Episode 201: From Crisis to Proactive Leadership with Chris Dormer

Darrin Peppard (: 00:01

All right, everybody, welcome into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. As always, I am your host, Dr. Darren Peppered, and this is episode 201. My guest on the show today is Chris Dormer, a Pennsylvania superintendent, and we'll get to Chris here in just a moment. But before we dive into today's conversation, I want to quickly share something exciting with you. I am currently booking keynotes and workshops for opening convocations.

teacher and principal conferences, and leadership development events. Recently, after delivering a keynote, the greatest compliment I've received came my way. And folks, it came from the sound crew. Yeah, that's right. The sound crew told me afterwards that they were laughing, they were crying, and they were fully engaged. In fact, they came and bought copies of my book. Man.

When you've got the crew who has heard it all telling me that they were laughing and shedding tears, you know you've absolutely hit the mark. Look, my goal is always to help you set the tone for an incredible school year or an unforgettable event. I want it to be something that your staff leaves feeling energized and inspired and grateful that they attended. So if you're ready to bring joy and laughter and meaningful learning,

back into your professional development, let's connect. I would love to support you on your next event. Now, let's get on to today's episode. We're gonna dive into a topic that's real near and dear to me, which is proactive leadership. It's an essential shift from that crisis mode to real intentionality. And it's how leaders can truly embody the idea of serving each and every student in their care.

that truly makes a difference. My guest on the show today is Chris Dormer, the superintendent of Norristown Area School District in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Chris has nearly three decades of experience across urban, suburban, and rural education settings. Chris has worn many hats, from instructional assistant, to biology teacher, to coach, principal, and now superintendent. And Chris is currently the president-elect and secretary of PASA.

which is the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators. And Chris brings an insightful perspective on building strong leadership teams and ensuring that classroom instruction remains the central focus, even when the outside demands threaten to pull leaders away. In our conversation today, Chris and I reflect back on lessons that we learned from leading through the crisis that is the pandemic, and we explore some practical and actionable ways

that school leaders can move forward proactively, keeping their vision and values at the heart of every decision. It is a conversation that's filled with tons of strategies, a lot of great insight, and a ton of leadership wisdom. And that's what you've come to expect from the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So I'm honored to have Chris Dormer here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So let's get right to it with Chris Dormer.

All right, everybody, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. My guest on the show today is Chris Dormer. And Chris is currently a superintendent in Pennsylvania. We'll let him talk about that in just a couple of minutes. But what excites me about this conversation today is really kind of looking at and reflecting back to a handful of years ago, which it seems odd to talk about the pandemic so far back at this point in time.

because I think for so many of us it's still fresh in our memories. But that movement from that crisis leadership that so many of us, both Chris and I were in the superintendent chair at the time, to where we are now and really focusing on not necessarily the crisis leadership, but more of that let's be intentional, let's be proactive type of leadership. So I'm really excited about that conversation.

Before we do that, Chris, welcome into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast.

Christopher Dormer (: 01:02

Thanks, Darren. Appreciate the opportunity to be with you today and look forward to a great conversation on leadership.

Darrin Peppard (: 01:08

Yeah, absolutely. So let's do this. Let's maybe just kind of set the table for our listeners so they have a little bit of an understanding of who Chris Dormer is. Tell them as much or as little of your story, your journey, as you would like to share.

Christopher Dormer (: 01:26

No, Darren, thank you. Again, my name is Chris Stormer. I'm very proud to serve as the superintendent of schools in the Norristown area school district, which is in Montgomery County in Pennsylvania. Montgomery County is one of the collar counties right outside of Philadelphia. So just for some context, if you either hear my accent or, you know, when I reference things, is that, you know, definitely that a little bit of that Southeast PA Philadelphia mentality. You know, I born and raised here in Southeast PA and

I'm just honored to continue to serve and work in education in this region. This is my 29th year in public education. I've held positions, started actually as a elementary emotional support instructional assistant back in my first four years and learned lessons there that continue to influence me as both an educator and as a leader. The things I learned working with third, fourth, and fifth graders that were in a

a full-time emotional support classroom in the Lower Marion School District. My journey has taken me from high school biology teacher and swim coach to assistant athletic director and athletic director, my first forays into, we'll say, administration and leadership. I've served as an assistant principal and principal at Upper Derby High School in Delaware County. Upper Derby is an urban school of about 4,200 students, and there was 300 staff when I was there.

