Randy Lindquist sits down with Naomi Norman, Superintendent of Washtenaw ISD, for a deep dive into the evolving landscape of leadership in education. Naomi shares her journey, from a summer job at an ISD to becoming a visionary leader in equity and innovation. The conversation explores lessons on: • Embracing Vulnerability: Why critical humility is essential for authentic leadership. • Equity in Action: Addressing systemic barriers in education and creating opportunities through initiatives like Grow Your Own and countywide CTE collaboration. • Failing Forward: How leaders can learn and grow from challenges. • Mentorship and Inclusion: The transformative power of mentorship in building diverse and inclusive leadership pipelines. Questions for you to consider as you listen: What would ‘receipts’ for the work you do as a leader look like in your district? How can you gather evidence that your leadership is creating meaningful change for your staff, students, and community?” How do you create space for feedback, reflection, and personal growth in your leadership style?” What are the most significant equity challenges in your district, and how can you build partnerships to address them effectively?”
Connect with Naomi Norman on LinkedIn
Connect with Randy Lindquist on LinkedIn
Key Topics Discussed
1. Critical Humility in Leadership
Naomi highlights the importance of embracing vulnerability and being open to feedback as a leader.
2. Grow Your Own Programs
Naomi discusses the Grow Your Own teacher recruitment initiative, a statewide effort to address teacher shortages by supporting paraprofessionals in becoming certified educators. Explore Michigan’s Talent Together initiative.
3. Equity in Education
A key focus of the episode is addressing inequities in career and technical education (CTE) and fostering inclusive environments.
4. Reading Apprenticeship Model
Naomi introduces the Reading Apprenticeship approach to adolescent literacy, emphasizing metacognition and student agency. Discover the Reading Apprenticeship program.
5. Creating a Leadership Pipeline
Mentorship plays a significant role in fostering leaders. Naomi shares insights on inviting more women and people of color into leadership roles.
There's not one right way to be a really good leader, learning is by becoming. Who are you becoming? I want the receipts. There's gotta be a way to do this together.
Welcome back to standing tall voices in leadership. I'm your host. Randy Lindquist, superintendent of the Muskegon area, ISD, and I'm thrilled to have you here for another episode where we explore what it means to lead with purpose and impact. Today, we're joined by an extraordinary leader in education, Naomi Norman, superintendent of the Washtenaw ISD. Naomi has been a driving force in her district, known for her dedication to equity, innovation and community partnerships. And our conversation today will dive into Naomi's approach to leading her organization, strategies she uses for building inclusive and resilient educational environments, and the lessons she's learned about navigating change and fostering collaboration. So grab a coffee, settle in and get ready to feel informed, inspired and connected, as we learn with Naomi Norman, let's stand tall. We choose to go to the moon. You can't do it alone. Team, Team.
Embracing change. There is no courage without vulnerability. Being brave. Attitude. Reflect leadership. Captain, can you rumble with vulnerability? Can you stay in tough things, or do you tap out? I
have a dream, learning how to get back
up and keep moving forward,
learning how to rise.
