Ep 69 | The future of Public Education in Escambia County

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In our strategic plan, we talk about students, employees, leadership, business, and community. And then we we've drilled that down into three components. Um that we're they are our priorities. It's what we're focused on. It's students, employees, and community in that order. So every decision that we make, every decision that we decide to take to our board for adoption, for approval is going to be based on that lineage, students, employees, and community. And we won't ever waver from students being first.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambi County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. Some people like putting a face to a name. On this show, we like putting a voice to a title to let you, the parent, get to know the people behind the email signatures in Escambia County. Because when we see each other more as real-world neighbors and less as virtual avatars, we can reach beyond the headlines and truly come together for the success of every child in our community. So, with that, I'm happy to introduce you to my next guest. He's the interim superintendent of Escambia County Public Schools. And today he's going to share his origin story and what he hopes to contribute to the future of our kids. Tate High graduate, teacher at heart, interim superintendent Keith Leonard. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Thank you, Meredith. I promise I'm not a virtual avatar.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Well, that's good because there'd be really something special about my coffee this morning if you were.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Let's start with how you got here. What's been your path to this point so far? I think people would be interested to know in your history.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

I'd start with my parents. Both my mom and my dad were educators right here in Escambia County. They moved down from Selma, Alabama in 1964. My dad ended up being a principal and a district administrator for many years. My mom was a 35-year veteran teacher. They raised two children, one being myself and the other one being my sister. My sister's been a teacher for 31 years now. So finally, after many years of education, in fact, five while I was in college. I graduated in 1986.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

You had an extra year of college?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

I did have an extra year.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

That's how dedicated you are an edge.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

The extended year, I guess, is what we would call it. When I graduated from high school, I was chasing an athletic dream. Uh went to several different schools. Uh, finally came home to the University of West Florida and graduated in the summer of 1986. Um, my high school principal and high school head football coach were both at Pine Forest High School at that time and uh interviewed for a job there teaching social studies and coaching football and baseball. And for me, that's where it all started. Uh a love of teaching and uh coaching's nothing more than teaching as well. Uh had pretty good success while we were there at Pine Forest. Um loved meeting all the students, the different diverse cultures that each one of them came from. In football, we won two state championships and ended up one year being the USA Today, ranked number one team in the country.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, really, really good. We we were pretty good in baseball as well. Uh, had the opportunity at the end of 1989 uh to go back to my alma mater, which is Tate High School, went there as a social studies teacher and as the head baseball coach. By the time we ended up leaving Tate High School, I had married my love of my life, Melinda. She's a teacher. She recently retired, ended up being the athletic director and head football coach at Tate, and was involved in the labor relations on the teacher side. Then superintendent Jim Paul asked, would I be interested in being the chief negotiator for the school district? So I'd never really thought about doing something like that. I'd gone back to grad school and got a master's in ed leadership. Really, my master's was in physical education and I got certification in ed leadership. So I applied and received that position. So for several years I served as the chief negotiator for our school district. I'm very proud of the work we did during the time that I served in that position. We increased teacher salaries by about 41%. Wow. So I would say we were fairly successful. Then a really, really good lady who had trained me up in HR, Mary Helen Fryman. She retired and I ended up being the director of HR. Right at the time that I was finishing up coaching, we had our first daughter, Marin Leonard Tice. Now she's a teacher. A few years later, we had Madison Leonard, who didn't end up being a teacher. We're still working on her. She's an attorney here locally and spot.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Still working on her, huh? Yep. How's that going?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Going okay. Okay. Um, not as successful as I would like, but she does well as an attorney, very proud of her. I wanted to say I talked about my sister being a teacher. Well, her son is also a teacher. So I would say that teaching is in the Leonard Blood. Then in oh, 2020, our assistant superintendent of HR, he retired, Dr. Alan Scott, who was a great mentor to me. I ended up taking the position. I wouldn't say I replaced him because there was no way to do so, but I ended up taking the assistant superintendent for human resources. And then here just recently in June, after some some things occurred here in our school district, ended up being appointed as the interim superintendent and now have the good fortune of doing a podcast with Meredith. So that's how we got here. Absolutely. That's how we got here. That's the journey.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I mean, being an interim superintendent is a pretty big deal. It doesn't sound like from what you're sharing that that was the goal. Was that ever something in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Well, I'd applied when they went from elected to appointed. It was something that I had thought about. It wasn't something that I was gonna, you know, go home and cry about and wish that I'd been able to do so if I didn't, because I've had a full career. But I believe in doing the things that you can do for whatever organization you're a part of. And if you can make the biggest impact as the teacher, or if you can make the biggest impact as a director or as a superintendent of schools, I always believe you ought to be thriving and striving to be able to do something like that. So yeah, I thought about it, applied. Dr. Smith was our first appointed superintendent, great guy, enjoyed working for him. One of those kind of people, let you do your job. And then when the interim theme came, and it was just God's hand putting you where he wants you to be. And I firmly believe that.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