went to a school district of: 3000

I spent the last nine years of my career here in Norristown. Two years as assistant superintendent and the last seven as the superintendent of schools. little bit about Norristown. If you look up Montgomery County, PA, is the outside of like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is one of the more populous counties in the Commonwealth. There's about just shorter than 900,000 residents in Montgomery County. And Montgomery County ranks as probably the number one or number two most affluent.

counties in the entire state of Pennsylvania, which makes Norristown a little bit of an anomaly. We are the urban center of our county. We are a county seat. So we have not only all of our county and a lot of state services and support services that operate, but we are the, we're the hub. have 90 % of the section eight housing in our county. And again, just our makeup is very, very different than

the school districts that surround us. So a little bit about PA also to give it context. PA, we like the saying in Pennsylvania, if you know one district in Pennsylvania, you know one district in Pennsylvania. There were 500 school districts in the Commonwealth, mostly municipal and locality based. So we do not have county based systems. We have districts all the way from the hundreds of students all the way up to

like the school district of Philadelphia, is almost 200,000 students. So, Norristown, we have 8,000, just short of 8,000 public school students that attend our schools. We serve three municipalities with about 80,000 residents. Our makeup, about 85 % of our students are black and brown. We are a minority majority school district in that while we are predominantly non-white, we were about 50 % Latino, about a third black.

about 11 % white and then small, multiracial Asian and other demographics. Three out of every four of our students is touched by some level of poverty. We are a community eligibility school district. About one out of every five students in our district receive special education supports and services. And rapidly growing population here in North Stem is our English learner population. We've grown by probably...

about 110 % in the past 10 years. And now one out of almost every four students in our district is an English learner. So again, just a little bit about, you know, kind of our journey. Happily married for 25 years, which God bless my wife for Darren, know, the, you know, the family aspect and school leaders and the time it takes put strain on the house. So my wife is gonna be enshrined as a saint just for, you know, putting up with me for all these years and

Darrin Peppard (: 05:56

No.

Christopher Dormer (: 06:09

proud girl that about three teenage daughters that are what it called as a prop product product of public schools and whether to attend public schools here in the commonwealth as well

Darrin Peppard (: 06:18

There we go, man. There's so much good stuff there. So many things to celebrate there. think first and foremost, the Girl Dad thing. Yep, I'm with you right there. Girl dads, we got to stick together. Sometimes it could be a little bit interesting being a girl dad, for sure. I want to go back to something you said way back at the very beginning about the beginning of your journey. And I want to preface it with this. So listeners like

really pay attention to this here. I think this is a huge piece. When we look around walking our campuses, when we're in classrooms, and we're thinking about building the bench of leadership on our campus, don't just look at your teachers. The fact that you began your career, I wrote it down, I think I got it right, elementary support professional.

Christopher Dormer (: 07:17

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Darrin Peppard (: 07:17

behavior support,

You know, go back to when you started that. You said that was your first four years. Do you think at any point in time you thought someday you'd be a superintendent of schools?

Christopher Dormer (: 07:26

Mm-hmm.

Honestly, Darren, no. When I look back now 29 years ago, I saw that as my pathway to getting into education to just have a positive impact on kids. When I was very lucky my entire life that I had great teachers attending great schools, and it was the people that leaned into me. My mom was a Catholic school teacher for 25 years.

see everything she poured into kids. And originally went to college thinking I was gonna go to medical school. And it was my experiences there that nudged me to education, but it was things like when I graduated high school, was a competitive swimmer my entire life and started doing some coaching, know, early college years of just lifeguarding, hey, let's coach in the summer. And was some of the feedback I got from the adults.

