, I am so lucky that I met you then, especially at that Saturday morning.

When you made me sit in front row by myself

[00:34:36] Ron: to listen to your, you came

[00:34:37] Andrew: in late. I came in late. I have to admit, I came in late

[00:34:41] Ron: 15, 20 minutes. Well, I had a good reason your books falling outta your hand. And I said, come in here and sit down. Write up here in the front. You did. Yes sir.

[00:34:50] Andrew: You did. You did.

But, I had a good reason. I had a good

[00:34:55] Ron: reason. But you and, you were a good man, Andrew.

[00:34:58] Andrew: Well, I appreciate you. Well, I tell you what. It’s been awesome to, just to be, able to talk with you, on a weekly, a daily basis, sometimes I know that, You’ve been there for me, for me, many occasions, and I appreciate that very much.

And I want, I want to let you know that, you have a special place in my heart. I appreciate

[00:35:17] Ron: it. And you have one in mind. Not every professor or whatever the hell I was gets to handle people like you every day. You’re a good man and I’d like to see you get back in the superintendency.

[00:35:33] Andrew: Oh, no, no. I, you know, I think I got enough gray hair now.

And

[00:35:36] Ron: yeah,

[00:35:40] Andrew: and I’m approaching your hairstyle here pretty soon. Yeah,

[00:35:44] Ron: that’s right. None falls out. It goes. Well, you’re

[00:35:49] Andrew: looking good. You’re looking good. And you look good. You sound too.

[00:35:53] Ron: Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. Are you going to be teaching or anything here? Well, you

[00:35:58] Andrew: know, I’m busy right now and busy talking with, you know, you know, folks like you and others and really enjoying that and enjoying my kids.

There

[00:36:08] Ron: you go. That’s what it’s all about. Yep. God

[00:36:11] Andrew: bless you. 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.