Transformative Leadership: Bridging the Gap Between Tradition and Tomorrow

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The first part of that process involves being at peace with understanding that your top priority might not be what the staff or community wants. And once you recognize that, you can begin the work of understanding what are the top priorities that the community has and how staff, students, and community can work together to raise the bar for an entire district.

Through it all, the focus needs to be on building a culture of high expectations. And in order to do that, you need to have grassroots support and commitment for that transformation. That's the story that we're going to tell today. And who's joining us to help share that story? Today we have Antonio Santana, who serves as the superintendent of schools for the South Country Central School District, joining us today.

onio worked as a high school [: 00:01:00

His leadership is driven by a focus on creating supportive environments where students and staff can thrive. Thank you. In addition to his administrative work, Antonio is a keynote speaker and is actively engaged in various professional education organizations. His dedication to student achievement, school improvement, and community color collaboration continues to shape the future of South Country central school district.

Antonio, welcome to the show.

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[00:01:41] Dr. Jim: Looking forward to having this conversation, because I think it brings an interesting wrinkle into our overall discussions, you're one of the first people that we've had on the show that has an East coast.

in and of itself. But before [: 00:02:00

[00:02:13] Dr. Antonio Santana: I'm a son of an immigrant born and raised in New York City. I pretty much all my life to public schools. And, I think from early on, that basically was the sort of motivation I had to pursue this career.

Ironically, I didn't go to undergrad to be an educator. I went to undergrad to be a veterinarian. That didn't work out for me, and I had multiple different sort of career paths from public relations to accounting. Until ultimately I found myself unemployed and New York City had a teacher shortage and I stumbled upon teaching and fell in love with it.

o your students, but to your [: 00:03:00

And basically the difference that public schools can make in the lives of, students. Americans.

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[00:03:28] Dr. Antonio Santana: Sure. So a little point of clarification. I was born here in New York. My mother was an immigrant. So she basically came to America for the American promise and basically instilled in us just a work ethic, a simple humbleness and certainly an appreciation for people's generosity. Because, I had the good fortune to have many great mentors and people who are influential in my life as a boy who had really no resources.

c schools and the teachers I [: 00:04:00

I just think that People need to appreciate how public schools can be a conduit to, good citizenship. We promote civic engagement. We try to get students involved. And ultimately, we want to serve entire communities. One of the things we emphasize as a Public school people is that, politically, we're neutral.

We try to create safe spaces for kids to think critically and staff which is very liberating because it allows you to hear different perspectives and be supportive of an entire community. So sure. I can talk about our students that come from immigrant backgrounds, but really that support transcends, our entire sort of demographic.

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I'm curious how that experience in the private [00:05:00] sector maybe helped prepare you or maybe didn't help prepare you for life in the K through 12 space. What was that experience like?

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So when we talk about, going to vet school and knowing the rigors of such a program, I could certainly understand, the benefits of just working hard and Taking challenging coursework. But also the benefits of realizing that, we should really do something you're really passionate about.

And I wasn't passionate about being a veterinarian. When I switched to a communication major, the amount of writing instruction I got, public speaking Persuasive speaking. Those skills were invaluable to me in terms of my ability to, address a crowd to speak a community of people to engage in difficult conversations and also to be an active listener.

I think that played a role. [: 00:06:00

I think being an educator and being a teacher is certainly a role you play. And, sometimes our roles get very difficult and challenging. But, I try not to personalize the challenging and I really frame it as a role you play and how best You should play that role.

So I often tell myself and during tough times, like what is the script calling me to do? And what would the ideal superintendent in my case do? And so I feel like all these little things together have helped shaped, the person I am today.

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And that's given you the staying power to stay within it and continue progressing?

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And I simply put, and this is a little East Coast for you, but spreading love is a Brooklyn way. Yes, I am quoting the notorious B. I. G. But I feel like that's like my ultimate purpose is to spread love and support. to be, the person that fills people's cups so that they can really aspire and have fulfillment in their lives.

to me because, in turn, I'm [: 00:08:00

[00:08:02] Dr. Jim: Now, I really like how you put that into perspective, and especially the your comment about The gap in yourself as far as having that father figure in your life. I think I can definitely relate to that. I think a lot of people can relate to it, even if they did have a dad in their life, maybe that dad wasn't present or available and that and that's a different level of of emptiness as well.

