Dr. Jim: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neighborhood town strategy nerd. Dr. Jim, if you're a new superintendent, what can you do to set yourself up for success? As a new superintendent, you probably have a lot of options on how to move forward, but there are certain things that can take precedence, which can have long-term payoffs.

One element of that approach needs to include the members of the community who have no stake in the district. That's one piece in a broader entry plan that can set you up for sustained success. That's what we're gonna be tackling in today's conversation. Today we have Eric Byrne, who is the superintendent of Rye City School District, and he's been in that role since 2017. Prior to coming to Rye, he was an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for six years in the Chappaqua Centrals.

School district. And prior to that, he served as the principal of Roaring Brook School in Chappaqua of the Pound Ridge Elementary School in the Bedford Central School District, and of PS 180 3, the Robert Lewis Stevenson School on the Upper East side of Manhattan. He began his career as a high school science teacher at [00:01:00] the Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, and later became an elementary school teacher at PS 180 3.

He's been an adjunct professor at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education for more than 20 years. In addition, he was the president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents from 2021 to 2023, and he's the recipient of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents Distinguished Service Award in 2023.

Dr. Byrne has a Bachelor of Arts in Natural Science from Fordham and a Master's of Science in Teaching, and in EDD in Educational Leadership administration and policy, both from Fordham University's Graduate School of Education. So with all that, Eric, welcome to the show.

Dr. Eric Byrne: So much, Jim, it's great to be here and I appreciate this opportunity to be with you today.

Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to hanging out and chatting with you and talking a little bit of shop. I think when when we talk about how we can make the. Transition from leadership position to leadership position easier. Those are some of the toughest transitions that you can make at any stage in your career, and it doesn't get any easier [00:02:00] for first time superintendents either.

So I think this is gonna be a valuable conversation for those folks who are gonna be listening that are maybe 10, 15 years behind you in terms of their career art. So I'm looking forward to getting into that discussion. But before we dive into that part of the conversation, it's gonna be important for you to get the listeners up to speed with some of the things that really helped shape your career and perspective and leadership philosophy.

So what were some of those foundational moments or critical moments in your career that help develop you into the person that you are today?

Dr. Eric Byrne: I that's a great question, Jim and I. I have been blessed to have incredible mentors in my life as an educator and in my professional career, and I have to look at that as probably the single. Most important and impactful piece of my career from my young days in as a teacher in New York City and a young administrator in New York City, working under a really extraordinary visionary [00:03:00] superintendent in Anthony Alvarado. And the team that he had. Had in place there. The principals I worked with, the district level folks I worked with, their relentless pursuit of instructional excellence and their real commitment to professional learning has always shaped who I am. And I take those lessons from 30 years ago and apply the knowledge from those lessons in my daily work. when I first made my transition to suburban. School life from New York City. The superintendent at the time, Dr. Bruce Dennis and his. to personal growth and the entry planning process have, has been really impactful on me and those who I work with. And then the many years that I spent in Chappaqua as a principal and a superintendent, again, it was the mentorship of superintendent there the most recent superintendent who I served as assistant superintendent McKay. And her instructional leadership and [00:04:00] professional learning knowledge, and David Fleischman who hired me in Chappaqua. To me it's the mentorship that I've had, I've been blessed to, to work under amazing leaders and folks that really took an interest in helping me develop and grow as an individual and as a professional.

Dr. Jim: I really appreciate you walking us through those different mentors that that impacted your career.

I think one of the. The things that I'm curious about is when you think about your role now, and here's where I'm coming from when I ask this question. Oftentimes when people cite mentorship, it can mean. Whole lot of different things to a whole lot of different people. And it shows up in all sorts of different ways a across organizations.

And one of the things that's always I've always found interesting about how mentorship is defined within a particular environment. There's a lot of luck that goes into it. Somebody's gotta notice you. So when you look at your leadership. Throughout the years, how have you taken luck out of the equation and made mentorship a discipline that an organization focuses [00:05:00] on?

