Today’s post continues a series in which educators offer advice to district superintendents.

‘The Success Triangle’

Michael Hinojosa served more than 27 years as a superintendent/CEO of six public education systems, including two of the 25 largest in America: Dallas ISD and Cobb County in suburban Atlanta. His career in public education, from teacher and coach to superintendent/CEO, spans more than four decades:

Please understand the power of the Success Triangle. What is it? I served as CEO/superintendent for 27 years in six communities. It was not until my third superintendency did I even know what the Success Triangle.

I learned to pick the brain of successful superintendents. In 2002, I became the superintendent of a very successful (at that time) suburban school district outside of Houston. I met with both predecessors who had served for five and 13 years, respectfully. Both were very successful but very different.

The superintendent who served the longest tenure introduced me to the concept of the Success Triangle. He persuasively convinced me to follow the entire concept that he had practiced for years. In the middle of it are the students. He posited that if all parts of the triangle were moving in the same direction, then outcomes for students would be phenomenal.

My mentor argued that at the top of the triangle is the school board. They are your bosses; you are not theirs. He articulated that they were diverse in their backgrounds and training. He noted that for the first time in your career you will be evaluated by lay people who were not trained as you were. In fact, by definition, they are elected officials, or some say politicians. Cynics claim that many are amateur politicians. Regardless, they are your bosses.

At one base of the triangle is the staff. The staff are very diverse as well. Over half of them are educators who have received some of the similar development as you but not all. You work closely with your direct reports but depend critically on everyone else from the food-service workers to the custodians, bus drivers, teachers, principals, and all other central staff members. You do not teach one student, but you must influence all the above listed employee groups to benefit your students in every regard.

At the other base of the triangle is community. The community is not a monolith. It is also very diverse in every regard, ranging from government and civic leaders to community activists to parents to nonprofit and for-profit individuals. They are the ones who select your board. Voter turnout in school board elections is minimal at best. You depend on the community to provide many resources for the school district that you lead.

My mentor argued that if all three parts of the triangle are moving in the same direction, you as a leader can thrive. If only two parts of the triangle are moving in the same direction, then all you can do is survive paycheck to paycheck. It is irrelevant which two parts because they all influence each other. If only one part supports you, then “turn out the lights, the party is over.” You better get another job soon because this one is over.

Immediately upon realizing this epiphany, I started to strategically spend equal time in each portion of the triangle. The staff was the easiest to influence because I visited campuses every Wednesday throughout my tenure. Mondays were days that I typically spent with my senior staff. Thursdays became board days. Tuesdays and Fridays became community days with some obvious overlap. I color-coded my schedule to ensure that I was strategically building key relationships in each corner of the triangle.

While this may be a slight oversimplification of a complex strategy, I without a doubt believe that it extended my career. I am one of the few superintendents that had the opportunity to decide when it was time to pack my bags. The longevity added to the successes I experienced because I was deliberate in executing the Success Triangle. That is my story, and I am sticking to it!

‘Grant Your Staff Professional Agency’

Jay Schroder is the author of Teach from Your Best Self: A Teacher’s Guide to Thriving in the Classroom. After teaching high school English for 24 years, he currently works for the Southern Oregon Regional Educator Network (SOREN), leading professional learning that helps educators increase resiliency, avoid burnout, and thrive amid the challenges of education.

In an interview I gave for Forbes, I said that teachers are one of America’s greatest untapped resources.

I said “untapped” because teachers can’t perform at their potential when they are out of gas staggering toward summer vacation.

Typically, the “solution” is to mandate new tasks and instructional methods while setting up systems to “hold teachers accountable.” Of course, this only adds to the teacher burden.

I speak from experience: When I’m overburdened and feel micromanaged, my anxiety increases, my confidence wanes, and my teaching performance suffers. This happens to everyone; I know state teachers of the year who, under these conditions, falter.
It’s how our brains are set up. When people are overstressed, their limbic system withdraws resources from their learning/thinking brain and diverts those resources to their survival brain. Teachers can’t effectively teach from their survival brains.

The implicit assumption seemingly driving this problem is: Students learn because of what teachers do. This assumption stretches back to the Industrial Revolution. In the early 1900s, efficiency experts held that workers were part of a machine; if the workers did the right work in the right way, the machine would function smoothly and the products would be of uniform quality.

Translated to education: Teachers are cogs in a student-processing machine, and if teachers do enough of the right things in the right way, students will uniformly learn.
Following the logic, if students aren’t learning enough, it’s because teachers aren’t doing enough. So, we give teachers more to do and then we micromanage them to ensure that they do it.

This isn’t working.

What if our assumption about what matters when it comes to student learning is wrong? What if the version of themselves the teacher teaches from matters more than what they do? What if teachers are already intrinsically motivated to do their best for students, and from their whole-brain best self, they will automatically make reflective, smart teacher moves?

If this is true, then maybe the solution to the problems facing education is to unburden teachers.

When teachers thrive, it helps students. This is because mental and emotional states are contagious. If teachers are relaxed and open to learning then students are likely to be as well. One reason for this is mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons fire in mimicry of the people around us. An overstressed teacher cues her students to respond in kind: stressed and anxious. However, if a teacher can stay regulated in her learning brain, her students will tend to regulate and respond from their own learning brains.

Based on this, here is my advice for superintendents:

1. With each proposed change (whether it’s new curriculum, new application of technology, new professional duty assignments, mandated instructional strategies …), ask yourself, how much additional burden will this add to staff? If you decide the change is important, what will you take off teachers’ plates to compensate for the added demand?

2. Grant your staff professional agency. Research shows that not having agency correlates with increased rates of demoralization, cynicism, and burnout.

3. Check in with your administrative team. If your administrative team is depleted and burned out, this will negatively impact the staff under their leadership (mirror neurons again).

4. School and district culture matters. Our ability to bring our best is affected by the underlying assumptions, codes, norms, and strictures in our environment. Creating a school culture that supports everyone to be in their best self brain may be the greatest influence you have on student achievement.

5. Treat your staff the way you want them to treat their students. As teachers, we are admonished to greet students as they enter, use trauma-informed practices, support struggling students, give students voice and choice, treat students with dignity, foster a sense of belonging, cultivate learning alliances, create cultures of care … And yet, many administrators don’t relate to teachers in these ways. This contributes to cynicism, demoralization, and burnout.

Teachers working from their refreshed best selves will perform numerous small miracles that awaken student potential every day. District leaders can contribute to this miracle-making by taking steps to unburden teachers so they have the capacity to make the magic they were hired to make.

Thanks to Michael and Jay for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s post answered this question:

What one to three pieces of advice would you offer to a superintendent of a school district, and why would you offer those specific suggestion/s?

In Part One, Tiffany Anderson, Diana Laufenberg, Doug Fisher, and Nancy Frey shared their suggestions.

In Part Two, PJ Caposey, Bryan Goodwin, Dwayne Chism, and Amanda Muffler offered their recommendations.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on X at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social .

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