Dr. Fred Rundle, superintendent of Mercer Island School District, discusses the district's unique position between Seattle and Bellevue, emphasizing the community's commitment to quality education. Explore how public schools are adapting to competitive pressures from private and charter schools, with insights into recent initiatives like cell phone policies. Gain valuable leadership perspectives on building and nurturing effective teams, and learn how to foster a culture of continuous growth in educational settings.

Key Takeaways:

• Public education faces increasing competitive pressure from private, charter, and cyber schools, necessitating innovation and community engagement.
• Dr. Fred Rundle emphasizes the power of storytelling in amplifying the success and progress of public schools to ensure community investment and relevance.
• Key initiatives like reducing cell phone usage in schools aim to enhance students' learning experiences and social interactions, embodying proactive leadership.
• Leadership transitions are significant, with each role offering unique challenges and opportunities for growth and impact within the educational landscape.
• Aspiring leaders should harness opportunities for influence without waiting for formal titles, focusing on developing self-efficacy and fostering meaningful relationships.

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Dr. Fred: linkedin.com/in/dr-fred-rundle-58169235

Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda



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But the schools are what we hear from our families, and we don't take that for granted. We know that more now than ever, there's competition that we might talk about here today. And we have to continue to innovate and become even better than we were yesterday.

There's charter schools, other public schools as well with open enrollment. Even I've been coming across like cyber schools and if we don't move public schools beyond the idea of an educator of last resort and really step up to the plate to compete there's a real risk of public education becoming a little bit less relevant and that hurts enrollment, it hurts revenues ultimately hurts the kids.

Is this something that you're seeing as a trend and how are you adapting to it?

I was just talking to my executive director of finance and operations today. We go through this weird thing in education where we think we have to wait till the summer to do anything new. Oh, we'll wait till next year. We'll wait. What is their magical about June to August that all of a sudden that's the right time to make change?

In education, we have to get used to making change 365 days a year, which is very different than what the old model, at least that many of us probably came up in. So, those are a couple of thoughts I have, off the top of my head regarding that. And there are leadership challenges, but they are asking us, as you said, to adapt. If we don't, we'll be irrelevant, and I bear great responsibility as someone who believes in public education not to let that happen.

But at the same time, it is quite a large, I would say disruption to public education and I guess traditional decision making within public education. Ultimately, all of this I think can only benefit students as we get more innovative and think a lot harder about what that portrait of a graduate looks like.

How do we aim our resources towards building that up? And what are some of the or frameworks or thought processes that you've been trying to drive that help you and your team be a lot more agile and responding to some of this and designing that student journey a lot better.

People want to know my kid isn't going to be an experiment and that the formula is going to work for them to go on and they're going to have access and opportunity in higher ed. And so we can't do things in a vacuum either. We need to make sure we're thinking at the entire continuum that this is our preschool students all the way through when they graduate, so we're not preparing kids for college, we're preparing them to thrive in college or their careers.

How do you think about that? And do you have any examples of initiatives that you've pushed through or tried to push through and had to overcome some friction along the way?

And where do we want to position ourselves? Over the course of the next several months, we worked as a leadership team, reading articles, looking at things and exploring what are the different avenues. And by the winter, then we started engaging in small, just daily general ad hoc conversations by the spring. We were interviewing our PTAs. We were surveying our PTAs. We were surveying students. We were surveying faculty, figuring out where we stood.

It just happens to be that cell phones are in the way. I think if we take that model, and I'll certainly learn from this and say, whenever we're pushing forward change, it really doesn't matter. And I didn't make this up. Obviously, Simon Sinek's the one that made it popular. But figure out the why, then the how, and then the what.

Or if you were to implement this policy, say, at the start of spring, rather than, in the fall, do you foresee that it would have been any harder or what do you think in hindsight that could have been done to accelerate it even faster?

The last thing we want is them to just go home and then plug right back in. So how do we equip our families with some knowledge skills to be better parents. And I'm looking in the mirror on that as a father of three teenagers right now, where I need some skills too when I go home.

What do you think was the determining factor that got you nominated in first place and then eventually what does this award mean to you?

This organization, is really geared towards all the financial side of our school districts and I have to go right into it's the team that we have. It's the people that we're trying to bring on to our team empower to do great things and then hold each other accountable.

Sure. It means a lot to me. I'm honored and humbled to have received that award. But as I told them at the time and others I accepted on behalf of our team who have been working extremely hard in a very difficult economic time for school districts to really make the strides we needed in the best interest of our students.

At the end of the day, we're all hopefully trying to work on behalf of students, but it takes all of our staff, it takes our school board, our administrators, myself, our parents, all working together.

I had the opportunity when it came along to apply and go through the process and ultimately be selected. Which, there's pros and cons of being an internal candidate within a system, but it felt like the right fit. I had thought about it beforehand, but I was not done with my doctorate, my kids were still younger. It just wasn't the right fit earlier. But a couple years ago when the position came open that was the right time to go and here I am.

That was your first administrative appointment. What was that transition like?

And, you have your frameworks, you have your standards, you have your curriculum, but really mapping that out. And as students come in, depending on, their reaction, their moods, wherever they are, you're constantly adapting and changing. There's just a lot of freedom if you will.

And the same is true as an assistant superintendent, but now in a superintendent, it's the school board, who's the governance team and myself. And so the challenges are exciting. And it's fantastic each and every day because it's just a wild ride.

Or do you feel like your leadership has been pretty consistent since then?

I'm constantly reflecting and thinking about, gosh, how might I have handled that differently? How might I have called that principle to give them feedback differently? So it's definitely not a linear path. I think every opportunity When you're making decisions is an opportunity to reflect and make a better one the next time.

I think I was 25, 26 when I first became a principal. Are some things I was just young and I had to learn along the way. But that doesn't mean that I'm certainly experienced and without my challenges now, even, nearly 20 years later.

And it took me a while to learn that. For sure.

Just asking for help sometimes can be so hard as a leader. And when you think about your experiences and your growth as a leader, how do you approach the leadership growth of others within your district? As you lay the foundations for their own careers and sometime in the future, either to take over your job or to take over the job of superintendent in some other district.

What is your approach, frameworks, any kind of thinking, philosophies around this?

Trying to empower people just by believing in them and building that self efficacy, I think is another one. And then not being afraid to kind of rearrange the chairs, the deck of the boat that we're currently on. I was reflecting yesterday in a leadership team meeting.

And so not being so protective of that, but realizing that change is inevitable and every opportunity is an opportunity to get better.

I really liked that. And the other thing that resonated with me with what you said is how each reshuffle is an opportunity that can allow someone else to grow in a direction that they either wouldn't have expected it or is an opportunity for them to now build muscle in a new domain that they might not have thought about it before.

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