So I appreciate you sharing that switching gears a little bit. I'd like you to paint us a picture of the landscape of the district that you're currently in.

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And it reminds me of my upbringing in New York City, which is You know, a very diverse place. And I think it's a it's an amazing sort of dynamic because also politically we're very diverse. I think that sort of [00:09:00] enables us to speak to one another and try to sort of define our commonalities.

Over close to 60 percent of our kids have free and reduced lunch in our school district. 17 percent of our kids are English language learners, so they're new sort of entrance to our country. And we also have kids who come from high affluence. And the idea is how do you serve an entire community of people so that everybody feels like their needs are being met.

And that's from kids who live in gated mansions to kids who live in poverty. And I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to be the commonality that all of my students and staff members have.

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That's just my perspective. Now when you look at the dynamics within Long Island, especially when you're dealing with that socioeconomic [00:10:00] diversity or differences within within that district. It's a tough act to pull together where you can have a unifying message or goal for the district. So I'm curious how you tied all of that together when you have so many differences within the community that you serve.

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of a hierarchy of needs based on like Maslow's hierarchy. It's a five prong pyramid at the bottom of the pyramid. I feel like the school spirit and culture and that's how the community feels about the school district. And so our mascot here in South country is a clipper because there's a lot of shipping and whaling back in the day in Long Island.

t, they tend to want to work [: 00:11:00

And it's really important that we have a positive and supportive culture. We profess to have a culture of care and belonging for all of our community members. And when I say community members, I'm inclusive of our staff and students because sometimes educators focus all their energy on students. And of course, That's why we do what we're doing.

That's basically the community we're really serving. But you gotta be mindful that you have to be supportive of everyone who plays a role in this dynamic. So student and staff to quorum and understanding boundaries and forging positive relationships that are supportive is important.

And then above those two levels is quality instruction. And I feel like you can't really start focusing on instruction until you have those two. Those needs met after quality instruction is community involvement. You have to really reach out. And one of the things I learned as a poor kid growing up in Manhattan is be open to people's generosity and reach out and don't be afraid to ask.

in my interactions where our [: 00:12:00

And ultimately, at the top of the pyramid is school success. And that's when people feel a certain sense of pride in their school community.

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The need for those foundational elements that provide the supports for future success. So how did you close that gap of understanding, especially in an environment where you have a segment of yours, of your population that probably never experienced anything like the the other folks that are in the community that are on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder.

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And so when, I saw students struggling academically, for example, you have to figure out what need is not being fulfilled. And it's not as simple as, extra math instruction or after extra sort of literacy instruction. It's, fundamentally, we're human and the human needs.

Are universal, regardless of what your circumstances. So one of the things you know, I developed with the help of teachers is, we call it Clipper Pride. Pride is an acronym. The acronym is universal. So the pride stands for P being prepared. Then I tell my students, you always need to be prepared for when opportunity comes.

The R is for respectful. Always be respectful to your peers and your community because when you're respectful and you have good relationships, opportunities will come your way. The I is being involved. You should be involved in your school community and your communities because unless you're in it, there's no opportunities for you to succeed.

ligent. Always put your best [: 00:14:00

But that's not enough. You have to be great and good. That pride sort of mindset and those values are universal, regardless of what your circumstances. Because what I learned in my career is when kids have needs, their sort of life circumstance is inconsequential. If you grew up in poverty and you have a loving home, you're good.

If you grow up in affluence and there's Things lacking emotionally at home. You're going to struggle. And I think having worked in different school districts, just to give you some sort of a point of reference, Long Island by itself. This is not New York State has 124 school districts. Some of our school districts are extremely small.

backgrounds are. And so you [: 00:15:00

[00:15:03] Dr. Jim: Now that makes a lot of sense. I want to have you take a step back and think about when you joined the district . What did you walk into when you first started and how did that inform some of the priorities that you wanted to tackle?

