Linking Leaders PodCASt
Linking Leaders PodCASt features candid conversations with top educational leaders who come together to share experiences and explore pathways to success. In each episode, we engage with dynamic leaders to uncover real-life stories, practical strategies and bold insights on timely and relevant topics. Listen up to link up and let us help you expand your network of innovation and support!
Linking Leaders PodCASt
Shaping Tomorrow's Leaders with Seymour's Paul Lucke
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Join me, Dr. Alicia Bowman, as we chat with Paul Lucke, assistant principal of Seymour High School and the 2024 Connecticut Association of Schools High School Assistant Principal of the Year. Our enlightening conversation takes us from the halls of Seymour HS to the broader landscape of educational innovation. Paul shares his methods for self-improvement and staying ahead of educational trends to create a blueprint for building the leaders of tomorrow.
Drawing on the influential works of Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck, Paul leads with grit and a growth mindset. He addresses looming concerns in education, especially the challenging costs of special education. Tune in and find out how true leadership in education can foster a thriving community for both teachers and students.
Hi and welcome to the Linking Leaders Podcast. Linking Leaders Podcast features candid conversations with top educational leaders who come together to share experiences and explore pathways to success. In each episode, we engage with dynamic leaders to uncover real-life stories, practical strategies and bold insights on timely and relevant topics. Listen up to Link Up and let us help you expand your network of innovation and support.
Speaker 2Hello Linking Leaders listeners. This is Dr Alicia Bowman, host of the Linking Leaders podcast, and today I am pleased to introduce Paul Luckey. Paul is the assistant principal of Seymour High School in Seymour, connecticut, and the 2024 Connecticut Association of Schools High School Assistant Principal of the Year. Paul, welcome to the Linking Leaders podcast.
Speaker 3Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2Thrilled to have you today. Thank you for joining me in the middle of a busy workday. I can only imagine what's happening at Seymour while we're chatting.
Speaker 3Great things are happening. I could tell you that much.
Speaker 2That's awesome. So, paul, in preparing for our conversation, I was exploring your website a little bit and I came across the champion attributes. So, thinking about that, what would you say are the key attributes or qualities that make you a champion leader?
Speaker 3I think, first and foremost, I've been with Seymour for over a dozen years and I kind of know what our community needs. So my vision really aligns with what we're doing and have been doing here in Seymour and I think I have the good ability to articulate that clearly and give the input of my community. The other big thing I've learned over the years because I've had many years as assistant principal is to have meetings only when they're necessary. Make sure you have that agenda ahead of time. Write and distribute as much as you can because you want people to be able to contribute, and catching people off guard at a meeting with something that they haven't seen before, it's a waste of people's time. So I think that really pushes us forward in using that time wisely.
Speaker 3Most importantly to me, what I've learned over the last 17, 18 years I've been doing this is don't circle talk. We're all busy in education and we want to get things done, and the only way to get to meet that vision is to be truthful, to be logical, rational, honest. Stick to the facts. When you don't know something, admit it there's plenty of professionals around us and go and seek and find that answer and come back to your staff. So I think those are some of the largest qualities that have contributed to my success.
Speaker 2That's excellent. So I'm hearing you say know your community well, right. Communicate clearly and ensure that people can really contribute to a conversation because they're prepared and they know what to expect, and really be honest and open and vulnerable. We're human and we're leading learning organizations, right. If we can't be humble and admit a mistake, how are we modeling for others?
Speaker 3Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2So what actions do leaders like you take to grow individually?
Speaker 3The thing I'm pretty introverted and I've learned to become less introverted over time and I've actually gotten pretty good at cold calling people when I have questions that I can't answer myself or I can't find the information to, and I've also put together a pretty good network list of people who may have specialties in particular areas that I can call upon and if they don't have the answer, they can get it for me.