Let's stand tall. Welcome Naomi, glad you're with us today. I am so glad to be here. Yeah, it's great. So you and I have started our superintendencies at the IIT level at the same time, and I think we've had some similar career lines at the ISD level in terms of roles, responsibilities, and as we've gone up the pathway. So I just want to tell tell us a little bit about your journey with Washtenaw ISD and how that shaped your leadership approach. Yeah,
I have to start with my very first experience with an ISD, which was when I was in high school. And at the time, our governor was trying to improve schools in the state, and did a student leadership forum where he asked every ISD to bring two students from each district together at the ISD to talk about what they wanted from their education experience. So I was one of the two students picked from my high school, and I got to spend several days at Michigan Tech, where the copper country ISD organized all the students and had just an absolutely wonderful time meeting kids from other districts. That was one of the first times that that had happened for me outside of athletics. And really was enchanted with the idea of how kids voices could come together to make suggestions for changing how their education was unfolding. So fast forward after college and really trying to decide, you know, what I wanted to do for my life. I thought I was going to be a doctor, but spent a lot of time at the hospital, and realized I wanted to work with people, and I would rather work with healthy people, so ended up just taking a summer job at the ISD, and realized how much I really, really love the organization. And that was Washington ISD. It was just a summer job, wow. And from there, I did a lot of training. Computer Technology was just coming out back then. It was in the late 80s and early 90s, and I did a lot of work with teachers around teaching them to use technology, and decided, Okay, I'm going to make this my career. And I went back to school, I taught, and ultimately took the remsi director position at Washtenaw ISD, and have just appreciated and loved the work that ISDS can do because we work not only with our local districts, but there's this part of our work that's also connecting to our state colleagues. And REMC was such a the regional educational media center, so that's what REMC stands for. Was such a wonderful way to connect with colleagues across the state, you included, and really try to learn from each other, and then bring back home some really great practices that took me into becoming the director of instruction. So it went from resources to instruction, then I went from director of instruction to assessment, Research and Evaluation, and really learned how to use data and talk about data as a way to look at the system see who's being served, who's not being served. That was a very powerful experience for me, building out county data systems. Programs, and then I moved into the Assistant Superintendent role. I also, I have to say, had the opportunity while I was an assistant superintendent to serve in both Livingston County and Washtenaw County. So I got this beautiful perspective across two ISDS and what it takes and what's the same and what's different, and then that took me into the interim superintendency, right when the pandemic started. And what a way to the superintendency? Yeah. So that's kind of my path.
That's incredible, the alignment of our career pathways. You know, I didn't start in the up like you did at a young age, or had that knowledge of ISDS then, but certainly at the ISD level, that REM C piece, the instructional piece, the assistant piece, you know, it's just incredible. The alignment. I'm glad they kept you around there all those years, because you're certainly an impactful leader for them at the organization
level, yeah, I feel honored that they've kept me.
So I'm curious you, you've, you've done some work at the ISD, around system level, work and change, and curious what you might think about leadership qualities that you believe are essential for driving systemic change in education, especially in a diverse region like Washtenaw County,
I used to believe
that there was a set of leadership skills and dispositions that I should strive for learn how to do and be really good at. And I now believe that the most important thing is to lean in to what your individual strengths and gifts are. And so there's not one right way to be a really good leader for systems or otherwise. But the things that I find for myself that seem to be such an important match for my organization at this moment in time, there are a few things that I would lift up that have been very important for me, the first I want to lift up is this idea of critical humility, like, I don't know what I don't know, and I have to be really open to the fact, and that's okay, right, right? Yes, that's okay, right? And be really open when someone says, Hey, did you realize? Did you know? And this recognition that I didn't, and I need to be really open, and as a leader who really does care about equity and diversity and inclusion, that means I have to be able to listen to folks, genuinely listen to them. I think that's been really important. So critical humility, I would say, is one that's really, really important. Another is the ability to build and sustain relationships. I have found, especially because I do so much work around challenging the status quo, around our work around race and equity, I need to be able to have relationships and to work through really, have a good enough relationship that we can work through really tough things, like if I've done something that's harmed somebody unintentionally, I need to be able to have a conversation, and then I need people to know that they can have a conversation. With me, and it's we'll work through it that's been really important. And I think about the word grace a lot. What does it mean to just understand that's where someone is, that's where I am. Give myself grace and in this relationship, just navigate it as authentically and genuinely as possible. And then the third and probably most important thing for me has been just this genuine care and concern for the people that I serve, yeah, genuinely. And for me, it's, you know, in Washington County, like I really care about each one of these communities, the kids and families of these communities, the children that we serve really directly as an organization, but also the children that our local districts are serving in our charter schools and our private schools. And because I grew up in a different region of the state, I also have this incredible passion and care for the kids and the future of Michigan. I want the state to be successful and thriving. So I think that care helps me as a leader, really pay attention to who's not being served, because I want everyone to really be able to thrive. Yeah,
and this is not something you learn in a Master's class through your college career, etc. It really comes from the heart. You know, it's deep down. It's that passion, it's that connection, that relationship piece is so critical to good leadership. Yeah, I appreciate the idea. You very much. So, so. To talk about. You mentioned your instructional background and some of the work I think you've done in that area as you've grown at Washtenaw. Just curious as to, how do you cultivate a culture of continuous learning and growth within your organization, amongst your staff, or even with other staff in the county? How do you kind of keep that passion for continuous growth going with people?