What are some of those intentional things that you've done that's taken the luck out of getting noticed?

Dr. Eric Byrne: That's a really great question. So I think the. Setting up regular times for conversations with my leaders and having weekly or monthly, depending on the time that they've been with us those regular meetings and regular times to talk. And get to know each other even better are critically important in that work.

So for my new principals, it's new leaders. It's a weekly meeting after a couple of years. We, they have an option to transition to every other week or every two weeks. That's something that we work through together. But having that dedicated time with all of my leaders on a regular basis is critically important in that noticing process.

Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that you building discipline through scheduling is what you cite, and I absolutely agree that it's an important thing to do. But I'm gonna play devil's advocate because there's gonna be [00:06:00] some principle that's listening to this saying. Eric, you know what the day-to-day looks like.

Everything's on fire all the time, and those things have to get taken care of. So how can I fit in that weekly cadence of meetings with my entire team when we always have stuff that's going sideways within our environments?

Dr. Eric Byrne: It's not the entire team, Jim. So I recognize I was a principal for a long time. So I go to the principals later today. I'm going to two of my buildings. And the meeting time is time meeting with them. And walking the building and talking. And that to me enables them to be on site where they need to be focused on their individual school community and to be able to respond to things in real time. So you going to them unless they specifically ask to do the meeting somewhere else or outside of the day. I certainly am flexible with that, but I'm also flexible with something comes up and they need to move it or we need to reschedule it. We're always able to do that, but it's that regular [00:07:00] connection that's really important.

Dr. Jim: No, that's a really good point, and I appreciate that. I come from the private sector where, you know, those one-on-one meetings are done in offices or whatnot, but I like the fact that your one-on-one conversations are integrated into the environment. So you're having those conversations, but you're also observing what's going on to.

A broader view of what the landscape of the, what that principle is operating in. So I think that's a good clarification. I wanna switch gears a little bit and dig into some of the some of the specifics of the district that you're currently in. Now you've been here for a little while. I want you to take us back to when you first started in the district.

What did you observe about the district landscape and nuances that stood out to you?

Dr. Eric Byrne: when I first arrived in Rye in my early learning, I started to see that it was, it's an incredibly high performing school district, but it's also a pretty diverse school district. and one where there's a pretty significant. International population. I think the location to a lot of corporate [00:08:00] headquarters brings people from across the globe. It's also a school district that or a community that has a tremendous amount of stability. So folks typically come here. And stay here for a very long time. There are a lot of suburban communities where people come and raise their kids and put them through a school system, and then when their kids are finished with the schools, they move on. That is not the case here in Rye City. People come to R they plant roots, and we have generations of folks that have been here for many years. So I have a chance to interact with. Grandparents and great grandparents of kids who still live in the community because it's such a wonderful place to be.

So that really incredible sense of community and longevity across generations is unique to Rye and one that I really appreciate.

Dr. Jim: So there's a lot in what you answered that I think is is really interesting. I think one of the things that I'm curious about is that when you're entering into a stable [00:09:00] district and a high performing district, the temptation could be I can just, keep the lights on. If I don't screw anything up, I'm gonna be okay.

So how did you approach knowing what you know about the district? What were the things that you did to get yourself in the mindset of getting to the next level versus keeping the lights on?

Dr. Eric Byrne: There was a whole bunch of things. So the early days, so in the interview process and right after I got hired for the position and before my first day. I watched I think there were three years of archive, board of education meetings on the school district website, and I watched every single one of them.

And some were quite long as sometimes board of education meetings can go long into the night because I wanted to understand. How the community saw the school district through the lens of the Board of Education process. I wanted to understand the board members and what kinds of conversations they were having about the school district and the needs of the [00:10:00] school district. I also spent some time in the district we have a small downtown. My wife and I had some dinners in town. We went shopping in town and really trying to get a sense of the community and understand where we were coming, where I was going to be working. so those were pretty key places. I also started talking with folks from Rye.