Speaker 3As an assistant principal at a high school, my main goal is to produce citizens that can contribute effectively to our country. So a prime example is that I spend a lot of time looking at the occupational trends in our state, in attending conferences such as the CT Works to Learns Conference, Department of Labor Workshops on trends. I'm also a member of the Southwest Manufacturers Partnership. I attend biannually the Association for Career and Technical Education conferences. So all of these things are a way for me to continuously learn and for me to continuously grow but, more importantly, for me to affect positive change. More than a few of my teachers fear when I come back from any of these things, because it does impact my vision more often than not, but I'm pretty blessed with having a superior set of professionals here that embrace my change and are able to effectively contribute to having a better place for not only staff but more definitely for the students to having a better place for not only staff but more definitely for the students.
Speaker 2I love that. When you started to say cold calling, I wasn't sure where you were going. But that's such a simple but reflective comment, because really we're all working on the work right in education and so sometimes we're hesitant to, like you said, pick up the phone or shoot an email. But I don't know about you, but I always find that people are more than willing and flattered that you ask them to share ideas or talk through something with you, so it's like a win-win.
Speaker 3Sure is yeah. We're all here to help each other, for the kids is the most important thing.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely so. You mentioned a little bit about this just now when you're talking about some of the professional learning experiences that you engage in. So, of your many notable accomplishments that I read about and many of them have direct impact on students I was particularly intrigued about some of the pathways that you've helped to pay for students, recognizing that all students have diverse talents and aspirations. Maybe you could speak to some of those, some of the ones that you've brought to Seymour.
Speaker 3Sure, one of the first programs we really brought back to Seymour was part of manufacturing and fabrication. So we build and race cars up at Lime Rock Park twice a year via that program. They're electric cars and that's really providing a niche for some students who want to get into those fields of electronics, vehicles, racing, teamwork, camaraderie and over the years I've been able to acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants in order to provide for the students there. So we really got into this fabrication piece and some welding. Our students are capable of getting a certificate at North Valley for TIG welding and then we've articulated some of those courses with Housatonic. Well, now the Connecticut Community College System for manufacturing and I've seen many, many of students who've gone right from us into the field to work either in manufacturing or welding.
Speaker 3Another big part of that is working with your local workforce investment boards. So I'm really blessed to work with the workplace we're kind of on the northern tip of their territory I think there's six or seven of them in the state of Connecticut and they've been really eye-opening to me and funding sources and providing for the students at Seymour and all the students in the Valley and in the Bridgeport area, giving them ability to take some ancillary classes and also providing funds during the day for us. So we've also partnered with them, for example, for students to go after school to M&O Bryan to do some more manufacturing. We've also partnered with them in another huge way we have a partnership with Griffin Hospital. So students who want to pursue things in the medical field whether that's the CNA, pct, phlebotomy or EKG training, phlebotomy or EKG training the workplace actually provides the funds for some of our students to go there to their school and get certified in those areas.
Speaker 3I'm also kind of blessed that I have a science teacher who is also a state official, state trainer for EMT. So we brought a pretty robust EMT program to the high school. We get all paid for off of grants and kind of. The newest thing that we've really been building over the last couple of years is robotics and programming. We do Python programming and robotics and I'm looking forward to us bringing in some drones and our CAD program is very robust too. So those are the main areas of focus. More on the tech side, but the most important thing is all of those have clubs that are associated with them or teams for competition, for competition, and to me that's how we grab all of the students in their diverse outlook on life and what is their passion, and that's how we're meeting the needs of all the students.
Speaker 2Wow, that's really, paul. That's so impressive. And you're right, it's how do we get kids connected? And I just love that idea of experiential learning, giving kids opportunities, building their perspective. You know, when you're a college-age student, it's hard to know what would you want to do, and until you have opportunities to try things and dip your tongue, you're really opening the door to the many, many options that our students have. And that was quite the list.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think the big part is, you know, in education we swayed from providing some of these types of programs 20 years ago to everybody needs to go to college. Now the pendulum is kind of swinging back the other way, and that's good. Throughout my tenure I tried to fight that as much as possible because you can't outsource everything and, quite frankly, if we look at the Perkins grant and what it stands for, we want high skill, high wage and high need occupations. Those are all of the trades your plumbing, your electrical, HVAC construction, automotive, welding, entrepreneurship. We all know we're an electrician, we got something wrong. It's 120 bucks to walk in the house. We all know if we want an electrician, we got something wrong. It's 120 bucks to walk in the house. Or you bring your car to get fixed, it's 150 just for them to look at it. So these are good ways that we could provide training in a public, comprehensive high school in order to get kids jobs so they're not in poverty.