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It's an observation of things that we have to work on and to grow. There was a lot of unique sort of dynamics in our community in terms of where, People live and how the community is broken up, that's the proverbial one side of the tracks versus the others. So that was something I was very mindful of.

had a little bit about that [: 00:16:00

Where we all have one identity. And when we all can feel good about our role and our and our importance and our value in that community. So that's really like a sort of philosophical sort of mindset. And then you can address everything else. Because as much as I want to generalize and say we're all Clippers.

You also have to address the fact that we do have different perspectives, different experiences, and we also have to be appreciative of those things. And that's where our responsiveness comes in. It's a balance between you We're all Clippers. We're all, if we all abide by our Clipper pride, you could pretty much pave the way to a great life.

But we also have to acknowledge the different challenges that our community has. And again, those challenges come from students of all walks of life.

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[00:16:54] Dr. Antonio Santana: So I started by just being involved, going to different community events. I have the good fortune of being bilingual. So we have [00:17:00] a large, 50 percent of our students are Latino and we have a lot of Spanish speaking homes. So those, an edge I had so I can communicate in those, with those families and our native.

language, visiting different parts of the community and just making myself known and accessible. One of the things I learned from one of my bosses when I was a kid was the lazy man works twice as hard. And for me, putting that effort in getting to know your community and being accessible was instrumental because people felt a certain comfort level sort of sharing their concerns and what they felt.

We're, important areas of growth. In my third year, we're taking a much more sort of pragmatic approach and engaging in a strategic planning process that's gonna engage our entire community, including community members that don't have Children in our school district. And so in working in collaboration with my school board, we're about to launch this in my third year because after two years of making an assessment and making some changes like adding, really focusing on restorative practices because kids belong in school.

ic school or whatever school [: 00:18:00

So what we're doing is we're really soliciting input from our entire community through a consulting firm where we're gonna actually start rewriting our mission and vision statements coming up with values that are gonna be generated by all stakeholders. And some people think that is that like a risky sort of endeavor to undertake.

And I don't think it is because ultimately, when we come to our final product and we come to something that, really was driven by the entire community of people, then we can really focus on the things that need to happen here in South Country.

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You have you obviously have the family components. [00:19:00] What were what other things did you do to make sure that you're getting a holistic view of what the district needs and what's important to the district?

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I think in our roles and leadership roles, you always want to provide answers or solutions, but that's not really always the best course. And so you have to listen outside and talking, making myself accessible to staff members. Also working with our local law enforcement meeting with them on a regular basis to talk about, those things.

e who have different sort of [: 00:20:00

We all want the same things for our communities. And so once you have that buy in and people feel like they're heard and their concerns are validated, I think that's the first step in eliciting change.

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So there's six pillars that you're gathering information from. And you just mentioned that as you're. Having these conversations, you start realizing that there's a lot more in common than we than separates all of these constituencies. So when you look at that listening exercise that you went through, what were the major themes that came out of that conversation that informed kind of the direction that you wanted to move the district [00:21:00] towards?

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So I feel badly that I didn't mention them, but yeah, you have to be accessible to students too. And I've done that, just to digress really quickly, but I did assembly programs in each of our buildings, K 12. And in my first year, I spoke pretty much to every student in our school district about careers and ambition.

Shared my story, so they had it. Immediately forged a relationship with me. I also put out like a weekly blog to our community as well. Which is basically a stream of consciousness. I touch upon things that might be on people's minds. But ultimately it's, I think, if if you're a child that's growing up in poverty, how do I have access to some of these more glamorous things that school districts Have like opportunities to travel or trips.

fluence, how do I keep those [: 00:22:00

And I think what's important is to eliminate this whole idea of the zero sum theory that where if you support one group, You have to take away from another. The idea is to be available to everyone which can be challenging sometimes, especially if you're given my background, I want to make sure that people see me as an advocate for all of our constituent groups.

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[00:22:49] Dr. Antonio Santana: Something I can't take credit for, but is really successful in our school district is we have a dual language program that goes K to 7. And like I mentioned before, a large portion of our population, about 17 percent of [00:23:00] our kids, are English language learners. Prior to me coming here, they started a magnet school that was dual language.

All of our students in the dual language program are given instruction in both Spanish and English. Everyday benefits. If you're an American born student who speaks English at home, you're basically getting an education that's prepared to be a fluent bilingual person in adulthood. Thanks a lot.

