Rachael Maves: Hello everyone, you are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today we are talking with Ivan Duran. Dr. Ivan Duran is the superintendent of Highline Public Schools where he is committed to fulfilling the Highline promise to know every student by name, strength and need so they graduate prepared for the future they choose. A proud product of public education, Ivan brings over 30 years of experience as a teacher, principal and district leader in Washington, Texas.

and Colorado. He is driven by a deep commitment to educational equity, continuous improvement, and collaborative leadership. Dr. Duran, thanks for joining me today.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, so I'm excited about this conversation because you and I are just kind of getting to know each other. Tell me a little bit about your pathway in education and why you chose this crazy career.

Dr. Ivan Duran: you

Dr. Ivan Duran: It's been a crazy year, but it's been a career that I just have loved. So yeah, I think I have to go back to my parents' experience in schools. I don't think it's an accident that became an educator with my parents. Just didn't have the best experience in school. The first stories I remember my mom telling me about her experience has been she moved from New Mexico to Denver and was a native Spanish speaker and basically entered a school system that wasn't ready to have kids that spoke different languages. And so she always struggled. She always struggled in school.

So that was her stories about school was just the challenges that she faced. And then my dad was a high school dropout, you know, and so he actually never finished school. And for me, you know, my own experience at school was, you know, most of it was relatively good. I did have some real issues that came up for me, especially in my adolescence years. And I just struggled in high school and was working full time, had a car, had money. You have a car, have money, you have friends. And I just, you know, I

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: didn't apply myself in school. I really struggled and actually got to the point where I almost dropped out of school in 11th grade, but I'm grateful that my mom just really created this clear boundary for me and basically said, you have two choices. You know, we've raised the best way that we can and you can either graduate from school and stay with us or if you think you've got everything figured out, you can move out now. know, being 17 year old, you know, I thought I was pretty smart, but I thought

Rachael Maves: wow.

Dr. Ivan Duran: I'm not ready. I'm not ready to live on my own. You know, so, you know, I ended up graduating from school, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. so I got involved with this church and started, you know, doing like some youth counseling and, and just through that experience, I was working with high school kids that were just, know, one, two years younger than me. And I just started seeing the power of having somebody connect with youth and just support them and guide them and not judge them because everybody just is making the best, you know,

of their situation in the world. And it was through that time I realized the power of an individual making a difference on the life of a student. And so I sold everything I accumulated in three years, applied to go to college, and started school when I was 21. And I knew I wanted to be a teacher at that point. So yeah, 100%. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I'm really grateful I didn't go to school right away, because I don't think I'd be here today if I would have went to college right away.

Rachael Maves: Wow.

Rachael Maves: What a powerful story, Ivan. Now that scene where your career trajectory has gone, you're a superintendent of a pretty large district. Like, what's your mom's lens? I'm curious to...

Dr. Ivan Duran: my my you know my mom my mom is just so proud you know she's just so just so proud and you know she is.

You know, when I was going through school and just doing my struggles and stuff, I mean, she was going through world struggles and didn't know how to help me. So she really relied on just the school system to take care of me, but it didn't provide what I needed at the time. Here in Highline, have something we talk about our promise to know students by name, strength and need. And I often have told people here that my friends knew me by name, strength and need, but not necessarily my teachers. know, so my mom today is just really proud of where I'm at.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Dr. Ivan Duran: And she knows I'm making a difference in the world. And I think that's probably the greatest gift that an individual can do. So my mom, super proud. Yeah, super. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that. So your career has been pretty varied with Washington, Texas, Colorado. Tell me a little bit about that, like the different states, what those positions were, that trajectory that kind of took you to across the country in different places.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah, I was born and raised in Denver, you know, and so, you know, started off teaching in Denver and, you know, and I would, what I usually would always tell people, you know, that are looking for either, especially now, you know, people that are looking to be superintendents, they'll also do a lot of mentoring and support of people that are thinking that way. And I just always tell people, you just have to do good work with whatever you're doing. You just have to be, you know, understand what your job is, understand what your role is and, and good things come from that, you know? So that's kind of been my way of thinking about.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: my work, you I was a teacher and then I had the opportunity to do some coaching and at that time Denver Public Schools was bringing in new technology. We were way ahead of the curve with the internet and all those type of things and training teachers and so I had the opportunity to get involved with that kind of work and then just move my way up, know, opportunities would come up for me and you know.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: assistant principal, principal, and you know, of all the roles I've had, would say that being a principal is probably my favorite one. Yeah, it's still my favorite job. It's that balance because you have the, you know, so it's so funny now to be a system leader, like why are some of their stuff not being done? It's like, well, because principals have a lot of authority in their role, you know, they have a lot of autonomy too. And so I think I just love that position the most because it still gave me that proximity to teaching and being close with students that I really loved.

