Returning to the Heart of Servant Leadership | Transformational Educators Ep. 3

What happens when a leader walks into a hurting school and chooses to listen first?

In this episode of Transformational Educators, Dr. Ramiro Nava, Superintendent of Cotulla ISD, shares the powerful story of how he led a struggling elementary campus through a season of healing, growth, and transformation.

From one-on-one conversations with teachers to a game-changing meeting with a misunderstood parent, Dr. Nava reveals how servant leadership, trust, and consistency over time can rebuild an entire school culture.

Whether you're a new principal or a seasoned superintendent, this story will remind you that deep change starts with deep listening.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why servant leadership starts with humility, not authority
• How to build trust in communities that have been let down
• Why consistency matters more than charisma in school leadership
• The simple power of one-on-one listening sessions
• How to respond when staff are skeptical of new leadership
• A transformational parent conversation that changed everything
• What real support for special needs students looks like
• How to turn high-discipline campuses into places of belonging
• The role of male presence in schools with mostly female staff
• Why legacy begins with daily integrity

BEST MOMENTS

00:01:57. “One of the things that inspired me about your journey is the relationships I can see that you’ve built each place that you’ve gone.”
00:03:06. “Got in there and had the opportunity to just kind of observe and look and learn.”
00:05:05. “Experiencing firsthand that we had students who couldn’t provide for their own needs... I realized really quickly the approach had to be different.”
00:06:04. “As teachers started coming in, I took the time to just listen to people one on one.”
00:09:00. “There was one particular family... our teachers had said, ‘It’s a hard family. You won’t get much from them.’”
00:10:25. “He said, ‘You know, no one’s ever said that to me.’”
00:12:30. “We started to see more folks coming to our open houses, our celebrations, more folks being accepted.”
00:14:24. “What I’m telling you is I’m not sending them out. They’re staying in my office and I’m sitting with them.”
00:20:05. “The successes I’ve had in my career are because I’ve fallen flat on my face more than others.”

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Transcript

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Today on the podcast. Doctor Ramiro Nava. Doctor Nava is the superintendent of KHOU ISD, where he is known for his steady leadership, deep empathy, and ability to build trust in the communities he serves. Earlier in his career, he stepped into campuses that were struggling and guided them toward renewal by focusing on relationships, listening first, and empowering people to find solutions together. Today, we'll explore how he rebuilt trust in hurting schools. While listening is often more powerful than quick fixes and how servant leadership creates a foundation for lasting transformation. By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with practical insights to lead with empathy, strengthen relationships, and sustain positive change in your school community. Welcome to Transformational Educators, where we help school leaders create lasting change by sharing powerful, real world stories of servant leadership and practical strategies for transformation. I'm your host, Matthew Flippen, president of Grayson University, where we equip school leaders to make a lasting impact. Today, I am honored to have Doctor Ramiro Nava with us from K2 I-s-d, where he is a superintendent. And you've been the superintendent there now? I'm going on three years. On three years? Okay. You've already doubled the life expectancy of a superintendent. Yes. Doctor Nava has served in a variety of roles, including special education. Started as a teacher, I would assume. And were you at the elementary level? Yes, I was at the high school a teacher. Okay. yes. And then I've been a director of special ed. Okay. I've been a principal. I've been a vice principal, assistant superintendent, operations, and now Okay. of schools. Chief academic officer, I think. And now and now. Superintendent. Yeah. And around the area of K2. You all right? So South Texas, San Antonio and south. Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, looking up your background, one of the things that inspired me about your journey is the relationships. I can see that you've built each place that you've gone. I mean, that is a theme I think of your leadership is it starts with relationships. And so I'm excited to have you on the Transformational Educators Podcast today to share a story about when you were a campus principal and a and a principal of a campus that was hurting. Maybe when you when you got there. yes yes Which which principalship would that be? that was when I became a principal of Neil Armstrong Elementary, Okay. that was in South San Antonio, which is the. Okay. Yeah. Tell me about Neil Armstrong. When you when you got there. Armstrong was a small school right off of Ray Ellison Drive. A thousand people from South Central know that area is the hill, right? Okay. And so, is that a positive term? it is a