Yeah, when I think about learning, it's not just about gaining a skill or gaining some piece of knowledge, it's about shaping who you are. So the mantra in my head is learning is about becoming Who are you becoming? You're always becoming and growing, and your identity is shaping and developing. How do we do that in a way that can be really positive for education of kids right in our region? And so when I think about that, the way we work with our local districts, the way we work with each other is with great intentionality around working together. So how do we create networks where we can really strive for really complex and challenging, inclusive work, whether it's around teaching or whether it's around our leadership or other areas, it's about doing it together and shaping how we see and think about our work. I don't know if that makes sense. It does.
It's well, personal reflection, honestly. You know, it's it's one thing to strive for certain skills, but do I want to keep growing as a person, professionally or personally, honestly? But do I have that passion to kind of keep moving forward, and knowing that I don't have everything perfected yet, right too, that I have to keep kind of striving towards my own growth like that.
I can give an example around one of our initiatives, just to bring it home a little bit more. We were really struggling in our county with adolescent literacy, and we saw that a lot of kids were really struggling with an ability to read when they're in high school. They weren't able to access the curriculum because they were not able to read it and understand it at the speed and pace and fluency that other kids did. So we needed to address adolescent literacy, and we ended up leaning into a program called Reading apprenticeship, which is a model that is very different from a typical classroom teacher's approach to teaching. It really emphasizes metacognition. It emphasizes student agency in the classroom, that social dimension that's at play in the in the classroom, in addition to what you're trying to do, and that building the knowledge whatever your subject is, and getting teachers to really put the kids, put the power To learn in the kids hands, that is a shift in practice. It's a big it actually is a really big shift. And the metacognitive side of helping kids think about how they're thinking and learning is also a shift, and we know from research it's a really important one. So one way you could approach that is to treat it as you know, learning is about the knowledge you can gain. So you could just go to PD, learn it, and then the teacher can go off on their own to go talk to and work in their classroom and try to implement it, maybe with a little bit of support here and there, we decided to take an approach of every teacher should be in community with other teachers as they're trying to both go through some kind of a training, but then also as they're trying to implement and how can we support and really foster that relationship among the teachers so they can maybe share student work and Try to learn from what's happening with the student work, or maybe bring a lesson plan forward and share that with their colleagues and get feedback before they teach the lesson. And we found that creating these essentially like critical friends groups or teams of teachers that were working learning communities, they were genuine learning communities. Yeah, by building those out, teachers had each other to lean on within each school and district, and then representatives from all those groups came together at the county level to learn from each other and learn how to really continue to hold space for that social and learning engagement with one another as professionals, because that doesn't just happen. You've got to know how to how to hold space and time and have norms and protocols to I think that where
that the approach also helps people learn from quote, unquote, failure, right? That you tried something. Thing in the classroom didn't work. And then I talked to other people about that who also maybe had a similar experience, and then talk about how to maybe make changes, adjustments, etc, together to try again, right? And there's a lot of power in that. There's
a lot of power and failing forward, right? It like legitimizes and says, this is actually a good thing, because you're learning, yeah, you're learning forward. Yeah, you really are. Yeah,
awesome, yeah.
So we talked about impacting teachers and what we can do there. What about impacting leadership role? What role does mentorship play in impacting our leaders?