Rachael Maves: Really?

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: But I would just say that I've just always have had the opportunity to look at what's next and see how I can make systems better and then opportunities have just come to me. So I've been really fortunate that way. I've been, Denver Public Schools is just about 90,000. I worked in Aurora, which is by about a district about 40,000 now. And then down in Dallas, district of 160,000. mean, it just has given me a really good perspective on school system sizes.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: I knew that when I worked in Aurora, Colorado, it probably the district that I enjoy the most because of the size. And so I knew when I wanted to be superintendent, I didn't want to be a large school system. I wanted to be in a little smaller setting because I just feel you just get better connections. You know people in a different way. And Highline's a district of about 17,500. And for me, it's been a great fit, really great fit.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Rachael Maves: I love what you talk about with the Highline Promise, that to know every student by name, strength, and need. How is that lived out in your district on your campus?

Dr. Ivan Duran: you know, it's great. It's living out in really great ways. And we just had a conversation yesterday with our cabinet team and our team that are leading out work around MTSS, so multi-tier systems of support. It's not a new concept in education, not anything new in any way, but having really refined systems all the way from really good data systems to keep track of progress monitoring, really good assessments, and then ensuring that our professional

learning communities in our schools are having the right kind of conversation. So that is really where we're seeing this promise come out, come true the most because we are really understanding the needs of students both from a mental health, academic, behavioral perspective, having the right group of educators together to have those type of conversations and then walking out with a plan on what they're going to be doing to support students. we're really seeing that being played out and you know it's part of our strategic plan goals and just

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: one of our big priorities that we've been working on for the last year, year and a half, and we're gonna stay working on that. And the flip to that is the Promise also talks about for the future they choose, and so we've been doing some really exciting work around secondary school redesign and thinking about how can we create more engaging learning environments for students and for teachers? How can we create opportunities for students just to be exposed to more.

Rachael Maves: I yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Dr. Ivan Duran: relevant and rigorous content. And so our comprehensive high schools have been going through a process. just recently, of them, Taiye High School, just announced a medical pathway that they're gonna have within their school. And it's in partnership with one of our local hospital systems. And so students are gonna be exposed to job shadowing, career exposures, opportunities to get into the nursing field, all the way to being understanding the process to become a

Rachael Maves: that's great.

Dr. Ivan Duran: doctor or surgeon. So those type of experiences are how we're making that promise come true for our students as we think about the future that they choose because the world's changing quickly. We know that students, know, the more education that a student has underneath them when they leave high school, the more likely they're going to have, you know, a future that's filled with more financial stability and just safety and support that, you know, they talk a lot that they want for their community and for their families.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ivan Duran: So it's coming out a lot in some really big ways within our system work.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love being able to talk with leaders that really have that systems mindset because we, I always laugh that because it's the non-sexy work, right? It's not super shiny. It's just the disciplined piece of having those structures in place where on a regular basis you're looking at the data and making data informed decision making. So simple, but something that we don't give a lot of credit to for making sure that we can drive change for student outcomes. Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah.