positive, because the, the, the school districts divided by tracks and the old Kelly Air Force base. Oh, yeah. it was on the western side of what South San Antonio I-s-d was Okay. and so, being in that area, having the opportunity first time ever as a principal, got in there and had the opportunity to just kind of observe and look and learn. And at that time, there was a lot of poverty in that area. The city of San Antonio was going through some this they were, I guess, re resettling people from the housing authorities. There was some projects that were in different parts of San Antonio, and they were moving people out into section eight homes. And so that area was one that received a lot of Okay. But that's not to say that the families themselves were hurting. I think the families were yearning, not so much hurting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But being in that area and having the opportunity to be principal there, really, really opened my eyes to what, what people really need. And so going there, they had gone through principals before, their academics was, was not where it needed to be. But going in, I learned real quickly that I had to learn from them. Right. Give myself the opportunity to be taught and not come into the role as being the master teacher, I was being the teacher. Sure. And I learned a lot from our staff, from our parents, and mainly from our kids. We also, had clusters at that time. So we had the special needs cluster for those three elementaries. Okay. And so we housed all the students that would have originally attended one of those three schools Okay. all at Neil Armstrong. And that really provided me with an additional lens to really see, you know, what are the hard needs for some of our students, Sure. Sure. we take for granted that we can feed ourselves, that we can clean ourselves. Right? That we can go to the restroom on our own. But experiencing firsthand that we had students that were in education where they couldn't provide for their own needs. Yeah. I realized really quickly that the approach has to be different. And now did you have a special education background at that moment? I did not the the only experience I had at that time was the three hours. Right. The one college course that you take, Okay. a principal and special needs. And Okay, that's usually a quick crash course sure. Just kind of basic understanding. Yeah. Okay. But just looking at the need and the and the condition some of our students were in, listening to their families, listening to the teacher Yeah. Now, what did you do? How did you capture that? Did you meet with families? did so initially right when I first started there. You usually start about 3 or 4 weeks beforehand. And at that time you're going through all of the district protocols. Don't do this, don't do this, don't spend this, don't spend that. You don't have any money for thinking, okay, Right. So as a first year principal, you're getting hit with all the don't do's. And I never really heard anything what to do. So I said, well, I guess I gotta figure out what to do. Right. That's why we're interviewing this. So we can help people know here's what to do. Right. Yeah. That's great. We took the time and as teachers started coming in, I took the time to just listen to people one on one, created a one on one meetings so that I can go to them. Right. And that was just something that my mom and dad taught us. Right. In order for you to understand something, to take the time, Sure, sure. Yeah. There's a been the biggest lesson in every position that I've had in this career is just sitting back, just like we're doing here. Take the time and listen to That's right. Yeah, and have the conversations about I think there's a wise saying that says seek first to understand before being understood. Yeah, yeah. And that principle, you know, when it comes to relationships, is so critical, especially when you're walking into a place where there's hurting. Right. Yeah. And how was the staff hurting? What was it that was There just seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of turnover, a lot of there was a lot of empathy with, you know, go, here's someone else coming in, right. Okay. change things, going to this, kind of that. They weren't trusting that you were going to be there long enough. And it didn't help that I was a first year either. So it seemed like, okay, who's this here they're just young kid? Someone? Yeah, they're just sending us someone. They didn't know who they had. No. And honestly, I didn't know what they had either. Right. Right. So. going in and just listening, and learning from them, I still talk to people, and I still have connection with some of those teachers to this day about how they taught me how to be a better administrator for them. Yeah. Right. And so listening to their stories and then me just inquiring, well, why is that? And, well, you know, they always tell us. Yes. And they always tell us there's no money. I said, you know, I hear that too, but we have a budget. And let's look at what we can do, and let's look at a week in this and let's look at how we can approach this. Okay. And so just taking the time to just build, like you said earlier, those relationships with Right. and it takes time to do that. Right. Because when you build trust is consistency over time. That's right. Initially they, they, they kind of respect it. I think what I said because of the position that I had and I and I think that being consistent over time, they started to see, Okay. this guy's not going to do this. And the truth is I didn't know what else to do because that was my first Yeah. So so you were learning on the job by listening. