INTERVIEW Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

Award-winning superintendent, author, on telling your district’s story, creating new leaders and staying focused

By Julie Phillips Randles

There’s more than one Joe Sanfelippo in the state of Wisconsin. A state politician shares this name, as does a dentist. You can also find a voiceover artist in California when you search this name.

But only one Dr. Joe Sanfelippo is fast becoming a household name, and that’s because he knows how to get his message out.

The superintendent, who’s also a keynote speaker at the CASBO 2022 Annual Conference & California School Business Expo, has a lot in common with the leaders filling the seats at his presentations. He graduated from St. Norbert College and started out teaching in a kindergarten classroom. He graduated to second and fifth grades before taking a position as an elementary school counselor and eventually landing in the principal’s chair.

Since 2011, he’s been the superintendent in Wisconsin’s Fall Creek School District, where his house is a one-minute walk from his office.

It’s a humble setup, and yet Sanfelippo will not stop talking up what’s happening in his district – to his staff, his community, his social media followers. “When they don’t know what you do in school, they make up what you do in schools,” he has said. “And when they make up what you do in schools, it’s not what you’re doing in schools.”

His focus is as uncomplicated as a country schoolhouse: 1. Be intentional. Every interaction matters because every interaction could be the one they talk about forever. 2. Open doors. When people outside your walls know what you are doing, it gives value to those inside. 3. Build people. People who feel that their work has value will go well beyond anything you asked them to do.

For Sanfelippo, the key to this leadership approach is storytelling, and he walks that talk in the most literal way. His #1minwalk2work leadership challenge, where he records immediate, doable, mind-changing advice to followers while he braves the Wisconsin weather to hoof it down the sidewalk and into the building, cuts straight through to the problems administrators will face in the next couple of minutes.

His messages: Be proud of your work. See the great things that happen today and don’t let tough moments steal joy. Leaders don’t need permission to lead. New doesn’t always mean better. Change makes you strong.

It’s enough to fill three books that he’s authored: “Hacking Leadership 101: 10 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Learning That Teachers, Students, and Parents Love;” “The Power of Branding: Telling Your School’s Story;” and “Principal Professional Development: Leading Learning in the Digital Age.”

Education Dive named Sanfelippo one of five K-12 administrators to watch in 2018 and its National Superintendent of the Year in 2019. His selection as a Future Ready Superintendent and a

Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

The first thing people need to do is come up with an identity.

Personalized Learning Leader last decade has earned him a seat at the table during White House summits.

Not bad for a small-town guy with a plan. As Sanfelippo says, “Go Crickets!”

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received and who gave it to you?

The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is from a former administrator who hired me to be a principal and then a superintendent. He told a story in front of a large group of people before he retired. He’s standing up there and he pulls a sock out of his pocket and says, “This is my granddaughter, Nora’s, sock. She’s 2 years old today, and when I look at the sock it immediately reminds me of her. Every time I look at it, I’m going to be reminded that she’s 2 years old. And when she’s 12 and makes a poor choice and when she’s 14 and makes a poor choice and when she’s 18 and I’m wondering what’s going on with her, I’m still going to look at her as if she’s wearing this sock.”

The parents in our school districts, no matter what happens with their kids, they’re always going to be looking at them like they’re wearing that tiny sock. So understand that when you have conversations with them, they still see their kids crawling, walking for the first time –no matter what kind of situation they’re in. And I take that to heart in two ways.

The first one is that’s what I want our teachers to see all the time. But I also want to look at it from a leadership lens to understand that everybody is part of somebody else’s story, and we don’t always know those stories. So we not only want to treat people how we want to be treated, but also treat them in a way that when they walk away from a conversation, they always feel like they were treated fairly, they were valued and they were understood.

People are familiar with the idea of branding when it comes to products like cars and clothing, but you’re an expert on school district branding. What is the first thing district leaders should do to establish a brand?

The first thing that people need to do is come up with an identity. Whatever that identity is, it acts as an anchor that you keep coming back to, and if you always pull that piece back and know why you do what you do and what that identity is, it’s a lot easier to build a brand.

Brands evoke emotion. Nike, Disney, Apple evoke emotions when you see their logos. What we want to do with our schools is turn our brands into an emotion that people want to talk about. We took a lot of ideas from major marketing companies and colleges that have a lot of supporters across the country. People will tell you, “I went to USC” or “I went to Texas” and they’re so proud. They wear the swag all over the place. How often do we do that with the high schools and school districts we went to?

