FCS Unscripted
Sharing information about, and the stories behind, #Every1 in Franklin County Schools in Frankfort, Kentucky.
FCS Unscripted
Student-Centered Leadership: A Conversation with Board Member Chuck Fletcher on Prioritizing Student Needs and Community Engagement
What does it take to make decisions that truly prioritize the needs of students, even when they're not popular with the adults? Dive into this thought-provoking conversation with Mr. Chuck Fletcher, an experienced board member of Franklin County Schools, as he joins Superintendent Kopp on FCS Unscripted. With eight years of dedicated service under his belt, Chuck talks about the value of teamwork and student-centered leadership within the board. We take a closer look at his extensive community involvement, especially through the Kiwanis organization, and his rich background in education, providing him a unique perspective on the challenges and rewards of improving a school district.
From the opening of William Cofield High School to increasing graduation rates and upgrading facilities, Chuck and Superintendent Kopp reflect on the board's significant achievements over the past eight years. They discuss crucial topics like competitive teacher salaries, diverse educational pathways, and community engagement, including facility upgrades. This episode wraps up with a fun personal segment as Chuck shares his favorite sports, teams, and movies, adding a lighter touch to this engaging discussion. Tune in for an inspiring and insightful episode that uncovers the collaborative efforts behind a thriving educational community.
Welcome to FCS Unscripted, a new podcast for One Team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind every one in Franklin County schools. Hello everyone, this is Superintendent Kopp. I am very pleased to be here with a very special guest today. On this episode of FCS Unscripted, we have a board member, mr Chuck Fletcher. Mr Fletcher, welcome.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is exciting. We want to do a series of these throughout the course of the year, where we will get every board member in here at one time or another, put them in the hot seat, ask them some good questions and ask them some fun questions as well. As we're recording this, we're still in the summer. The summer's fading from us very quickly, though we're getting ready for the start of the school year. We're just a few weeks away, which is just wild to me.
Speaker 2:I know it's hard to believe.
Speaker 1:Summer has gone fast, but I want to ask a couple questions. Mr Fletcher, and first of all, you've been a board member. Now I believe you're starting your eighth year, is that right?
Speaker 2:That is correct. It's hard to believe it's been eight years serving on the board.
Speaker 1:And we are blessed to have you. You do such a good job. You've been the board chair. In the past You've been a vice chair.
Speaker 2:What has been the most rewarding part of being a board member here in Franklin County Schools. You know, mr Coppe, as I think about this, one of the best rewarding things is that our board works as a team. You're not always agreeing or disagree or whatever, but when we're through we're all still one big family and I have seen boards where they were not like that. And when you look at our board, we are one team, we're together, we work together for the benefit of our children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something I was going to mention is, you know I've been blessed to work with you all for the last. Now this is the eighth year, my eighth year as superintendent starting, and you know I've worked with different boards in the past in previous roles. I have never seen the level of student-centered leadership that I see here with you guys. It's just unbelievable. You put students first yes, absolutely, and that's critically important. You put students first yes, absolutely, and that's critically important. And sometimes folks don't understand it's kind of a rare thing sometimes because you know as a board member you have a really, really important job. It's a difficult job and sometimes you're asked to make decisions that sometimes adults may not always like that decision.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But if you're doing it for kids, then that's what we do that's the foremost is think about the kids. And Mr Fletcher, I know you're so heavily involved in the community. I know that you're a member of Kiwanis. You've been a member at the international level. You've held office. Kind of talk to me about what's great about being in Kiwanis.
Speaker 2:One of the greatest things is that Kiwanis is an organization that's always out to help people, especially children, in our community. Look at helping people that has needs in our community. So that's one of the greatest benefits that I have by serving as a member of Kiwanis organization. It's been around almost 108 years, that's a long time as a fellow Kiwanian.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you again for your service there. You're the one that introduced me to Kiwanis, and what a great organization.
Speaker 2:Well, we appreciate it and it is a great organization. Kiwanis, and what a great organization. Well, we appreciate it and it is a great organization. We look forward to doing more and helping with schools in our community and with teachers and students in our community as well.
Speaker 1:Give us a little background of Chuck Fletcher. You know from your time. I believe you know you used to work in education. You've been in education your whole life.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I never thought about being a teacher years ago, but when I was young, as a little kid, I thought you know, I think I really like to be a teacher, and so I went to college primarily to be in education. I loved it. I enjoyed teaching, I loved being with kids. Most of all, I loved being as well with the people I work with. But education has been such a benefit to me and of course, I went from education in the school setting to the Department of Education as well.
Speaker 1:And so you've kind of seen it from all kind of different levels in education.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the good and the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's. It's a testament to the fact that you know, after, after you know, retiring from education, that you still wanted to serve and and elected to serve as a board, as a school board member. I asked you earlier what the most rewarding thing. Let me ask you this what's the most challenging thing about being a board member?
