Episode 09: Clint Sadler – Hear About Leon ISD!

[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,

Clint Sadler, welcome to lunch duty. And I appreciate you joining me early on a Wednesday morning. it’s not early for superintendents. I know you’ve been up already, but man, I appreciate you joining me here today. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So let’s kind of quickly talk about the great school district of Leon ISD, because, I’ll be quite honest.

I did not know about Leon ISD until I met you. when I was out in Buffalo ISD speaking with Adam and, a great friend, a great guy, of course. So tell us about Leon ISD, first of all, where it’s located and. just a little background about Leon and I see for those listeners out there.

[00:01:16] Clint: Sure. So we’re, we’re a kind of a geographic anomaly here in the state of Texas.

We are located about halfway between Dallas and Houston on I 45, just West Southwest of, of Buffalo. And it, we seem to be about anywhere we’re under two hours from anywhere you’d want to go in Texas. We’re, we’re under a two hour drive to Houston under a two hour drive to Austin under a two hour drive to.

San Antonio under a trail drive to Dallas. And so we kind of seem to be located in an, in an interesting position there. In comparison to all of the major cities, major areas, and then we’re about an hour to an hour and a half from Waco. And so the history of the school is that there are actually three communities, Jewett, Marquet, and Concord that had their own school districts at one point in time.

And as the area out here is a lot of, a lot of ranch land. And, as, as the area started to shrink a little bit and some of the schools started to get much smaller, they decided to consolidate their school districts in 1959 and in 1959, they formed Leon ISD, which was named after the County. We are here in Leon County.

And so the three school districts all came together there, there in 1959 to form. Leon ISD and we’ve been as a school district ever since then. The other interesting part of the story is the very first superintendent in 1959, his name was Louie Sadler. And so we share the last name and he has a, he has a plaque here in our administration building.

And so people ask me all the time if I’m related to him and I joke with them immediately that he’s my grandfather, I don’t know if I’m related to Mr. Sadler or not, but we do share that name. And so that’s. Something that we have in common. And then the next superintendent was Mr. McAdams, very low superintendent as well.

And I do have McAdams in my family as well. My great grandmother was a, was a McAdams. And so, it’s a, it’s a, so I have, I have some name connections to this area, but I’m not originally from this area. And then I got here in January is whenever I was, I was hired. I went through the interview process in December, was hired here in January.

And man, it’s just a really neat little community, a couple of communities, but, the school district itself has really united these two communities. And I’ve enjoyed getting to know the people out here. It’s a, it’s a little slower pace than what, where I was coming from in, in the Metroplex area. And so it’s been very welcomed.

I have, I have two daughters that are here in school with me and they, they love it. I love going to school here and good people, good kids. And, and a very good school district.

[00:03:58] Andrew: first of all, you do have to probably just sometimes probably say that that was his grand, that’s her grandfather, the first superintendent there, Mr.

Sadler, because, that could help you. but that, what, what a nice little, bookend for you to be there. And I’m pretty sure that. You will have your name on a plaque here on the, on one of the buildings there soon enough. Cause you’re doing a great job now. Now this is your first superintendency that,

[00:04:26] Clint: you told me about, right?

That is correct. Yes. I was, I was, I immediately coming from the high school principal position in Princeton ISD. I was there for eight years and I was served as the principal at the high school there for five years and got my superintendent certification early on about, about six, seven years ago. Yeah.

When I got that certification.

[00:04:48] Andrew: So Clint, growing up, I guess, you were just dreaming about becoming a superintendent, I guess, when you’re a kindergartner or first grader, is that how it

[00:04:57] Clint: works? That’s a funny story. How I ended up in, in, in all of that. I, so I, I actually, when I got out of high school, I was going to become an engineer.

I had really good grades in my math classes. And so that’s kind of the direction that I was wanting to go. And then I had a friend of mine, her, her mother came to me and asked me what I was going to do. And I said, well, I think I’m going to go be an engineer. And she said, are you an engineer? She said, I think you need to be around people.

she’s, is that really what you want to do? And I said, well, I don’t know if I could do anything I wanted to, I’d probably go and teach and coach. And she said, then you need to at least give it a shot. She, she said, take it from somebody who’s. done something their whole life that they hate every day going to work.