Wow, you know, you ever thought about going into teaching? You're really good working with kids who really seem to have an impact on young people where to me it was, I don't say an easy pivot because it was a hard decision to move to that pre-med track over education, but it was, you know, always I went into pre-med cause I wanted to help people and have that impact on people's lives. And to me it was just a different way to do that. You know, instead of helping them medically or, you know, anything along those lines, it was going to be the impact I have on their life, preparing them for their future life.

whether teaching them a skill or allowing them to get knowledge, learn something about themselves. And I really am appreciative that spending those years graduating originally with just a biology degree and having to go through that teacher certification program. But those four years I spent in elementary emotional support were so formative because it really grounded me in what education is and what it really takes to be successful.

you know my mind what it was going to take to be successful in a classroom and it was something that i think you know really proud the work we've done here in our center fast-forward twenty nine years last year in our district in pennsylvania we have to do a comprehensive plan every three years are you you engage your community you know your big goals are big targets and one of the things we decided last year that that again i think it's true to me as a as a as a human street is an educator was also why

I mean, listen, God willing, the community will let me retire from here. Again, just that connectedness and that alignment was we made a change in our mission statement, which I mean, Darren, know, all mission statements have some version, you know, we're here to educate students and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? We made a very intentional change from the word all students, or the word all in front of students to each and every. And I think you know the importance of that. You know, when you talk about all, you talk about buckets.

Darrin Peppard (: 10:08

Right.

Christopher Dormer (: 10:22

And sometimes, you know, then you're, it's okay when the bucket makes progress, but you know what, you're accepting that maybe one or two or three don't get the same experience as everybody else. And, you know, to me, it was a very proud moment that our community said, and our entire team said, we need to be accountable to each and every child, each and every family. And that's something I learned 29 years ago. You know, here were students that,

were identified with, you know, just a different set of challenges, you know, emotional disability, needing emotional support, you things that got in the way of the barriers they're learning. And every single child, and I still can remember by face, by name, by parent, 29 years later, you know, about what drove them well in school. What were the things that derailed their learning in school? But it really just imposed upon me this idea of, you know, you have to see

every child for who they are you have to really lean into their strengths and you have to find ways to program in ways that they're going to respond positively so that they can continue you know limitlessly with growth and achievement going forward. You know there were some days for me it was you know let us child start in class and they just needed I needed to facilitate them in a different setting a little bit quieter a little bit more focused a little bit this sometimes it got to the point of where

We tried to keep them in the settings so they could be part of a benefit and they just, you know, stimulus overload. Let me take them for five minutes and give them a setting so that they could come back and reengage. And those were things that always, as you look, you know, one of the first things when I became a high school biology teacher, the Upper Every School District, I asked for, you know, we used to do a very, very distinct, you know, kind of leveling tracking.

And I would always ask for, said, you know, listen, give me those lower level kids, you know, cause and I walked in there every day and said, you know, I believe in you. You're not lesser. I'm going to push you, but I'm going to support you with every step of this journey. And you know what? I remember vividly every, every semester, you know, by level, you would give the big final exam. All right, let's get all our scores together. Cause in debt, you know, undoubtedly like, you know, you're talking about a curve or whatever. And I was found with my kids performed on the higher end every single time with consistency.

And it didn't take me long to figure out is because I, the care that I tried to show them, you know, I believe in you. I think that is it's universal. When you show a kid, believe in them and Darren, you know, this there's research out there that shows when students believe in adult cares about them, 30 to 40 % higher academic achievement. And, know, I've always tried to ground my work as when I directly interact, instructional assistant, classroom teacher. And then as I moved into leadership, where you get a little bit more removed,

making sure the teachers, that was a focus, making sure I set the conditions up so that teachers could have that direct impact and account for the each and every. You know, it's hard in large systems. Like you said, I was principal of a school of 4,200 in a single site. I'm a superintendent now of 8,000. It's very, very easy if you allow it to let kids fall through the cracks. And, you know, to me, it's just, again, going back to that, that is a lesson I've learned. And because people saw it in me and said, what can we do to help you get certified?

And then when I became a teacher, who was people that saw in me, what can we do to help you take that next step and get the principal certification? you know, and then central office, like we need to get you to into a doctoral program, into a superintendents program so that we can, you know, you, you know, so it was the people that saw it in me. And now it's, I believe in that, you know, that I had to pay it forward. What can I do to, to influence the next generation of, of leaders, teachers, kids, you know, just so that everyone's better at the end of the day.

