Summary:

Explore the transformative leadership journey of Mika Salas, superintendent of Carbon School District, as she discusses vital community roles beyond academic education. With Dr. Jim, Mika highlights strategies for building robust district cultures, prioritizing student well-being, and fostering collective teacher efficacy. Discover how innovative community partnerships and resource allocation can drive student success, especially in rural areas facing economic challenges. This episode unpacks leadership insights and models that enable schools to become engines of opportunity and support, aiming to move students and communities beyond survival.

Key Takeaways:

• Visible Leadership: Emphasize the importance of district leaders being present and engaged within their schools to better understand both positive practices and areas requiring improvement.
• Role of Schools: Schools must extend their impact beyond academics to address students' basic needs and prepare them for successful futures.
• Community and Resource Allocation: Successful districts build strong community partnerships and strategically allocate resources at the frontline to address issues more effectively.
• Effective Leadership: Hiring strong, visionary principals is crucial for the success of schools within a district.

Chapters:

00:00

Building School Cultures to Elevate Communities Beyond Survival

02:14

Leadership Through Service and Community Engagement

06:24

Leadership Styles and Building Effective School Districts

14:06

Balancing Basic Needs and Academic Success in Schools

22:34

Community Support and Strategic Resource Allocation in Schools

26:34

Building Resilient School Cultures Through Leadership and Expectations

33:00

Effective Leadership Through Visibility and Strategic Resource Allocation

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

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Mika Salas: linkedin.com/in/mika-salas-0612a868

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



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One of the key things to understand for everybody that's involved in a K through 12 district is to understand what function does school actually serve within a community and a district.

Once you understand that context, how should you prioritize your leadership initiatives in your districts to meet the needs that are unique to the district that you serve? Ultimately, more people tend to understand school is no longer just a place for kids to learn. There are a whole number of other considerations that leaders of districts needs to weigh as they build strong district cultures.

And this is especially true for those in rural district leadership. This conversation will focus on how to build an all encompassing culture that moves communities and kids forward and out of just survival. So who's going to be guiding us through this conversation. Today we have Micah Salas joining us and we'll be guiding us through this discussion. She's currently serving as the superintendent of the carbon school district, and she's held several positions over a 26 year career in education, ranging from a classroom teacher. To a district administrator.

Otherwise have seen. She's an advocate for breaking the cycle of poverty, and has chosen this profession in an effort to pay it forward out of respect for those who helped her do the same. She's extremely proud of her husband, Steve, and their two adult children, Gracie and Bodie, as well as her son in law, Ty.

She and her husband also own four businesses and stay busy with a small farm. So you have a farm and you're running a district. That's interesting. When do you sleep? Micah, welcome to the show.

[00:02:35] Dr. Jim: Before we dive into the big part of the conversation or the meat of the conversation, it's important for you to get the listeners up to speed on a little bit more of your story and your background beyond what we just covered in the bio.

So I think the first order of business is for you to map out some of the key things that helped shape your leadership philosophy. And then we'll continue the conversation from there.

And the coal trains were too heavy to make it up our big mountains. And so the helper engines would act as a caboose that would push the trains up the hill. So proud heritage there from a blue collar community and that I'm proud of as well. And again I'm my primary goal is to help students like I was helped.

That's really the motivation that I have and understanding that we all just need sometimes some people that help us out to help see potential in us that we couldn't have seen in ourselves. And I do believe it takes a village to raise the kids. And in a small town, we have the advantage that. The village really knows you and they know you by name.

[00:04:01] Dr. Jim: One of the things that really caught my attention about your bio and even what you just mentioned right now was this sense of duty to pay things forward. So what's the backstory behind that?

And I want to do that for our students. That's part of it. The other part is, I believe that as a leader, the leaders that I respect, and I admire, That mentored me were boots on the ground. I watched them help their own staff in that case or family or community members, whatever their role was. And I've just been, I've had the opportunity to really learn from some wonderful people.

So kids wouldn't fall as they got in. And I feel like it's my role to help them do that. So I didn't feel like I'm the principal. I'm not going to mop the floor. I felt like the floor needs to be mopped. My custodian is busy and I need to help. And the students need to watch me do that because later today in lunch, if they leave a mess, I'm calling them back to clean it up and if they watch me do it, then they know, okay, this is what we do here.

We all help. We all pitch in. So I believe strongly in duty. I believe that we. We have to all pitch in beyond just the job description to make our home better, our community better, in our case, our schools better and we all should feel that duty.