You need to go and do something that you’d really love and enjoy and what’s on your heart. And so, so I ended up deciding I was going to do that. And as I was given, I was the valedictorian in my senior class. And as I was getting my valedictory address and I talked about it and I said, this is what I’m going to do.

I’m going to go into teaching and coaching our school board president at the time. Yeah. As I walked off the stage and he heard my speech, he said, you did a great job with your speech. I’ve heard a lot of these speeches and really enjoyed yours. He said, now I want you to know something. He said, you’d make a great superintendent someday.

I know if you go on to teaching and coaching, he said, someday you’ll end up being a superintendent and I just kind of laughed and I was like, man, I don’t, I don’t really have any interest in that. I don’t think that’s the direction I want to go. but, as I got into teaching and coaching for a long time and I got into the administration role, I really fell in love with it.

And, when I went through my superintendent certification program, Just trying to go ahead and see how far I could take this and educationally learn about the role and, and learn more about the job. And it became something that was exciting to me as well. And yeah. And then, like I say, here I am.

Well,

[00:06:41] Andrew: so, so first of all, you have the, the last name of Sadler to lean on. And then you have this omen of, the board president from your high school, telling you, you’re going to be a superintendent. So man, man, you need to go buy a lottery ticket here pretty soon. so, by the way, which high school did you graduate from Princeton high school?

Oh, wow. Okay. So you were there. So now Princeton is blown up. Of course, it’s a, getting into a big, big area when you decided to then go into teaching and coaching. Obviously, that’s been that was great. It was great experience for me as well. What was driving you, though, to, like, pursue a superintendent certification?

I mean, what what led you to that? Because I know a lot of a lot of folks who are really great about just being a principal, and I love my principalship. And, I actually love my assistant principalship, by the way. That was my favorite job. And I’m just curious about what pushed you to that next level of pursuing a little bit more.

Do you remember that or recall what was the driving you

[00:07:47] Clint: there? Oh, yes, yes, for sure. And, and so I, so I really didn’t want to go into administration. That wasn’t something that was a desire of mine. I really loved being around kids and, and teaching. I enjoyed the everyday aspects of being in the classroom and, helping students learn and seeing those aha moments and, and coaching, loved coaching.

And, Watching kids. I love developing programs. And that was something that was really exciting to me was taking kids that knew nothing about what I was fixing to teach them and then watching them grow and become very proficient in those areas and in the things I was teaching the coaches. So I really didn’t want to go into administration.

I was kind of recruited into administration. I never worked at Princeton as a teacher and a coach.

I, I was teaching and coaching actually in a school district very close to there in Melissa, and that’s where I was at the time. And then a friend of mine was the principal at Princeton High School that I had graduated.

He was a year younger than me in school, and so he kind of recruited me to come there and go into the administration role. And I thought, I’ll do this for a year or two, and then we’ll see how it goes. man, I’ll tell you what I really loved. And you mentioned being the assistant principal.

I loved about being assistant principal was the opportunity every single day to work with kids who really needed you. Yeah. as a coach and a teacher, you get that opportunity, but you kind of have to look for it. You kind of have to find it. A lot of the kids that you, that you work with and that you deal with in those areas, they kind of have things put together.

You’re helping them in the, in the roles that they’re in and, But you just get a small percentage of kids that you deal with who are the ones who are really having difficult times, who really need help, that really need motivation. And as an assistant principal, it’s all I did all day. Yeah, it was, it was meeting with those kids who are really struggling behaviorally or they were struggling.

With some other, some other issues that they were, they were dealing with that, that they wasn’t as maybe it wasn’t behavior, but it was something that they were having trouble with. They were homeless and they were coming in and they were asking us for help and what we could do to help. And so being in that situation was just like everybody who needed.

Something that really needed assistance was flooding to me as an assistant principal, and I just fell in love with that idea of being able to, to support kids who desperately needed support. And in the principal’s role, it gave me even, the way I designed myself as a principal, I got to do that still, I still got to, I wasn’t as much involved, gave your part of it.

But being able to go out there and recognize and see who those kids were that needed help. And, I mean, most of our behaviors at the high school level are really deep rooted in something that is, that has happened to that student or something that is, that is, push that student to that behavior.

