BTB: How did you get started as an educator?

JW: I knew all through high school that I wanted to be a teacher, and I majored in English at Eastern Kentucky University. I wanted to teach in the high school that I graduated from, but in a small school, there's not a lot of turnover. So, for five years, I taught English, drama, and journalism in a neighboring school district while working towards an administrative degree and a master's degree in English. In a twist of fate, the principal of Johnson Central High School was my former high school principal, Tom Swartz. He encouraged me to apply for the open assistant principal position at his school. I was fortunate to have the same person who had been such a strong mentor and father figure to me in high school become my mentor once again in my first administrative role. When Tom retired, I took a position as a curriculum and assessment specialist for the Kentucky Department of Education (DOE).

At the Kentucky DOE, I realized that I really enjoyed working with students and teachers at the school level. With policy development, I had become too far removed from where education actually happens. Because of this, I left the DOE to become a secondary curriculum director in the Montgomery County Schools, just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. There I worked with teachers at the middle and high schools on professional development, teacher training, and curriculum alignment. It was a rewarding experience, and after a year, I moved to what I consider to be the premiere, highest-performing district in Kentucky—Fort Thomas ISD—where I've served as assistant superintendent for teaching and learning for the last eight years. When our superintendent left the district, there was a nationwide search for his replacement. But, as the school board chair recently said, "We realized we [had] an extremely capable and talented individual in our own backyard." I told them I must have been out in the tall grass because I was waving my hands the whole time.

The one thing that is incredibly important to me is that I remain connected to the classroom. Every year of my seventeen-year administrative and teaching career—with the exception of the year I spent at the Kentucky DOE—I have taught a high school course. Even as the assistant superintendent here at Fort Thomas, I teach an early-bird AP English class before school, which I will continue to do next year as superintendent.

BTB: As a younger superintendent, and as someone who still teaches every year, do you think you have a fresher perspective on the needs of your students?

JW: I've noticed that it gives me a stronger sense of credibility with our teaching faculty. When I talk to them about a teaching practice or an expectation, they know that I am doing it too. And also as an administrator, it makes me a little more reflective. I can say to myself, "Do I really want to expect this of teachers? Is it realistic?" It is easy to issue edicts from the central office, but it's not always as easy when they will apply to you too. I have a sense of reality about what teachers go through on a daily basis.

BTB: Can you tell us about Fort Thomas as a district, and what your priorities will be as you step into the role of superintendent?

JW: One of my goals as a superintendent is to get all of our administrators working with students in an academic way. All principals, assistant principals, and even our assistant superintendent—everyone who is an administrator at the school or district level will work with kids. Special education administrators will work directly with special education students on speech pathology; our high school principal will teach a career exploration senior seminar where kids go into the community for service learning; the new assistant superintendent will teach a Constitution-based government course called "We the People," and one of our elementary principals will be teaching "Great Books" at every grade level. Everybody has embraced this concept, and I'm really excited that everyone will be working with students. The focus of my leadership and my tenure at Fort Thomas has been and will continue to be how we can help kids learn better.

I also plan to pull our community partners together to focus on common goals. Right now our school district has a high school alumni association and an education foundation that does fundraising to supplement educational needs. We also have a city council and the school board. Often these separate entities work independently of one another, doing different work for the schools. I'm hoping to create a common vision so we don't duplicate services and can channel our resources. I think meeting with them collaboratively and sharing our vision and district mission will enable us to be even greater than we are now.

BTB: How did your staff members react to the priority of having them work with students in an academic way, and what did you do to ensure their buy-in?

JW: In my eight years here, people have seen me teaching every year, so I don't think they were at all surprised or shocked when I told them that this was one thing I would like them to be doing next year. Now, did everyone cheer and applaud? No, because otherwise they would have already been doing this. But at the same time, I think they truly realize the value of it. Fort Thomas is a very small school district. We have five schools: three elementary schools, a middle school, and a secondary school, and I think everyone sees the value of working directly with kids. More importantly, all of our administrators are teachers at heart, and they relish the opportunity to work with students when they can. Why haven’t they chosen to do that before? I guess they would say, "time, time, time," but now that I have made this an administrative priority, I think, in some ways, they are excited about the opportunity. No one is upset, and so far, it has been a very positive initiative.

BTB: How were you able to help administrators find the additional time needed to teach students?

JW: Everyone is able to create their own schedules and determine how this program fits best in their day. I haven’t dictated how they do it; they know that I see this as a priority, so they know it's okay to do what they need do to make it work. I teach my course before school, and the new assistant superintendent will also be teaching his course before the school day officially starts. Both elementary school principals are going to hold afterschool tutorial programs for kids who need remediation, and one will also do something during the school day, modeling the "Great Books" initiative with teachers for three hours per week in different classrooms.

BTB: Were principals and administrators able to propose how they wanted to work with students?

JW: Yes, I asked administrators to think about what their passions are and propose what they wanted to do. We came to a common agreement, but the ideas were theirs. That went a long way in gaining support for the program because the administrators are doing what they feel comfortable with and passionate about. This year, they may teach one thing, and then next year, they may decide to teach something completely different. People are very excited about it. I've done it, and I know it's made a difference for me.

BTB: What kind of difference has it made?