And it's really interesting that you mention it because it's a characteristic of a lead from the front type of leader. So when we're in our careers, we've usually come across leaders in two different flavors. It's the lead from the front types and then the lead from the spreadsheet types. So when you think about that And you apply it to building the leadership within the district. How has that influenced in how you build other leaders across the district?

We're able, so I have one [00:07:00] assistant superintendent and that's really, The only district administration I have, we don't have lots of people. We don't have a secondary supervisor. We don't have an elementary director. I do have a transportation director, a technology director and a BA. And then of course our lunch school and lunch director, but as far as our, like a cabinet or something that I hear in other places, we don't have that.

And we dedicate a lot of our time. My assistant and I assistant superintendent, and I go out to schools daily. We're out there. So that's one way I try to do that is by being involved without overstepping. The other thing I try to do is ask. Questions before I give any kind of directive. I really rarely use the, I'm the boss.

I firmly believe that they need to be in control of their buildings and we should offer guidance, but we should not dictate what they do. Otherwise, I don't need a principal. I would just have to be the principal everywhere. And that's not realistic. So I really believe in asking questions first and then just being present in the building and getting.

Having everyone know who I am and me knowing everyone. I know the name of every teacher in my district. I can walk in the door, call them by name and every secretary, almost every custodian, every full time custodian. I know a lot of the aides. I know even some of the substitutes I know. And I think that matters a lot too, to just call someone by name and just be present, be their model and ask questions

[00:09:14] Mika Salas: That was that came about. By making the wrong decision. I, when I first became a principal, I I was coming off of an experience as a teacher where principal did some things that I maybe wanted to change. I I used some of what happened as a non example, I guess I'll say it that way.

So as I became a principal, I thought we can limit a lot of our time in a faculty meeting by, let's say, sending memos or by emailing, communicating through email. And there's some things that we don't need to do in person that we can just be housekeeping and I can send out well that I did that too much my first year as a principal.

That they were brave enough to come to me and say that what I was doing was not matching their needs and I immediately changed that next day. I thought I will do better. I will be out there. And that was really a turning point for me. And then as far as asking questions, I was the recipient again of a Of a supervisor that did not ask questions at all, and really was extremely forceful in what we were going to do and really didn't listen to the other side and really didn't have a handle on what we were facing.

And I was the one that didn't have the information.

[00:11:36] Mika Salas: That's a great question. It's it's it's different, but there are components are the same in the schools. I was out and about once you really commit to being out of your office, 90 percent of the time, if you can, you really do see a lot that's going on that you don't see when you're.

Support staff that's just going above and beyond for our students. So that really helped me in that way. And that's true whether you're in the district level or the school level where you, there are good and bad things out there. And if you're not boots on the ground, you will miss it. You just don't see the good and the bad.

So that's one thing I took. The other thing is, again by learning from example and non example, there were superintendents that I worked for that were very good at getting out to schools, interacting with us as principals, asking what they could do to help, implementing things, listening to us, allowing us some latitude to implement things that we wanted to do based on our data.

And when I became a district leader, I tried to implement the things that I really appreciated and I felt worked well and eliminate those that did not.

[00:13:33] Mika Salas: I think it I think it It impacted a lot of what I do at certain levels, so I believe it is our obligation to ensure that elementary students have their basic math skills and their reading fluency, their reading at grade level when they leave. Now that's easy to say and extremely difficult to do elementary students.

We need to ensure that our students are able to read and do make basic math by the time they leave us in elementary. And that will solve so many of their future issues. If we can do that in middle school that's I spent a lot of my time in middle school as a teacher and a principal.

That's where I was. I love that age. We were junior high 789 junior high. We switched to a 6 through 8 middle school about halfway through my principalship and. I love the age group and I loved it because I felt like that age group is really where you can make an impact. They're just deciding who they want to be, what kind of person, where they're going to head.

We have high poverty rates. We have high opioid prescription rates here. One of the highest rates in the whole country, actually. And we see examples of that, that presents itself, that addiction and those family issues present themselves in our schools every day. So I felt like our obligation in my school was to, and in our district, is to help students maybe see what's out there that they're not going to see in our small community.

There are not very many job opportunities or different industries here. It's our obligation to take them out of our area and show them different things. They need to know that there are. People who go to work every day and that have good hygiene and that are responsible for others and take care of others.

It's self imposed limitation that because they couldn't see the potential in themselves,

So those are two separate sets of priorities. And when you look at both of those sets of priorities. How did that influence what you did from a school culture perspective to get the rest of the leadership team, [00:17:00] the district team aligned so that they're focusing on both of those things, because both of those things require completely different perspectives.