When I was at a regional professional learning event, I would just go right up to folks that had. Name text, it said Rise City School District and introduce myself and talk with them. And it was a really helpful part of the process. But I did make some very deliberate plans about how I was going to enter the school district from the early days of those first conversations with Board of Education trustees to when I was going to be arriving on July 1st of that summer.

Dr. Jim: So I wanna start from where you are and then work backwards. So you've had eight years in the district. The typical [00:11:00] shelf life across the country for superintendent is maybe two, three years. It might be a little bit different here or there, you've outlived what's typical and. I want you to walk us through what you did on the front end of your entry process that set you up for success, to get that kind of longevity.

I know there's a lot of factors that go into it. You can have the greatest plan in the world, but if it doesn't work, you can be out in two years. But that's clearly not the case for you. Walk us through what you did from an entry plan perspective that you believe set yourself up for success and getting this tenure that's atypical in this superintendency ranks.

Dr. Eric Byrne: So entry planning is critically important in my view. All of our leaders when they come in and our instructional coaches engage in an entry process. So one, it was the development of the plan, so it was a pretty comprehensive plan that involved a lot of research. So looking at data, looking at any kind of artifacts, written reports, security plans, budgets, things like that. To [00:12:00] time with people and inviting stakeholders from across the community, from folks who directly impacted on a daily basis from the school district to going outside of the school district and into the broader community to folks who may not be directly impacted by the day-to-day decisions of the schools, but were obviously impacted on a larger scale. It, it was. Getting connected to the local community organization. So it was really the design of the plan being comprehensive it giving me a complete view of what the strengths, the needs, and the challenges that the school district was facing. real data that I was working off of and real artifacts that I was working off of, as well as individual connections with people.

So inviting every single staff member to sit with me for an entry interview. So one, I first, I developed a plan I put a draft together. [00:13:00] I shared it with the board of education and got their feedback. I shared it with the full administrative team, so all the principals, assistant principals, directors. I came and met with them before I even began the process of implementing the plan. shared it with them, presented it, and then we followed a protocol so that they could give me feedback on it. I made revisions based on the feedback from both the board and the administrative team, and then finalized it, presented it to the community, and started doing it and sitting for the interviews, and it really was. An incredible research project that helped me develop a really deep understanding of Rise City and of the Rise City School district that has informed basically every decision and action I've taken since I started that job back in 2017.

Dr. Jim: So when you look at that process I think one of the things that I'm wondering is [00:14:00] you have this action or you have this entry plan that you've worked on and you've built. How was that plan indexed between business side planning versus people side planning?

Dr. Eric Byrne: I would say it was in design, probably 50 50 in implementation. It was probably 75 25 with 75 being the people because the connecting with the people and the talking with the people. Informed, understanding the operational and business side. So when I had conversations with all the folks in the business office and some of our vendors and people that we had been working with, it wasn't thinking about the consumer of our school system, the teachers in our school system, it was accomplishing two things in that I was developing relationships with folks on the operations and business side. And developing an understanding of what was happening on the operation and business side. [00:15:00] But overall, I think it was well over probably between six and 700 interviews that I conducted as part of this entry plan, external it was a combination of both. I, so I think terms of relationship wise, it was heavy on the relationship development.

Dr. Jim: So when you look at that interview process, what were, did you use a standardized set of questions or was it more open-ended in your approach? And how did that inform some of the business assumptions that you had made in your entry plan? I.

Dr. Eric Byrne: So I had developed questions that I shared. For everyone. It was the same set of questions for everyone. And the last question was always, is there anything else that I've forgotten to ask you? So I asked about people's backgrounds. I asked about their feelings about the school district and things that made them proud about the school district or things that they saw as needs and weaknesses of the school district.