Speaker 3There's a very important document I think that everybody in our state, in all states, need to read. It's called the ALICE document. I don't know if you're familiar with it. No, ALICE stands for the Asset, Limited Income, Constrained Employment document and the United Ways of each state put that out. So there's one specific for Connecticut and the data in there will tell you what you need to make in order to not be on poverty level, and in Connecticut that's $39,000 as an individual or $126,000 for a family of four.
Speaker 3So we really need to be pushing in public comprehensive high schools ways that students can leave that don't want to go to college in order to attain a $39,000 wage. I mean, that's relatively high to come out as a high school grad, and I think we need expansion into these programs across the state. There's not enough specific technical high schools in order to provide that for everybody, and then what ends up happening is the students that don't get into our tech schools because there's not enough, they come back to us and we're ill-equipped and ill-prepared to really help them the way that we should be doing. So I have some solutions to that problem too, but I don't know if you want to get into that now.
Speaker 2I love it. I mean I can hear your path in and when we think about our role as educators, it's about really meeting the needs of all learners and helping them all progress, no matter on what pathway. It is all students to learn and grow and keeping our kids engaged and connected is so important and so I just I love your passion about opening up the possibilities and really you know, helping to educate kids and your faculty and staff and community. About things like the ALICE study and the numbers and being able to put those right in front of people to say this is our why and have some urgency around that.
Speaker 3And then here's the resources. Let's all go work with our local investment boards because we can help students and adults together boards because we can help students and adults together.
Speaker 2That's awesome. So, paul, I read that you have a lovely family and often our leaders are trying to figure out how can you find the time. So could you share maybe a strategy or two that you use to successfully manage the many roles that you juggle personally and professionally re-manage the many roles that you?
Speaker 3juggle personally and professionally. Yes, the most important thing for me that I've found over time is that at times during the day we spend time alone when we're home and I like to really parlay that time. So when I'm trying to think about work, do it when it's my time alone at home. So that might be going walking the dogs, that might be splitting wood. For me that might be working on my antique truck, or maybe I'm fishing or hunting at that point or just playing with the dogs in the yard.
Speaker 3But I try to purposely parlay that time and I know it sounds simple, but for me I never wanted to take the time away when my kids were home and I could be spending it with them and that was a good separation for me from work. Because I'm not taking the time away from my kids, I'm taking time that I normally would have had to do things like mowing the lawn and that's kind of downtime. But if you purposely parlay that time to think about your priorities for work and what matters in work, then you're not taking away from your family time and that has been super effective to me, and I'm a big list person also. Well, two to three times a week I get to work early, before the kids are here, and I reprioritize and that kind of sets my agenda up for that day, or at least the next two days, and then I'll bring that list home, I leave it in my truck and if I happen to be doing the hard work of those other things, I take it back out and that's my time to think about it. I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing what happens at home, what happens at work, and I try not to mix the two when my family's involved.
Recognizing Leadership and Creating Positive Environments
Speaker 2Thank you, that's great. So, as I had mentioned previously, I was checking out your website because I wanted to, of course, learn more about you and I was very curious. So I did see that at Seymour you have a recognition called Seymour Champions. Can you share with me a little bit of the background on the champions and maybe what that innovation demonstrates, either about your personal beliefs or the beliefs of Seymour High School?
Speaker 3Yeah, sure, the superintendent, dr Compton, brought in the champions initiative. So what she tries to do and this is not just for the high school, this is K through 12. And this is not just for the high school, this is K through 12. She tries to recognize students throughout the year at board of ed meetings who display different core attributes at the building and the district level. So, for example, this last board meeting, the P was perseverance. So the staff in the building all kind of vote for a student who they believe, or a couple of students actually who they believe, exemplifies perseverance. And then they go to the Board of Ed meeting and we kind of read what the staff said about them and add some of our personal comments. So I think it's a good way to recognize students at the Board of Ed meetings and their parents to just demonstrate their growth in what they're doing during the year.