It’s usually, yes, it’s choices that they’re making, but, but it’s usually based off something else that has happened or that has caused them right to feel a certain way or, or end up making those choices. And so, as a principal, I was able to spend a lot of time. Focusing on those kids that I already knew from that district.

I’d spent three years in assistant principal and even though there were also aspects that I could do with teachers and being able to grow teachers, that’s another thing that I really enjoyed. And that was exciting to me. And I think what I saw in my second, third year in administration and school based administration was men at the superintendent level, how much more could I impact?

And other administrators and impact teachers and set the tone and build culture. And that’s what I really decided to focus on as a principal as well, was building the culture of my campus. And I spent a lot of time, went to some, some really good, went to some really good trainings where I was able to hear some Other principals and here’s some other superintendents and people from around the state who had done a great job building positive culture in districts that maybe didn’t have that when they got there.

And so that became something that was very important to me was being able to, to impact that culture. And I felt like, what, what is the greatest way to do that, to impact the culture of a school district, then to be a superintendent? And I didn’t know, honestly, just a ton about the role. And I don’t think a lot of people really do.

They don’t know they don’t. Everything that the superintendent does and I still don’t know. So I went through the training. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, I went through, went through and got my certification and going through that process and learning about school finance and, and, and learning about those pieces.

So some of my math background came back into play there and I got to, got to do some of that. And, and then also being able to do the, the culture part and the growing of other administrators and, and the, the community relations and I just, all of, all of the different things that you get to touch and, and the part that you get to impact is very intriguing to me.

Very exciting. and, and I wasn’t unhappy in my principal’s role. You’re right. Being campus level administrator is a great, it’s a great, it’s a great job. And I enjoyed doing that.

[00:12:37] Andrew: Yeah, no, Clint. I mean, you’re, I mean, my, like I said, I always, I still say today that my favorite job was an assistant principal and you hit it on the nail about that job.

The kids really needed you and you really felt needed by the kids. And I mean, I loved it. I love that job. I’m curious. As to like, you mentioned about visiting places and other things and saw the culture and learning those things. Didn’t exactly know that you were going to be a superintendent or wanted to do that because you’re right.

I think the role is so unclear sometimes, right? There’s really not a good definition of what a superintendent does. I’m wondering, Was there some things that you saw that impressed you more than others that in your learning curve there when you’re an assistant principal and a principal that led you to think that, you know what, I could actually want to do this in a scale as a superintendent?

I mean, was there something that you saw somewhere that you were like, man, that’s, That’s pretty awesome.

[00:13:37] Clint: Yeah. So whenever I was going through my superintendent certification, I had a great relationship with our central administration at Princeton as well. Phil Anthony was the superintendent whenever I was hired as the principal.

And then Donald McIntyre was the superintendent there. Now he’s, he’s been the superintendent there for the last four years that I worked underneath him. And so I had a great relationship with those guys. And we were actually going through a bond process at the time that I was working on my superintendent certification.

And so Phil Anthony, who was superintendent at the time, actually trusted me for some reason to be able to go out and give a presentation to our bond committee and give them kind of the information that we had gathered about what direction the school might go. Because at that time we were making some huge decisions.

On what the future of Princeton RISD was going to look like. And so I did a lot of research, came back and I, I didn’t necessarily try to push the committee one direction or the other, but I was able to give them the information that eased their mind about, Hey, if you make this decision, because we were talking about whether or not we were going to go multiple five days, like Frisco model.

Yeah. Yep. Frisco now has what? Well, yeah, by the high schools and they’re pushing up to 13. And then, or if we, if we were going to go the, the Plano model, which the plan has, they’re much larger, right? And six, eight schools. And so, or you can, that was kind of the idea.

[00:15:01] Andrew: I heard that you guys were thinking about the Allen model.

Just make the, the big gigantic school. I think in some sense, I think you were looking at that too. That’s

[00:15:08] Clint: right. And that was another, another part of that conversation. And that’s what Princeton wanted to do. They wanted to be Allen. They wanted to go one big school because there’s so much. Pride in that district school and so much history there, but we just couldn’t do it because the landmass there, the eventual buildouts, 13, 000 students, right.

