Leading with Clarity: How School Leaders Build High-Expectations Culture - Dr. Rick Surrency | Transformational Educators Ep. 14

Want to transform a school’s culture and outcomes? Start with clarity.

In this powerful episode, Dr. Rick Surrency, 2023 National Superintendent of the Year, shares how intentional leadership raised Putnam County’s graduation rate from 54% to 92%. From overcoming a culture of low expectations to creating systems of trust, engagement, and teacher celebration, his strategies deliver measurable change.

You’ll learn how to:

• Set schoolwide expectations that stick
• Transform faculty morale through celebration rituals
• Build student engagement to reduce misbehavior
• Shift mindsets among veteran staff
• Engage families through community-first leadership

This is a masterclass in servant leadership, school transformation, and leading with courage

Key Takeaways
• Challenging low expectations begins with belief and clarity
• Instructional improvement starts with posting learning targets visibly
• Celebrating teachers builds trust and transforms culture
• Community engagement includes meeting families where they are
• Staff resistance is best overcome through teams and empowerment
• Clear expectations reduce discipline issues and improve outcomes
• Engaged leadership means asking good questions, not having all the answers
• Faculty meetings can become powerful culture-shaping spaces
• Building trust requires modeling integrity and consistency
• Student engagement reveals whether instruction is actually working

