Leadership isn’t about pushing ideas into a community or a school; it’s about listening to learn. This essential premise has guided the journey of Dr Tiffany Anderson, the first African-American female superintendent in Topeka, Kansas, as she navigates the often challenging terrain of education. Her vision to address the real needs of all her students and unlock opportunities within the community is a profound testament to her leadership. In this excerpt from the Leaders Coaching Leaders Podcast, Listening to the People We Have the Privilege to Serve, Dr Anderson shares the obstacles she has encountered, how she overcame them, and strategies that every school can use to support their students.
PETER DEWITT: You know, Dr. Anderson…could you share some of the obstacles that you faced and how you overcame those obstacles?
DR ANDERSON: …One of the things that I often say to leaders–when you start into any district, a principal, even a teacher and as well as superintendent, you can’t serve needs you don’t know. And so sometimes the ideas that we have or the buzzwords that are out there are things that people latch on to and they push those into the community or into the school. And that’s not leadership.
Leadership is listening to learn, not always listening to respond…And from that learning opportunity, you can overcome obstacles.
But the obstacles that I faced, like many school districts, is resources–that’s one– because our first initiative was to increase counselors and social workers at every school.
So in Topeka, we have below the national average. We have more counselors than the average school district in the nation at any school. We have a mental health team at every school. We have a social worker that we placed at the jail facility, at the correctional facility as well because it is in our district. So really, mental health really is through the lens of where are we spending our dollars. What are the needs that people are telling us that they have? And then that really allowed for us to address some items…But the larger challenge is to ensure that you are really thoughtfully able to, and strategically able to, identify needs and address them in a way that serves the cross-section of the community.
I am the first African-American female superintendent. And I think when you’re the first in any area, what comes with that are perhaps some thoughts about what you might do or stereotypes. Or people will wonder what direction you might take things. And so that’s not really an obstacle. I tend to think of all of these as opportunities. They’re disguised as challenges and obstacles…And we’ve been able to really address those in ways that bring voice and elevate the voices of the community.
MICHAEL NELSON: I love the phrase listening to learn. I think that is a fantastic phrase…So my question for you…how do you build capacity across all of Topeka to have that level of listening to learn, to build that different kind of culture of empathy and understanding and therefore success?
DR ANDERSON: It has been amazing…And so we really start with– when we’re talking about building capacity, we really start with our why. Why are we here, and why are we showing up, and what’s our work about? And so from that why, we’re able to really reflect on the purpose of the work that we’re doing.
And so as an example, one of the systems–and let me stop here for a minute to say systems are important because programs, they come and go. They come and go with the leader. They come and go with the money. They come and go with just the people that are here today and gone tomorrow. But systems remain. And so the sustainable systems that we create here really are from boots on the ground. And so one of those systems, and I’ll give as an example, we have something in Topeka–and I’ll go back to mental health.
One of the systems as we listen to the community and brought together people about and listen to the issues and the challenges– really the opportunities– we also listen to the assets, really assets and strengths in the community. And what we know is we have a lot of mental health partners. And so we selected a university partner, University of Kansas, as one of our partners…So University of Kansas, they actually have developed an entire model…it’s a social, emotional, and academic approach to young people. And so across the district immediately, reductions in discipline, 80% reduction in some of our schools in terms of discipline and suspensions.
So that was one piece in terms of building capacity, making sure that we had a strong research-based partner. And here’s the thing. It hasn’t cost us anything. They are providing this at no cost to us to build the systems and the capacity and the learning. So that was part of our mental health platform.
The other pieces are really looking at resources we already have….have some schools that could be repurposed, some buildings that weren’t being used as schools any longer. So we repurposed one of those facilities. And so when a person is incarcerated, and they are released, one of the things that we heard is there’s nothing in between, in between the correctional facility and school. So we created a space where they can go to…and have wraparound services, resources. But that came from listening to people, listening to the people that we have the privilege to serve.
But the capacity has been built, really, based on creating a strategic plan that really targets the areas that are needs that you learn from the community and not from surveys. Surveys are fine, but true conversation, relationship building. The work really happens at the school level.
And so we have listening tours. We still have them today. This is my eighth year in Topeka. So throughout the year, we set up a coffee shops, grocery stores, laundromats. And we just listened…Gone is the day when you say, let’s have parent conference from 9-5, and you come to me. We are really partners in the community. And so the best way to do that is to be planted in the community.
So the strategic plan for us is really a living document. I mean, it changes regularly in terms of adding goals and new strategies. And it’s been dynamic. But that has allowed us to build not only the capacity of our teachers and our principals, but our parents, our students. They were running the suicide coalition event yesterday, our students were. So it has been remarkable.
And here’s the thing. This can be replicated anywhere, in any district, in any city. What we’re doing, some of it’s no-cost and low-cost kinds of initiatives.