Speaker 2That's great, thank you. So how do award winning leaders like you create great places to work for both staff and students?
Speaker 3So I think the biggest thing is on a day-to-day basis. I know I don't matter as much as my staff and my kids and if you're that humble and come to work like that, you also can understand that the things that I do can really damage other people. So I need to be there, so I'm not doing that, so I can see the big picture, to create a vision and be a source of strength when other people have their time in need. I think the single greatest thing is to create that place for people and for me to learn from other leaders, and I've had several prime examples throughout my career and this goes all the way back to when I was doing student teaching Lincoln Hayes Elementary School 1997 and 98.
Speaker 2That was a great year 1997. It was.
Speaker 3I was very fortunate to have a principal, peter Sosnovich, and this was a local neighborhood school, when that was predominantly what was going on there. And you know he would pull me out throughout the year and I didn't even know and I was doing instructional rounds with him Like I was very, very blessed to have that and I didn't know what it was for a good time. And you know he pulled me in his office one day and said you're going to be sitting in my seat soon and I'm like I'm just an intern, like what's going on here? But it really made me watch his mannerisms, watch how he interacted with people and this was elementary school and the kids loved him, the staff loved him, the community would be there. He would throw community events for everyone and he taught me how to be fumble. He taught me how to speak to people. He taught me how to treat people like they're your relatives and how to give back to everybody and, more importantly, how to listen, and listen intently. I was also blessed with several other great leaders throughout my career.
Speaker 3The next year I was hired up at Yansonia High School, had the opportunity to coach some football there while I was teaching, and Mr Robert Lisi was one of my assistant principals and this guy was a spitfire, you know he wasn't in stature but everybody knew he was there and we were humbled by him. But and he would be joking with a kid in the hallway and the next day he would have to suspend or in school suspension a kid and the kid would come back and he'd put his arm around him and have a long conversation. I remember that vividly, this shorter stature guy having big, six foot two football player he just coached. But he had to suspend, put his arm around him and say, listen, son, this is what we need to do in the future to be successful. And I was in awe of that.
Speaker 3You know, as a 23 year old I was like, how does he know every person in this building, every kid in this building? And you know to this day I really respect what he did when I was there. You know, there was one day, as a teacher, I was having some issues with some of my kids and I never really sent kids out, but I would go see him at the end of the day and I'm like, mr Lisa, how do I handle this situation? And he must've saw I was flustered. So he sent me home. He goes tomorrow. You better take a mental health day and then come see me the next day in the morning.
Speaker 2So I did.
Speaker 3So I come and see him the next day in the morning. He says, okay, do you know how you're going to fix this or do you want me to fix this? And I must have had a bewildered look on my face, you know. And he stood up and he came up to me and looked up at me and he poked me in the chest and he says you know, do the right thing for kids, Hold them responsible so they learn the lesson, Forgive them the next day because they're kids, and that really changed.
Speaker 3You know how I went about my business there and education. So you know, I like to say again, that's another learning experience. If people really take the time to see what other great leaders are doing, you can learn and we're all learning through our entire life. So I have three or four more of them and I can really go on to people who really influence the way I do things that I do. But I was really self-reflective on everything that I've seen around me, especially the great leaders, and even sometimes when I've had people who weren't the greatest leaders.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 3There's a lot of learning that goes on with that. Lastly, I definitely just want to mention I've been very fortunate to be with the principal that I'm with Mr James Freund in our building. When I came to Seymour in 2004, I believe he was my assistant principal and then we were assistant principals for about 10 years and then principal and he really centered me. We were polar opposites but we're both very humble. We trade parents, students, people that like him, that don't like me, and so on back and forth. All the time we discuss our vision. We play off of each other if we have personal things going on at home, to attend events, but it's all of those little pieces. When you put them together, I think that makes you a good administrator. Yes, you could have your own vision in the way you do things, but take the best from the best and do it on a daily basis.