And at 13, 000 Allen’s at 6, 500, and they’re by far the largest high school in the state of Texas. And that’s right. There was quick recognition that 12 to 13, 000 students is way too many for one high school. Right. And so they decided we’re not going to do that. Well, if we’re not going to do that, then what is it going to look like?

And so I was able to go and gather that information and meet with. People that were in the central administration of all of those other districts and come back and tell them, these are the positives. These are the negatives. These are the benefits. And, and so that, that really influenced me. And Clint,

[00:15:57] Andrew: what, what was your role during that time period that, and Philip Anthony asked you to do that?

You’re the assistant principal. The problem is. I was an assistant principal at the high school. That’s correct. Now what I’m curious, that’s okay. So that’s crazy to me. I, I’ve done multiple bond initiatives, of course, in my career. and don’t get me wrong. I had some great, administrators at the campus level.

And, but why do you think he chose you? I mean, that’s, what, what, what was that all about? I mean, that’s just really, I put it, that’s putting a lot of stock in you, man. That’s, I mean, that’s great for you. You have a story on that. Is there a backstory

[00:16:37] Clint: on this? Well, I was, yeah, I was doing my internship with him through the superintendent certification process.

And so I had been meeting with him regularly and we had been talking about, he was teaching me about the finance portions of, of being a superintendent. so I, I was, I’d already been developing that level of relationship with him where we were getting to know each other. I was asking a lot of questions.

and I had the other thing, I think that was the advantage for me is that I hadn’t always worked in Princeton and a lot of them. the people in Princeton, when they go there, they don’t leave. I mean, Princeton’s a great school district. And so there were a lot of people there that have been in Princeton for a very long time, and now they’re trying to think outside of Princeton, trying to think outside of the box there as far as what are we going to do?

What are we gonna look like in the future? And since I had worked in a few different districts, and it kind of seen some different ways of doing things. And I had a lot of contacts and relationships with people from those other districts. that was another thing that gave me a little bit of an advantage to be able to say, Hey, I can go meet with these people.

I can go ask them questions. I can find these things out. I have a personal relationship with them because I worked with them in these other areas. Yeah. And so it, I think that was part of it. And then the other part was just the relationship that we had built that, that he was able to put that trust in me.

And, and I knew it was kind of my shot, it was, it was my opportunity to prove to, to, to him and to the community that, that I wasn’t just the high school kid that graduated from there anymore that I, that I had learned. a lot about the, the, the, the business that we’re in and about the school business and about the kid business and, and, that had the ability to, to, to make a presentation like that.

[00:18:17] Andrew: So, I mean, I guess in some sense that you would consider, Mr. Anthony, I guess, Dr. Anthony, Mr. Anthony, a huge credit to your success. And, some level of,

[00:18:27] Clint: Oh, sure. He and Mr. McIntyre, both. They, yeah, both of those guys helped me out a lot. And whenever I was coming up in Princeton as a really well run district and those guys in central administration there, they, they do a great job and that, they had done, they’d also done a great job of allowing me to see kind of behind the, behind the scenes things that they were doing and, ask them a lot of questions and even in my time coming now here to, to Leon and becoming a superintendent, that’s, that’s one of the most important things for me is having that network of other superintendents that I’ve been able to contact and ask questions and, and get help from, and then provide me with, with, with various things that pop up that are obviously I’ve seen and I, and I’ve, I’ve gone through the classes, but when you haven’t done it, I mean, I’m right.

I’m right now in month. Starting month four, I’ve been in this role for three months. When you haven’t done those things, you’re always curious about what kinds of, what kinds of things might, might trip you up, might cause you to fall. And without that base of people that are helping me, it would be very difficult for me to do that.

And those two guys have still been a huge help for me. Donnie Lee, who is the superintendent of Wichita falls, you and I coached together, for, for a couple of years back in, Back in the day. And so he’s, he’s been a very good contact for me that I’ve been able to, to get in, in touch with him. And then Charlie Alderman was my principal, for a couple of years.

And he’s the superintendent now in commerce, which is very similar in size to Leon ISD, a little bit bigger than us. And so it’s been good to be able to stay in contact with him. And, kind of, Hey, we’re, we’re, we’re dealing with this right now. What does that look like for you guys? Or how, what have you gone through this before?