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Transcript

Dr. Rick Surrency: 0:03

I had to really come in and challenge people's beliefs and really say we are capable of doing great things better than we have in the past. That is Doctor Rick 70, National Superintendent of the year 2023, Florida's Superintendent of the year and current superintendent of Putnam County School District in Florida. When he stepped into leadership, he started by changing the conversation and challenging the beliefs that were quietly limiting what students and adults thought was possible. Through our schools. We've been able to set expectations community wide and really show that we are capable of a lot of things that other people thought we were not. He connects clarity and communication to real, system wide change. Under his leadership, Putnam County transformed outcomes at scale, raising the graduation rate from 54% in 2015 to over 92% today. We started a practice of having teachers actually post on their boards, actually what the learning target was for that day. We set a school wide expectation, and every time I walked into a classroom as what I expected to see by. The end of this conversation, you will learn how leaders use clarity, consistency, and community engagement to build a high expectation cultures and sustain real improvement. I'm Doctor Matthew Flippen and this is Transformational Educators. How was the school performing when you first arrived? They were rather, you know, below expectations. And I and I came in I had been an assistant principal at the elementary and high school level for about 12 years. And then I had the opportunity actually started as a principal in July of the late July of the year that I was taken, taken the principalship. So I really kind of had to jump on ship and, really get started pretty quick. But, you know, I came in, came in with a lot of ideas and all that. And, and really, I just, I was kind of behind the plane as I was flying it, so to speak. Well, I know that feeling. I think I'm still doing that even today. So. Yeah. So when you arrived, was there a, an expectation that you couldn't succeed there? And what where did that come from? If there was. And that's a great question. And I'm gonna call you Matthew, if that's what you call me. Rick. Yeah. You know, I've been I've been a assistant principal for, like I said, 12 years, primarily in my role as assistant principal. It had been mainly in operations and over discipline. And in that area of leadership. And really, I came in lacking the working knowledge, even though I've been a teacher of really, being in charge of curriculum and instruction and really, you know, the teaching side of being a leader. And, like I've said before, I came in more as a manager rather than an instructional leader. So when I came in, you know, I really had to embrace those people around me. You know, really look at my assistant principal and really, you know, kind of build that relationship with her. And, you know, through that transition. And I was there for ten years. I grew from being a manager to an instructional leader. You know, I think a lot of people around me said, you know what? He has a really did not really have the background to be a principal, to be an instructional leader. So that's something I had to grow into. And I would just say to your students, you know, don't let that limit you. You can you can learn as you go and learn as you grow as well. So, it's been a transitional process. And even through my time at superintendent, continue to grow. Yes, absolutely. You know, and I love that it starts with self-awareness. So, I mean, one, you had to be aware and then confident enough to believe that you could improve that. You know, we see leaders at times walk in thinking they do know everything. And and there might be some gaps in their, in their knowledge. And so that's well said. And I think, you know, doing that self-analysis and knowing where your strengths and weaknesses are. And I knew exactly where I needed to grow. You surround yourself with people who have those strengths that you you may not have in your own personal leadership. So, I think that that has really helped me to grow. And, you know, it it's like you said, it's not about me having all the answers. It's about me being able to ask the right questions. And those people around me have the answers. And, that's been my philosophy for many years now. Were expectations at the school. Where were those for students when you arrived? Well, when I came in, you know, the faculty was rather fragmented. You know, and not to disparage the leader before me, but, you know, there had been a culture of, you know, low expectations there. And, you know, actually, the community where the the school was located was in a low socioeconomic area of our community. And everybody said, hey, that schools are on the other side of the tracks. So to speak. That was a real challenge for me. I had to really come in and challenge people's beliefs and really say, you know what? We are capable of doing great things better than we have in the past. And, really, it was a culture building experience, you know, beginning that first year and really finding those people who could, I could embrace to be leaders within the faculty. And because there was a lot of fragmentation among the faculty as well, you had some strong leaders, you had some strong instructors, and you had some that kind of were all to themselves. So my my challenge during that time was really bring people together and build a lot of cohesiveness. What did you do early on that helped communicate that we're going to have higher expectations? Well, first of all, we came in and did a whole over overview of our instructional, process and saw that a lot of the instruction was pretty much what the teacher thought sounded good. We did not really teach the standards that we have in Florida, and there was not a clear focus on what students were supposed to learn for that day. And so we started to practice, having teachers actually post on their boards, actually, what the learning target was for that day and when when, students left the classroom, they knew exactly what they were supposed to have accomplished that day. So if you did, made that clear. And so it wasn't actually in writing. And they did not know what the expectation was. There's a lot of, ambiguity on what students were supposed to know. So that's the first thing we did. We set a school wide expectation. The learning target for that day would be posted on the board. And every time I walked into a classroom, that's what I expected to see. So that that was the first thing we did. And I think that really set a tone for, you know what? There's a there's a schoolwide focus here on improving instruction. Had such a great, tactical, example. I really appreciate you sharing that because I, you know, I think sometimes we can talk expectations, right? Hey, we need to have our expectations. We need to raise our expectation. But then there are some behaviors. This goes back to where you're you're management training, right, of how do we manage a process to an outcome that we want to get really came in handy for sure. This is not a rocket scientist but science. But, you know, managing behavior discipline and the definition of discipline is being a disciple and following. And and really it boils down to is those students are not engaged in learning if there's not meaningful instruction going on with that classroom, kids are going to, you know, find other things to do. And that's where you have a lot of misbehavior. So again, we want to make sure that teachers were teaching and provided that clear instruction. We wanted to see students engage. It wasn't just walking in and seeing the teacher being a savior on the stage. It it was involving going around asking students at their desk, what are you learning today? What what is the task for you today? And if they were unclear of that, then the teacher was not doing a good job of communicating that. So our real focus was on student engagement, making sure that students knew exactly what they were learning today and what did they learn? You know, and by looking at that board, they knew clearly what the