Absolutely, you know, and with all systems work, it's all about people and, you know, how you help people understand the vision and what you're trying to achieve. you know, I always think about, you know, Richard Elmore's work, you know, from Harvard always talked about that, you know, that if you raise the level of expectations and you have to make sure you raise a level of support, you know, so I think that's something that has always been on my mind as a systems leader in Michigan that we're something that we're just really making sure we're trying to do is I think our educators

Rachael Maves: Yes. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: That's right.

Dr. Ivan Duran: are doing the best they can on a day-to-day basis. And our leaders are doing the best they can. But if we want things and outcomes for our students to change, then we have to think differently around the behavior, our own behavior, and what we're doing to support them.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a perfect segue into that next question. As you think about the promise that you're making in highline to your students and to the staff in the district and this ever evolving and rapidly changing context that we have in education, what keeps you up at night as the leader of your system?

Dr. Ivan Duran: There's a lot of things.

Rachael Maves: Hahaha

Dr. Ivan Duran: You know, we had a cyber incident early at the very start of the school year, you know, and so that is, I that's kept me up many times over this school year and I wish it upon no one, you know, but unfortunately there's just a number of bad actors that are playing havoc in our, not only education systems, but I think across the world, you know, but I think the one that is really, there's a couple, but I think one that's really been on my mind a lot is just, I would frame it what I kind of see as like the biggest challenge.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Dr. Ivan Duran: that we face, you know, part of that is just navigating this tension between we want to increase the student outcomes for our students, but we also have to address just the growing and complex needs of our students and our families from mental health supports, behavior supports, equity, mean, issues of safety that are being played out right now, especially with some of our immigrant families, you know, I mean, those are really big, you know, we also have, unfortunately, have had some

Rachael Maves: Yes, yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: gun violence in our community. We've lost six students this year to gun violence. Our community safety person says it best. It's like, we be okay with it if it's four, if it's three? And the answer is no. We've got to get to this point where it's zero. But there's this larger societal issue around access to guns in our society that is just playing out in really big ways. And so this tension around trying to help our students

Rachael Maves: you

wow.

Rachael Maves: us right.

Dr. Ivan Duran: read and write and to be big thinkers and then the complex needs that our students or families having all being done within limited financial supports. Here in Washington, our legislators just finished up their session and we did get some additional funding but nowhere near what they should be funding us for. And so that keeps me up at night because we keep, although we've limited our priorities

Rachael Maves: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: and the work that we're trying to do. We have four clear priorities here in Highline and we're gonna continue those four priorities, but we're still asking our educators to do a lot. I've seen that really play out this year because our youngest son is attending one of our schools. He's just finished his night of kindergarten. He's attending one of our dual language schools and he's acquiring both Spanish and English and just doing amazing.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Ivan James Duran (13:57.728)

Being in the classroom more and watching his teacher and what she has to deal with They sent us home. They sent this um earlier It was like this writing kind of project that the kids did but it really was this fascinating insight into the wide range that Is in the kindergarten classroom, you know, you have kids that are writing above grade level you have kids that are still forming letters and so we were asking our educators to do a lot and

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: We're asking them to do a lot.

with limited resources, you know? And so I don't know what the answer is yet, you know, but it's one of the questions and follow-ups that I'm gonna be having both with the principal of the school and the teacher just around, you know, what would you want? What would you need to help you so that we ensure that every student, you know, gets to as close to grade level as possible? But the reality is that when you have students that are coming in that have never been in preschool or haven't had exposure to school,

Rachael Maves: us right.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: we're asking our educators to do a lot and there's just not enough time, there's not enough resources and so it's definitely keeping me up at night because as you know, we still get judged by that yearly state assessment that comes out and 40 % of our kids are second language learners and so how do we identify

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes, that's right. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: how we measure success. We have to be thinking differently around what that looks like and how we measure growth for our students and give credit, you know, both to our students, our educators in our schools for the great work that they do. Still, we're thinking about all those other complex needs and challenges that come into play. So it's complex. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It is, Ivan, and I appreciate you putting your finger on that because I do feel like...