JW: As superintendents or district administrators, many people don't have the chance to get to know students in the schools. But I actually know students and their parents. It creates a different culture when every administrator is seen as a teacher first, and actually gets to know kids and work with them on a regular basis.

BTB: As an educational leader, do you have a good sense of how to help teachers who are struggling motivationally?

We do a couple of things in our district to ensure teachers are challenged in positive ways. Particularly at the middle and high school levels, we make sure teachers have a balance of students—those who are more challenging to teach and those who are very bright and gifted—so that they are teaching the whole spectrum. We also spend a lot of money on professional development, making sure teachers feel comfortable with what they are teaching, understand the content, and are provided with opportunities to present the content in multiple ways. Since I've been in this district, and probably before my tenure, we have never turned anyone down for any kind of professional development opportunities, whether those programs are in-house, local, or even national.

Another thing we've done is spearhead a Kentucky alliance of high-performing school districts—because the needs of high-performing districts are just as great as those of low-performing districts. People sometimes forget this because our students meet the standards, but moving them forward is still a challenge. The top twelve performing districts get together each summer for a conference, so that teachers in those districts can share strategies and best practices. It's somewhat like a rejuvenating faculty retreat that is truly teacher-driven. The teachers lead sections and discuss new ideas and initiatives.

BTB: Do you have any specific ideas for programs that you would like to institute in your first years as superintendent?

JW: We're calling one initiative 2020 Vision. Our first-graders, who are entering school this fall, will be the class of 2020. Starting with this class, and hopefully benefiting students who graduate well before that, we are making a sincere and conscious effort to ensure that they are prepared for their futures. Current research shows that the world is becoming smaller, more global and more multi-national. I don't think we've yet realized that in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and I think that we need to. I want our students to realize that the world is really a small place, so we are going to try to build a layer of international, global, and multicultural education into our curriculum that currently doesn't exist. We're also going to add a layer that uses technology applications in real-world ways.

In our high school we're trying something that is very innovative for us. We're trying to create magnet or career-based programs that provide real-world applications and connections to students within a solid curriculum base. For example, we want to add a pre-engineering strand in math and science so that students can apply their skills by doing design development and engineering work. We are also looking to add a communication strand in Language Arts where students can do video production, print journalism, and filmmaking.

If you look at the work of the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and where they are going, their emphasis is on the "Whole Child." We're going to shift away from the "Back to Basics" (if you want to call it that), or standards movement of real mechanical education, to what makes the United States different—this idea of being creative, being able to design or create new products, new things, and new ideas. I think we're going to see a shift within the next ten years where we begin to cultivate the creative aspects of young people.

We've already found that when students study the creative and performing arts, their learning transfers to other disciplines. We are using dance and music to teach mathematics and science. When students begin to express themselves creatively, they learn content more deeply, rather than just performing a routine operation and not truly understanding the concept behind it.

BTB: You received ASCD's Emerging Leader Award in 2006. What advice would you give to others who are looking to pursue a path in educational leadership?

JW: I think that the best advice I could give anybody goes back to my whole philosophy of education, which is to never forget that you're a teacher first. And whether we're teaching students in elementary, middle, or high school, or we're teaching students at the college level, or we're teaching teachers as a professional developer, we can never forget that we are here because we are educators, not because we are business managers. If people can keep that in focus, I think they will be successful school leaders.

BTB: Do you think that philosophy is a common trend these days, or is it the inverse of that—do more district administrators believe they are business managers rather than educators?

JW: That's a hard question for me to answer. I know that the people I've connected with at Columbia University and the people involved with the ASCD Emerging Leaders are teachers at heart. In each of those people I see a strong desire to teach and make the world a better place, and that's a little bit in contrast with another population—the people who want to be principals because they are tired of teaching or want to make more money. I believe you need a burning desire to be in the classroom. I probably left the classroom too soon—I was never burned out from teaching. I didn't go into administration because I was burned out; I went there because I wanted to help teachers in a larger context and to help more people be better teachers.

BTB: Is there anything that you can say to people to help others realize their own callings within the field of education?

JW: There really isn't a recipe for that. When I teach preservice teachers at the University of Kentucky, on the first night of class—and this happens to be the very first education class that they take—we spend a long time talking about what it means to be an educator. We talk about the realities of teaching—how much money they're going to make, for example—and many people come out of that first class saying, "Well, really, you don't want us to become teachers." But what I tell them is, "No, I just don't want you to be mediocre teachers." If people don't really enjoy and have a passion for teaching, then it really isn't the right place for them to be. They need to be honest with themselves and realize that they will be affecting hundreds of students every day for the next thirty years.

BTB: Is there anything else you would like to share with other educational leaders?

JW: I think leadership is really about keeping a clear focus on where you want to be educationally, and working hard to get there. Sometimes I'll get distracted and frustrated by things, and maybe even deflated, but if I pick up the yearbook and see the photos of the students, then that brings me back to what I'm really here for. Keeping the focus on making sure students have the best possible education they can rejuvenates my day. I can honestly say that, in my seventeen years in education, I have never really gone to work a day in my life—I sincerely enjoy what I do. I think that's because I know what I want to accomplish in education. I see it as a mission and a calling, and I work hard every day to ensure our students can learn better.