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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 8.17 35 for four years while majoring in education because you couldn't major in college basketball coaching. Came to realize I love that part of it in the end, which I wasn't expecting." What did you learn from Knight? "I tell people the main thing I learned, what he was so great at, was deciding: We are going to be good — not just good — we are going to be great at a few things. Too many people in too many organizations try to be good at a whole lot of things, and what they end up doing is being mediocre at all of them. He was a huge proponent of: We are going to do three or four things. We are going to do them very well. We're gonna practice it over and over and over again. We're gonna select and recruit people that are gonna fit our belief system and we are going to be great at it. And that's what made him great." You have a daughter. What grade will she be in? "Seventh grade." And she's in JCPS? "Correct." How did you decide whether to put her in public schools and which ones? How did you navigate that as a parent? "My wife and I, we're big believers in public schools and exposing our daughter to diversity and all the things that come with that. Obviously, being a part of Jefferson County Public Schools made me believe that this is definitely the right path for my daughter. We went through the same experiences now twice that every other parent in this community goes through. I got no special treatment along the way because I was a principal. We filled out the applications like everybody else did. We went through open houses and the Showcase of Schools, just like every other parent. We live in the Highlands and our two resides schools for her for elementary were Bloom and Hawthorne, and at that time we had heard from many people that Bloom was the school to go to. We actually visited Hawthorne and were blown away by the Spanish-im- mersion program and made the decision that we would like to send our child there. She is now bilingual in Spanish and English as a result of it. It gives me a very intimate understanding of what it takes as a parent going through that process, wanting what's best for your child." ere are kids whose families aren't happy with any of their resides school options and are unable to get into the mag- net of their choice. Is there anything you'd like to change about this process? "I can't speak to specifics exactly. I will say this: When we were applying, the common narrative in the community was the school we chose was not the school to go to. Instead of hearing it from others, we went and visited and were extremely pleased with what we saw taking place. Having said that, we're gonna have to explore student assignment and find ways to make it better. e difficult part is there is no way that makes everyone happy." What do you do to address parental involvement — or lack thereof? "Well, there are two ways that we have to look at it. e teachers at Doss would tell you I use this a lot — it's called a TBU. It's 'true but useless.' If a teacher, staff member, admin- istrator — if anybody's making excuses about our job based on something we can't control, we'll say, 'It's true but useless.' If a teacher says, 'e kid came to me and does not have the skills that they should have to be successful in my classroom,' I would say it's a TBU. ere's nothing we can do about that at this point. All we can worry about is what we have right in front of us right now. So yes, parent involvement definitely leads to higher levels of success for children. I believe there's plenty of research to show that. But in many instances at the school level, we can't necessarily control that. We have to give a child every opportunity to be successful no matter what. Hav- ing said that, we have to engage the parents as much as absolute- ly possible and give them every opportunity to be involved in the school community." Charter schools can now get the green light from the mayor and the school board. What say would you have in that? "We're still waiting for clar- ification from the Kentucky Department of Education on how that process will look. I know we will have some say in it, which is important. It is clear that in the future we will have charter schools in this commu- nity. e only way I can look at it right now is, first of all, any school that is positively affecting student achievement I would support if they have a history of doing that and are measured in the same way our regular schools are measured. But my job will be to have 155 great schools. I believe if we develop and improve all of our 155 schools then we won't need any charter schools." e Males of Color middle school was recently approved and is scheduled to open for the 2018-2019 school year. What do you think that school can achieve? "What I think it can and will do is take 450 students that will predominantly come from our minority at-risk popula- tion of males, and we will see great numbers of success out of those students. I wouldn't have supported it if I didn't think it could do that. I wasn't a part of the planning and the two-year process, but what I saw in the data in the end showed me that it can be successful if imple- mented properly. My job will be to make sure that happens. But more importantly, I want it to be a model for how we can improve the achievement gap, because we do have an achieve- ment gap in this community and in many communities across this country right now, especially in our urban core. Every high school that I've been in has been over 50 percent minority. If we're gonna move this district forward, we have to move in ways that will overcome this achievement gap. We have to systemically find a way to do that with all of our students. I think it's symbolic in nature that we say we are willing to try new things to reduce that achievement gap. It's not the only thing. It doesn't solve the problem. I think it's one step in getting us closer to doing that." Should teachers be worried about their pensions, and do you worry that lack of funding might not attract teachers? "I do not have the expertise to comment on that. I always stand up and am very ada- mant when people think that teaching is an easy job or not worthy of the appropriate level of pay, including pension. Our teachers, the vast majority of them, work their tails off. e vast majority of the people in this organization work their tails off and they deserve to be paid and compensated appropriately. I hope that it is addressed at the state level." Continued on page 136