Capability set.

But we also pair that with what we learned from Mike Matos and his group where really focusing on RTI's response to intervention and ensuring that students have what they need in a tiered system within our schools to really be guaranteed that they're going to get help. No matter what that looks like.

So that's where we rely on John Hattie's research. And then what we do in our district is wrap all that up in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because we understand that without their basic needs being met, our students cannot be successful because if they're hungry, tired, unsafe, and so on, it doesn't really matter what your math lesson is.

And so that's how we've structured that is to really have our, the research proven. Structures in place and everything needed in a process form so that we can handle behaviors and we can handle chronic absenteeism and we can handle students who aren't learning as we would hoped or not learning it on pace with their peers.

And the first is that teachers absolutely believe that their students can accomplish at high levels. Not just get by, not just survive, but actually thrive accomplish at high levels. I believe the second part of that is that teachers need to be willing to change their own practices because if your data is showing you, you have a problem and you're refusing to fix that problem or adjust your own practice, then we don't really have collective efficacy.

We have it. They should have learned it mentality. I taught it the way I taught it. You should have learned it. And that's not helpful. And then the third part, in my opinion, of collective efficacy is to. Celebrate with intention. So when a teacher or a group of teachers has a massive positive impact on their students, we need to be able to identify exactly what it was that they did that was so great and celebrate that because those moments are what keep you coming back every day in education.

That's how we've guided our. Processes.

That's everybody understands that's in a professional setting. The challenge in that is that oftentimes the general public or the surrounding communities don't connect the dots. They are reverting back to this idea that, schools are only there to teach a math reading and that's really it, all of this other stuff that's not the school's job.

So you have that level of stress, too. So I guess when you're looking at all of those different headwinds. How did you pull it all together to get everybody unified? Because I can see a scenario where the community isn't backing what you're doing. You might get pushback from the teachers who don't have the resources to pitch in.

So what did you do to stitch all that together so that everybody's unified and understands what the goal is?

And one of those is really just. Communicating with everyone really being there getting ahead of some of the issues. We have students who are struggling. We have hygiene issues with our students. We have, there are safety issues. And to your point, [00:22:00] we know we can't teach those students without that.

So we have food pantries in every school. We have free clothing closets in every school. We have Community resources that have been phenomenal. We have a group in town that just on their own has provided food bags to go home on the weekends for our students who wouldn't have food otherwise on the weekends that is community driven that we provide the bags where we're the we connect the.

Donated bags to the needy student, but we don't, we didn't actually create that through the district. So that's community. So our partnerships are incredibly important to us. We have a wonderful relationship with law enforcement and our SROs that are in our schools, and that has helped tremendously. And so because we're able to build a positive relationship with law enforcement, because a lot of our students, they're not taught that law enforcement is a positive they're taught the opposite.

Maybe a different career. So the money isn't there necessarily, not like others, but it's okay. They've chosen this, they know, and they don't that's not something that has prohibited us from hiring. So if we can get everyone to again, believe in the kids, celebrate their successes and know the impact they make.

We've had people who could have made a lot more money doing other things that Has stayed with us because of that difference they're making. They know they're making a difference. There's a, it's a noble profession teaching. And yes, we are underfunded. Utah is actually, I think 50th in the nation, the absolute lowest for WPU or pure per pupil spending.

[00:24:02] Dr. Jim: So that's good background. And I keep, Going back to some of the structural issues that you described, you have a thin or lean leadership team, and then you have a bunch. You have nine different schools with a building leader in each of those schools. So when you look at leveraging your Principles as a force multiplier within the community.

Walk us through how you mobilize your building leaders to spread the message and work on alignment because you and your assistant soup can't be everywhere. So how did you get them aligned well enough to move this forward?

So we are actually overstaffed by the ratio that's required by the state and our [00:25:00] counseling areas. And in our building administration. So when you look at the typical schools, our ratios are far under. Administration to student ratio, council to student ratio than what you'll see in other areas.

So we chose in our district, rather than to be top heavy at the district office, we chose to invest in positions that would help those schools function well. So one of the ways that we felt like we did that is by giving the support, the personnel support in those schools, rather than trying to all share.

And spread that out at the district level. We just put those positions full time in the schools and that's helped us. We have elementary counselors in every elementary full time. That's really unheard of. We have a mental health therapist in every building the secondary level, their full time except for our very small middle school, they share a therapist.