I will start by saying mentorship has impacted me as a leader, absolutely personal, local and immediate. When I first came to W ISD, I had my supervisor. There was somebody that I had met previously. She had encouraged me to apply, and she was amazing. And then I was fortunate enough to have Bill Miller came to the ISD, so I got to know him really early. And he was an amazing really, even when I was just out of college, he really was very encouraging of moving into a career in education. And then, you know, was very supportive in his role. He was the superintendent at the ISD when I was in the supervision and director roles. And then I was really fortunate to have Scott Menzel, who followed bill, and he was an amazing leader in a very different way. So I think when I think about mentorship again, it's how the mentor is able to really understand your skills and strengths and help you navigate with your skills and strengths which are different than theirs. Yeah, right. But really think about how can you navigate this role, tapping everything that you can bring to the table. So I do think about that a lot when it comes to all of our emerging leaders, and I will get even a little bit more opinionated here. I this is a profession that is dominated by women, and yet in leadership, we don't see the same rate of women in leadership as we do in teaching. So it tells me that there is a bias in the system, and it's one of those things that I think about all the time. And one of the things that was most impactful for me was when someone said to me, most women need to be invited into leadership. It's not always, but the invitation into leadership is a really important piece to that. And so one of the things that I want to do now is continue to invite more and more women into leadership like, Have you considered this? Would you consider this? What would you need to consider this? What would you need for this to work with your life, your family? How can I support that? How can we support that? How can we create a network to help support that? And I would say then the same thing, to take it another step. We also don't have as many people of color in as educators, and therefore also leaders in our system, our education system. I know that's a problem across the country. I know it's a problem in Michigan. And so I also think really deeply about how do we create opportunities to support and mentor more people of color to come into the profession? And that has been one of my greatest motivations behind the Grow Your Own programs that I've been building locally. That's why they started, because I saw so many amazing, amazing educators of color in our parapros in our county. I was like, What is going on here? We have a beautiful distribution demographically in our para pro group that then that matches our community. It's like, what if that were our talent pipeline? That would be amazing. Would be
I wonder if there's a same need for that introduction to the professional leadership, like you said, for females, right? Is there? Do you see that correlation, maybe as a need for those of color or other races to be a part of education or the leadership in education?
Yeah, I think it's a little different, because our system has really been unfriendly to people of color, whether it's as students or it's just not designed in a way that's racially conscious and inclusive on the whole now we work on that. And I think in some areas, in some parts of the state, some districts, some ISDS, some parts of the country, people are doing an amazing job. But on the whole, I think when we moved into desegregating schools, late 50s, 60s, 70s, one of the ways we did that was to close. Down a lot of schools. I know this was the case for us locally in our county, the schools that ended up like getting integrated, they would close the black schools and then have all those kids go to the white schools where you had the white staff. And so we kind of whole scale across this country. A lot of our teachers of color just didn't have a place to go, and I think we just have to get smarter about and acknowledge that that happened, and really be intentional about what does it take to really support not just a leader of color, but like cohorts of folks coming in, grappling with what it means to enter this profession that is right now still mostly white in Michigan. And how do we create? How do we create? I'm saying we me. How do I create a school system or an environment that's inclusive so they want to be there. Love to be there. Stay, feel fulfilled and supported. That's what that's where my energy is. When I think about leaders of color, what do I need to do as a white woman to create the environment for their success?
I'm going to join you in that we also I need to have the same reflection myself. For sure, absolutely. I think mentorship. You know, you mentioned two key things in that to me. One is a good listener, right? I don't need somebody to tell me all the things I need to know, necessarily. I need them to help me grow. Listening is a part of that. And then you also talked about asking a lot of questions, right? So a good mentor, I think, asked a lot of questions that make you think, right? As opposed to spoon feeding you that information or something like that. Yeah, really good point. So you've been in leadership for a while now, and I'm curious as to how you, how you've taken on some challenges in your roles as a leader, and give, give, maybe give a few examples of of a challenging decision you've had to make as a leader, and how you've navigated that process of those challenges. Any examples you can give us for that,