you know, for people who non-educators listening to that, this differentiating your instruction or being able to meet the needs of students where they're at in a single classroom when there's this wide gap. I mean, it is extremely challenging. And for the students that are exceeding, and I know that you already know all this, but for the students that are exceeding, keeping them engaged so that they're not bored and also that they're not feeling like they're just being used to teach.

meeting the needs of the students at the bottom and what I've seen and I'd be curious if you've seen this play out too is that post-pandemic those gaps just widened significantly and so we took something that was already hard and challenging to try to figure out and then the gaps became exacerbated and then it the level of complexity and the challenge now that we're trying to face I feel like is even bigger and I'd be curious if that's been your experience of what you're seeing also in the classrooms.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah, 100%. You know, I think what we're really seeing, especially like at the middle school grades, know, we're, you know, kids that were, you know, in the younger grades and really missed out on some of the foundational skills that are required, you know. And again, during the pandemic, you know, everyone was doing the best that they could. But, you know, there's still a real gap. But we assessed our middle school students last year. We were using, you know, iREDI to do some measures. And at that point, we found that almost half of our eighth grade students were

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: reading below grade level, you know, and so that put this huge like, wow, you know, that just what are we going to do? You know, so one of our other priorities is literacy and we've had this system wide focus on literacy and we're doing some really great work at the secondary level because, you know, up until this year, most of literacy instruction falls upon our language arts teachers. And when you have that many students who are reading below grade level, you cannot intervene your way out of it.

Rachael Maves: I...

Yeah... Yeah...

Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: That's right. Yep. That's right.

Dr. Ivan Duran: it. You have to focus on high quality instruction, understanding where students are. But what we have been finding is that most of our middle school, high school teachers, they don't know how to teach kids how to read. That's not their expertise. Our expertise is in the content area. And so we have been doing some great professional learning with our school leaders, with our teachers, and really thinking about every one of our teachers being a literacy teacher. I walked into one of our

Rachael Maves: That's right. Yep.

Rachael Maves: Yes, yes.

Dr. Ivan Duran: science classrooms here this year. And it's the first time I have ever seen a science teacher doing lessons around literacy and annotating text and you know, and that just gave me a lot of hope for how we're going to get ourselves out of this because our teachers, they know our students are struggling and they want to know how to help them. And so we're again, raising expectations and providing the right supports to them. so check in with me in about a year's time and I think I'll give you a

Rachael Maves: Yeah. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Maves: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I will. 100%.

Dr. Ivan Duran: We are seeing, you know, we're just getting our data together for analyzing the end of year results, but we are definitely seeing some bright spots, you know, where we have seen some schools, you know, put together really good systems to understand where students are and then strong professional learning communities and then the strong instructional practices. That's what's going to get us out of this. It's not going to be a curriculum, you know, it's not going to be this third party product that's going to help

Rachael Maves: assassin.

Rachael Maves: That's right. I agree. Yep. No.

Dr. Ivan Duran: but as it comes down to high quality tier one instruction, that's what we need to do better.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're touching on, and this is a great example of one way to move forward, that focus on literacy, what it means to be and embrace and own literacy at all levels of the organization, and then providing that support. But what are other ways that you're thinking about moving forward and addressing some of those things that really keep you up at night?

Dr. Ivan Duran: I think the other one for me has been thinking about the role of artificial intelligence. You know, there's a lot of stuff out there right now and you know, we have really been approaching it from this human centered approach and really trying to ensure that, you know, I don't do not see artificial intelligence replacing our teachers in any way. But it does keep me up a little bit because I think with

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Rachael Maves: No, I agree.

Dr. Ivan Duran: know, technology throughout education, you know, over the last 20 years, there's always been a gap. There's always been an equity gap around who has access to the latest and greatest, who has access to the right types of, you know, professional learning to ensure that it's being integrated in the best way possible. And that's one thing I'm really concerned about also, both for our students and our educators and especially with our families. You know, a lot of our families are, like I said earlier, know, are families that come from incredibly diverse backgrounds.