In every school that check in do, daily check ins with students who are struggling. We identify them based on their needs. So that's really how we did it is we intentionally provide thin leadership at the district level and a ton of support out in the schools where we believe it really matters and it really can make an impact so that when we ask the principals to leverage.

Their role as a leader to help their schools, they actually have the people to do it.

The other aspect that I want to look at a little bit more detail. You talked about building a culture that meets or lifts people out of that survival mode at the district level. But the other part of what you talked about was. You also are intentional about exposing people to what's possible beyond what they see around their immediate surroundings.

Walk us through what that looked like and how you actually pull that off as well.

[00:28:00] Maybe that's not something that is really expected in their family. So I believe we have the obligation and one, I, we just really try to learn from other places. We follow I'm absolutely on the phone. I drive around, I get in the car, I find out what's working other places. So we really have focused on getting students.

First of all The skills they need. So if you have someone who is in a high risk situation, it might be very difficult for them to succeed, but lowering the bar will not help them. It hurts them. They need to behave appropriately. They need to make and keep friends appropriately. They need to learn how to disagree appropriately, how to advocate for themselves appropriately.

So that's all part of this as well. So that. When they do go out on their internship in high school, or they're applying for scholarships or jobs or military service or whatever, they're going to do apprenticeships that they're prepared with soft skills as well as the technical skill that's necessary to have them be successful.

They, we have to let them know that the only thing limiting them is their own. Willingness to work toward a goal. That's it. Everything else is within their reach. They really can do it. And it's up to us to make sure that they know that I

Now, if you were to take everything that we just talked about and You know provided a framework for another leader who's in a similar circumstance and is looking at tackling this problem What are the key things that you would recommend that they focus on so that they can actually have similar results as what you've been?

[00:30:00] Mika Salas: I think the first thing would be to really look at your hiring practices and ensure that you have, As effective principals as possible in your schools. I think the principal is a key to each of the schools and and without their leadership, it. The schools can still be great places to be, but without a strong leader, a visionary leader, it really does negatively impact the school.

So I would say that let's make sure we have the best people possible in all of the roles, all those building principal roles, but then I would also They're highly encouraged that there are expectations, district wide expectations for each of those schools. And we, again, this is not isolated to us.

This is through the research, but we have what we call tight expectations and loose expectations. So I believe a district leader needs to put in and understand clearly what they are expecting of each of the schools to have. In a structure model where these components are required. This is what we're tied on.

And then I would I would suggest that as you meet monthly with your admin teams that you still treat that as a PLC. I think sometimes we lose that PLC model the higher you're looking. So when you have teacher groups, obviously they're in PLCs, but principals don't always have that. And I felt like I was very lonely as a principal.

It was a very lonely job. I felt like I was alone with, without colleagues even though I had a couple of colleagues, I had, the other middle school principal and one high school principal, and at that point, an alternative high school principal, but we really never if I could use PLC as a verb, we never PLC.

And then I would also argue that we've got to look at our own data. We've got to look at district wide data to show if we have weaknesses in certain areas. If you're bringing on new principles that have never really looked thoroughly into PLC and RTI. That needs to be done. You need to do a deep dive with them.

We need to build the information in order to build the capacity. And that has to all happen before we can hold people accountable for anything. So I feel like we've got to make sure we're providing them the necessary. Expectations and then skills along the way, just like we would with our students or our teachers, we just have to expand that, generalize that model as district leadership.

[00:33:00] Mika Salas: The best way is probably email or a phone call. And that sounds like that information will be provided to everyone. I really, I'm one of the last holdouts. I don't have a lot of social media. So I have LinkedIn and I have Instagram and I guess people can find me there, but I probably won't see it as quick as I'll see an email, but anyone who would like to reach out, I'm more than happy to talk to anyone.

And the two things that stand out in my mind are one of the earliest things that you mentioned was that you learned the lesson that you need to get out. The biggest leap in learning that you had happened when you were principal and that was when you were more present and more visible with your teams. [00:34:00] And I think that's an important lesson that anybody can take. Learn in any district, but especially in one where you have these complex issues that you're dealing with, you really don't get the sense for the level of nuance and complexity that exists if you're behind a spreadsheet.

So that was one of the big things that I took away from this conversation. And the other big thing that it's important that I felt is important for other leaders to take inventory of is that if you're structuring your district as a whole. You want to make sure that your resources are concentrated in the areas that are closest to the issues that you're trying to solve.

So one of the interesting things about how you structured your district is that you had resources that were over indexed or over ratioed at the front lines. And that's an important consideration to take into account when you're. Working on all the boring budgeting stuff. This is something to consider.

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