So now you're here.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I am here.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I think it's interesting that you are a parent and you've had all this experience as a teacher. Does isn't equal 15 years, I think you told me?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Well, I was I was a teacher for 18 years. 18. Three at Pine Forest and 15 at Tate.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I mean, does having those perspectives as both a parent and a teacher inform your outlook as a superintendent?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Absolutely. You you don't ever need to forget where you came from. And uh that's where I started was as a classroom teacher. And believe me, with a retired educator at my home, a current educator, not far from my home, that we taught pretty regular, that being my daughter and my my nephew, they keep me abreast of what's going on and what needs to change, uh, along with many friends that I still have that that work in our schools.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

You can't escape it. And you shouldn't. I like that. You know that word association game where, you know, people would say one word and you say the first thing that comes to your mind, don't worry, I'm not gonna do that to you. I saw the fear in your eyes just then. It's okay. But I wanted to do a little perception versus reality because when people first hear the title superintendent, you know, I'm not sure what they may think. Um, I definitely thought it was somebody maybe removed from the people, if you will, in a fourth floor ivory tower kind of situation, looking down on the people and sending a lot of emails. I'd love to hear your take on what you think people perceive the superintendent does versus what you actually do.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. I think there are misconceptions about what does the superintendent. One of the first things I can tell you that a superintendent does is he counts on a lot of people to do the things that they need to do. This is a large business, 37,500 students, 7,000 employees, then you have volunteers, mentors, all doing their different duties each day for the betterment of students. There are certain days when you spend a lot of time in meetings. I would say the most critical thing that I believe that a superintendent does is it's it's really it's three things, it's three L's. Listen, learn, and lead. And you find out very quickly that through listening, you you gain a lot of knowledge. You make certain that you dwell on that, you learn. You also need to be able to turn it off so you can get a little bit of sleep in the evening time. And then by leading, you have to make decisions, and you know that not all decisions are going to be popular. Um but you gotta believe that you're doing what's in the best interest uh of the majority. And I I think I said this already, but I want to make sure that that people know this. Uh our office may be on the fourth floor, but it's not an ivory tower, and you really don't get to spend a lot of time in your office. Um you will have people that want to meet with you, whether it be through a Google meet or face to face. You verily meet with meet with someone that they don't have an ask, that they don't have something that they want. Well, you can't give everybody what they want, or you'll have nothing. So decision making is critical. Counting on those others around you. We have a really good team here in Escambia County Public Schools. One of the things that we've worked on is a very true statement. We are united for every student to succeed. That is in our strategic plan. It's part of our vision, our mission, and we work tirelessly every day to make that happen. That is the superintendent's responsibility, and I take it very seriously.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

I s I'm feeling there are similarities between your time here as an interim superintendent and your time as a coach.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