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Hey, thanks for joining us today. One of the things I love about these conversations is how they remind us your work in education matters, and your commitment to growth can ripple out to change entire communities at Graceland University. We support educators on that journey through degree programs and partnerships rooted in purpose, not just credentials. For more information, see the QR code on screen or follow the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode. Was there any specific story you heard early? It was really hard. Emotionally hard. was there was one particular family that, our, our I had heard from our teachers, like, you know, it's a hard family. You don't really are going to get much from them because they don't the kids don't come to school. The kids are always in trouble. The dad's all tattooed up. And you know all the back history of Yeah, why we couldn't. Right. And it was not a long time before I had to sit and have a conversation with the family because one of their students did. There was a there was a situation. I don't remember all the details. But it was the build up. Well, be careful with that. And do we need to call the police? And Well, wow, I'm like, no, we don't have to call anybody. I said, I'm going to have a conversation and Yeah, we're going to start there. And so dad was probably twice as tall as I was and twice as wide and tattooed bald head. Come in. Very intimidating. But we went into the office. Secretaries, like, are you sure you don't want me to have backup with Saginaw to came into the office and I just in a crack with voice said Mr.. And I don't remember his name. I wanted to take some time to just have a conversation with you on how we can make things better for your son, and there was a long pause, and I felt like, oh, here it comes, he said, you know, no one's ever said that to me. I said, which part? He said, well, just just, sir, just receiving me with respect. Oh wow. And then wanting to see what you could do to help my us. he said, if you only knew that he always comes home. How nobody cares for him. Nobody asks for him. Nobody tells him how his day was. Nobody. Anything. He has this chip. Then he hates coming to school because he feels nobody likes him. him. I said, well, I can assure you that that's not the case, right? I think is that there's these preconceived notions of fear and intimidation as in other respect that may be coming from from you, or at least they perceive that, that people are hesitant. He's like, sure, I would give my shirt off my back for my kids. And yes, I've had a hard life and he did this, he says. But you know what? I made a connection. I reconnected with the Lord, and that's not me anymore. If I could take all this off, I would. I want to be here for my kids. I want to be here to do something for them. I said, well, this is where we start, right? I said, I'm learning to arm this. I said, I'm a new principal. I said, but here's my personal number if you need me for anything, if you need all call, you need me to call. You need to have him, you know, give me a call so we can encourage. Come as you call me. Are you sure? Are you like, if I was, I was asking validation from him. But in turn, he felt like he was asking validation Of course. Are you real? Are you for real? And that I think you both are asking. And that really hurt. That really hurt me because we've missed opportunities. Right. can hurt you with for the child. But it shook me because I said, well, I guess I am the principal now, right? And we can make these things happen. And so we just started then at that moment really started to have different conversations with staff and asking different types of Fletcher. And so we started to see more folks coming to our open houses, more folks coming to our celebrations, more folks being accept. Right. And so the irony was Friday night football in Texas is always a big thing. And in South San we have one high school. And so district leadership was like, hey, what's going on at Armstrong? And I'm thinking I'm doing something wrong. I'm saying, why I haven't heard anything. They're like, no, we've had some parents come and talk to us about how you're doing good things about how you're listening to them, about how you're how beautiful you're accepting them. And one ranking, one high ranking administrative goes, you know, we had a lot of problems at the school that that particular school in the past, we always had to call the police. There was always like, you know, have someone on standby. I said, you know, I, I recognized that early because I was asked if that's what I wanted. And we said, no, ma'am. that's not what we're going to do anymore. That's not who we are anymore. And so that just started to really help permeate. And teachers started to open up a little bit more, and it set the trajectory in my first year. Right. So I