Darrin Peppard (: 14:07

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's, there's, again, a lot of things to unpack from that. You know, one of the things I've been talking about it a lot lately here on the show, it's something, you know, certainly we're really proud of our new book, Culture First Classrooms. Actually, one of your teachers, Andrea Bittner, is a contributor to that new book. But that focusing on establishing that culture first and foremost in the classroom of each and every, I think is, I think is huge. And

Christopher Dormer (: 14:24

Yes!

Darrin Peppard (: 14:37

And I'm curious from from and this is probably going to take us into some of the proactive leadership stuff too, but as as the leader of. A district with 8000 students, so several hundred employees, probably you know 810 1215 buildings, whatever number of buildings you might have. Your expanded leadership team is probably fairly sizable.

How do you, as the superintendent, take that new mission, just that piece alone, each and every, that flip in the culture from all to each and every, how do you take that to that leadership team? And more importantly, how do you ensure that that leadership team can take that out to where it becomes each and every classroom focusing on each and every student?

Christopher Dormer (: 15:36

Darren, that is a great question and I think that's the million dollar question in education nowadays. How do we make sure every child is successful and how do you scale in very large systems? Here in Norristown, 8,000 students, we're 12 buildings, we're about 1,000 employees, and my district leadership team, which is cabinet level, our building leaders, our administrative leaders, and members of our mid-management team, we're about 50.

So, you know, we meet monthly and a couple years ago, I recognized that if we're going to be true to our mission, if we're going to do that, we needed to change the focus of how we meet and the time we spend together. And, know, cause when I was raised, it was very simple. You came to a central leadership meeting and not to say you were talked at by central office for about two to three hours, but you were, it was an informational meeting, right? Here's what you need to know. Yeah. Here's what you need to know. Here's what your focus is going to be.

Darrin Peppard (: 16:25

Yeah, sounds about right.

Christopher Dormer (: 16:32

And then at the end, maybe you got three seconds of like, we'll do a quick round table. How you doing? know, and Darren, you probably experienced the same thing in your career where, you know, the unspoken thing was don't open your mouth and don't rock the boat. Right. And not to say again, I think that was, you know, that was a different time in education. and certainly, you know, I listened, was I guilty of, know, listen, you, lot of times you. Implement the way you know, things I think we've seen that a lot of times with classroom teachers, they will.

their default teaching methods or the way that they learn best the ways that they they have experience with themselves and the pushes here. How do you get it to be reflective of the learner and not the facilitator or not the teacher. So, you know, certainly when I, I began as a superintendent, yeah, it was these long two, three hour meetings and like, we're to talk, you know, also you, I think it was making sure that people understood here's who I am as a leader, making sure we're all working from the same knowledge base.

But what found over time is like, you don't have to repeat that every single month, two to three hours every single month, you know, you you spend time when you're onboard new people. People, you know, know who you are as a leader. They know the expectations. And so really for the past couple years, I'd say two, three years, we've taken our district leadership meetings and turn them into monthly learning opportunities where we put that two to three hours aside for how do we grow as leaders? How do I sit there? Because to me, one of the best ways to make sure that

my leadership team building leaders or when district office will go out to support buildings is to make sure that we have common vocabulary, make sure that we are implementing best practice and we're taking, listen, everybody is unique, but I think the power in us as an organization marching towards a common mission is if we can learn certain behaviors or implement things with some consistency. So that also,

you know, teachers, much like, you know, your own kids, what's one of the favorite ways kids try to get things over on parents play mom against dad, right? Get mom to say one thing, get dad to say another and kids try to find wiggle down the middle. Well, and listen, teachers are no different, you know, they're gonna sit there and you know, if I go in a classroom and I give them feedback, they're gonna try to sit there and you know, get play my angle against maybe some daily feedback they're getting from a principal. So can say, well, that's not what I was told. And so, as I said, we really have been trying to focus on

that kind of that Norman culture on leadership. So we've tried it a couple different ways. We've been focusing on culture responsive teaching, culture responsive leadership, things around community engagement. This past year, we've actually been on an incredible journey through admired leadership, which was founded by a gentleman through business who was studying some of the best, like the Fortune 500 companies about

what makes certain companies thrive over others in terms of leadership. And what the premise is, is that there are behaviors that can be learned and can be replicated, but can also be personalized, which I think is the key to that. It's not just saying go do this, is a robotically or this. It is understanding what a behavior is. So we just literally spent the past four months on how to give on feedback, ways to give feedback and have, because listen, you want to talk about improvement?