And so, the state of Texas does a really good job and of making those connections and, and those people helping people and, and so building that network and having that coming in has been, has been very helpful for me.

[00:20:25] Andrew: Well, so then, moving forward, then obviously you got this job at Leon ISD and sounds like you’re doing a lot of networking and I actually appreciate you reaching out to those.

perhaps further away, like Donnie’s now at Wichita Falls, but I think he was near you guys originally, then you just recently got to Wichita Falls, if I remember correctly, and then, some of the others that you’re talking about, how do you, how do you make that work? A lot of people don’t understand that the superintendent’s job is it’s really unpredictable, right?

day to day basis, maybe I remember I used to try to keep a calendar as much as possible, but you know, things happen every morning, every day. And you’re constantly having to firefight as well as trying to keep. Things going that you thought that you’re going to be playing for. when do you make time to connect with others and how does that work?

[00:21:22] Clint: Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. It usually involves me sending a text message and saying, Hey man, give me a call whenever, whenever you get a chance, because like you said, scheduling things. I mean, yes, I do have a calendar. I absolutely schedule out as much as I can schedule out. And that calendar looks very interesting on a day to day basis.

like you say, it’s kind of one of those situations where you, you have the calendar, you have the things that you’ve scheduled, and then you just kind of have to. You have to assess and being a high school principal gives you a lot of experience in doing that as well. Yeah. I guess as a high school principal, you’re, you’re, it’s even more so I would say than the superintendents where, because there’s, there’s a, that the campus level administration serves as a filter oftentimes for some of those day to day operation things that you’re discussing that just pop up and run at you when you’re not expecting them.

And so, so I do have a lot of experience with trying to do triage and say, okay, I’ve got these other things that I’ve got. Is this time sensitive? Is it extremely important? Is it not as time sensitive? Is it not as important in trying to, to analyze and figure those things out? But, but as things pop up that I’m looking at and going, okay, I think I know how to do that.

I think I know how to deal with that. I’ve done my own research. But I want to call in some of the experience. usually it’s a text message. Hey man, give me a call as soon as you get a chance because they’re busy schedules as well. And then we end up getting on the phone for 15 minutes and or 20. And then they start asking me questions too.

And it ends up being a back and forth there. That, that, that is, I think it’s vital for us. Cause like you said, as a, as a campus level administrator, I had my superintendent that I would call and that was easy. I knew who to call. I’m going to call Phil or I’m going to call Mac and I’m going to talk to them and I’m going to say, Hey, this is what I’m dealing with.

This is what my plan is on how to deal with it. Yep. Do you, you like that plan? You don’t like that plan? Let’s, let’s go through it. Let’s discuss it. If I wasn’t a hundred percent confident what I was doing, or, or James Lovelady was the assistant superintendent that I worked under that during the time I was there as well and contact him.

He was also a big mentor for me. And, and, but then once you become the superintendent, you don’t have that person. You don’t have that other person to make a phone call to and so having other superintendents that you can call and we can network back and

[00:23:37] Andrew: forth, it becomes really truly a lonely job as a result of that.

I mean, you can really, you can really get isolated in some sense. Yeah,

[00:23:45] Clint: I think so. If you don’t have that network of other people to call, if you don’t have that, that group of other superintendents that you can make those phone calls to, or, there’s some also there, there are a lot of retired superintendents here in the, in Leon County, in this area that have reached out to me and offered, you their phone numbers that if there’s something that I needed or assistance I needed or help.

And so it’s a, it’s a, it’s a good network of people. And it’s a, Texas, like I say, excuse me, in Texas public school education, I think, I think we all do a good job of trying to help each other out, take care of each other.

[00:24:18] Andrew: I’ve had a great mentor. there’s a podcast episode if you want to listen to it, Clint, but, he is, his name is Dr.

Ron Kalos, and, he was, gosh, he was superintendent for 24 years. In fact, he’s the one that really pushed me into the superintendency. I mean, I had no idea, to your earlier comment. You know what the job was about. So I would not have become one unless he really pushed me towards that. And so, and I talked to him probably once, once a day, if not twice a day, sometimes.

And so, I understand. I get it, in terms of, relying on. Many of your colleagues as well as, and also I think, and I appreciate you talking about the retired superintendents or superintendents who are not in the seat anymore because there’s a wealth of institutional knowledge, with those guys.