We wanted to normalize that for the people that we serve because we want them wearing our stuff when they leave here. We want people talking about us in a positive light, and if we can do that through volume, there’s a better chance for the story that’s happening here to be told on a grand scale.

The thing about leadership in terms of branding is that you’re going to take a ton of negative heat for things that people perceive are going on in school districts, and if you can combat that with great stories that are happening, and they always come back to a brand, then there’s a conversation that can be had to move things forward.

There are still going to be people who are upset about what happened to them at school 25 years ago, when something happened at recess or they got a grade

they didn’t think they deserved, and then that becomes a story that’s also associated with your brand. Being able to not only create the identity but to continuously promote the identity is critical. Then people feel good about the identity and want to talk about it, putting you in a better position to move forward.

The other piece that’s really important is the idea that all interactions with that identity and with that brand are important because we never know which one is going to be the one someone talks about for the rest of their lives. If we understand that, it makes us treat conversations about the brand differently, because all of a sudden we can build momentum through it. We just never know which story it’s going to be.

That’s a big deal because every one of those interactions builds up social capital for the organization. So when we take a huge hit, when something bad happens, the hit isn’t as big as it would be if people don’t know about what you do or are still reflecting on what happened 25 years ago.

Education is facing a massive loss of experienced leaders due to burnout and stress. What are the first steps superintendents should be taking to create a pipeline of talented, capable school leaders?

First of all, it’s important for us to create value in the workplace for all areas of the organization. We do that by making sure that all of us in the central office understand what’s happening in other places in the building and other locations. It’s being able to help out or take over for a custodian, or being able to serve in a classroom or being able to spend time in the bus garage.

These are places that we really need to be really cognizant of, and I think we can change our behaviors to put ourselves in places where we’re finding people are starting to say, “I’m out.” Then we can understand what their world really looks like and why they’d want to be out.

The other piece is that there’s a tremendous number of people in districts who say they don’t know what the district leaders do, that leaders don’t understand what’s happening or they’re never here. So when we create opportunities by being around and being invested in people in their particular space – not just a once a month meet and greet with the superintendent – but you’re there on a Tuesday morning just talking to a bus driver before they go on their route or on a Wednesday before they start shoveling snow, we can begin to really understand what they do.

What this does for people is break the script of what school leaders have been in the past. It’s important to break the script to make sure they see a new side of the work you do, but also to give them an opportunity to lean into the fact that you’re willing to be in their space and try to understand what they’re going through.

It becomes an opportunity for a conversation in terms of succession planning, or making sure that we can build a pipeline for success. Part of being a leader is to create more leaders. And part of being a leader is understanding that building capacity to lead doesn’t mean that people are going to lead the way that you lead. It’s just giving them an opportunity. We’re not trying to create clones of ourselves as leaders, we’re trying to create better spaces. So if we allow people to lead from where they are, to lead the way they want to lead, there’s a much better chance for them to move forward and seek out more leadership opportunities.

We do have to be careful about the perception that there will be a leader who will take someone aside and say, “You should be a principal because you

Part of being a leader is understanding that building capacity to lead doesn’t mean that people are going to lead the way that you lead.

Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

The thing about building people is that we need to understand that everybody’s A to B is different.

have great leadership capacity.” If we don’t know them well enough to have that conversation, it turns into the person saying, “I have no desire to do that. I love teaching. Why would you devalue what I’m doing because you think I should be doing something else?”

We have to remember that it’s not your journey, it’s theirs. So the question becomes, how are you helping them on their journey and whatever they’ve decided to do? And then you need to be there to support what they want to do.

You frequently speak about “building people.” Can you share what you mean by this and why it leads to people going above and beyond in their roles?

The thing about building people is that we need to understand that everybody’s A to B is different. If we don’t value where they start at point A, they’ll never even take a step toward point B, even if point A isn’t where we want them to be. They won’t move unless we value where they start and build on what they do. When you do that, there’s a better chance of them saying, “He valued where I started, so now I’m willing to move a little bit forward.”

It’s about starting where they are and knowing what they’re looking for from the position they’re in, or whether it’s just about getting better across the board.

The second thing is knowing and understanding that everybody’s got some sense of influence over another group within the context of your district. It’s about knowing what that looks like and how you can make connections for people, because if we build some selfefficacy through that point-A-to-point-B mentality, we can build collective efficacy because people are now pointed in the right direction and can pull together.