But I asked the same questions to every single person I met [00:16:00] with. I had a common note taking form. I'm not a fan of sitting in a meeting with someone and they're typing away on a computer. I feel like there's something lost there. So I had, I have giant binders with all of my notes from every one of those entry interviews from back in 2017. but I shared the same questions with everyone. They had the questions in advance. They were publicly known what I was gonna be asking folks. And I stuck to it. And obviously some folks had longer responses to certain questions than others, but I ended all with the same. Is there anything else that you wanted to share that I hadn't asked you?

Dr. Jim: it's interesting that you developed this robust plan that was heavy on the people side. I. There are probably some people that are sitting in the, in, in the audience thinking I think if I'm gonna develop an entry plan, I'm probably gonna index even more to the people side and let the technical operations side take a secondary precedence.

What's the error in that thinking?

Dr. Eric Byrne: I think that, [00:17:00] sometimes you, folks that come into these jobs as superintendents have an Achilles heel, or they may not have the operations and, finance background. And the last thing you wanna do is neglect that in your entry because you need to understand happening on that side of the organization. Yes, relationships are probably the most important part of the work that we do, and it's critically important that you do that, I think you really need to have that full understanding the operational and business side of things. Otherwise, I. Something will come and bite you. That comes from that end of the work. It's you have to, in this job, you have to have a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of the organization and what makes us tick. You can't just be an instructional person or you can't just be a business and HR person and they collect the instructional side of things. It's that comprehensive nature is what I think separates superintendents from being successful and having longevity to not.

Dr. Jim: [00:18:00] Good stuff. So when you look at everything that you did in the lead up to coming into the district there was a lot of information gathering that came out of it. So when you look at the business side and you look at the people side of the equation, what were some of the common themes that came out of those conversations that informed your priorities going forward?

Dr. Eric Byrne: From the business and operations side, it was under investment in the system, in the facilities, in the, on the operational side of things. And I think there was a great fear that the community, which is fiscally conservative and was even more fiscally conservative then was not interested in supporting. Financial investment in the school district. So that was a big learning for me that research, those conversations that, there, there was a sense that we did not need to put money into systems and facilities, pieces of the school district. So that was a huge learning piece for me.

Dr. Jim: So [00:19:00] that's interesting that you have this high performance district. It's got a stable track record and this history of high performance and they're reticent about investment into the school district on the facility side. So when you find that out, how did you respond?

Dr. Eric Byrne: So one I. I, I had longer conversations with folks trying to really understand that issue. So one of the common things that I heard was it was fine when I was in school it should be fine for the kids now. Or I heard we don't need, all those. things and the bells and whistles. We just need the basics to be successful. what I started to do in those conversations was weave in the importance of the facilities and how, sharing the research, which was some of my research that I had done in my career and my dissertation on the importance of the facility and [00:20:00] space. In kids success in schools today. So if we wanted to have kids be able to attend well in school, having fresh air ventilation and good lighting and acoustics, those are really important pieces today that may not have had. The relevance or importance when someone was in school during their time. It was certainly not something that was considered when I was in school, but educating folks and really sharing with them the research and the potential impact and how that could help us really important. So I think. Making that case and developing that relationship is in those conversations, establishing a relationship with each individual so that when I did come out and ask and say, we need your support in this, people were, they were looking at me as someone that they knew as opposed to this talking head who was the guy that's running the school district. it was a more [00:21:00] personal connection with individuals.

Dr. Jim: Now that's a really good point. And it's interesting because I think parents of all types go back in their minds to well, I had to do that when I was a kid. They didn't have this many snow days when I was a kid. We had no air conditioning in the summer when I was a kid, and our heat didn't work great when I was a kid.

And I like the fact that you're tying it into the research, but you're also asking in a subtle way. When you noticed those things when you were a kid, how much attention were you paying to what was happening in the front of the room versus what was happening be between your ears, because your point about you have to create the environment for learning is is really what I take away from it.

But if people are distracted by all sorts of external things because they're afraid the piece of the ceiling is gonna fall off on their head, that's gonna impact what they.

Dr. Eric Byrne: It.