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ivan Duran: You know, we have families that are newly arrived immigrants, know, just gettling settled into the United States. And so, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for people to be left behind during this movement. And yet, I think there's so much promise in terms of how artificial intelligence can help us do our work better and smarter. Aaron Highline, our digital transformation chief, Tashawn Christie, has been really working with us as cabinet to make sure that we understand

Rachael Maves: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: the tools and we understand how to use them and as we start moving forward in the next year the things that we've been talking around is that we have to ensure that every one of our specialists knows how to utilize these tools, has already come up with ways to you know make their work more productive and are thinking about how they can support classroom teachers with this work. So we got a lot of system work again to do to make sure that adults in our system know how to use that but I just want to make sure that we're not

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Rachael Maves: That's right.

Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: leaving students, families, and educators behind as we move forward with artificial intelligence. There's a lot of promise, it's not the magic bullet. It's not the silver bullet.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah, I were so aligned with that Ivan because I mean we Parsecs an education technology company and we've been having lots of conversations around What is the place of AI and what does that mean and look like and for me? Having been a former teacher and principal and soup I I really believe that space is exactly what you're putting your finger on of how can we take the things that are a huge administrative lift on our

staff that take actually away from their time with students, away from their time in teaching, and identify those places that AI can make them more productive with those things. And that's where I think it's just going to be key and really take off in a different way. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah, I think you're really spot on with that. That's way back when I was...

instructional technology director, you know, in the district. And that's how we approach the work. You know, we looked at what we were trying to do with instruction and our coaches would actually go in the classrooms and they would observe a teacher for whole day. And then they would have these coaching conversations on how they thought a piece of technology could support them in a better way. And I think we have to do the same thing with artificial intelligence to think around how do we incorporate into our work? How can it help teachers save time, whether it's, know, email response

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Ivan Duran: creating a lesson plans. There's so many different ways it can be utilized, but it's going to all come down to professional learning, you know, way back when when I did that.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes. So true.

Dr. Ivan Duran: When I was way back in Denver when we started some of this vision around how we're going to be integrating technology, you know, our rule of thumb back then was 10 % of whatever we're spending needs to be spent on professional learning. So we're spending $100,000, $10,000 of that dollars needed to be spent on how we were going to be training adults on how to use that equipment in best way possible. And I think we're in that same place right now.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah. So this is our last question for our time together and my favorite question. What question in education are we not asking that we really should be?

Dr. Ivan Duran: That's a great question. think what's coming up for me is again going back to just how are we ensuring that we are preparing students for this future that I think is evolving and changing faster than what we're ever going to see from my own experience. So I think we have to be asking the question around how we are helping students really understand what does future success look like. So going back to our promise and helping our students really think

about the future that they choose and then really ensuring that we are creating these systems and structures to support students for that future work. I think about even my own dad's experience where high school dropout, he ended up becoming a truck driver and fortunately he became a union truck driver so he ended up basically taking us to middle class from the work that he did. But that doesn't happen anymore. It's really rare for someone to be able to either

not be a high school graduate or to be a high school graduate and to walk out and be able to make a living wage that's really going to help them have some financial freedom. So we have to be asking this question around how are we ensuring that we are really preparing students for this future that is evolving and changing so quickly. And we have to have more opportunities for students to be able to earn those workplace credentials, associate's degrees. The more that our students can walk out both

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yes.

Dr. Ivan Duran: their high school diploma and additional education, the more likely we're going to be setting them up for future success. that's the question I think we have to, it has to be one of our burning questions because our systems have to change in order to support our students for the future.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well said. Well, thank you, Ivan, for your time today. I really appreciated this conversation.

Dr. Ivan Duran: Yeah, thank you. Really love the opportunity and hope you get some time to have a great summer. Alright, I look forward to sharing that word assuring that with you. Alright, thank you.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and I will be following back up in a year. I want to hear the success story. And hear this. Yes, that's awesome.

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This transcript was created from the episode's captions and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors; please refer to the audio for exact wording.