The best way you get anyone to improve is to provide them with regular and actionable feedback. And I think it's also one of the worst things in general in education that we're really bad at. You know, we give surface things or you go in and you see a lesson and it's like, that was a great job. What is actionable to the teacher of like that was it, or that lesson wasn't, what about the lesson wasn't so good? Was it the teacher was talking too much? Was it they weren't asking them high level questions? Was it, you know, they keep selecting the same kids?

Was it you lectured at them? To me, it's got to be specific. It's got to be actionable. So we've literally spent the past, since the beginning of the year, every month, learning just the different behaviors, different routines, different strategies. now we're also pouring into each other right now. So we have accountability partners where we monitor each other. How often are you giving feedback? Let's walk through the feedback you've given. So we're getting feedback on our feedback so that we're continuing to grow.

But I think that's a really key thing. Darren, when you talk about how can maybe a vision that I have for the school district or that the school board has or that we have collectively, how do we get that out there is we all have to be talking the same message. So if we can get everybody to understand and start personalizing, but talking the same vocabulary, focusing on the same things, it's going to go a long way. And I think the other key thing is just making sure as regardless of

Whatever size district is the superintendent, you have to be where the rubber meets the road, which is classrooms. You cannot sit there and say, go do this and not be there to see it in action. You know, that's really been a kind of a marching order that I've had with our entire cabinet team. You need to be in schools. You need to be with our teachers. You need to be with our kids to see what their experiences are and be willing to, you know, to have two-way communication in terms of feedback. think as schools,

Traditionally, we're really good at pushing messages out to our community. With Stark, we've been really bad about inbound communication when they're saying to us about the things that work or don't work for them. And so again, something we're working on very intentionally, how do we listen more intentionally to our students, to our parents, about how we can best serve? How can we meet the need of the each and every? But part of it is you have to understand what each and every child in each and every family needs first.

But the only way to do that as I talked about is you have to be there, boots on the ground to be able to do that.

Darrin Peppard (: 22:16

So I'm curious. I think this is also another one of those proactive pieces. Quick story. One of the many schools that I work with, this particular one in Virginia, spent the better part of the week with them recently. One of the schools, the leadership team, is completely beholden to other people's crises.

We have this habit, especially early career leaders, of allowing the important to fall victim to the urgent. So with you holding this expectation, which I think is fantastic, and I also think it's just a must, we have to expect everybody is going to be supporting in the classroom. If you're cabinet level people aren't modeling it.

Christopher Dormer (: 22:55

Mm-hmm.

Darrin Peppard (: 23:12

Why would your principals do it? And if your principals don't do it, why wouldn't the assistant, you know, and so forth, right? We have to, you're absolutely right. Be there where the rubber meets the road. You got to be in the classrooms providing actionable and real time feedback. You really, really truly do. But again, so many school leaders, school leader that I work with in Connecticut told me recently, you know, well, not recently when we first started working together, I can't be in classrooms.

Christopher Dormer (: 23:13

Mm-hmm.

Darrin Peppard (: 23:39

What if something happens? I need to be here in the office. I'm sure you've heard these things. I have my go-to responses with that, but I want to hear something from you. How are you when you get that pushback or if you were to get that pushback? I'm sure you get some of it. What are some ways that you would suggest for other leaders to push back and say, no, no, no, we've got to stay on what's important?

Christopher Dormer (: 23:41

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sure, no thank you for that Darren. I think I'm gonna kinda go two tracks with this. One of which is some strategies we've used here in our staff. It was something I went through as a principal. This was the nah-ha moment when I had was a principal which was, I was pushed and challenged by a very influential mentor of mine years ago when I was a principal and said, what is the most important thing that goes on in schools every day? Teaching and learning. And then.

pushed and said, how much time, if it's the most important thing you do, or we do, which should be focused on, how much time are you spending a day on that? And literally said, pull your calendar up, your week calendar, we all have Outlook or Google Calendar, whatever it is. And he said, go ahead and note, total up the minutes. How much time are you spending on that which is most important versus down exactly as said, everything else that is urgent, management issues, you know.