There there are a lot of similarities. I'll I'll use football as an analogy. You practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in preparation for the game. You hope that that Monday through Thursday you've done the things that you need to do to make sure your team is ready and will be able to peak and play at its highest level. And then on Friday night, that's the test. And you can't always measure the success of the team by what's on one side of the hyphen and on the other side of the hyphen. Sometimes you win and you didn't play very well, and you still have to go back the next week and figure out what you're gonna have to do for your team to be better. Sometimes you may have played the best you could and you did not win. You did that other thing. You still gotta figure out a way to motivate those young men or in any sport, it may be young ladies. So that the next week on that Monday through Thursday, you're motivating, you're preparing them, and they're ready and they have confidence as they go into that Friday night contest. So, yeah, there's a lot of similarities. I spend a great deal of time trying to provide motivation and encouragement to our people. You think about the difficulties that teachers face day in and day out with whether it's 18 students or 28 students in their class, each of those students comes with different things that have occurred, maybe not just in their life, but the night before. That teacher's responsibility is to make sure they're motivated and they're encouraged so that that particular student can learn. So, yeah, that was a good way to put it, Meredith. There are a lot of similarities. And our focus, once again, is to make sure we're preparing students to be successful, not just in school, but in life. And I can tell you I take no greater pride than in when I see one of my former players come back and thank me for what we instilled. Friday night, I was at a gathering for Sheriff Simmons and the Escambia Sheriff's Foundation. And I got to sit with one of my former players, Fred Robbins, who, you know, ended up going on to the NFL, winning the Super Bowl. And I'm more proud of him, not necessarily about being a member of that Super Bowl championship New York Giant team, but in the man, husband, and father that he is. That's what you take pride and joy.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Why are you making me tear up?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

It's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

It is the truth. Yes. Then it's a very holistic view of what success means. And that's something that I can really appreciate because it's not something that just shows up on a report. No more. It just shows up in the headlines, or even just shows up from one person's perspective. It's a it's a whole ecosystem of happenings and micro happenings.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I would put our ecosystem, our school district, up against anybody. Any school district. Things that we do, the things that we accomplish. Like you said, there's negativity out there. I'm not going to spend any time. Our team's not going to spend any time focusing on the negativity. We're going to we're going to focus on our students, our employees, and we're going to be positive because of the end result is what I just mentioned. Those students having the opportunity to be successful, not just in school, but in life.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Yeah, not the what, but the who, the who they become.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Do you care if I steal that and use that? You go right ahead. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

You heard it here first.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Back to the sports analogy that you're giving of being a coach. I've never been a coach, but I was a soccer goalie. And we have the view of the field. It's really just a way for people to be bossy and get away with it, which fit me well. Um, but I always think back to that time as the goalie of having the perspective of, you know, what needs to happen next and comparing it with what the team captain wants to happen during that game. And kind of um, you know, it's I mean, I'm jumping analogies here, but it's kind of like steering the ship, right? Like, okay, we can't get off five degrees because then in, you know, four miles, we'll be in another country, basically. So I wanted to ask you what your top priorities for the district are as far as like the end goals and the direction that you are trying to keep us all on track for.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

I should have guessed that you were a goalie. That's where all the pressure is. You can play the whole game. It comes down to one shot.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

You either stop it or you do not.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Just sacrifice my body. Absolutely. Throw it out there, no big deal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