Speaker 2:As a Look at our community as a whole. I like to just train other people to think about being board members, and so what I try to do, mr Kopp, is try to be a mentor to other folks that I see can be leaders in our community. It's not about them, it's about the whole of the school system, and so I think that's a challenge and also just meeting the needs of the school system, and so I think that's a challenge and also just meeting the needs of every child. We want every child in the school system to be successful, and when you hear those stories, then that's what it's worth it all, when you hear those stories and so that's been a challenging part of me being on the board is just seeing that every child is successful and succeeding.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go back over the last, now, going on eight years of your membership as on the board. Let's talk about some of the things that you've been able to accomplish as a board member the opening of William Cofield High School, which has been so beneficial to our kids and our community, increasing our graduation rate, a lot of facility upgrades across the district, turf fields Sure, what are some of the things you're most proud of?
Speaker 2:Well, you have listed quite a few of them, but I do remember, you know you look back. As an educator, you knew what salaries were, yep, and I feel like that we as adults and as taxpayers and I'm a taxpayer just like you are- sure we just need to make sure that our teachers and administrators get the greatest amount from salaries, because they got families, they got other resources, they got other resources.
Speaker 2:they got things too. But I think our education, for us, funding our teachers and administrators all should be very well. The other thing is is that graduation rate is very well. We make an opportunity for everybody to have a pathway to get to that graduation point in their lives and kids when you see them go across that stage, they're very happy because they accomplished something that they probably would not have if we didn't have that pathway for them to go in a different direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about opportunities for kids.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think, one of the things, just to put some statistics to it, in 2017, in your first year as a board member, our teachers in this district were 90th in the state in teacher pay. That's right, and we're the 22nd largest district. There are 171 districts. Being 90th wasn't where we wanted to be.
Speaker 1:That's right, and you all tasked me as the superintendent to help increase those and I'm very proud of you all taking the steps that you needed to take in terms of taking the 4%, in terms of increasing revenue and and investing in our staff not just our teachers, but our staff. With six out of seven years, a 2% increase and then a 4% increase this year, those increases have taken us from 90th in the state all the way to 26th in the state and I think that's something you need to stick a Post-it note and say we're proud of that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And when you look at that, we're telling our communities we want the best Right. And we're also telling our communities that we want people that lives outside of Frankfort and Franklin County to come to our district because we want to have nice facilities. Yep, we want them to have the best education they possibly can get. Yeah, and there's different pathways that they can go and get that education as well.
Speaker 1:And we've been able to do those things while keeping taxes relatively low. Our tax rate is 71.8 cents, when there are districts surrounding us that are over a dollar. So those are really, really strong things and, like you mentioned earlier, our graduation rate at the 96% mark. We're doing some, some great things in the district and we've got some other big things coming up. We've got two auxiliary gyms being built. That's, that's a really exciting thing. And we're having some, you know, some resurfacing of tennis courts. That was something that you brought as a need and you said, mr Copp, we got to resurface these tennis courts in Franklin County. They're not in good shape.
Speaker 2:Well, and I say, and I appreciate you saying that, mr Copp, because there was some community folks that came to me and says you know you all need to do something about those tennis courts. And I reminded you, as a person, that you know we need to look at the tennis courts because our community folks use those tennis courts as well. So, I appreciate that we're looking at that as part of our growth and in our community.
Speaker 1:Our kids deserve it, our community deserves it and it's only going to help our community.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So now that we've had all these good, serious questions, it's time for some fun facts with Mr Chuck Fletcher.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:This is the part you're really looking forward to, I can tell. All right. All right, mr Fletcher, if you had to pick first of all what is your favorite sport, what's your favorite sport to watch?
Speaker 2:Boy, it's a tie. Can I have a tie? Yeah, it's football and basketball.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I love both of them. You got a favorite team that you want to mention.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I like to. It's not that well. It's red, but it's not the one that you might be familiar with, but it's Louisville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you All right. So what would be your all-time favorite movie? If you could pick one movie?
Speaker 2:Oh, you're going to crack on this one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You're going to crack up on this one Okay. But it's Footloose. Oh nice, I like to see a little dancing here, and there you know, Good Keeping in shape.
Speaker 1:Good, all right. So let's say it's time for your last meal. What would be Chuck Fletcher's favorite meal if he had to just pick one?
Speaker 2:It would be steak.
Speaker 1:All right, how would you have it cooked?
Speaker 2:Medium Okay.
Speaker 1:Medium. All right, I got some friends that always say that you got to have it medium, rare or whatever. I'm a medium well guy. I don't want to see bloody. One last question Favorite musical group or singer?
Speaker 2:Well, I like Aretha Franklin. I mean she can really get me going in music.
Speaker 1:okay, awesome she's awesome, I love it. She was in the movie the Blues Brothers. Okay, Awesome, I love it. She, you know she she was. She was in the movie the Blues Brothers and was just so great in that movie. That was just awesome. So, Mr Fletcher, it has been an honor and a privilege to have you here on FCS Unscripted. We sure appreciate both your service to the district and to the community and I appreciate your friendship.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, appreciate you.
Speaker 1:And we will catch you the next time on FCS Unscripted. Well, that wraps it up for this week's episode of FCS Unscripted. Thank you for listening in and I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast where we will share updates. And I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast where we will share updates, information and interviews with hashtag everyone, the wonderful students and staff who make up one team, fcs have a great week everybody.