And, and, and some of the ladies as well too. So I think that’s a, a, a treasure trove of folks that you can really rely on and talk with and get some experience and so forth. my guess is that Leon IST, you probably don’t have a large central office, or senior staff or a cabinet. That you work with, you probably have some, some folks that you’re working with.

how do you guys go about working together? I mean, what’s your, what’s your style working with? Cause now that they depend, they depend on you for the answers. Like you used to depend on Mr. Anthony. So how do you, how do you, how do you make that work with your team?

[00:25:50] Clint: Yeah, so I try to meet with our central administration.

we, we meet, well, I mean, we have so many meetings on a daily basis. I have a business manager. We have a person who’s in sort of a curriculum director role, and then I have a CT operations director. Oh, nice. And so. and then of course we have the, the secretary here on campus and I have someone that works in payroll and that kind of fills out the entire team that we have here.

And yes, it is a much smaller team than what you would have in a larger district. and so we all wear a lot of hats and I wear, I wear a lot of hats and I do a lot of things that, you, you wouldn’t necessarily do as a superintendent in, in larger districts, but it really doesn’t bother me. I enjoy that.

I enjoy having my hands. On a lot of different things. And I feel like it’s helping me understand those roles and learn those roles better as well. That’s why I think it was so valuable for me to spend the time that I did as a campus level principal. Because there have been many situations now where our campus level principals.

Are running into things that they have not seen before they have not done or dealt with before. Right. And, and, when you’re at a smaller district and you only have 200 and something kids in your entire high school, well, then you are going to see a much smaller volume of instances, whether that be behavior or, or whatever other types of things you may run into.

And so coming from a district where I had 1800 students on my campus as a high school principal, yeah, it was a situation where they’ll come to me with things that they haven’t seen before. And I was like, man, I dealt with that 25 times last semester. I know. And so it’s been good for me to have sat in that seat in that role as a principal.

So I know I’ve got a wealth of experience and knowledge of things that they’re dealing with. And what they’re seeing in their role. And I try to meet with them, our campus level administration team. I try to meet with those guys at least once a month where we talk after the board meeting, Hey, this is what we discussed at the board meeting.

This is what we’re dealing with. This is what is going on in the district. And then ask them questions about what, how, what other things can I do to support you? And I’ve also tried to in those meetings, bring up at least one or two things. As campus level administrators that I feel like they, they need to make sure that we’re, we’re all on the same page in how we’re approaching those things and coming in as a new superintendent.

I think that’s important. You’re going to deal with things maybe a little differently than the way things were done before. Right. Right. And not trying to come in and just reinvent everything and change everything, but just to have some discussions to make sure that we’re solid and doing everything on the up and up.

And, and those, those meetings have been very, very productive. Well,

[00:28:26] Andrew: and Clint, that’s, that’s my curiosity because, you’re the newest person. I’m sure you’ve had staff members there and Leon ISD for some time there. So as a newbie, as a new guy, especially in the role of the superintendent, they’re sort of looking up to you for direction.

Yet I would think that, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you’re trying to, Push them towards a direction, perhaps, or not, or you’re trying to figure out what that is and where they are. So how are you making that balancing act work, I guess? And I think it’s actually more challenging in a smaller district in many ways.

I really do.

[00:29:03] Clint: No, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think for me, of course I have my philosophies. I have my thoughts and my feelings about, education and then I’ve developed those over the years and differently. But what I, what I continually remind myself of is that while I am leading this district and while that is my role and that is my responsibility and I take that role and I take it very seriously, it’s still, this district belongs to.

Leon ISD. This isn’t my district. This isn’t, this isn’t my school. This school belongs to the people. And that’s been a huge part of what I’ve tried to do in these first three months is get out there and listen to people. I’ve tried to get with my board members and listen to them and say, what’s important to you?

What do you value? What are, what are the things that we want from our students? What do we want for our students? This is my philosophy. This is what I think is what I believe. Yeah. This is the direction that I could see us going. Thanks. But what do y’all want? What do you see? Do you agree with me? Do you think that the things that I’m presenting to you are things that are valuable or do you not?