So that's one way we manage addressing the needs of our English language learners in a way that everybody benefits and, and also communicating that the success of all of our students is the success of our community. We all know that property values are tied to the success of school districts, and so you have to sell that conclusion.

Piece of the puzzle, too. And we want to make sure that we close the gaps for all of our demographic groups while still, meeting the needs of our entire community. But the idea is that our collective success is what's important. And the success of the individual student feeds that collective success.

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[00:24:13] Dr. Antonio Santana: So ultimately, I think people resist change. I think that's just human nature. It's not a sort of a statement about my community here. And so the idea is to help people embrace change. And you have to be slow and steady because the work to shift a culture of a school district really is a law. It's a marathon.

I remember one of my mentors saying, we're not in a sprint. We're in a marathon. And you have to be patient. For me the magic number, 5 to 10 years really to see the sort of the fruits of your labor. And I'm only in my third year. So it's you have to help people appreciate the sort of the the time it takes for these things to start happening because, people want sort of immediate gratification.

in your leadership role, you [: 00:25:00

It's like when things aren't going right, you have to be reflective and change course and taking a step back when you feel like you've made a mistake is a step in the right direction, and that's something people need to appreciate. But I think really to get people to buy in is an appreciation of how it's a process and it takes time and it takes input.

It takes reflection. And we're not always gonna get it right. We're not. And so what's important is to reflect and grow. And again, it's about perpetual growth. And that's what I lead by. It's it's trying to be that support and being that constant source of positivity for my community.

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That's really when it starts bearing fruit. And when I think about that, there's probably a superintendent that's sitting out there saying I don't have [00:26:00] five to 10 years, my contracts for three. And I'm sure you had that thought in your head too. So tell us how you actually reconciled both of those realities and demonstrated progress to justify, okay, you're getting re upped, because that, that can be.

Anxiety inducing. So I'm curious how you navigated that.

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So there's Facebook pages that tend to gravitate toward, negativity or the, perpetuating rumors or things that may not be entirely true. So one of the first things I did in speaking to that first level of my hierarchy of school is how do I Address the school spirit part. And so basically, I empowered our schools to get on social media and start marketing our district.

ally important to me because [: 00:27:00

A lot of my followers are students, which is it becomes somewhat of a Instagram influencer here locally. But I think that's those are the small gains you can make. And I think when you have a strategic sort of approach to it that's what works. So really my first goal was to get, People feeling really good about the district.

I also came in when there was some sort of challenges with our school budget and I had to make sure that people gain faith in the way we presented our budget and sold it to our community before our budget vote. So those things happen just within a year because there are certain things you can do immediately to address concerns that can be addressed with just immediate decision making and a deliberate sort of approach.

us or you have to emphasize. [: 00:28:00

Now kids are wearing T shirts and having bracelets. I say Clipper Pride. It sounds silly, but it's not because it creates a sort of motivation, and it's a mindset about how we feel about our community. But yeah, it's a balance between 12 both because, yeah, we have three year contracts. And so and we're beholden to our school boards and have a fantastic school board.

But yeah, that to say, Yeah, we have anxiety, and it's but you have to push through it, and you have to believe in your long term goals. But you have to make small gains. So whether or not it's changing some procedures in a school building that's gonna help alleviate perhaps some concerns. Those things happen along with the long term planning.

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But I want to I want to dig in a little bit deeper on some of the more long term stuff. You can do short term and long term at the same time. You can do more than one thing at a time. One of the things that I'm curious about is how did you demonstrate progress towards those long term goals for people that might not necessarily have visibility into into the overall trajectory?

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And when we look at our student achievement and our literacy rates, you have to start making an analysis of what your practices have been and what we need to do different. And, that's a fine line because you have to be really careful not to be critical of your staff. It's not often a reflection of how hard staff is working.

were kids, we basically all [: 00:30:00

And so we moved away and we differentiate it. But I feel like now we need to reflect on our instructional practices. And how do we get engaged in close reading moving away from some of those models. And I think when people see the work and the deliberate decision making, That helps you get past some of these challenges.