expectation was. Now, was there anything that you had to do with parents to also raise expectations? Yeah, we had a lot of parent meetings. We invited parents to come in. We had a lot of, parent teacher meetings and especially from that area of our city, parents were not used to being engaged in the community. And they they felt disenfranchized they felt like they were outside looking in. So, you know, really being an effective school leaders about engage in your entire community and really, making them feel welcome. So again, we had a number of ways that we do that. Let me just say this one thing that we did to engage our teachers with our community. I started this practice while the principal during our pre-planning, and we would actually put teachers on a school bus and we would drive through the communities they serve. And because a lot of teachers did not realize, kind of like the level of poverty, the kind of homes these kids live in, the community itself. And it got to where that evolved into. We started delivering school supplies and teachers would actually get off the bus, and they would literally walk the community of these where these kids live delivering school supplies. And it was kind of funny because a lot of the parents became very suspicious thinking, these are door to door salesmen, and they would call ahead to their neighbors, watch how those people walk in the streets trying to sell stuff. And what's the word got out that these were actually teachers. People started coming out of their homes and meeting them on the street. And, it was kind of neat, Matt, that, Matthew, that, after a while, we had a hard time getting the teachers to get back on the bus because they were slow engaged. But you know what? We met people where they were. It wasn't like, hey, we expect you to come inside the school where you maybe have had bad experience in the past. We're going to go and meet you where you are. And that really brought down the temperature. And that to me, that was a game changer. That is such a wonderful example. I love that so much because, you know, the worst thing you want to do is meet a parent for the first time when their child has gotten in trouble and they've gotten called up for a discipline issue, you want to have already had a relationship with them, and they know that you are for them as a parent and you are for their child. And if you're calling them, it's because we've got to have a team meeting to get the the, the little person back on track or the big person if it's a high school. You know, because we want these children to be successful. So what an incredible way to do that. And I'm sure. Did that continue? Yeah. Every year I was there. Now, I'm not sure if my, my successor did that or not, but, every year that we did it, the teachers were asking me, okay, when do we get to riding on the bus to the community? And I was really surprised that our teacher really embraced that. But, I think it really opened their eyes about the the students that were coming in and their background. So, you know, back to communicating expectations. I mean, you know, part of that is understanding where people are coming from, but not using that and as an excuse that we that we lower those. I mean, we all know about the self-fulfilling prophecy studies that have been done. And if you expect greatness out of your people or your children, then you're going to get more than if you don't expect it. For sure. Was it a resistance to that that you encountered early on in your time in principal? Yeah. You know, in schools, if you know, when you go in there brand new as a, as a principal, you're going to have some really, ingrained people into the existing culture. You're going to have teachers that have been there for 20 years and, and they're thinking, okay, here comes another principal. I'm just going to shut my door and do what I always did for years and years. And really, the big resistance was those people who, you know, were used to doing things where they've been doing it, and they were just going to ride this out, you know, with this principal and wait till the next one showed up. And lo and behold, I was going to be there for ten years. So they finally figured out I wasn't leaving. It really started out where we started developing teams, you know, grade level teams. And really, not only creating those teams, but creating these teams with expectations. And they were going to meet on a regular basis on a weekly basis. And we provided expectations on what those meetings would be about. And my assistant principal myself would actually go into those team meetings. Not not that we were trying to, you know, spile them or force them to do stuff, but for them to, to be available for them to answer questions and to see that communication take place between maybe some of the newer teachers and some of the more experienced teachers. And we really empowered those, those teacher leaders to really take charge and to really lead those discussions. And a lot of times, those leaders may be people that were not the most experienced, but these were people who were behind in our mission. And, that that was really a change, too. Just by creating these small packets of, leadership teams, if you will. But here's something that we did that I think, I'll never forget. You know, we always have the principals, always had faculty meetings. And a lot of times teachers felt that, hey, faculty meetings are kind of useless because you just stand up there and give us information. You give us information that you can just send in an email. We actually developed a system of faculty meetings where we really did not talk about business and faculty meetings. We came together in faculty meetings, became celebrations, and we called them shout outs. And we would actually our school, the work, the, Jenkins Eagles, we were eagles. We would actually we had paper cutouts of eagles and we would pass these paper cutouts out to all the teachers as they came in, and we would ask them to write a shout out on that about another teacher in the room, something that teacher had done that was, noteworthy to share. And it started out kind of slow. We only had a few people share them out and all that. But, you know, Matthew, that evolved into a small thing, into a massive thing where teachers love to come to faculty meetings and to be able to share about their other, their peers in public with other teachers. And you can't imagine, especially for those less experienced teachers, for someone else on the faculty to share something positive about them. Maybe they observe them teaching a wonderful lesson, or they they like the way their kids are walking the lunch or something, something positive from their peers, very specific. And that changed the tone of our entire school. We really believe that people have, that that all of us have a need to be known, loved and inspired, inspired by purpose. And, and, you know, school can be hard at times. There's always positive things going on and there's always negative things, you know, at the same time. And so when we highlight the positives and we celebrate those, there's actually a lot of neuroscience behind like just what that does to energize us and refresh us. But I can imagine just when it came goes back to the expectation side that now as you're celebrating, I assume monthly at least, right, you're getting together and you're celebrating the good things you see in each other, how, you know, it's hard to stay, you know, resistant, quietly resistant to the change that's that they're seeing happen. So wow. That's outstanding. Rick, thank you for sharing. Well, we just, I always say we beat them over the head with kindness. If that's the thing. That's right. Sarcastic, but, Yeah, yeah, with positivity and kindness and love it. You know, the culture. Culture. You cannot. I'm just saying, as a future leader, you can all have learning and positive experiences going on until you change or you continue to change that culture. I always say that when big people are happy, little people are happy. And if you don't have that positive culture within your school with your teachers, that's going to percolate down to your students. So our our teachers became happy and continue