Innovative Education: An Engaging Dialogue with Scott Murphy on Leadership, Courage, and the 'Promise' in Our District
Oct 13, 2023
Superintendent Mark Kopp
Unravel the complexities of educational leadership with us as we sit down with our seasoned guest, Scott Murphy from the Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC). A stalwart in the realm of education, Scott’s diverse experience, from being a middle school teacher to a director for English and professional development, brings a depth of understanding to the table. His insights into the growth of our educational leaders over the years provides a riveting backdrop to our conversation and highlights the gradual shift towards high-level performance across our district.
Buckle up for an engaging dialogue on innovative education. Scott illuminates the path to innovation, emphasizing the importance of a courageous mindset, the willingness to stumble and learn, and challenging norms. As we navigate the landscape of educational leadership, we also delve into the district's 'Promise' of ensuring every student's success. It's a concept that sprouted from our desire to move beyond the compliance inherent in traditional mission and vision statements. The 'Promise' fuels our commitment to the students and shapes our journey towards creating enticing and dynamic educational spaces. Join us for this enlightening episode!
Unravel the complexities of educational leadership with us as we sit down with our seasoned guest, Scott Murphy from the Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC). A stalwart in the realm of education, Scott’s diverse experience, from being a middle school teacher to a director for English and professional development, brings a depth of understanding to the table. His insights into the growth of our educational leaders over the years provides a riveting backdrop to our conversation and highlights the gradual shift towards high-level performance across our district.
Buckle up for an engaging dialogue on innovative education. Scott illuminates the path to innovation, emphasizing the importance of a courageous mindset, the willingness to stumble and learn, and challenging norms. As we navigate the landscape of educational leadership, we also delve into the district's 'Promise' of ensuring every student's success. It's a concept that sprouted from our desire to move beyond the compliance inherent in traditional mission and vision statements. The 'Promise' fuels our commitment to the students and shapes our journey towards creating enticing and dynamic educational spaces. Join us for this enlightening episode!
Speaker 1:
Welcome to FCS Unscripted, a new podcast for one team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind every one in Franklin County schools. Welcome to FCS Unscripted. This is Superintendent Mark Kopp and we have a very special episode today. We're going to be talking about education leadership, and I have a very special guest joining us today Scott Murphy from PEBC. Scott has been working with us with leadership development for nine years now. Is that right, scott, nine years?
Speaker 2:
yes, I do.
Speaker 1:
First of all, tell us what PEBC is.
Speaker 2:
We know what it is, but the listeners may not Absolutely so. Pebc is the public education and business coalition. 40 years nonprofit out of Colorado.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. And PEBC, like I said, has been a very strong partner with our district for many years, and specifically you. This is my seventh year superintendent and one of the first people I was introduced to as superintendent was you, who had already been working with the district on leadership development. So over that time, what have you kind of seen in terms of growth of our educational leaders?
Speaker 2:
That's interesting. I think one of the things that I've seen is just greater continuity. Every system has your highs and lows, your sort of scattered spaces, the stars, so to speak, and what I see now is a real high level across the board. That's great that you've got leaders doing really strong work, and I literally just finished up with Annie Bradley and he recognized that there are five principles in place right now that seven years ago came through the aspiring leaders work in the district.
Speaker 1:
That's wonderful. That's great. By the way, I should have started this off by saying tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:
Scott.
Speaker 1:
You know that was rude of me not to have you introduce yourself to the audience.
Speaker 2:
Not at all. You know it's funny. You say that because I think all the time I want my introduction to sort of be exposed over time of what I say and what I do. But the bottom line is this is 32 years of education for me. I have been everything from a middle school teacher and English teacher. At the high school level I taught overseas. I've been a director for English and professional development in a district in Colorado of 150 schools. I've been an elementary principal. I've kind of run the gamut through K-12 and have been fortunate in that, because I get to bring all of that into this space.