Our student achievement isn't where it should be. And I still say that feeling a great sense of pride for our community. But I think you need to demonstrate the sort of things you're doing to address those needs. Like we added more literacy support in the earlier grades cater three because you have to catch the kids when they're young, by the time they get to middle school and high school, sure, you can make some gains, but really the interventions have to happen in early childhood.

and move forward. But it's a [: 00:31:00

[00:31:00] Dr. Jim: Really great conversation so far. Antonio, I think I think your walk through of the groundwork that you did within the district when you started and some of the things that you identified and how you gathered that information is really strong.

I think what I'm curious about is after you did all of that work. And you already made progress towards some of the things that you had on your radar. How does this set you up for the future?

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So we developed structures for MTSS, which is the multi tiered systems for student support, which is basically a response for intervention, RTI interventions. But we added a social emotional component to it. We are periodically gathering data from our students. One of the challenges here in New York is there's a big opt out movement with testing.

So we're encouraging more [: 00:32:00

So once that Those structures are in place. The structures in a way guide the trajectory moving forward. And also this idea that we have high standards and high expectations for all of our students. And so a piece of it is also mindset. And so it's two things. It's number one strategic use of data and creating structures that are tangible and for our staff and for our community to see.

And secondly, is having this mindset that yeah, our students can achieve. Because part of the challenges sometimes we have is, people are very satisfied with the status quo. Or say we have a challenging population or a certain population of students aren't able to achieve because of the struggles or challenges they have or lack of resources.

just in summary, you have to [: 00:33:00

And basically, you just have to be a steward in that sort of work.

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You wanted to raise the bar, which was what what you wanted to do when you set foot in the district. So when you think about the conversation that we had, And you're speaking to that other superintendent who's hearing this and wants to do the same thing. They want to raise the bar for their district.

hey're setting themselves up [: 00:34:00

[00:34:01] Dr. Antonio Santana: So one of the biggest challenges is not to prioritize everything because when everything is a priority and nothing is a priority. And so what we're doing this year, that's a bit different. As I said before, is we're engaging input from our community and stakeholders, which includes staff, students, community members to re write our mission and vision statement.

Come up with core values for our district and come up with measurable goals as a community. Because once you have that framework and that road map, that's what you have to focus your energy on. So my advice is really engaged in real strategic planning to say that, you want it. Student achievement to be better.

What does that mean? And we could talk numbers. We want X number of kids be proficient in math and reading. But to me, that's meaningless. It's how do you get there? What's really measurable? And my philosophy is you have to be ambitious. Often we fall into the trap of creating goals that are safe.

I want growth each year. And [: 00:35:00

But really, my advice is really, you have to have structure and a sort of an easy not easy, but I'm saying the simpler your approach is, the more effective it's going to be. And often when you know, when you deal with a school district and we do with so many things and so many distractions and static focusing on tangible goals that are not You know, a huge number is really important.

And when the community participates in that process and they buy in, then we could all be on the same page because, we were easily distracted by a sort of happenings that happened in all communities. And I think being laser focus is what's most important.

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So really good advice there. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

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I feel like I'm a perpetual learner. And one of the things I want to emphasize for anyone who engages in this work is the work is never done. We jump in and we're part of the journey, and we try to steer the ship. And we're clippers, so I love using that analogy. But my role is to steer the ship.

And eventually I'm going to jump off the ship and hand the reins off to someone else. And really, my goal is to create the structures and sort of the practices That are gonna help us get to where we're going. And as a personality trait, I'm never gonna be satisfied. One of my colleagues, Dr Bossert, I'll say his name.

He said the road to excellence has no finish line. And so understanding that I don't think at any point in your career you're gonna feel like you're totally fulfilled or satisfied. And that's the mindset you have to keep forging ahead.

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One of the things that you mentioned early on in the conversation is, you often asked yourself, how can I fill the void? When I look at the conversation that we had, I think one of the important aspects of what you did to help answer that question is that you got a broad perspective from all of the different stakeholders in the community.

And I think when you're looking at. Your role as a leader within the district, that question is central. How can I fill the void? But before you can answer it, you need to understand what is the void you're trying to fill. What does it look like? What does it feel like? And what does that void look like from the perspective of many different people?

these different stakeholder [: 00:38:00

We appreciate you hanging out If you like the discussion, make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. If you haven't already done so make sure you join our community. You can find that at engaging leadership show. com and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that helped them build a high performance team.