Speaker 2It's great, it's awesome. Sounds like you have a wonderful partnership and that's you know. Leadership can be lonely in an absence of that partnership and that relationship. Leadership can be lonely in an absence of that partnership and that relationship. It's a hard job and then when you have somebody who you really can work well with, so closely, and gets you, that's just that's awesome.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2So, paul, you ready for the Ignite round? We're going to go rapid fire.
Speaker 3Okay.
Leadership, Education, and Personal Growth
Speaker 2All right, here we go. So who are you following lately? Either reading following on social media when it comes to learning leadership, education.
Speaker 3So education wise it's, for me it's Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3They are what drive what I do on a daily basis. I'm all about grit and perseverance and a growth mindset. I'm all about grit and perseverance and a growth mindset and I think they drive not only my educational life but my personal life and their studies are monumental for education and personal psychology and just life and I think everybody really needs to devote some time reading and watching some of the things that they've been doing education-wise. Outside of education, I do follow Dr Jordan Peterson and Patrick Bette-David and it's the logic piece that I kind of enjoy with the both of them and Patrick Bette-David. Some of the finance stuff on a personal level and when I really want to deep think I pick up Friedrich Nietzsche and read some philosophy.
Speaker 2Wow, that's deep, Paul.
Speaker 3That will make me sit in my lazy boy chair at home and read and have to reread, and I have several books that are marked up beyond belief and that's my contemplation time. But really, Duckworth and Dweck are the way that I try to do my business.
Speaker 2Awesome. Let's leave it at D squared. I like that. So can you pick one or two of your best pieces of compression?
Speaker 3Yeah, show me, don't tell me, I'm all about actions. To me, words are words, but the actions are what matter, because that's what gets things done. And people can say a lot of things, but it's what they do that matter in the end, and that's where the true person's going to come out. So I think that's the biggest one. You know, in Nietzsche, the doer alone learneth. You know, that's a primary example of that. I do often tell teachers, or anybody else for that matter, when they get there, please stop circle talking, you know. And again, let's get to the facts. You know, not that I disregard emotions by any means, but if we want to get better, we have to identify the facts to get better. Again, part of me being more abrupt than Mr Freund that I deal with, but I like to get to the facts because then we can find solutions Right Bottom lining.
Speaker 2I like it. So can you share something that your Wildcats have taught you? That's shaped your approach to working with students?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely so. About 10 years ago, 2012, I believe, I was invited to a CAPS award banquet and I was introduced to an incoming eighth grader. His name was Dan Robinson and we were at the table and he was talking and he looked at me and he goes, mr Lucky, he goes. I'm going to take Algebra II honors and Geometry honors freshman year. And I looked at him and I was, like you know, I'd been an assistant principal for about six, seven years at that point and we had never done that before. And I listened to him and I said, okay, dan, you know we made mom fill out the override forms and whatnot.
Speaker 3And then I observed Dan for the next couple of years. Dan became class president, captain of the football team he was actually the national president for Best Buddies, not just Connecticut, not just Seymour national and Dan ended up going to Yale. And about his junior year, I started having some conversations about what he did and why with this dual math thing, because it was an interest. So at that point I made the conscientious decision to start a program and develop some internal algorithms based on data points of eighth graders that are coming to us to give this opportunity to numerous students. So now, since 2006, every year I identify anywhere from 13 to 18 incoming freshmen. I just started calling them last week for next year and we offer them the opportunity of this dual math program. Prior to Dan, from my records, the last person to go into Ivy League school, from my records, the last person to go into Ivy League school I think it was 1994, maybe in Seymour, so that was a long span.
Speaker 2That's long.
Speaker 3So since then, every one of the students I'm going to tell you did the dual math and really kickstarted their education. We've had three Harvard graduates, an MIT Dartmouth graduate and the Yale graduate. We currently have a Yale student in session right now, another Dartmouth student. We've had about eight go to many IVs like Bucknell, trinity and Wesleyan, and I have a senior that was just accepted to Yale for next year. All of them did the dual math.