Speaker 1:
Well, I've told multiple people this that you're one of the smartest people I've ever met and known, and the way that you have the ability to work with leaders is just unmatched. I've never seen anything like it. So we're thrilled to be able to partner with you. And getting back to what you were saying about what Mr Bradley said the aspiring leaders that's something that we're bringing back to the district this year. Why is it important to grow your own?
Speaker 2:
Because all the context is already built in and people that come through the system have the history, they have the relationships, they have the context to the challenges that currently exist and they see the modeling of the wonderful leadership that's already in place. And, as you know, as well as anybody, finding people is difficult. Let's just be honest about this A sustainable feeder of your leaders coming up who are excited and know the families and communities is a desperate need for us.
Speaker 1:
It is, and we're seeing more and more of a need, not just for leaders, obviously, but also for teachers. We do have a teacher shortage here in the state, so what can districts do? What are some things that we can do to help not just grow our own leaders, but also to make education a more enticing option for people to think about as a career choice?
Speaker 2:
Well, I mean, we'll go back to last night, right where we had the conversation and you had a group of people in here really thinking about innovation and I love what you had put out. There is we have to think at the district level of what makes this an enticing profession for educators, leaders, everyone and what makes the classrooms innovative and enticing and exciting once we're in those spaces for kids and families. And I think where I go with that is, as I mentioned, it's the pairing of these great ideas that move us forward with the fundamental, foundational elements of education, which are about humanity, about collaboration, about thinking about relationships, and if we can pull those two together, I don't think anyone wants to leave a space in which those things are firmly in place.
Speaker 1:
Right, and the meaning that you mentioned last night. We've put together an innovation committee here at Central Office that consists of community members. We have teachers, we have classified staff, we have our administrators on it and in looking at innovation, that's something that you, I think, have seen across the country, in the districts that you work in. What's the key to any type of innovation, in your opinion? What are things that have to be in place for a district to be able to introduce something that's innovative?
Speaker 2:
Oh, wow, that's a really really good question An open mind that what we currently do is both good and can change.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Like you know, education it's to some degree a vacuum that holds us in space.
Speaker 1:
Yes, it does, and we have to let go, to move forward.
Speaker 2:
So a district that actually promotes the letting go of, to find something new. I think it's also a space in which challenging ourselves to make mistakes all the way from a classroom environment in which we honor it culturally up to a system level in which we celebrate it and actually push it into the system of say, we may fail but let's fail forward. I mean that language right.
Speaker 1:
It's courage, right, Courage. I think you have to be courageous and you have to be willing to really kind of push against the norm, so to speak. Oh yeah, I think what we're going to learn throughout this process this year with this Innovation Committee is we're very hopeful that we're going to have some outcomes that are going to have some significant short-term and long-term effects in the district when you you've had the opportunity the last few days to work with our leaders, what are some qualities that you've seen with our leaders that kind of stick out to you as this is, you know, these are folks we have that are. They're on the right seat on the bus, these are the right people.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I believe what I see is a pairing of this A sense of confidence, a sense of clarity of direction that they're taking their schools, a sense of intentionality as to the structures and systems and behaviors that they bring themselves, but also the things they're promoting within their schools and this is the big thing, mark paired with a sense of humility, curiosity I'm thinking of. This morning's conversation at the village is sort of laughing about. I'm willing to say it when I'm wrong. I'm willing to say I don't know. Another principle, saying I'm willing to call the district because I'm not quite sure about something. That pairing is both inspiring to be around, because it models what we want to be, but it also says that I'm good and I'm growing. I'm good and I'm growing.
Speaker 1:
And I think something that I've promoted is this idea that a central office only exists to support the schools. That is our sole function and it's a symbiotic relationship. We want the schools to succeed, it makes the district succeed and ultimately, it's all about the students succeeding. Which brings us to our next point, and that's the promise. A couple of years ago, this district, we went through a year-long process of working on mission vision and we finally settled on this idea that you know, when you develop a mission or a vision statement, a lot of times they're words and sometimes you can remember them sometimes you can't.