Building staff means starting with valuing where they’re at, but it doesn’t mean that’s where it ends. Building staff also means providing time, resources and opportunity to show we want you to get better, but we also want to provide opportunities to connect. If you keep that at the heart of what you do – we’re going to ask you to get better but we’re going to give you time, resources and opportunity to do so – then they feel valued in the work they’re doing.

Fall Creek School District was twice named an Innovative District by the International Center for Leadership in Education. What makes a district “innovative” in your mind, and what do you see as the most important innovation that districts should pay attention to in the next decade?

The reason we’ve received awards for being an innovative district is because we allow adults to own their learning, which then translates into student ownership of learning. I believe innovation in our district comes from our professional growth model where we allow staff to pick a passion project for the year and we then give them the time, resources and opportunity to invest in their passion.

At the end of the year, we do a street fair where all of our teachers get together in the gym and they go from table to table, like at a vendor fair, and talk to their colleagues about the learning they did over the course of the year, what it looked like and what ended up happening.

Some teachers will go to a table and hear about the learning of a colleague who they may not get a chance to talk to often and think, “Oh my goodness, I did something very similar. We should connect to do that next year.” Or they may go to a table and talk to a colleague and say, “My students are really into that. Can I send them down next year to have a conversation about what it looks like at your grade level or in your department?”

We’ve made these connections across the board where people can really invest in each other, and that creates value for the work they do and opportunities for them to move that work forward.

As far as what innovation looks like over the course of the next decade, I’d say that if you’re always thinking about what’s possible, there’s a better chance you can get to something that’s better. It’s like that saying about shooting for the moon and if you miss, you’ll still land among the stars. We can pull people together and say, “Nothing is off the table when it comes to your learning. If what you’ve chosen to learn makes you a better educator, I trust you.” And we can move forward from there.

When we do that, we allow people to advance their own learning, but they also become willing to take risks from a curriculum standpoint, from a technology standpoint, from a process standpoint. They’re not afraid to try something because they know they’re not going to get slammed for trying. I would rather that people try and fail, and then try again, and that approach has translated into multiple opportunities for risk-taking and innovation for us.

Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

Leading digitally is really not only about making connections, but finding ways to solve problems, to think critically – it’s not a contentonly conversation because content is everywhere.

You authored a book on leading learning in the digital age. In your opinion, what are the biggest differences between education in the pre-digital era and now? In what ways has education remained similar?

I think the idea that we’ve really flattened the walls of classrooms and that now we’re able to look outside for any kind of education we need is a big difference. It kind of mimics how television has changed. Fifteen or 20 years ago, everybody was talking about how they needed to be home in front of the TV at seven o’clock on Thursday for “Seinfeld” and “Friends.” It was “appointment viewing,” but that has turned into being able to watch any show anytime as many times as you want. Historically, the purveyors of knowledge were in schools – that was where knowledge was given out. Now all that knowledge is stored in places that are accessible to everybody and that has changed how we do things. It can’t be content regurgitation anymore. It’s got to be focused on problem-solving that lends itself to critical thinking.

We’ve really taken that on here because if what we’re providing kids here in classrooms can be Googled, then what are we really doing? When we went into the pandemic, we ended up essentially flipping the entire model of how we did school. We put videos out for kids that they could watch multiple times, but then the classroom conversations were about the content that was delivered in the video. The conversations in class became about critical thinking and problemsolving and really deep discussions on the content. That did a couple things for us. Previously, we were essentially teaching way too much in a way that wasn’t connecting to everybody. Now we really drill down into the important content, and it has given us more time for conversations.

We also started thinking about professional development differently eight years ago, and we’re starting to see the fruits of that now. In a world where it’s easier to get information and content every day, it’s harder for teachers to get away from how they started out in their teaching careers, so it’s a huge shift. After all, the technology we have today is literally the worst technology we’ll ever have in our lives; every day, technology gets exponentially better, and we have to find a way to work within that model. Leading digitally is really not only about making connections, but finding ways to solve problems, to think critically – it’s not a content-only conversation because content is everywhere.

In your work integrating the use of social media in your district to tell its story, what is your advice for addressing, in a positive and constructive way, the inevitable negative comments or community backlash on a specific post?

That’s a really delicate balance because the more you respond to the negative, the more you give it fire and that can end up burning the whole thing down. I think the issue becomes what information needs to be celebrated, what information needs to be clarified, and what information just needs to be left alone.