was there two and a half years because I had the opportunity then to move into the central office Okay. Now, now tell me, how did the little boy do? So he started doing very well. Right. He still was a little bit of a pickle. Sure. You had some failures to unlearn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but he, he ended up, doing very well Yeah. of that year. Right. Because it was we had the highest number of excess referrals. We had the highest number of the AP placement. And so when we started to tailor that my colleagues, other principals were like, why are you just now recording things? Because, you all had the higher numbers are going, hey, I'm telling you that discipline Yeah. The problem. Sure. What I'm telling you is that I'm not sending them nights. They're staying in my office and I'm sitting with them. And if they need my help to tutor, then I'm going to tutor them. If they need my help to redirect them, I'm going to redirect Okay. They're going to sit right here with me. So I'm going to send them to a room where they're going to just do not they're they're going to sit a church far behind the consequence there isn't one. There's no consequence of staying with the Right. Well, they didn't behave just so they could come spend time with you. Did they know this way so they could. Yeah. So, you know, and I had my, my my little regulars. Right. But even teachers started to notice, like, you know, you work really well with kids. your. For me, I just feel like, you know what? Some of them, in the absence of a, I guess, a father. Right? I just want to be there for them I can't be their father. I'm not their father. But at least the time can be positive. Oh, yeah. Positive male in their life. We can show them that there's a different way of Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the irony, too, is that there was only two males on that campus, myself, the principal, and then Mr. Gonzalez, because even our custodian was a female. Okay. So okay, all the teaching staff, there were all female, cafeteria staff were all Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah yeah, yeah, Oh, that's. So that is so incredible. So so how did you how did this vision that you had about being relationship focused? I mean, and it wasn't just about being relationships also having a positive outlook for the children. And no matter what your background is, you can become more than where you are right now. Definitely Right. Which is the same message we want to share with our teachers and other paraprofessionals. Yeah. Right there. You've got talent that you either don't believe you have. Or maybe fear is keeping you from from step one thing being in that role really has really forced me to self-reflect, Okay? right? Because in those situations and then the situation that I found myself in, I could have been a principal like they were, or like she was or like my predecessor was, or like somebody was. But I think I relied on just I'm going to be who I am, Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be who as because it's easier to just be me than it is to try to be something There's so much that I'm not sure here. so, so the, the whole transformational piece of this was really taking the time to listen, right? Don't be too quick to try to resolve stuff right. get information, to Take in information by interacting with people. And as you interact with people, you're establishing relationships, right? Yeah. Follow up with what you say you're going to follow up with, right? Even if it's, you know, I don't have that answer yet or even if it's a no, right. If it's a no, it's a no. People respect that. Right. Yeah. That's right, that's right. Yeah. No it can't be done this way. But let's look at this way. Let's figure out a solution. Right. Come into situations with a growth mindset. Right. Because in education we have our own restrictions that we put that are put in place for us. Sure we can still work within the means It allows right? Yeah, absolutely. I also have a strong feeling that educators, we're probably one of the most resourceful beings on this planet, like We can figure out a way. do more with less. Yes, yes. From resource standpoint, sight of what that And then the other piece really is, you know, it's in everyone's I feel it's in if, if every one of our core to want to better us or better the people that we're around. Right. And Should be. Yeah. And so then how do we do that. Right. Because if that's not something that you're bringing to the table, then why are we doing this work That's a great question. Like a medical physician. Right. You're there to help trying to you're they're trying to help people. Why are you here? That's right. Why did you do all that work, all that schooling Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. that are empathetic or in lack or have lack of empathy, I think that they, they may have gone through a hard time and they feel and we need to pull those people aside. Sure, sure not to. Some people have been wounded. Really? Yeah. And they need they need healing. Right. And it's reconnecting with them. Yes. And they came that that happens through a conversation. Yes. Right. So So when you got ready to go to the next assignment. Yes. How did that culture sustain. So it sustained. My vice