Do you think that now we really don’t think those things are important here in Leon ISD and we want to go a different direction. We want to push something else. Now, luckily what’s happened so far is all the changes that I have presented and I’ve said, Hey. These are things that I would like to see. Let me give you an example.

We, we didn’t, we were a small school district and I’ve worked at a one a school before and I’ve, as a teacher and a coach, and so there, you only had one section of each class, it was 70 something kids in the entire high school, right? So you didn’t have honors programs in schools like that. There was no reason to have an honors program.

There’s only one class of algebra. Like you can’t have even two sections. How do you have an honors program? we’re kind of in that balance where we’re big enough probably to have one, but we haven’t had one in the past. And so that was a discussion that we’ve had with one of the things I’ve noticed our SAT and our, and our, ACT scores being a little bit lower than what we probably could be compared to other school districts around the state.

And so just having this conversation about, Hey, my philosophy is that if a kid wants to go to Harvard, the fact that they’re at Leon ISD and they graduate high school shouldn’t be the thing that prevents them from. And so should we have an honors program? Is that something that we want to develop?

We want to develop a more robust dual credit program where our kids get more opportunities to be a part of college programs early on. Even if they do go to a four year school and want to go for four years, they’ve got more collegiate level experiences. They come. Out of our high school. And so these are things that weren’t there before, but as I present them and talk to everybody about them, I think it’s very important to me that whatever program we have and whatever we’re doing, that we’re pushing every kid to be the best that they could possibly be.

Yeah. And I think that developing these programs would help us do that. And so far, everybody has just jumped right in and said, man, these are all things that we like. These are all things that we want. Talking to the teachers and they’ve been, man, we’ve always wanted an honors class and we haven’t been able to have them.

And so it’s been a situation where, some of my philosophies and ideas and thoughts that I’ve had and that I’ve brought in really aligned well with the, on ISD and some of the things that they’ve valued and that they wanted as well. And so that part of it has aligned really well. And it’s really, like I said, it’s come from me talking and listening to what other people are saying.

Hey, these are areas that we could, we could improve. And these are things that we might want to, you, you guys there at UT have the on ramps program. And that was another discussion that we discussed was, the, some of the teachers came to me and said, we’ve always wanted to do this on ramps program.

We think it’s another way to. Expose our kids to collegiate level coursework without having necessarily the pressure of it being a full dual credit class. And then, so I immediately said, let’s set up a meeting. Right. So we set up a meeting with on ramps and we’re starting on ramps next year.

And so I think that’s the other thing that I’m trying to develop within this school district is for them to understand that I’m an extension of them, and if they have something that’s a philosophy or a belief that they have, I want them to present it to me. Whether that be a parent. Or whether that be a teacher or a student or whoever it is, come and talk to me.

And if it’s something that our school values, I want them to trust me that this is something that we see is very important and them to realize that if you think it’s important, then I’m going to do everything that I can to provide that for our school district, even as small as something as a parking lot, they came to me and one of my first things is that this parking lot, There were these grassy areas beside the parking lot that they felt like was wasted space, that we could have more parking.

I mean, you don’t think about those things when you’re becoming a superintendent, the first discussion is going to be about a parking lot. More concrete. but, but man, they weren’t wrong. And then I said, okay, well, let’s look and see if we can do it. I mean, let’s look and see if the money is there and our capital gains, money, if the money’s there and you guys think this is what’s valuable and we need 20, 30 extra parking spots out behind the football stadium, let’s get it done.

And so it’s already. board. We’re about to paint it this week.

[00:33:49] Andrew: So parking spaces cost. I used to, we used to cost out 5, 000 per parking space in terms of construction costs all in. So I know exactly what you’re talking about. Jennifer Porter with on ramp, she used to work for me. we worked together in commel.

So she’s great. It’s a great program. Let me know if you need help with that. it sounds like you do a great job of selling, because, listening and talking and asking a lot of questions is not a, intentional skill set that is taught in programs out there. So it must be natural to what you got going on.

And I think sometimes, you just don’t realize how important that is as a superintendent at that role. it’s not, it’s less directive in my opinion, and it’s a lot of listening. A lot of just talking about, and I appreciate you talking about your philosophy and your belief systems because, that’s, that’s how you, you got to sell it.