If there’s negative stuff that’s out there that’s impacting the day-to-day operation because the information is just flat-out wrong, then you can absolutely address that and feel good about making a statement to clarify things. But there are also things that you should let go because if you try to take on everybody all the time with everything, you’re never going to have a chance to lean into what you should be doing, which is helping people navigate through not only the craziest time we’ve ever been in, but also a new way to teach, a new way to connect, and

with a group of people who are having more mental health struggles than ever before.

The more time we spend on the negative pieces online, the harder it is to concentrate on those great things. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be addressed, they just need to be addressed in a way that’s really productive.

For example, if there are some negative things happening on our Facebook page, for me it’s easier to just call them and say, “Hey, I saw this and I just want to let you know that you may not have exactly the real story in terms of what’s going on, but it sounds like you’re really mad. Let’s have a conversation about that and then move on from there.”

The second that you put a response online, it turns into a huge deal. I was on the wrong side of that this year when I should have made a call to a parent. I decided to send her an email, and that email was then cut and pasted on her Facebook page. It was then picked up by a super PAC on the other side of the state and became the basis of a federal lawsuit against our school district. The response could have been a phone call.

What’s really interesting is that when we start talking about social media, social capital and the storytelling pieces for districts, as tough as the email I sent was and where it went, the opposite is true as well. We’ve been talking about what’s going on in the school district for almost 10 years and we’re very active on social media telling great stories, which creates this social capital with people so that when something like this happens, the response from the community is generally positive.

We did have two people show up at our board meeting after this incident, but both of them spoke to what they loved about the district. And we received cards from the community thanking us for the work we do. People could have come and said this place is a disaster, but they didn’t because of our social capital.

You’re quoted as saying that educators are “never just a teacher.” What do you mean by that?

As educators, we tend to be our worst critics. And when we’re our worst critics and talk about the work we do, we tend to do it in the most inopportune times and places. So what can start happening with us as educators is that we stop being proud of the work and we start defending the work.

You can tell what people are proud of if you look at the photos in their phones. You can tell what people are proud of when you see pictures of their kids, pets, houses, cars, activities they participated in – it’s all on their phone and they can tell stories about that stuff all day long because they’re proud of it.

But when we’re always defending the work that’s happening in schools to the same people or group of people, at some point, you start avoiding conversations with that person or group because you know you’re going to walk out of that conversation a little worse than when you walked in.

And that’s when people start talking about being “just” because they feel devalued in that spot. So if they say that they’re just a teacher or just a custodian or just a paraprofessional or just a bus driver or just a nurse, they’re devaluing the work they do. And not only do they devalue their work, but they give the person they’re talking to license to do exactly the same.

Until we start talking differently about the work we do, nobody else is going to talk differently about it. And that’s huge in terms of how people perceive the work. If we’re the ones saying that we’re just a teacher, then anybody

Until we start talking differently about the work we do, nobody else is going to talk differently about it.

Joe Sanfelippo, Ph.D.

What we need to keep in mind is not just being sure that we provide time, resources and opportunity for our teachers, but also how that is translating to kids.

who hears that says, “Well, that’s how they feel about it. Why should I talk about the work that they do?” And that makes a huge difference in terms of how people are perceived in whatever space they’re in.

In this day of blended learning, with kids learning remotely or in person or both, what is your advice for building/ maintaining a district’s or school’s sense of culture and identity?

That’s really tough because I’ve found that the more disconnected people feel from the work, the harder it is to talk about the work. So when we talk about, for example, developing a sense of pride, it really kind of goes back to valuing where everybody’s starting and making sure that there’s an identity to go back to.

What we need to keep in mind is not just being sure that we provide time, resources and opportunity for our teachers, but also how that is translating to kids. Are we valuing what happens outside of school in terms of time, resources and opportunity for students to not only get better with the content and the work, but also still be kids and still be connected to each other and still be part of a family?

For us, it’s a big deal to value people’s time outside of this place and know and understand that everybody’s situation is a little bit different. And if you value where they start, it gives you an opportunity to move them forward. An example for us is when we went to remote learning, we were very cognizant about telling our teachers in the first three days, “There will be no content given out at all. What I want you to do is I want you to take three days and call every kid on your roster and every parent on your roster and ask them how they are doing and what they need.” We started from there.

We needed to figure out how everyone was doing and what they needed to make sure everyone had what they needed to be able to be successful in whatever that rollout looks like moving forward. And I told our staff there’s never been a better time for us to prove to parents that we love kids and we like content, and there’s a difference between the two. z z z

Julie Phillips Randles is a freelance writer based in Roseville, California.