principal and I work very, very well together. And he had been a vice principal probably six years before I had gotten Okay. Right. So there was a heavy reliance on that. Mr. Gonzalez was his name. Yeah. He always wanted to kind of work in the shadows, and I always felt like, no, you need to stamp. front. Yeah, you need to come up front, because what what's being displayed and was being implemented is really what you're asking. I'm just the vessel or the or the guy that. Yeah, that drives me. Right. And so so there was a little level. There was a level of sadness, right when I had to depart. Yeah. But I when he stepped into the stepped into that role Right. Oh fantastic. the principal, Yeah. So there's consistency of the culture that, that you'd established if there was, Yeah. Fantastic. And then from there I had the opportunity to go to a different school Yeah. Yeah. This reflecting back on that how do you feel about that accomplishment. Oh I feel positive. I feel like you know, for me, it's it's those real lessons in life. Right? It sounds like you learned a tremendous amount. Yeah, yeah. I mean I will tell you that the successes that I think that I've had in my career are because I've fallen flat on my face more than others. Right? People that are superintendents because I rub elbows with of daily. They don't want to share those secrets with you. But, the hard lessons come that come through failure, right? Yeah. I tend to think of I'm in this role because I've been blessed to be in this role. Right. I'm an educator just like you are. Just like you are, right? Currently in my role in Cotulla, I always expressed to our staff, there's no hierarchy here. We all are playing on the same level playing Yes. Right. That's right. only have one quarterback. We have two running back. Yeah right. I just so happen to be the quarterback, That's right. But we're all into it. Yeah we all get the same goal line that we're aiming for. Yes that's right. right right. That is such a great yes. Yeah I just I just feel like, you know, I've been blessed to be in this role. I'm not any different from anyone else. I've opened myself to, to listen and Yeah, and to take me feedback. And like I said earlier, if I if if I don't, don't fulfill something, I'm going to own it, Yeah, I own it. And I see my staff now saying, hey, sir, I'm going to own that. I'm sorry, Yeah. It brings us together, Yeah, It brings absolutely So following me. So thank you so much for sharing this. I mean, the the lessons about deep, deep listening, listening with with empathy Yes. and really caring about people sincerely. I mean, it really shows through in the way that the way that you lead and then that consistency and follow through, having integrity is really an integrity issue of if I say I'm going to do something that I follow through with it, no matter how small, and that builds that foundation of trust And Matthew and we're all we're all human. Right. So we can all sense if someone's being very authentic or when someone's not Yes. And it's easier to be authentic. Right. Yes. Yeah. I think it goes by exactly how you summed it all up. It's that right. It's people are going to judge you based on your consistency over time, Exactly I trust him? can I not the Z follow through does he not? Does he say does he follow up with what he says he's going to do? Or does he just kind of give me lip service and then disappear? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, being a superintendent allows me the opportunity to really move things at a faster pace, right. But never losing sight that, you know, the role that I have is just one among several. That's right, that's right. Quarterback on a bigger team. Yeah, it's a that's right. Well it's been a pleasure to get to have a great time having you. Thank you for being on Transformational Educators podcast. And so yeah really that was helpful. 000 so much so much. So that story was really emotional for me. I was trying to like, don't start bawling here because, because, you know, you know, you think about really what happened. I mean, this man had come to know the Savior. He'd had a transformation, but nobody could tell, right? Right. Because we still judge people by the outside. I think just everybody just was afraid. I Yeah. Yeah, was afraid because of what you hear and all this or whatever. And his past or whatever. Whatever, but giving people the opportunity. Yeah. So it's simple sometimes, you know, I think about that saying, sir to someone, just the little signs of respect right now. Important. Those are for people. So then you're doing such a great, such a great word. Me, I am just super pumped that you are leading there. And I can't wait to see what all happens in. Well, thank you, thank you. Yeah. And thanks for taking time. No problem. Middle of the conference and yeah. Yeah I really appreciate it. Thank you. I If today's conversation gave you fresh insight or inspired you to lead with purpose, please follow the show and tell a friend. It helps us reach more educators who want to make a difference. For more stories, resources, and tools to support your leadership journey, visit Graceland Edu. Until next time, keep leading with courage and care. If you want to keep learning about transformational strategies and education, click the next video.