parent meetings, get pulled to this, get pulled to that. And it was that reflective piece of mind where, you know, we, we, we've put some non-negotiables in, in, in with our leaders, you know, that to say that you need to schedule X amount of time next to number of visits every single day. Because again, if it's, if it's the most, if you're saying teaching and learning is most important, outcomes are most important, improving kids is most important and you're not there. You're, you're, telling everybody else that it's not important.

and that they don't have to take it as seriously as you need them to. You know, so like I said, we have really tried to do this idea of kind of calendar analysis. I've suggested, and I still do this, it's funny that, you know, our district colors, as you can see, we're blue and white, we're the Eagles up here. When I learned that, I was down in Upper Derby, we were the Royals, purple and gold. Darren, I still tag all of my instructional leadership, dedicated time, purple.

even though the default of my calendar is blue, because you know, it stuck with me then and that's reminder back to when I was a building leader, right? Time with kids, time with teachers, time in buildings, time in teaching and learning has to be sacred. And my assistant knows this, like if you see a purple, you don't touch it. You don't ask to move it, you don't do anything. It's time where we need to be. We've asked all of our leaders to do that. And again, my regular presence, I schedule 90 minutes on a regular basis with my principals. I go and do two things.

I meet with each building student advisory council. So I'm meeting with the kids, listening to them. And then I spend the balance of the time with principals going and visiting classrooms so that we're there together. We're talking instruction, we're talking best practices, we're talking what the needs are again, to move the needle with kids. So, you know, that's just kind of what we're doing in the here and now. But, know, Darren, think, you know, why it continues to be a need in education, why we have to focus on that is, you when you talk about chasing the problem, you really, you talk about crisis leadership.

Right? I think we are still stuck five years after we shut down in COVID and very interesting, you know, that we meet today. This is almost the five year anniversary to the day that Pennsylvania schools shut down for COVID. And, know, when, when, when we originally said we're going to take a two week pause and that was the end for the school year. but you know, I to me, that was really, I would say the baptism by fire that many school leaders had with, with crisis leadership, you know,

Darrin Peppard (: 27:17

Yes it is. Yeah.

Christopher Dormer (: 27:33

How do we do this? And it was, it was focused on the problems, you know, how we deliver instruction, how we feeding our kids, how are we doing this? How are, and you know, when you, just became, you did, you had to become laser focused on things with that. But I think one of the side effects of that was it somewhat became not only a norm for leaders to that, because we lived in it for.

I mean, God, I would still argue we're still living in an era of crisis leadership, but when it's your daily norm for the better part of two or three years until we fully got back in person and had all the COVID restrictions go away, it just becomes what you do. But I think as a side effect of that, Darren, our students and families learned that's the way that we should operate. I think you look at what's going on in public education now, I think everything now has become a crisis, right?

and the expectation that schools and leaders will respond as if it's a crisis to your point. know, when you have to balance that, I have an hour and half at Paul Fly Elementary, which is one of my schools, and here comes the parent banging on the door and I'm gonna go to the TV station if you don't meet with me, right? On something that, you know, I'm sure we'll get settled. It doesn't need to be the second, but to that parent, because again, they'd be conditioned and that we operate in crisis now all the time.

And this era of instant gratification that we moved into that I need my answers now and not, you know, and a parent may not accept the fact that, listen, what is most important is that our children are getting a quality education and I need to be there to monitor that and work with our leaders on that. And I'll see in two or three hours, but that's the best I can do. You know, I think there's this layer of that we've been, communities have continued to ask of us to respond as if everything's still in full-time crisis mode.

And that is exhausting for leaders. And it's a lot of work to try to get people to move off of that back to again, you know, something where, where we operate with some sense of normalcy, more proactive and less not only reactive leadership, but reactive and immediate. I think is, is, you know, has been, again, it's been, been a difficult transition for people. And you see it, you see the number of people that are bailing out of principle ships and are, and are leaving superintendencies because that type of leadership is exhausting.

It's absolutely exhausting.

