Leading a session titled “Navigating the Unknown: District Leaders Turning Challenges Into Opportunities,” the Center for Digital Education’s own Vice President Brian Cohen started by revealing the results of a national survey by CDE. It found superintendents navigating a widening set of challenges all at once, from staffing to student wellness to learning gaps, cybersecurity threats and the pace of technology change, which respondents felt were all interconnected.
A trio of education leaders on the panel weren’t unsympathetic, but they made the case that the right attitude, partners and a willingness to think outside the box can turn some of those problems into positive change. After all, what generation of school district leaders would not say they were beset by challenges?
BUDGET WOES
Dr. Nneka McGee, former chief academic officer at San Benito Consolidated Independent School District in Texas and founder of the educational services company Muon Global, said she’s heard a lot about budget concerns. She suggested to some of her clients that they create one budget with no Title funds — referring to Title I-IV, which cover everything from support for high-poverty students to professional development to English learners — and one budget with, then present those to the school board or superintendent.
In New Jersey, Superintendent Glenn Robbins of Brigantine Public Schools said health-care costs for school districts recently went up 31 percent, and his district was only allowed to budget a 15 percent increase. He said they weren’t anticipating 40 percent increases in electricity bills either, or such steep hikes in food and transportation costs.
“If [your budget] can only go up 2 percent and your costs are going up 5 percent, you’re at a zero-sum game. You’re at a loss. You cannot catch up,” he said. “So I challenged our superintendent to find ways in which he can close the gap, and one of the approaches he took … was with kindergarten coaches.”
Cohen said his district had a set of coaches dedicated just to kindergarteners, so the district blended the coaches — rather than one each for grades K, 1, 2 and 3, there’s now one K-3 coach. This move not only saved money, but allowed kindergarteners more continuity when moving to a different building.
To that, Robbins added that attendees should not let budget woes overshadow basic maintenance. He urged colleagues to keep their schools in good shape, focus on staff and create nice environments where kids want to be.
“Every day, those kids are coming to your schools. Is it the best, or is it not? Sometimes we lose focus on what we’re supposed to be doing. When you walk through that door, is it, ‘Holy cow, we are at this school, this is where I want to be, to see my friends, to see my teachers, I know somebody loves me here and respects me here,’ or is it, ‘Ugh, here I am again,’” he said. “A door doesn’t cost that much money. Buy a new one. Paint the walls. Put a little love into it. You can talk about ed tech, you can do all the other stuff, but kids see it, parents see it. … If you do those, and you focus on the staff and treat them well, give them [professional development], do your culture and so forth, that will continue to drive the kid to come in, regardless of all the challenges ahead.”
DECLINING ENROLLMENT
Like many school districts in California, Lynwood Unified School District has seen declining enrollment because of low birthrates, families moving away, and competition from charter schools, according to Superintendent Dr. Patrick Gittisriboongul. When he could not get the school board to agree on closing or consolidating schools, he had the idea of making the district’s 12 elementary schools more attractive by developing signature programs for each one. Twelve being divisible by three and four, Gittisriboongul thought to create four STEM academies, four leadership academies, and four visual and performing arts academies.
“By giving each school an opportunity to come up with their own signature program, their own identity, it provides options for families. ‘I want to send my kid to the performing-arts school,’ ‘I want to send my kid to the global leadership school,’ ‘I want to send my kid to the STEM school.’ Those are the things that I am trying to center the school district on,” he said. “I think by centering the focus around three to four schools, it can also center the focus on [professional development] as well.”
McGee, recalling a large drop-off in enrollment at a local middle school after a charter school opened, said she suggested that her district open an advanced middle school. This required her to design an equity matrix to convince the school board that the new school wouldn’t simply pull gifted students from elsewhere in the district, but once convinced, the board backed the program and saw results.
“At the end of the day, once they saw the success, they saw that people were happy, and they saw that we meant what we said about what we were going to do, and it wasn’t going to be a have and have-not situation with our kids, it worked out,” she said.
On the subject of attracting and keeping teachers, Robbins said culture is everything, and supporting teachers and staff pays for itself.
“For us, it’s very simple: We pay them well, we trust them, we respect them, we give the autonomy to all the educators in that building. When situations arise, we’re there to defend them, not let them take the shots from the parents here and there. We got your back. You are part of our team, and if we’re going to be successful, we need to work together,” he said. “That also means working with the community, bringing them in, so they can see what’s truly going on. We have chamber of commerce businesses constantly coming through our school. City council, mayor, we are constantly giving them reports and letting them come to our school as well.”
AI AND LEADERSHIP
Gittisriboongul narrowed the major challenges in his district down to four categories: declining enrollment; compounding insecurities for students, like food, housing and immigration; minimal returns on investment after astronomical spending through programs like Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief; and AI and data.
On the subject of choosing AI tools for the classroom, he urged attendees to remember that the nature of AI is capitalistic.
“OpenAI, Claude, Google, any of these products, they want to make money. The way they make money is going to be through partnerships. Your experience with an interface, or a chat experience, is going to be uniquely different from user to user. ‘Create a seven-day itinerary for me to go to Japan.’ ‘OK, here’s your seven-day itinerary. Would you like to now book your trip on Booking.com? Would you like to book your trip on Expedia.com?’” he said, by way of example. “So make no mistake. These vendors are going to partner with other vendors and other platforms and companies that are able to help them monetize.”
Robbins said district leaders shouldn’t be in such a rush that they let surface-level impressions of tech tools or policies steer their decisions. He also talked about stoicism, taking inspiration from Marcus Aurelius, and the importance of demonstrating calm deliberation as a leader.
“We live in a world that is so quick to react, so quick to like, so quick to retweet or send something out without knowing all the facts — and I’m not just talking about education, I’m talking about everything. … So when it comes to ed-tech products, I’m asking a lot of questions for a long time, and then I want to see who else is using it before my district will move forward with that,” he said. “And if you remain calm and stoic, people obviously realize, ‘We’re OK here, we’re not freaking out here, there’s no reason for us to start making up crazy rumors about what’s going to be cut and what’s not going to be cut.’ Having that calm, cool collectedness goes a long way, but that comes from the interconnectedness of having mentors and mentees across the country to work with.”