Speaker 3So without Dan I would have never learned that, and without Dan all of these other students maybe would not have thought that they had the opportunity to do something like that on the higher academic end, and so I'm very appreciative of having that opportunity to learn from him a big part of this too. We've put together kind of an ad hoc alumni association in the back for Ivies. So in 11th grade, myself and one of my business teachers we try to identify via data some of our students who we think have potential and then, with their parents' permission, we hook them up with our graduates from the Ivy Leagues and they kind of help them and step them through the process so we can keep this rolling for our students.
Speaker 2That's really cool. I love that story and it reminds me of two questions that I used to ask as a school leader when it came to decisions about kids. Well, what if and why not? And kids help us think about the what ifs and the why nots. Why can't we open the door and try something new, get us to places we never thought we could go? That's awesome. So, paul, what's one thing I should have asked you that I didn't?
Speaker 3What's my biggest fear for education and the future of education? I think that's on everyone's mind.
Speaker 2Yeah, what is it?
Speaker 3I have kind of three, you know. One of them is funding for special education. I think the impact on our overall budgets. And I run into and this is at least a weekly thing for me the moral dilemma implications of the funding for non-special ed students. I know we need to meet the needs of all students but there is a disproportionate amount of funding for one side compared to the other and then are we doing a disservice to non-special ed students and that's a real moral dilemma for me because I love all my kids, but I just worry about that.
Speaker 3Second is teacher shortage. You know we're going through really hard times finding teachers, finding anybody to do anything in education, so I worry about that. And the last one, you know, is a little bit tougher for some people, but I worry about the lack of society in general, but more especially our students, for really being able to take responsibility for what they're doing and being held accountable for what they're doing. My father likes to say you know things come in waves and they come and go and the pendulum swings, and I think that's true. After living so many years, I've seen that myself. So I think we're speaking from one side to the other.
Speaker 2I just worry about those things in education and the impact not only locally but, you know, nationally and globally for that matter, Absolutely Going back to that idea of why creating pathways, multiple pathways, partnerships and continuing to grow our programming for students is just so important to keep them connected and help to build a vision and a perspective of what can be possible for kids.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, we have to just keep looking at the data and statistics. And again, I think the Perkins grant's right on cue of what we need to do in order to provide for all of our students.
Speaker 2Is there anything you'd like to ask me?
Speaker 3What do you think is the most important quality of a leader?
Speaker 2I learned over time, similar to you upon reflection. When I started out as a young leader, I thought that being vulnerable would show weakness and a lack of almost credibility. But I found out that over time, being able to share some of your vulnerabilities, very powerful, being human, both showing your personal and professional side again, and balance, really brings people in and builds trust and credibility as a leader. So I think that's probably one, and the other skill that I feel like I continue to try to grow is really listening. I feel like I continue to try to grow is really listening. I mean, sometimes we say we listen, but really trying to be present and in the moment and lean in and listen to what people are really saying and not be so worried about how I might respond or how I might solve the problem, but just start by listening. So I'm working on that too.
Speaker 3We all are.
Speaker 2So, paul, where can our listeners go to find out more about you and about Seymour High School?
Speaker 3I tell you I'm deficient in this area. Me too. I really don't have a good focus on my social media presence. It's not that I can't do it because I used to teach computer programming and web design when I was a teacher. It's not that I can't do it because I used to teach computer programming and web design when I was a teacher. It's just it gets pushed to the bottom of my list, honestly, week after week after week after week, and when I look at the total return on my personal time and what I'm doing at work, I don't want to devote time at work to do it, and then when I go home I get into that same boat. So you know it's anything to do with Seymour High School. Seymour Public Schools is the best place to find me. I'm open to taking phone calls and answering questions.
Speaker 2All right, we know you're open for cold calling.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 2You just you open the door. Yes so, paul Luckey, assistant Principal of Seymour High School and recipient of the CAST Assistant Principal of the Year Award, thank you for this honest, humble and engaging conversation. The Linking Leaders podcast strives to connect great educational leaders across our small state and I'm confident that your student-centered approach to leadership will spark ideas, create conversations and inspire maybe a cold call or two from colleagues throughout Connecticut. Thank you, paul.
Speaker 3Thank you so much. Have a good day now.
Speaker 1Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Linking Leaders podcast. This episode is brought to you by the Connecticut Association of Schools, serving schools and their leaders since 1935.