hmm, challenging decisions. I'm going to share something that's been a challenge, but maybe something, if it works out, will be one of the things I'm most proud of. That's I'd love to hear that. Okay, so let's talk about that. It's about career and technical education. Nice, our county, about 3035, years ago, decided not to work as a whole county around CTE. Oh, wow, we decided, and I'm not sure all the reasons, but we had a very, very, very strong CTE program on the east side of the county. We had a solid CTE program in the middle part of the county, and at that time, we had very little for the more rural districts, and so those districts said we got to do something, and we would like to form our own mini consortium in order to provide CTE. So in that moment, that was probably a really wise and smart decision, to expand access to kids in the western side of the county. But fast forward 3035, years. What do we have? We have a segregated, very different kind of access to career and technical education. So that consortium grew, it's thriving. One of the districts passed a bond and was able to build all kinds of space and build out programs the other districts and kids there. And it's really pretty powerful, and it's in basically it's our white side of the county and then our more urban, more low income people of color on the east side of the county, their program has just diminished over those 30 years to now. They had, when we did our study and when I started in this role, they had three CTE pathways, two in auto and one in culinary Okay, which is really different than the 28 or so that we're in the other district, which we're really preparing kids, yeah, for all kinds of diverse and very high paying careers. So we one of the things I really tried to go after, and it was contentious at first, because we really debated, as a group of leaders. Do we have an ethical obligation as a county? And when I talk, I mean, I'm talking with all of our local superintendents, do we have an ethical obligation if we know that this is what's happened over 30 years, 35 years, do we have an obligation to try to write it because it doesn't feel right that some kids in our county are not able to access great these really great programs. This does not feel right, and we had several very intense meetings and and a lot of commitment, ultimately, from our local districts, so much. So that they decided to pool their money so we all put contributed a proportional share into the county pot, and use that then to hire somebody who would work at the county level to try and figure out a strategy to bring us back together and have more equity of access for programming in our county. So it's been hard because we've had to put really hard data out there. We've had to acknowledge those inequities pretty deeply, and now we're trying to build some programs as we speak. We're trying to build some programs that are county wide, so that any kid, no matter where you live, can participate in, like our aviation
program that's exciting, that's really exciting, and to maybe diminish those disparities across those different districts and give everyone some equity and what they can attend and be a part
of, and how important it is to Look at the data to get very intentional about that, to look at it by gender, by race, by income, by, you know, all the different ways that you might want to do that. I'm
going to stick with that equity lens a little bit as you brought that up on a couple of responses to today in our conversation, what are some of the most significant barriers you've encountered in implementing that equity focused piece, those policies, etc, and how you address them. Yeah, there's lots of hurdles, right, when you look at this with an equity lens. So, okay,
the biggest hurdle is myself, just saying, want to be super honest about that I grew up not understanding, for example, the way race is at play in our country, in our culture? Yeah, I just kind of went through blissfully thinking like, how I see the world is how everyone sees the world. And I've had to do a lot of my own work in order to better understand how race in particular, is at play in our organization, in our culture, but mostly inside me. So that is the number one biggest barrier, I would say, is my own racial identity development as a white woman. And then that goes with our other my other leaders and colleagues in my in our organization, right? They also have their they're all on their own path to their understanding. So I'd say number one would be our own individual development and understanding of kind of our cultural norms in our in our country and in our organizations. Number one. Number two, we in our area did not have a hard time developing and adopting an equity policy. That kind of work was not fraught with any kind of challenge. The question is implementing and actually doing it right? So there's sort of this rubber hitting the road, right? Yes, there's this great intention, and then it's like, okay, are we doing it? And one of our staff of color in one of our meetings, she said, I want the receipts. I know you're doing all this training, I know we're doing all this work, but what are the receipts for me? Wow. What are the receipts for our kids of color? Point me to them. Wow. What a statement. Yeah. And I was like, Ooh, what would receipts exactly look like? And that was the day when I said, All right, our work, none of it matters, until the staff of color in our organization say to me, it feels different here. So for seven years, we've been chugging along really hard. We have a lot of intentional professional development training, a lot of different initiatives that we're doing. We have a equity teams. We have a we did multiple years of our our district equity transformation team. We've had various initiatives. All of that we've we've been doing a whole lot in those spaces for seven years, and then this year was the first year I had a group of our African American staff say it feels different here. Wow. And they didn't even know that that was my bar for it. I'm not. It's not like I've gotten anywhere because, of course, like, two days later, I did something, and they're like, Naomi, that wasn't very inclusive of you. And I was like, Oh my gosh. You think you're like, making movement, and then, you know, it's like two step forward, one step back, but still, that's a receipt. Yeah, that's an example of a receipt. And now I'm really focused on is what I'm doing, actually leading us to making a difference. And
how do you gather more of those receipts over time? Right? Yeah, because, because one's not good enough. Oh
no. Oh my gosh, it should be daily, honestly, right? Yeah, yeah,
love it. Well, switching gears. I know you've been instrumental in the Grow Your Own initiative that we in the state called talent together initiative across all ISDS in the state. So tell us a little bit about this statewide effort and its impact on teacher recruitment and retention?