Dr. Jim: So I think one, one of the things that that I'm curious about, so you have this headwind of a resistance to invest within the district and you have a stable [00:22:00] community. It's not the typical cycle where people will move in with kids and once the kids graduate, they leave. So you probably have a certain percentage of the community that have no kids in the district.

And if you're looking at. Headwinds from an investment perspective and another set of headwinds where there are people in the community that have no stake in the game. How did you overcome that second piece of that equation? What was the conversation that you had with those folks that don't have kids in the district?

Dr. Eric Byrne: It was building trust, so it was one establishing the relationship. And then not just disappearing after that first entry interview is being present and going back to folks and talking with them and developing a real relationship as opposed to just this transactional, I have to talk to you because I'm the new superintendent and you are part of a large civic organization. I became part of those civic organizations. I became a regular [00:23:00] presence. At different community events so that when I was asking for something or support for the school district to the community, they knew, oh, that's Eric. I know who Eric is. He's been around. We've gotten to know him. He's, he told us why we're doing this. So really being clear about the why. real relationships with folks as opposed to just simple transactional meet and greet, because that's, I have to meet you as part of this job. So really becoming. Enmeshed in the community and developing and nurturing those relationships. So you establish them through the entry process and then you nurture those relationships through the everyday work of the position of superintendent out in the community. So the trust was a huge piece of it. Building that trust and nurturing those relationships so that the trust is still there.

Dr. Jim: So when you map this out, it. I'm [00:24:00] getting a time crunch in what you're describing. So you have all of this people centered activity that you're doing within the district, so we can say that it's at the building level or at the district level. Then you have another element of the people side of the equation, which includes families and engaging with them and.

Gathering from them what the student experience has been. So those are two different stakeholders that you have to wrap your head around. Then you have this third element where there are. People in the community that are part of the district that have no skin in the game when it comes to the district.

But you have to be involved in the various organizations so that they can put the name to a face. And I'm thinking of myself as a first time superintendent and I'm looking at all of this. I didn't have to do this as an assistant sup. I'm just gonna focus in on the district level folks and the families because I don't have enough time to do all that other stuff.

When you look at the challenge of time management across all of those things, what were the things that you put into place so that you can hit all of these bases [00:25:00] without being overwhelmed?

Dr. Eric Byrne: One I gave up my personal life. And that's to be perfectly frank. I think one of the challenges that faces that is facing school district today is people coming into the superintendency. Before they're ready and not just ready in terms of what their knowledge and skill is, but their life is ready.

So I made a conscious decision and something my family and I talked about for a long time. I didn't pursue a superintendent position until my daughter was graduating from high school. Because I knew that if I was in this role, I wouldn't be able to go to her ski races or cheerleading competitions or be home for dinner. Even though certainly as an assistant superintendent there were challenges to that. I. But making the decision to be a superintendent and be a superintendent, the way I believed I needed to be, the time [00:26:00] piece there, it was not negotiable to me. So I had to be prepared. My family was prepared. It was something we had talked about and I was at a place in my life where that was possible.

But it literally, the superintendency, when people say it's a. A 24 7, 365 job. It is. It is. if you're going to do this the right way and certainly the 24 hour piece is outside of your control because things come up and you, your phone rings in the middle of the night and you have to navigate that and deal with it.

But, going to the Little League parade so that you could meet folks at the Little League Parade or the Halloween window painting, those things are happening on Saturdays and Sundays and days when. You might be fishing or, skiing or doing the kinds of things that you do in your real life. It became an all consuming piece. And that's not, might not be for everyone. And it might not be necessary in all communities, but certainly my research on [00:27:00] Rise City and what the district needed is the district needed a superintendent and leader to step in and become that person and make that commitment to time.

Dr. Jim: I like your point about how you have to be prepared for it from a mental perspective and a lifestyle perspective and create space for the depth of the role.

The thing that I'm wondering is if I'm an assistant superintendent and I want to get to the next level, but I don't want to have that leap feel like I'm jumping into a bucket of ice water, what are the things that I can do as an assistant sup to better prepare for the demands of that next role? What would your advice be there?