Speaker 1:
And it's almost like and I'm just being honest, I think that that can get very compliant and I detest compliance. So we settled on this idea of creating and crafting a promise and you helped us develop that promise and ultimately the promise boils down to every student succeeds. Can you kind of talk to us about what you saw in that work and what you're kind of thinking about? The promise is?
Speaker 2:
Well, and I remember going back to that space of we talked about mission and vision and that language just sits out there because it's in everybody's place. And when we settled on that idea of a promise, that was a whole different set of language and the first part of that process was to identify what is a promise and how does that differ from something like a vision and mission? And it basically it's a thing that you look in the eyes of someone and when you break a promise, you're gonna break trust, you're gonna break all those things. So just even you landing on the language of promise and moving that forward and continuing to use that is super powerful. And then the other big piece is just the idea of each and every one, moving away from language of all in which people can get lost. But when we say each and every one and I'm looking at my bracelet- right here, me too.
Speaker 2:
Hashtag every one. When I look at that, then there's an individual, a name, a family, a data point, a human being that sits there, that can't get lost in the data.
Speaker 1:
It humanizes the idea. That already is pretty specific, but when you really think about every single child, that's an activity we did with all of our leaders this summer. We had a picture of a child that we just selected at random that was in their school and we asked them to talk about that child and let's look at the data behind this child. And this is something that we're going to continue to do throughout the course of the year because we have to make sure that every single child is able to succeed, and success looks different for a lot of different reasons. We have to look at it socially, emotionally, academically, mentally, performance, arts-based. There's all kinds of variables and I do like this idea of bringing focus to it. So, talking to you and we're talking about leadership, If there are districts out here that are listening to this podcast and I know a couple of friends of mine do and fellow districts, what can Scott Murphy bring to those districts that you've already brought to us? Just kind of encapsulate what your focus is as a leader.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I think it is someone who brings a broad perspective of many different places, has a deep tool case that can come in with resources, thinking of myself in that way of being able to kind of help people see themselves in their current space, help them define a future space and then honestly identify the pathways, especially around leadership and systems that will help take you in those places, and then to be alongside it because, as we know, the relationship between design and implementation is we can design it. It's not going to play itself out exactly that way, so to have someone along the way who understands bumps, diversions etc. And is able to bring you back and then just have a thought partner.
Speaker 2:
We know leadership can be isolating in its role and to have someone impartial sort of, outside your space to move you along and help you along and not judge or anything like that. As you know, within this district, I think that's what your leaders most appreciate 100%, if you know that.
Speaker 1:
They've mentioned that time after time again. Their time that they get to spend with you is precious, and time is the most precious commodity that we in education have.
Speaker 2:
It is for me as well.
Speaker 1:
And speaking of time, it is now time for fun facts with Scott.
Speaker 2:
Murphy, okay, here we go, here we go.
Speaker 1:
All right, Scott Murphy, what's your favorite food?
Speaker 2:
Spaghetti.
Speaker 1:
That's easy, quick, all right. What is your favorite movie of all time, breaking Away? Oh my goodness, that's 70.
Speaker 2:
That's old school, it's like 78, 79. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I became a biker, probably because of that, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:
What is your favorite television show or streaming show of all time?
Speaker 2:
Oh, I got hooked on Breaking Bad.
Speaker 1:
That's a guilty realization. That's great and the last one, and then you will be off the hot seat. What is your favorite? Either type of music or musical performer.
Speaker 2:
So easy Blues Stevie Ray Vaughan. That's great.
Speaker 1:
I tell you what this was. A lot of fun, scott, and we sure appreciate you joining us and getting to share about education leadership, and we sure appreciate having you in the district. So thank you so much. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:
I appreciate you as well, Mark. Thank you so much, bud.
Speaker 1:
Well, that is that's it for this episode, and we are out. Thank you.