We uh in our strategic plan, we talk about students, employees, leadership, business, and community. And then we we've drilled that down into three components. Um, that we're they are our priorities. It's what we're focused on. It's students, employees, and community in that order. So every decision that we make, every decision that we decide to take to our board for adoption, for approval, is going to be based on that lineage, students, employees, and community. And we won't ever waver from students being first. This particular year, what we've done is we've broken that down even deeper. And we're focusing on attendance. Our attendance, especially coming off of COVID, had dwindled district wide. We were below, right at or below 90% attendance each day. So we're working to improve on our student attendance and employee attendance for that matter. And then secondly, behavior. You know, get you to school, and then while you're at school, we want to make sure you have uh positive behavior. So all of our schools and our departments are working to assist in those two areas. And then stability. You can imagine why stability would be one of our core, core items for priority and improvement. And then we even drill down on stability as into three categories. Three seems to be my number, it may be because that's all I can remember at one time. Recruitment, retention, and morale. We we've got to get more students. There are there are students that families, their families have decided to take them somewhere else for particular age groups uh in our county. So we've got to win them back, and we're working on that every day. We've got to retain those students once we get them. Also recruit employees and retain employees. It's a competitive market. We need to make sure that our public school system is ready to compete and does compete. Which you can tell I think both you and I would be competitive people, and that's what that's what we do. And then lastly, that stability. When you start thinking about morale, when I look at you, I see a happy person. You enjoy what you do. That's one way to measure morale. We're gonna do engagement surveys. We just completed our first one. We do see a slight uptick in morale, we're gonna have to continue to do that. And it's not always about compensation, money. How do you make people feel? Do they feel valued? Do they feel appreciated? Do they feel like you listen to them and then you act upon what you've heard? Um so those are drilled down priorities, and those are attainable goals, things that we believe we'll be able to accomplish during this year, and then we'll drill down on them again the following year and the following year. We do believe it's something that we can grow and grow upon, and we'll make our school system better.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Those are really big goals. Sure. Are very I I love them. They're very altruistic. I love that some of them can be easily measured and some of them have more subjective measurement because I feel like your position, it would be easy to just focus on the objective measurement, the kind that you can send an email about. Right. But the kind that you need to tell stories about is just as important.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

And we have a lot of really good stories that we can tell about what we do. I was talking about what a teacher deals with earlier. And I was talking about uh the importance of our public school system. So when you said story, it made me think of a story that I need to share with you that will make our listeners and our people that are involved and more importantly that support our public school system realize. So it was the first day of this school year. And I try to get out to as many schools as I can. That particular afternoon I was at a middle school for dismissal. Car rider line, bus line. It's organized, chaos, people are everywhere, but it's the first day of school and we're trying to get them where they need to be. Dismissal was 420. Car rider line's moving fairly well. It's around about 5, 5.05, 515. There's still maybe 5 to 15 people maybe waiting around. And the car pulls up and Sir, can I help you out? Can't find the kid. Kid hadn't come home. So if you'll pull on up out of the other vehicles, we'll get out and we'll figure out. Well gentleman did it just exactly as I'd asked, and he gets out of his vehicle and he has an amputated leg. So he's walking with a cane and we start talking, and he says that they were homeless, and the night before they stayed in a hotel. He's not sure his son knew where to go. What's your son's name? Going to the main office, we call. Young man finally makes his way up to the main office. He was lost. It was his first day out of school. Spent the night in a hotel. I want you to think back. I can think back on my first day of school. I mean, you think about yours. I mean, I I slept in my go-to-school shoes. You know, I was just so excited about going, here's this young man. It's his first day of middle school. The night before he slept in a hotel. His dad cares about him, he loves him. Those stories never end. And when you what you can count on, Scambe County Public School System is going to take care of everyone. Once again, we're united for every student to succeed, whether they had to spend the night in a hotel before the first night of school. That's a story people need that needs to resonate with people. They need to know what we're doing and they need to be proud of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

That's an amazing story. I think there's so much treasure there when you dig into the individual lives that make up the student body, that make up those thousands of students that you mentioned at the beginning, thousands of teachers that you mentioned. Every everybody has a story. So coming together is not just about, you know, a group email or even uh a meeting that where we're all present, right? It's not all butts and seats. It's sometimes about um respecting the the differences that make up the whole story, the small stories that make up the whole one.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

That's right. And we're just one big story.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

As we close, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share about what you feel makes the Scambia County Schools special.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

That's a very easy answer. Our people. People like you. People like my mom and dad that raise teachers. We're a school district that runs long from north to south. We have beautiful white sandy beaches and we have farmland on the north. Everybody, everybody knows that they belong in Escambia County. So when I say the people, you get a room full of people, there's gonna be different ideas, diverse opinions and views. But if you've ever had to live through coming back from a hurricane in Escambia County, doesn't matter where you live, doesn't matter what your political views are. It's everybody pulling for one another. It's the people that make this place special. I love Escambia County, and I love the Escambia County Public School System. And I want to thank you for having me the opportunity to do this podcast with you today, America.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Absolutely. This has been fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Escambia County Public Schools.