1. Dr. Alberto
Vazquez Matos
Chief of Staff
Hillsborough
County Public
Schools
EDUCATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
& ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
“A school of excellence is not about who we accept into our
schools, but who we give back out to society-Productive
citizens for the world”

2.  Reflect on your leadership journey
 What experiences have led you here?
 What have you done in your life that indicates leadership capacity?
 Know your story of leadership – understanding your history
and what has led you to this point will allow you to more
authentically lead.
A LEADERSHIP JOURNEY

3.  Context for leadership – what has worked in one time and
place may not work in another.
 Great leaders make history or…
 History makes great leaders
 You are chosen…uniquely chosen to be here today, in your role
as a Administrators for Educational Institutions.
 As people contributing to society, we believe that it is our
obligation to give back to our community as effective school
educators.
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”
Abraham Lincoln
TIME & PLACE

4. Growth = Leadership + Innovation
G = L + I

5. GROWTH
 We must continually challenge our closely held assumptions –
what was right as recently as a decade ago may not be so
today
 After careful professional consideration and analysis we have
to be willing to disrupt ourselves personally as well as
professionally if it is in the best interest of students
 This task is beyond just public school educators: the whole
academic arena has to be involved in promoting quality public
education
 Growth, however, should never be one dimensional – this isn’t
solely about teacher performance, or even academic
achievement.
 Results from succeeding in areas of Mentoring, Excellence, Service
Learning, and Student Leadership

6. LEADERSHIP
 In order to create long term growth and sustainability schools
need to have strong leaders who focus on establishing clear
Vision and Mission (culture), rigorous academics (excellence)
and active stewardship (service learning and leadership).
 It should be our primary focus – effective leadership
eliminates minor problems and mitigates large ones.
 Leadership in Mission
 Core of all that we do
 Leadership in Excellence
 Rigor and laser focus on student learning measured by data
 Leadership in Stewardship
 We are not owners but inheritors; obligation is to continuously improve
for future generations – return with increase

7. INNOVATION
 Schools need to adapt and innovate to meet the needs of
the 21st century family and student. The ways that have
worked in the past will not in the future so change is a
requirement for growth.
 Technology Integration
 Curriculum Innovation
 Language immersion, FSS, Blended learning, etc.
 We are limited only in our imaginations – tap into what you
are passionate about. Let us re-imagine!

8. “Leaders breathe new life into organizations by insisting that
the people and the organization need to adapt to changes in the
outside environment. Given the speed and complexity of
external change today, leaders need to stimulate internal
change to keep up. “The basic idea is that if your organization is
not changing and growing, it is dying.”
Blessings for Leaders, Dan Ebener (p. 82)
INNOVATION

9.  My intent is not to give you the reasons why to implement but to
identify things to do when you commit to move forward
 Applies to any tough decision you make
 Leadership has to come from you as a district or local leader –
can’t delegate to others when a tough decision needs to be made
 Good to Great by Jim Collins
 Level 5 Leadership
 Confront the Brutal Facts
 Five Leadership Principles
 Stick to your Core
 Relationships
 Reflect
 Confront with Tact
 Breadth vs. Depth
 Reflective questions
LEADERSHIP & PROGRAM
IMPLEMENTATION

10.  Paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will –
ambitious for the organization’s sake, not your own
 Look to set a path that will lead to even greater success after
you leave – set your successor(s) up to succeed
 How do you ensure your district or school succeeds and grows for the
next 100 years?
 What steps do you take right now to help ensure that it does?
 Passionate need to produce sustained results with workman
like diligence
 Look out the window when there are successes and in the
mirror when there are failures
 Level 5 Leaders attribute much of their success to luck and
others rather than personal input - humility
LEVEL 5 LEADERSHIP

