Don’t Cross the Crossing Guard – Nate Levenson

In this episode of an Imperfect Leader, Nate Levenson is my guest. In our conversation, we talk about the budgeting process and the importance of engaging in high levels of collaboration. During his After Action Review, Nate describes his experience of eliminating the school’s crossing guards, a decision he believed to be the right one based on the data. He learned a lot about the politics surrounding a decision. 

BIO: Nate is a former Massachusetts superintendent and is president of New Solutions K12. Nate is an author, most recently publishing Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions (by Harvard Education Press).

I met Nate a few years ago, at just the right time. I was making a transition in my leadership approach and was looking for ways to engage in distributed leadership when it came to budgeting. I read Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools and asked Nate if he’d work with our organization to help us make better decisions. We went on to make better decisions – together.

 

Book Update! You can preorder my forthcoming book, An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action. Click on the link here.

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An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action is supported by ILAA, LLC, a firm dedicated to supporting aspiring, new, and established leaders. For more information, please find them at www.human-centeredleaders.com.

 

Music for An Imperfect Leader was written and arranged by Ian Varley. 

Sam Falbo created our artwork, a wood-print inspired daruma doll butterfly.

 

An Imperfect Leader is sponsored by Yondr.

Schools around the world are seeing the damaging effects of phones on student engagement, social development, and mental health.

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Learn why 1 Million Students use Yondr every day. MINIMIZE DISTRACTIONS. MAXIMIZE LEARNING POTENTIAL. Go to overyondr.com to learn more.

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Empat Speech. Empowering students. Empowering Schools.

An Imperfect Leader: The Superintendents and Leadership Podcast is supported by ILAA, LLC, a firm dedicated to supporting aspiring, new, and established leaders. For more information, please find them at www.human-centeredleaders.com.

Music for An Imperfect Leader was written and arranged by Ian Varley.

Sam Falbo created our artwork, a wood-print inspired daruma doll butterfly.