Darrin Peppard (: 30:00

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I really appreciate that perspective and hadn't really thought of it exactly that way. So I really appreciate the reflection right now on how much of what we see and feel from our community. We've kind of done to ourself unintentionally. It's not like, not like we set out to, to put everybody in, in crisis mode all the time, but you're right. We, we did jump.

right at we have to solve this, we have to solve this, we have to solve this. And let's be honest, for the most part, we did a pretty darn good job. And I think because of that, you're right, I think people do expect much more now than they probably did previously. Not that before the pandemic, we didn't have times where a parent expected you right now. I mean, that just that happened. But you're right, I think it is more and more and more frequent. And back to this school that I was

Christopher Dormer (: 30:37

We did.

Darrin Peppard (: 31:00

talking about before, just being there and observing them. And they're probably one of the most urgent driven leadership teams that I work with. And certainly, it probably was something that was conditioned into the community as well. So I really, really appreciate that reflection. Man, this is just such good stuff and such an incredible conversation.

Christopher Dormer (: 31:19

Mm-hmm.

Darrin Peppard (: 31:27

Not a big surprise. Our time has absolutely flown by without question about that. Just so much value in here, Man, if you didn't take some notes, listen again and take some notes, because there's some great stuff in here. But we're not quite done, because Chris, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast at the end of the podcast. You've shared already a lot of things that you are doing, but

Christopher Dormer (: 31:30

you

Darrin Peppard (: 31:55

But maybe give us one more thing that you're doing to lean into leadership right now.

Christopher Dormer (: 32:00

Sure. I would say I'm doing two things, if it's okay if I can share two, Darren. One is I think, you know, as we continue this transition, trying to get back to more proactive, you know, forward-facing leadership has been leveraging your network. I think I've never been more in touch with my colleagues. You know, as much as I started saying, there's 500 districts in PA and we're all different. But there's similarities in the challenges we have.

Darrin Peppard (: 32:03

Absolutely.

Christopher Dormer (: 32:29

but you know, what, what I find is, you know, and I've leaned in particularly the past couple of years as I've gotten more and more and more involved with our, with our state organization is there's a lot of good talent. There's a lot of great people, and ha just having somebody that can be that, that trusted person you can go to, you know, to talk through things, to get ideas from, you know, I think you're down. We, talked before we jumped on the, on the podcast that in your leadership.

Educational leadership can be a very lonely job, especially further you go up. You think about my district where you go from a classroom teacher where you're one of dozens to a principal where you're the one in that building, but in my district you're only one of 12. But then if you keep going up to the superintendent, there's only one of me here as much as I have my team. So I need those people that are living what I'm living, maybe a little bit differently. And I'm lucky that I have an

network of people that I go to, that I trust, and that also are willing to stretch me as a leader. They're willing to push my thinking, are willing to probe into, what are you thinking? And so as much as I'm learning from them, I hope I think that they're learning from me. The other way, I mentioned admired leadership a little bit earlier, which is making sure that I am developing our leaders. We can't, I can't do it alone.

Being the one superintendent does not mean I'm everything to everybody. try to, you know, I say, I look at my role as the best thing I can do is to set the conditions for everybody else to be successful. I'm not in that third grade classroom teaching math, but if I make sure that the principal has what they need to make sure the teacher has what they need to make sure the kid has what they need, bingo, I've done my job and you know, we're doing that. But to me, that making sure that the leaders have the skills and the knowledge and all those things to be successful.

So doing this, you know, doing the journey that we're on with admired leaders to make sure my leaders are giving everything that they need. We're being proactive, quality feedback, you know, can set a vision, can talk a vision, can align with a vision and can take that and put into action to mirror all important skills. But I'm actually excited for what's going to be the second and third year. Cause we, know, this, the contract we have with my leadership is a multi-year journey that after we go through the initial round of this and we learned the behaviors.

This is really cool, Darren. Everybody on that team has to tap somebody else in the organization and say, I see something in you and I want to see you grow as a leader. And I want you to come with me on the admire journey. So that not only to me are we creating the next generation of school leaders, but also to me, we're bringing more people in that we can talk the same talk with. And hopefully we're sharing the same lens.

And we're going to get a whole lot more done when our alignment is there. We're all running the same direction more powerfully with stronger hoars.

Darrin Peppard (: 35:31

Man, I love that so much. What a great way to just, wow, to number one, have the tap on the shoulder. Number two, to just to grow that leadership bench. We were talking about that. I don't remember if that was before we hit record or while we've been on the show. Just some really, really powerful stuff there. Man, so much, so much good stuff today in this episode, Chris. I appreciate it so much. People are going to want to get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to connect with you?

