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34 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 8.17 "I'm a huge proponent of deeper-learning concepts. What we did at Doss was project-based learning, which is one type of deeper-learning measure or instructional strat- egy. e teacher takes a stan- dard or a group of standards and essentially teaches the stu- dents the skill with a hands-on project that allows the student to demonstrate their learn- ing, apply their learning in a real-world setting. "I will give you an example. In a chemistry class at Doss last year, on an environmental science unit on environmental threats, instead of just teach- ing the various environmental threats, students had to use their knowledge that they had in chemistry and identify an environmental issue that related personally to them. en they had to study that issue, develop a plan on how they would address that issue, and then, in a science fair-type atmosphere, we had adults come in and essentially (pose as) donors and the students had to convince them that this was the environmental issue that someone should donate money to. Some students took air quality, some took water quality, some took lead paint in the home, some took plastic bottles. Instead of saying, 'I'm going to teach you these concepts and then give you a multiple-choice test in the end,' you saw the passion increase out of students." How do you implement these concepts in 155 schools? "I'm not going to say that there is an easy answer to that. ere are 16,000 employees. Number one, I have to have a great team around me and trust them, tell them what I want to see, get them all on the same page working together and ensure that they are spreading that throughout the school or organization. If one administrator was in a classroom and helping a teacher, they were spreading the same message to that teacher and saying the same thing I would say. At the central office, it has to be the same concept. Our assistant superintendents, I've got to empower them to send the same message I would to their 25 schools, but also giving really good oversight to make sure it's happening. I don't think the concept's any different. ose four things I talked about earlier have to be the same for this group and then spreading it out to the schools. What we've done in the past is thought school by school. We need to think systemically. We need to be a school district and not just a district of schools." At Doss, you mentioned how the achievement scores went up, the feedback from teachers improved. JCPS hasn't yet released the numbers from last school year, but suspen- sions for 2015-2016 at Doss, your first year there, were in the 600s, one of the highest numbers of any high school in JCPS. Is that a necessary evil to cracking down on behavior or something that can also be improved? "We had high expectations for students. What I will tell you is, when you look at this year's number, it dropped by somewhere between 18 and 22 percent. I don't know what the final number was, but we went from being in the top five to — my guess is we went down to the 10th, 11th or 12th, somewhere in that range in high school suspensions. We let stu- dents know in many ways that we are going to have a positive and healthy academic climate in the school. Our kids at Doss deserve that just as much as the kids at any other school in this district. ey had had a belief at that school before that the expectations weren't as high as, say, a Manual or a Male. We had to change that." One student told a reporter that you were "strict in a good way." You really gained their respect. How do you do that? "Well, I'm glad that student saw that. I have always gone with the premise that, first of all, I have a very important job to do as a high school principal. We only have our kids at high school — or whatever level you're at — for a certain amount of minutes. I told our staff we have them for 175 school days for four years. When they are done with us, that's it for their official mandated education through public education. is is our last chance to get them. Kids would sometimes get on me for not smiling or laughing, but I was very serious about the job that I did. I believe that we have to be the models of professionalism for our students. I think the students felt that we set the same expec- tations for the staff. When you have expectations for staff that are as high as, if not higher than, that of the students, students respect that. I think students have a problem when they see a disparity between the expecta- tions of staff and the expectations of students." Are you from here? "I was actually born here, but I moved away when I was six months old. My dad was a college basketball coach, so we moved around my entire child- hood. About every four years, he took a different job. I went to high school in Richmond, Virginia. Went to Indiana University in Bloomington, and when I got into teaching I came to Louisville." Did you go to public school for K through 12? "I went to public school in high school. Prior to that I had been in a Catholic school." What was your high school experience like? "Gosh, it seems so long ago. I would tell anybody this: I had a very positive school experi- ence where I felt a belonging to the school. I was a basketball player but also felt I was a part of the school culture. at's what I've tried to create in the high schools I've developed. Also, a lot of the structure I received was very traditional — textbook, worksheet-driven. I always felt, being in those class- rooms, I wanted to have the op- portunity to provide kids with the experience that was more relevant to real-world opportu- nities, things that they would use throughout their life." Is going to IU how you started working for Bobby Knight (as a student manager)? "I wanted to be a college basket- ball player, but to be honest I was small and pretty slow. I was a decent high school basketball player, but I wasn't great, even though I worked very hard at it. I could have played at a couple of small schools, but I felt I would just be a coach's son who was on a team because of that. Instead, I decided I was gonna learn to be a basketball coach, so that's why I went to Indiana University and worked for coach Knight as a manager. I was a student manager there "I think students have a problem when they see a disparity between the expectations of staff and the expectations of students."