to be happy. And, and I'm saying not happy in a laughing kind of way. But they felt good about what they were doing. They look forward to coming to work. And that really, you know, percolated to our students. And I have teachers today who I see in my current role in the maybe they've been retired, but they always come back and they talk about that positive experience they have when we all work together. Yes. Yeah. I was going to ask, is there a is there a teacher or even a student story from your time at Jenkins that really still just really touches you? You know, I'll say this and, and, I probably couldn't get away with this now, but I'll never forget I had a student with disabilities when I was a principal teacher came to me and said, you know what? This student won't do any work. He won't pay attention. And this is like February of a certain year, and I just cannot get this student to respond. But, you know, through investigation, I found out this student had a passion for working with his hands. And, you know, if we could engage him with his hands working on something like that, he would, you know, come around. So I had this old lawnmower at my house that had not been running probably for ten years. And I said, you know what? I'm I'm gonna think outside the box here, and I'm gonna bring that a lot more to school. And I called this student in my office, and they had the, or the back of my vehicle, and I said, I'll tell you what, you know, and I forget his name now, but I'm gonna make a deal with you. I'm gonna let you work on my lawnmower. And this is like February of the year. If you can get that one more fixed by the end of the year, and you pay attention in class and do well in class, I'm going to promote you to the next grade. Now. I couldn't get away with that now. But back then I did that. So what's funny is I'm expecting maybe he would have it finished by June. If then. Well, the next day, after he had the lawnmower, he had fixed my lawnmower overnight. He came to me. He said. He said all you have was a fuel. And he said, you just need to clean. You feel one and everything works. So I had to come up with something else to give him something to do for the rest of the year. But you know what the point is? And I tell that story. What the point is, is that, you know, kids need to be engaged. You need to find out what makes them tick. And that one particular student knew I took some time with him, and I was reaching really hard to try to find something for that student to get engaged with. And sure enough, he he was promoted without me saying he was promoted by fixing my lawnmower, you know? Yeah, it's a working class. That's great. That's great. I love that. I'll have to tell you another quick story, too, if you don't mind. You're, you know, one valuable thing that we all as educators love is when people come up to us as, you know, former students come up to us and talk to us. And, you know, I've been this is my 48th year of education. Thought I'll see parents and grandparents, you know, people that I taught and, you know, they're grandparents now. And, I have this one, probably, late 40s young man come up to me in a Walmart one day and he said, he called me by name. He said, you taught me back in the 1980s. You taught me history. And of course, I didn't recognize him. I wouldn't think of his neck and think of his name, but, I went along like I knew him. So, he was talking the talk, and I'm just shaking my head, and he says, by the way, do you remember the day in your class that your overhead projector caught on fire? I said, yeah, that's one of those things you don't forget. I mean, it literally caught on fire. If you knew folks out there, hopefully, you know what the overhead projector is. We don't see many those anymore. But I said, how do you know that? How do you remember that so many years ago? I mean, that's probably been 30 something years ago, he said, because I'm the one that set it on fire. And I said, I guess I need a writer, this one refer or something. I guess the statute of limitations have expired. But here's what happened, though. I was, I was a teacher. I was actually a coach. Then I had stepped outside of the classroom, by the way. Back. Back in those days, we used the US teachers and coaches. We put notes on the overhead and kids would have to copy them, and then I would lecture on them for the last ten minutes. You know, so that particular day, kids were copying notes. I stepped out of the classroom, took a phone call, came back in, and the things on fire burning. And, he said, I'll tell you what happened when you stepped out of class. Everybody was so bored copying your notes that I saw you slip out. And I lifted the lid of the overhead, and I showed a paper on the bulb and it caught on fire. And no more notes for that day. So the lesson was over. But you know, I laughed about it later, and I think about it that that just told me that students were not engaged in learning. They went to that extent to get out of that boredom. And we as teachers need to engage our people. It really is not about that. Let's just get delivering information. It's about engaging those students. Absolutely, I love that, I love that, yeah. You know, as though you learned that lesson way before he totally confessed to what he did. Yeah. But thank goodness it just burned the projector and not the whole room down. So absolutely. You know. Yeah. Well, well, that is awesome. I love it, I love it. Break. You know, I'd love for people. Just continue to follow you. What's the best way for them to connect with you and just continue to learn from these just incredible, stories and examples? I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on Facebook and, I try to share a lot of our things that we're doing in our district or Facebook and, you know, love for people that you can go to the school district in Florida and you can find me there and send me an email or however you want to do it. But you know, my passion now, Matthew, is, I believe, my role in, in, education now is to develop new leaders. I mean, I've actually taught college, master's classes of leadership, and it all starts to leadership. And it really does, you know, leader leaders time. And I always say this, every minute of his or her day needs to be about impact. You need to be doing something that's going to impact the largest number of people you can, things that you can delegate and have other people that are task, you know, those are things that other people need to do, the things that you can do every minute of your day to have the biggest impact on the largest number of people is what the most effective leaders do. And, I would encourage people to reach out to me, share your stories with me. I love sharing stories, but, most of the learners love to learn about what other people do and you know what? I go to conferences all the time, and I get criticized a lot about going to all the conferences. But you know what I learn, even with 48 years in education, I'll still learn about education. I learn about leadership. This is the most honorable profession there is in the world, and I can't be more proud to be a part of it. Absolutely. Well, I'm super thankful that you've chosen to, to continue to serve in a in such an impactful way. So, you know what stood out to me? Today? We're so, so many things. I mean, the the intentionality of, raising expectations and how you went about doing that, the the community engagement. That was so intentional and impactful, how you celebrated your staff. I mean, just just awesome. So it was really, really great to be with you. I'm very honored to be here, Matthew. And I hope somebody that's listening today will, reach out to me and just say, hey, I learned a little bit from listening to you, or I'd like to ask you some more questions and I love to talk to other people about leadership. Yes, absolutely. Well, if you found this episode valuable, please share it with a colleague who would benefit and and definitely reach out to, Rick, follow transformational educators so you never miss an episode. And until next time, keep leading with purpose and transforming schools into places where everyone thrives. 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.