I think the question will always come up, once you have a mismatch. what do you do? I think that, that’s, that’s going to be the one of those things and sounds like you’re off to, obviously coming to a close in your first year, you probably learned a lot and, you’re going to probably learn a lot next year and, but we do have to, I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I do want to close by asking you a great, a funny lunch duty story because I always like to say that any, good administrator has done lunch duty.

and, teachers have done with lunch to do a course. So, certainly in your, time as a P or as a principal, you’ve done some lunch duty. So any, any recollection of, a moment or experience while during lunch duty that you can share with us. That’s appropriate. Maybe,

[00:35:38] Clint: man, I was going to say, I have got so many stories from lunch duty.

I, we, we could fill another entire 35 minutes, just on the chance of a lunch. I’ll pick one. And, what, what I will say is my last day as the principal at Princeton high school. so I, I, I. they, I, I’m, I’m leaving, I love my school district and I love my administrative team. I had four assistant principals that worked for me and they, they kind of brought me lunch and, so I have this thing where I think that the band journey is overrated.

Okay. I’m not a fan of the band journey. Okay. It’s a, it’s a, it’s an unpopular opinion.

[00:36:26] Andrew: Yeah. That’s like one of my favorite bands, man. Come on. What are you talking about,

[00:36:29] Clint: man? I get it for some reason. It’s, it’s just. The guy’s voice, Steve Perry’s voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me and I hear him sing and I immediately just want to want to break the radio.

And so my, my assistant principals brought me this, this little, this little plaque that had the lyrics from journey songs and they played journey over the loud speaker in the, in the lunchroom. And then my band And Princeton high school came to, they, they brought the whole band came into the cafeteria and they played the fight song for me right there at lunch.

My last day there at the campus. And so I thanked them greatly for drowning out the journey with the Princeton high school fights, which is a song I loved and was, it was very near and dear to me, so that I didn’t have to listen to, faithfully anymore or whatever it was going on. That’s more, one of the more tame stories that I can tell you.

I had plenty of others that are not quite as tame probably

[00:37:35] Andrew: now for the public consumption though. But I gotta tell you, man, what a way to go though. That is pretty awesome. that’s probably one of the best send off stories I’ve ever heard in my life. That’s pretty awesome.

[00:37:47] Clint: Man, that was great. They did a great job.

I really enjoyed it. I just record a little bit of it and I still have it.

[00:37:53] Andrew: Well, I don’t know if they’re going to ever listen to it. Hopefully you share this with them, but, let’s give a little shout out to that band director. Do you remember the band director’s name by any chance still?

[00:38:03] Clint: Yeah. His name is Jason Smith. And so it was actually his first year with us. We’d have the same band director, Brandon Brewer for many, many years. and Brandon went in to become a fine arts director there at Princeton ISD. And so we had hired Jason Smith and. And he’s a great brand director, great guy.

I’ve gotten to know him really well over that first. We only worked together for, for a semester. Yeah. Yeah. but, but really enjoyed working with him and, and so yeah, that was, that was a, that was a really neat deal that he, he did well,

[00:38:30] Andrew: did for us. Well, we just certainly gotta give him a lot of credit.

And sounds like your four assistant principals that, was working with you also took care of you as well too. And then, and kind of give a big shout out to Mr. Anthony. sounds like he had a big, say so. And then of course, the, your friend’s mom, that, that, you were in high school that led you into teaching and coaching.

So, those are some great individuals that have impacted your life to get you where you are today. Well, I’ll tell you what, I appreciate you spending some time with me. I know you got a busy day. You It’s been awfully a lot of amount of time. So I, I’m, I’m thankful for that. I was so, intrigued and so I was awesome to meet you.

And so, thank you for just kind of, creating this time and let me know if I can do anything to help you. And, I’m going to start sending you some journey songs down then to get you inspired, maybe, maybe that’ll help out a little bit. All right,

[00:39:30] Clint: Boston. I can do Boston, Boston. So we

[00:39:35] Andrew: can do Boston from that area.

We can do Boston for sure. Okay. All right. Well, listen, you have a good, the rest of the week, man. Good luck. And I’ll talk to you soon. And I’ll, I’ll reach out soon again. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right, man. You take care. All right. Bye bye. Lunch duty is produced by David Yeager. And me, Andrew Kim, we thank the Latest 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.