Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I am Rachael Maves, your host. Today. We are talking to Bob Nelson, assistant professor in the department of educational leadership at Fresno State and former superintendent of Fresno Unified, California's thirdd largest school district. With a distinguished career and education spanning roles such as a teacher, principal and District administrator, Dr Nelson is a proud advocate for foster, adoptive children and sustainable educ? Ucational leadership.

He holds a doctorate in organizational change and Leadership from USC and is the host of the militant positivity podcast. Bob, thank you for joining me today.

Bob Nelson: Oh, it is my distinct pleasure. I'm not sure that's a distinguished career, but I like that. Thank you for that. Like, yeah, that must have been in boiler plate language I sent you because, yeah, I'm not proud. I probably wouldn't have described it as such. But no, yeah, I've held a lot of jobs, that's for sure, and I think anyone who's held a superintendent role just deserves distinguished in front of it.

Well, maybe, I mean, I think you know the average tenure of a major Urban soup is 30 months, and so, yeah, you kind of get judged on your ability to just stay employed, which, see, it's not a high bar. Like, are you still? Do you still have a job? Okay, you do, then you must be pretty okay. So I think, yeah, I did that for 10 and a half years in the superintenden 7 and a half in Fresno at the time I left. That made the third longest in the nation after Sonia in Baltimore and the gentleman in Toledo, and so that was good.

I had a really good thing going and then, thankful to go to the university. My wife's fairly sure I'm having a midlife crisis because I still had two successful years on my contract in Fresno, but this is a good thing too and it's been really healthy and I've you know I can be on your podcast in the middle of the day and that's unheard of, like I don't even know I'm doing at one in the afternoon like all right, let's go that right.

Rachael Maves: Well, it's fortunate for and I'm glad that you're here and like all of our podcasts, we really Value Story and just hearing from leaders in education around their. Why did you choose a career in education, of all the opportunities and possibilities? What really Drew you to this field?

Bob Nelson: Well, I mean, there's a couple different reasons. One: I was a failed opera singer and so I was on the rebound when I took my first teaching job. I actually got a scholarship at USC as a voice performance major, which is how I got into college, which says a lot about how you help kids, like keep them involved in the things that they really value and they'll find a way to matriculate and go to the university and whatever it is that interests them or find a, you know, successful career. But I didn't really love singing opera. I was in a rock band in the 80s, like Gen X you know bands wearing Gen X, you know cover band. We played the prom circuit, and so being an opera star wasn't exactly my idea of what I wanted to do in life, and so I just started dabbling in South Central LA, going to LA Unified and like working in classrooms, and thought, hey, like I like this a lot and I actually have some proclivity to do that and so and it's a different brand of educating I taught it SoDo Street Elementary in LA Unified, if anybody knows about that, and your listener base.

There's not a blade of grass on that entire campus, it's a square City Block 20ft High chain link fence. Every window has a great over it. But those kids are beautiful and they're wonderful and they're amazing and funny and something really hilarious is going to happen every day and you know that you're making a dent in the universe. So that's how I ended up in the valley too, singing at a wedding. Most of the things in my life have happened at the dble tree hotel in downtown Fresno. I became the soup there.

I met my wife there, like a lot of seminal moments at the Double Tree.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Oh, that's funny, it's true, I'm, I'm.

Bob Nelson: You thought I was kidding like I, yeah, deadly straight on the rebound into Elementary teaching. That is career. But no, I met my wife sitting singing at a wedding here for my cousin's wedding and U moved to the valley and have lived here ever since, so grew up in Northern California, was a Sac City product, went to SC so lived. So I've lived everywhere on I5, like the entire, like long and short of the state, but super thankful to be in the Valley from the valley and that's kind of what got me going and why I kind of moved to Fresno State too, cuz I actually believe what I believe, which is that we need to have valy leaders understand what it means to be from the valley. This is a different part of California. It's not the Bay Area, it's not LA, and there just some stuff I think you need to know in order to function here.

So there's a really good gig too.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I love that, Bob, and there's. So there's two things I want to Circle back on. One is I love that you're passionate about the valley and I would say that's a value. I know that Parsec holds too in California. That's where our Hub is in Fresno and there's a real desire to be able to pour into the community and to lift up the great things and students and aspiring programmers that live in that area so I so.