11.  To lead is to make decisions; to make decisions is to
displease some who are being led…
 Decision making can cause anger and frustration with key
stakeholders
 Key is to have a core:
 ‘All about the kids’
 ‘All students will learn’
 ‘Compassion, care, good character will be tangible throughout the
school’
 Return to the core when key decisions need to be made and
you will be consistent
 It will earn you respect but not always love
STICK TO YOUR CORE

12.  Relationships drive everything
 Key in any leadership role but especially in schools
 Daniel story
 Empathy is a key leadership trait
 Understand what people are going through
 Active listening is important
 All relationships are important but don’t let adult issues
affect the students
 Presence establishes relationships
 Invest time in knowing names and histories of principals, teachers,
etc.
RELATIONSHIPS

13.  What core principle is central to you as a leader? Think
specifically about instructional leadership: what is a non-
negotiable for you as a school leader?
 Over the long term how can you set up your successor to see
academic growth and success for students?
 How do you ensure that the focus of any decision is student
focus vs concern about adult perceptions? In other words, how
do you ensure that adult issues don’t influence how you make
decisions?
REFLECTION QUESTIONS

14.  In order to grow into greatness, you must face the brutal facts
of your current reality
 You should create a culture wherein people have a
tremendous opportunity to be heard and for the truth to be
heard – especially by the leader.
 Lead with questions, not answers
 Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion
 Conduct autopsies, without blame
 Create red flag mechanisms that turn information into
information that cannot be ignored
CONFRONT THE BRUTAL FACTS
“My job is to turn over rocks and look at the squiggly things, even if what you
see can scare the hell out of you.” (Fred Purdue, p. 72, G2G)

15. Mistakes will be made – know that from the outset –
but the only bad mistake is one that you don’t learn
from
Good leaders are continually reflecting on their work
and they are continually trying to further develop
themselves professionally
Carve out time at the end of each day to reflect on
what has happened – good and not so good – and be
honest about how you can improve moving forward.
Write daily at the end of the day to reflect openly
about the challenges and successes you experienced
REFLECT

16. Conflict is part of leadership but how you handle
conflict will determine your success.
Two stereotypes:
 The table pounder
 The ostrich
 Neither is effective – a good leader confronts the issue in a tactful way
that allows the employee to know what is expected, how to get there
and what the leader will do to assist in the process
 Issues need to be addressed – documentation is important as is
positive and constructive feedback.
CONFRONT WITH TACT

17.  Extended Learning Time – Bell to Bell
 Depth, Differentiation, STEM
 From www.timeandlearning.org
 Make Every Minute Count (Depth) –
 Maximize every minute
 Homework collection, busywork, time off task
 Individualize Learning Time and Instruction (Differentiation)
 Remediation, Enrichment, Acceleration
 Mitigate homework and increase classwork
 Strengthen instruction and relentlessly assess, analyze, and respond
to student data
 To do this well requires time
 Look at the issue as a professional educator and have
confidence in your expertise
LEADERSHIP IN EXCELLENCE

18.  What is a brutal fact that I must confront regarding
instruction and learning in public schools in this district?
 What in my district do I have absolute trust in, regardless of
the present reality?
 What is some adversity that I am facing now that I have to
deal with head on?
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS

19. Gordon Bennett: “You can’t control the length of your
life but you can control the depth of your life.”
Same for your leadership tenure – plan for each year
as if it is your last.
Think long term but know that every day requires you
to bring your best – and to lead your staff to do the
same.
Focus energy internally – don’t obsess over things
which are out of your control.
GO BIG: DEPTH V. BREADTH

20.  When faced with a large problem, the inclination is to look for
a larger solution
 Might not be the best approach
 Small, practical improvements can build momentum
 Think of the problems we face as a giant hole.
 We have stopped digging, now time to fill the hole
 There is no big boulder, so we have to put rocks and pebbles in every
single day…
LARGE PROBLEM, SMALL SOLUTION

21. “Every day you may make progress. Every
step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch
out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-
ascending, ever-improving path. You know
you will never get to the end of the journey.
But this, so far from discouraging, only
adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
Sir Winston Churchill