Dr. Eric Byrne: One, I would have a conversation with your superintendent, as I did and ask directly what are the things that would be helpful in me developing a greater understanding of the job of a superintendent. There are lots of superintendent development programs and here in, in my home state my, superintendent's organization runs a great superintendent [00:28:00] development program, but the best lessons are ask your superintendent, what kinds of things should I be doing to get to understand this job completely? For example, I do a budget roadshow every year, and my assistant superintendents come and that it's not a requirement.

It is something that. That they like to participate so that they can understand. What it means to be interacting with all aspects and all stakeholders in the community around the annual budget vote. So they come and I listened to them and some of them have said, I'd like to play a greater role.

And last year I. My assistant superintendent for curriculum did a lot of the presenting on that budget roadshow, which was really helpful to me, but helpful to her in her own development. So I think you, you have to take the first step as the assistant superintendent and say, I want to learn, I want to figure out how I can be a superintendent and that path and understanding the job, and then work with your [00:29:00] superintendent on building some of those activities into your routine.

Dr. Jim: So I really like your point about having the conversation with the superintendent to define the areas that you can quote unquote play in. I would imagine part of that has to be strategic too, on your part as an assistant sup, where you have to be self-aware about the weaknesses that you have in your own game and focus on developing those, because if those aren't shored up.

The right way before you take that next leap. It's gonna blow up when the job gets busier. Am I thinking about this the right way?

Dr. Eric Byrne: Oh, you are absolutely thinking about it the right way. So here's a perfect example. I when I was an assistant superintendent, I came up through the instructional side of things. I wanted to know more about the HR side of things so I actually asked a role in contract negotiations and in the planning for contract negotiations that I could understand. How do you develop strategy for contract negotiations? I didn't have the opportunity to be at the table during [00:30:00] negotiations, but that background really helped me in thinking about it. So when I was sitting at the table for negotiations for the first time here, it wasn't a completely new experience for me.

I had done that strategy work. I had understood how you prepared for the, to launch negotiations and so my assistant superintendents, I gave them the opportunity. To participate in negotiations from the planning through the sitting at the table in our last round of negotiations, and they've taken me up on that.

Dr. Jim: when I think about this conversation, here's the roadmap that I have so far. Building a strong entry plan should involve deep research across both the operational and people side of the equation. So that's one element of it. Then you should be doing a listening.

Exercise with the families that are in your community. Then there's a third element where you need to be involved in a number of key strategic community organizations that don't necessarily have a stake in the district per se, but are gonna [00:31:00] influence decisions and sentiment in the community when there is a need or call for investment.

So I look at those three, buckets as things that should be incorporated into an entry plan. The thing that we haven't talked about is, okay, when you look at coordinating all those pieces and actually doing the work, what's the timeline of getting all this stuff done?

Dr. Eric Byrne: That's a really a good noticing, Jim because I developed the entry plan coming into rye. I anticipated that, so I was appointed to the job in at the end of February. I anticipated that I would start having conversations late March, early April with folks before I officially began. I did interviews with the Board of Education trustees and the school administrators.

I would meet them, go to them and have those conversations, but I anticipated that. The following December. So essentially six months later I would be done with the entry [00:32:00] process. It did not work out that way. And I think partially because of the interest in meeting with me and the number of folks that took an opportunity or took the invitation seriously and came in and met with me. So I was still engaged in entry interviews, albeit not to the same degree. Through June of that first year. So I was engaged in entry for a little over a year. All the while though, I was sharing updates with the community. my, my, my assistant at that time asked me at some point, it was like January of my first year, she was like when am I gonna stop making entry meetings? And I said, when they stop asking for entry meetings because to me, developing those relationships and establishing those relationships was too important to say no to. So it, it was a good year plus for me. And again, depending on the size of your district and the nature of your community, it may not take that long.

But [00:33:00] certainly I think anticipating a six month entry process is realistic for just about every school district.