Oh, wow. What this is one of my favorite topics. I just want to start a little bit with, sort of the insight on why something like a program like kalbtogether so important we had the opportunity in our county to recognize that we were not having very many people apply to our special education teacher positions. And we're like, this is worrisome. If you have two applicants, you're like, this is you know, hopefully one of them is going to be okay. And so we, locally in our county, were like, we have to do something, and when we realized it kind of meshed with our this push around diversity and equity, we realized we had so many paraprofessionals and teaching assistants in our county that were really, really good and really interested in becoming teachers, but couldn't afford To do it, and so we sent out a survey to our 1200 paraprofessionals, and over 300 responded and said, if you would cover the cost for my tuition and organize it so I could take classes after school like still work, I would want to become a teacher. And so we created our own program locally, and had for 25 slots, because we could do one cohort. That's all we could afford. We had over 125 applications, and we're like, we might be on to something. Yeah, right. And that got started, and it has been amazing. Our first two cohorts graduated last year. So we had 36 special ed teachers become certified last year in our county, and all of them committed, you know, to they wanted to work in our county. In the end, I think 31 got jobs in our county. Two deferred by a year, and three took positions in our neighboring counties. So we're just super excited because 31 teachers entered our system this last year, and it's why in our county, we aren't struggling for special education classroom teachers like we were a couple years earlier. So as that was unfolding, Wayne County was also looking at starting a program for their paraprofessionals, and they were talking to the same university Eastern Michigan, and we started to realize, like, Okay, if we're doing a cohort for ei endorsement, and they're doing one for maybe cognitively impaired, do they have 25 people? Because you had to have at least 25 is there a way to start thinking about this in a more, is there a way to do this together? And then we talked to Berrien County. They were also thinking about it. Our General Education Leadership Network was talking about and noticing that, you know, the curriculum directors and all the assistant superintendents are saying how they're struggling with getting staff for their teaching positions. So they were trying to brainstorm. Then we started talking to other ISD leaders, and we decided we got to get in a room together. Could we commit to a day or two days to just? How could we work together? There's got to be a way to do this together. So seven of us, seven ISDS retreated, basically labor day of all days, we all drove to Charlevoix and just spent two days visioning what's possible. And from that emerged talent together, which is a grow your own type of program where we take current employees who are interested in becoming teachers, we help match them to a university. The universities have to agree to have online classes so that we're not limited by geography. They would take the classes so they completed the coursework. And then for that, instead of student teaching, we wanted to build it out to take advantage of a new designation at the federal level, which was that teaching could be done through an apprenticeship. And so we created the model where we could have teaching apprenticeships, which means these individuals will be paid while they're doing that initial practice teaching before they're actually certified. So it was, it's a really great model. It allows these folks to be paid the whole time and working the whole time through doing the courses after school, doing the instead of student teaching, doing the apprenticing as part of their regular paid schedule, and come out at the end with a teaching certificate. Get, what a great
example of being better together, right? And how the power of collaboration to pull something off like this, yeah, and
it was, it's so exciting. How many people have applied to be a, you know, in the program, to talent together, and we have not done like, specific press around it, or we haven't tried to recruit directly. It's all word of mouth through the ISDS and the school districts. So we have like 400 districts involved at this point, people from all over Michigan. So there isn't a corner of the state or a region that doesn't have folks in the program, and we enrolled somewhere around 900 in the first year, and around 500 in the second cohort, and now we're looking forward to a third cohort for this fall.