Bob Nelson: It's the second most impoverished major Urban. Congressional district in the United States and I, when you say that it automatically connotes thoughts of deficit, yeah, right, as opposed to your people that you're working with, Babatunde, Eugene, people that like brilliant thinkers, amazing humans, Valley and are will to live fromin to without right, and so, yeah, I'm on apologetic about it. The diversity of our community is not to be bested anywhere. The food is super good. We grow most of the nation's agricultural food stuff. So like, yeah, this is your National podcast and if you like to eat, you better keep yourself in check, because we grow most everything you consume on The Daily right here, within 100 miles of where I'm podcasting from.

Yeah, and I'm Unapologetic about it. There was an opportunity potentially to teach and higher ed and other venues, but for me it's about Fresno State, 80% of Fresno UniFi teachers and it's a big system. You said California's third largest: 72,000 kids, 109 schools. Almost 80% of our teachers come from within, so we raise our own Valley kids to serve as teachers here. We have no parallel on the leadership side and so I came to the university to try and close that Gap. So today I have my first official class.

I'm teaching people that are getting their preliminary administrative credential from all of the districts across the valley and I don't care about that like we'll help anybody, cuz it really matters. But yeah, totally Unapologetic about it, love being from this part of California. It's beautiful in its grittiness. What's super cool is people don't feel compelled to like, feel you full of story about why you should care, like in the valley, of you're a good human, like that speaks for itself and that's enough and that makes it a good place to hail from.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's the first thing you told me actually when I met you.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Really, yeah, yep, you said we don't care about titles here. If you're a good human, that's good enough. I think that's right.

Bob Nelson: Yeah, I still believe that to be true. Like well, I mean hopefully right, I mean ethics matter. I think for leaders, ethics matter and I think right. Can we just agree? Like you've sat a lot of different seats in education, I have to. There's never a bridge to be burned like your street cred, and your relationship and your ability to connect with people is sacran, particularly if you want to have any staying powers.

A leader like: don't ever assume anything, don't get caught up on like title or privilege or any of that stuff, cuz there'll be times when you will need other people.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm curious when you said that you really were drawn to education through that opport, those opportunities in LA Unified, what was it? That like really kind of bit you with the teaching bug.

Bob Nelson: So I would say early, right, like, and I wouldn't have had the words to use it. But now I would call it like kind of an equity reality or just acknowledging that education is kind of the ticket out. So my seminal student teaching experience was, as I said, stto Street Elementary, South Central LA, and then I did Manhattan Beach Grand View Elementary, and those two groups of kids were maybe 20 miles apart and did not know that the other one even existed in the universe. They were just living and education was critically important to every family and every house. Told at both of those places, and I'm not throwing shade at it, but I am saying that, like being a teacher, you know you make a substantive dent in the universe every day. That's also true of being the superintendent, and you can make it in a pretty big way.

But having a direct impact on young people and their families and a community like that's super powerful, right, it's not just hyperbole like it. Really this job matters, nursing matters, being a veteran matters there, just some stuff that matters. And teaching and educating and being an educational leader, those are things that matter.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's, and I know I'm sure that you've heard this statistic too, but every time that somebody asks who's an adult that has impacted your life, you know the top two are typically teachers and coaches that really you changed the trajectory. I'd love to hear, Bob, just, you know, having held so many different seats and coming recently from Fresno Unified, when you think about education in the current space that we're in, what keeps you up at night?

Bob Nelson: I worry about the Deep politicization of our career sector. I think it's no question that, as we became the and that's may be a superintendency answer right, but it is like when we became the enforcement arm of pandemic Health policy we invited the politics of right and left to come right into the lapse of education, and it's really hard. So you see people on the right, for example, getting people elected that are unwinding things that are happening in education. You see folks on the left leveraging organized labor in ways designed to put stuff in the contract that really has nothing to do with educating, and I find all of that to be problematic. Right, because most of the big decisions that are made are somewhere between the polar extremes of r or left. Yes, and so it worries me that we are now Ground Zero for politicking in America.

I worry a lot about what November is going to look and feel like, how that's going to impact our children, and it worries me. That's one of the things that keeps me awake night. You know, we have this thing where, in the current world, where truth isn't truth unless somebody tells you it's truth, or like we don't venerate or value or respect any of the fundamental elements that keep our society moving forward, and that's a problem. Like, I don't want to raise a generation of children who doesn't trust anyone, anything and only believes what they hear in a Wind Tunnel. Right, that's not. And you know, as kids are exposed to more and more content, which all of which I think is good, right, you'll know I am the militant positivity podcast guy.

