A Purposeful Leadership Journey: Building Relationships, Distributing Leadership, Re-imagining Education

Bob Maxfield and Suzanne Klein continue the series of conversations with educational leaders about the issues facing public schools, emerging from the pandemic. Their guest, Dr. Chris Delgado, reflects on his experience completing his first year as Superintendent of Farmington Public Schools, having spent more than a decade as Deputy Superintendent in the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools.

The Fit

“Farmington has always had a very special place in my heart. I've looked at Farmington as very reminiscent of my wonderfully diverse childhood growing up in the city of Southfield. I’ve always kept my eye on Farmington and when the opportunity arose, I threw my hat in the ring and was fortunate enough to be given the position. In my interview, I articulated my desire to finish my career in Farmington and commit fully to the community to make a difference in the lives of children in this community, and to support families.” The diversity of the districts in which Dr. Delgado previously held positions enables him to navigate different worlds and to help bring people together, was another facet that made him an attractive candidate for this superintendency.

Building Relationships

Dr. Delgado noted with pride being able to live into “the vision of the superintendent that I wanted to be and envisioned being. It's very rewarding to get to know so many people personally, not only in schools but in the community. I've been able to be in schools, in every classroom and supporting children and supporting families, and really showing my commitment to everyone in the organization. In my first state of the city speech with over a hundred community members in attendance, I knew almost every individual and organization. In a very short time, we've really been able to establish some pretty solid relationships, both in the community, in the schools, and in the community at broad and so that's very satisfying for me."

Reflections on his first year

"I actually haven't been surprised by anything procedurally or managerially, and I attribute that to my time as a deputy superintendent, where essentially I ran the day-to-day operations of the entire district. Because I had so much experience as a deputy superintendent, leading others, implementing systems, collaborating with a board, with the community, that aspect of the job has made for a very smooth transition.”

“I am surprised at how difficult it's been for me to find a balance in how to contribute when people are asking for my ideas and help, and needing them to develop as well in the same way that I was given the opportunity to develop as a deputy. I have a lot of knowledge and expertise that I want to offer to people but the art of leadership is very tricky in trying to listen more and be silent, and not introduce my ideas and allow people to develop their own ideas.”

“One of the challenges and the things that keep me up at night is the whole dynamic of social media in our lives and the amount of falsehoods and vitriol that can happen very quickly on social media, the judgment out in the community over a school issue without the context. Things are taken out of context and it starts to gain some traction on social media. The damage control is something that you really have to work hard to get out ahead of so that's a unique challenge for modern administrators in general, but certainly a first superintendent.”

Distributing Leadership

“In my first leadership team meeting, I talked about the theoretical framework behind distributed leadership and shared a clip from Dr. Alma Harris, talking about the difference between delegation and distributed leadership. Distributed leadership starts with the belief in other people and a belief that other people have something to contribute. Your status, whether you're a teacher, paraprofessional, secretary, or assistant principal, is irrelevant to leaderful schools. You can distribute leadership by tapping into the expertise and the interest of people and then supporting them.”

“Distributed leadership is modeled in strategic planning work or other committee work. When you as a parent or a teacher or a secretary can contribute in a meaningful way, where your ideas are valued and they turn into action steps or action plans, then you're more committed organizationally. We have five overarching goals, eight subcommittees, and over a hundred community members including teachers, parents, paras, custodians, and secretaries, on these committees working towards our vision and our profile of a learner in Farmington Public Schools.”

Re-imagining Education

“We have a board of education goal for innovation in education. Our vision for what we call our RVPR (Remote and Virtual Program) includes: flexibility of things like hybrid classes in the future; rethinking how we do high school; FLEX a...