Dr. Jim: I want you to zoom out a little bit. This entire conversation has been about setting yourself up for success, and you're an outlier when it comes to the shelf life of a typical superintendent having been in your role for eight years.

So when you think about setting yourself up for success. By way of a strong entry plan, if you're advising somebody else on what a strong entry plan looks like, what are the com key components that they need to pay attention to so that they can try to replicate what your experience has been within their districts?

Dr. Eric Byrne: I think that's a really interesting thought because one, I think you have to approach it. And the most important component is taking seriously the notion that entry will inform everything you do you're in the position. So really recognizing the power of entry and how it can make or break a superintendency. I think there's [00:34:00] the public nature of it. I think you have to be very public that this is what I'm doing. entry plan, and this is why I am doing it. And then you have to strategically report out to the community. So for example, on the first day of school in my first year, so the first day with all the faculty back to our opening day as I call it, presented what I had learned thus far in my first batch of entry interviews and my entry activities to that point. So this was in early September of 2017. I still remember, I had already done 92 entry interviews and I shared the data. I shared what the things were that I was learning, some of them. There were some audible guests in the audience. So we had a, an auditorium filled with about five or 600 people. And when I said, one of the things that I've heard clearly is that the Board of Education needs to stay out of the management of the school district and let the [00:35:00] superintendent do their job. I said that. The Board of Education was sitting all seven of them in the front row, and the rest of the room was filled with the entire faculty and staff. And there was a notable gasp in the auditorium when I said that, the important part of being transparent in the process so that everybody needs to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then at a certain point you need to present, what am I going to do about it? So I did those strategic presentations throughout the year, and then at the end of the year I did a full presentation on the first year and what I had learned, what we had already tackled, and what we were gonna be doing moving forward.

Dr. Jim: Great stuff. If if people wanna continue the conversation what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Dr. Eric Byrne: Certainly reaching out to me here in the Rise City School district at eric@riseschools.org. Remember to. If you Google us, it's the Rise City School District. There are a couple of rise [00:36:00] around, that would be helpful. Happy to have conversations about it. You can connect up with me on LinkedIn.

I am on LinkedIn, and happy to continue conversations in that way.

Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us, Eric, and sharing your insights and best practices when it comes to entry plans and also setting yourself up for success. And I think there's a lot in this discussion that's worth digging into, but there's one particular aspect that I think it's really important to.

Highlight and we often fall into the trap that. Whenever we take on a new role, there's a defined beginning, middle, and end of that role. And I think one of the things that I take away from what you described is that there's almost you're almost better served at periodically resetting your mindset as if you new person in the district and opening the door for more feedback that'll inform how you move forward.

The reason why that's important is that when you look at. Building strong [00:37:00] cultures internally, building strong cultures externally. You always need to shake yourself out of the going through the motions trap and inviting feedback, and inviting listening and conversation around what is the landscape looking like?

Sets you up for success and keeps things fresh, and always helps you get to that next level. So that's the broader lesson that I take away from that. Now, on a granular level. I think one of the big things that people that step into a superintendency role need to be aware of is that it's critical for you to shore up as many of your gaps before you get into the role, so that way it doesn't blow up on you when you're actually in the seat.

And once you're in the seat, you should be figuring out ways that you're. Managing all of managing and engaging with all of the key stakeholders that you're dealing with. You have your staff as one stakeholder group. You have your students and family as another, and you have the broader community as a third [00:38:00] and navigating how you actually give each of them a seat at the table and the space to tell you what they see as areas to improve is gonna be really important, and you have to be able to do it all. That means you also have to have line of sight into what are you willing to give up to create space for all of those conversations.

Those I feel are really important things to call out in this conversation. I appreciate you sharing that with us. For those of you who've been listening to the conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. Make sure you leave us a review if you like the discussion. If you haven't already done so, make sure you join our K through 12 leadership community.

And then tune in next time where we'll have another great leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performance team.