That's incredible, and filling a huge need with that talent shortage we have in the state. So I appreciate your efforts around that for sure. All right, I end every interview session on these podcasts with a little rapid fire. These are some fun questions that you just need to respond to quickly and see how we do with this. Okay, are you ready? Yes, all right. Would you rather do your own stunts in a movie or have a stunt double do them for you? Do
my own stuff. Whoa, you're a thrill seeker. No, I
just would rather do my own stuff. Is that what it means? Yeah, seeker, no, well, I don't know. I don't know.
I like the idea. It's the control. That's kind of fun, actually, yes,
what animal would you have the most of if you own a zoo?
Wow, I would. I would actually not own a zoo. I would, I would, hypothetically, I would own a conservatory, okay, and I would have plants that would be all things you could eat. Oh, wow, so like but exotic, okay, vanilla bean plant or
whatever you can consume. It though,
right? Yes, okay, exotic things like that. No zoo but a conservatory. All right, got it all right. I have a few repeat questions from my previous interviews. These are kind of fun. Are you a Swifty? Yes, oh, I would not have guessed out of you. Okay,
more, because I think Travis Kelsey is pretty awesome. So it started on the football side. I see I've got two boys and a husband who love football. So
there you go. All right, good deal. Is it wrong for a vegetarian to eat animal crackers? No, I think you're on that Vegetarian Side. Anyway, with that conservatory piece, right? I
kind of am. I'm actually, I actually am a flexitarian. So I'm a vegetarian who sometimes will eat meat. I have
not heard that term before. That's interesting. Wow. Flexitarian, all right, Die Hard, one of my favorite movies of all time. You know what? Yes, is it a Christmas movie or not? Oh my gosh, I'm gonna say yes. Yes, me too. We're on the same page. There awesome beach vacation or mountain retreat? Mountain retreat? Yeah, I like the outdoors, like that. It's kind of fun. That's the whole up in me. Oh, that's true. It goes back to your roots, right? Last question for you in rapid fire, what word do you hope people use to describe you as a leader,
visionary comes out first, but
someone who has humanity, yeah, love and humanity in the end, compassion, compassion. I see it and, you know, nail me, yeah, like, but they know, yeah, they know I genuinely care. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank
you so much for the time today. I appreciate it. It's been very wonderful talking to you and hearing your perspective on leadership. I just appreciate your leadership and the work you do in the realm of equity and how you focus on that. It's a great perspective, and I appreciate all you do. Thank you for being here. Thanks
for having me. This has been great.
Wow, wow, wow. Ben, get a load of what you heard. There pretty incredible stuff from Naomi.
Yeah, that. That was incredible, man. So many huge takeaways. I thought the thing that stuck out to me the most was what she was saying about her beliefs about leadership before entering the role and how she views it now that there's not like, a one size shop or a one step shop. What? What is that saying? One size, one sized fit all? Ah, there it is. Yeah, like, not every leader is good at everything, and that has paralyzed me at times of like, oh, I don't have this skill set that this leader I admire has, and that it's about finding what you do better than other people and leaning into your strengths in that way. I thought that was absolutely incredible, yeah,
and what an incredible equitable equity lens she brings to the table, I mean, her thoughts around providing programming to students across your county in an equitable manner, I think is pretty incredible.
Yeah, that at what she was doing with CTE, and those difficult conversations are made easy when you have data, because then it's removing yourself from it and just looking at at the data. Also loved all the stuff they're doing for Grow Your Own and. And it feels like we're the last organization where it's that piece of paper that stops you from doing a job that you could do well without that paper. And I think my first year teaching, and even student teaching, the ParaPRO was a better leader of that classroom than I was, but I had the luxury of having parents who helped me pay for college, and I love that, you know, we are getting more in touch with, you know, Zuckerberg didn't finish college, and Steve Jobs didn't finish college, and we're helping these people who are going to be great teachers get access to the classroom.
And that residency model really is great, because you're getting some true experiences while you're working towards that degree, which is pretty good for your long term work in the classroom.
Yep. Also all great leaders started as instructional technology, people like you, me and Naomi. It's your stuff tonight.
It is a great producer of leaders. What do you think exactly, well, and Naomi is an innovative leader. We saw heard that today, and I hope all of you took away something from that as well to inspire you and to keep you going strong in your leadership roles until next time, keep standing tall. You.