Christopher Dormer (: 35:44

Mm-hmm.

But really, the best ways I would say is either shoot me an email. I'm rather new to LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is a great way to connect. I've quickly learned the power of that as a social media and a connection tool. And really, just the way it is a great professional network. Or pick up the phone and call. Happily, leave me a message. And as people reach out, I'll get you my cell. And to me, anybody that I can help, I'm happy to do so to pay it forward. But also, listen.

I'm always looking for people that are gonna add to my network and are gonna help me grow as well. So, I love being a partner in the work with many, many, many different people. So, please, Darren, if you can share out my contact info. I would love to help and be helped at the same time.

Darrin Peppard (: 36:41

Absolutely.

Absolutely, yes. We will have all that in the show notes for you. And this was a great time. Chris Dormer, thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Christopher Dormer (: 36:53

Thanks so much, Darren. Appreciate it.

Darrin Peppard (: 00:01

Man, I really appreciate Chris Dormer joining me here on the podcast. Just so much incredible wisdom. There are so many great insights. I genuinely appreciate my connection with him and having him here on the podcast. And now it's time for a pep talk. So today on the pep talk, I want to talk about vision, something that Chris talked about during the podcast, but I want to talk about it in a little bit different way. I want to talk about more of a short-term vision.

had a conversation recently and I shared this first as an email subscriber exclusive and then later in the week as a video that I shared out on social media. Had a conversation with a friend of mine in North Carolina just shortly after my keynote there about leadership. He's a veteran leader but he's new in the building as the principal this year. And he mentioned to me, know, hey, Darren, feel like

I feel like I see the mountaintop, which is great. You know, as a leader, when you can start to see the vision of where you can see your organization, your school, your district, whatever it is that you lead, when you can start to see that mountaintop, you really feel like, wow, okay, now I know where I want to go. But sometimes it's difficult to move people from the base of the mountain to the top of the mountain. And we need to remember that there are steps along the way. You know, if you were to go and

climb Kilimanjaro, you would have multiple base camps along the way. Places that you climb to, you set up camp, and then you're going to work your way to that next camp long before you actually get to the summit. So the reason I bring this up, and this is what the pep talk is really all about this week, is I want you to think about from now until the end of your school year. This episode is coming out

early April, so you don't have much time left. You're not gonna get to the mountaintop this year, whatever that mountaintop might be. Maybe you're like my friend Sean, who just started in this particular school, and you're thinking about that mountaintop, but in this duration between now and the end of school year, what is one thing that you can do? What is one win you can give your team? What is one thing you can accomplish so that when you close out the year,

Not only you, but your team feels like, yes, we have some momentum. Yes, we're moving forward. In other words, what's the one thing you can do to get to Basecamp one? What's that step? What is that success point? Think about what those are and then really push your team. Share with your team. This is what I believe we can accomplish this year.

in the six weeks we have left and the eight weeks we have left and the nine weeks we have left, whatever it is, what can you do between now and then to get from the base of the mountain to base camp one? If you can do that, you are setting yourself up for tremendous success and you're gonna be there. You're gonna be successful and your team is gonna see it and they're gonna say, man, I can't wait until next year. What do we do next?

I've got a lot of ideas on what you do next. You reach out to me and you say, Hey, Darren, let's, let's do a retreat this summer. Right. But back to the pep talk. Sorry. There's a little information, a little infomercial in there. Back to the pep talk. Just find that one thing folks. What is that one thing you can do between now and the end of the school year? Just get from the base of the mountain to base camp one. Don't try to climb the whole mountain in the six weeks you got left.

Hey, that's what I've got for you this week, folks. Thank you so much for tuning into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. As always, I appreciate you. I appreciate each and every one of you who go and drop those five-star reviews in, who drop in the amazing words of encouragement and reinforcement. You know, this past week when I shared out episode 200, holy cow, I got so many messages, emails and texts and that kind of stuff of people just simply congratulating me on reaching 200 episodes. Hey.

It's a commitment, like I said last week, folks, and I continue to be committed to you and your leadership. So thank you for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Go have a road to awesome week.