Social media can be used for really good to good effect. Right, I believe that at my fundamental core. That's why I'm on with you and also, teaching kids fundamentally to value and understand the relative validity of the stuff they weigh through, I think is absolutely critical, right?

Rachael Maves: So, with that said, and having at the point in your career where you are, when you think of new super superintendent that are coming into this space and the exactly what you just shared as one of the things that they are going to continue to Grapple with, what are two ways that you would say they could move forward?

Bob Nelson: So, in California we have these things called The Capes or the capsules, which are the standards for leadership. And number six is this external context thing. You do get a lot of leaders who will say: I don't do politics. There's really no such thing as not doing politics. When you say I don't do politics, what you're saying is: I don't like politics and I don't do it well, but you do it. You just are doing it poorly and it's not helping kids.

And stability in leadership is everything that's right. So I came to Fresno and you know, just with a 30mon shelf life on a superintendent think about that. 12 months I'm going to figure out how to hang stuff on my wall, 12 months I'm going to figure out my strategic plan, and then six months later, I'm out and the next person is coming in. Meanwhile kids are like what yeah, we just got going on this strategic plan. Like,. Sustainable change requires stability and Leadership.

So training people to deal with this capsule 6, this six, this outward orientation, and to I mean you don't have to play the chess pieces, but you only stay in a leadership position if you understand how the game is being played in lifetime. And you can't, and you can't if you don't put the dots together. You do it at your own Peril.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, so how do you begin to look for and train for putting the dots together?

Bob Nelson: How do you like the same tools you would use to do a data analysis of your kids, like: where are the gaps? How are kids doing? What body of knowledge do I have? The same thing is true on this political sphere. Who are the people that are at play? Are there Community leaders?

Who are the nonprofits? Where is the money? What is the political alliances? Who's selling houses in the you know vicinity? That's not selling it in the city, but they're selling it in the surrounding area, and what are their motivations for that? Like understanding, that is absolutely critical, and so I came here to teach people to do it, if they're not doing it already, or at least to talk about it so it's on people's radar screen.

I think one of the things is you take what you are best at, just like you had a lot, a very illustrous career doing a lot of important things at the department of Ed, and now you're paying that back and you're paying that knowledge and living, you know, breathing it into the people that are coming behind you, and it's why education too right my folks said it when I was a kid and they were right like, if you want to be happy in this life, stop worrying about being happy and go serve other people and you'll find happiness right. So take the skills you have, whatever it is you bring to the table, and go give that to the next generation of people and they'll make it better than you ever conceptualized it. But your job is to make sure that through line happens through you, and that you're paying it forward.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I, that's exactly right and I appreciate you talking about the impact of that cycle, the 30 month cycle of yes, for sure on the students, and we see that in the outcomes for kids, but then I would also say in the staff and the implications that has in the staff. When that is the constant churn and I love just wears people out, can we age like, I'll be honest, I didn't like okay. So hey, you're a superintendent, you're completely self-absorbed. Probably not a huge surprise to most. I don't think I'm always fully self-absorbed, but a lot of people in my sphere are and I certainly have done that. So I was pretty surprised about how people reacted when I said I was going to leave the super in tendency after seven and a half years, I was kind of like why do you care?

Like what's the big whoop. But it was exactly what you described. Like, hey, your change moves my world, that's right, and acknowledge that you're moving my world and you're doing it of your own valtion and you're meeting your own needs and doing your own thing, but you're leaving behind a wake of potential pain points that you don't even conceptualize. And so somebody gave me good coaching and they're like you need to let your people like Express concern, cuz part of me was like what do you care?

Bob Nelson: No, changes is hard on everyone and, frankly, kids are fairly resilient. I'm not saying that mean you should change them all the time, but I mean kid kids also benefit from stability and they want predictability and they want those things too. But the adults in your life like they just can't handle it and having a new leader every two to three years is it's the mark of a poor, poorly run system, like that's not a healthy entity that changes.

Rachael Maves: On the rapid like that?

Bob Nelson: No, it's not.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] And for anyone who's listening, who's not an educator and I would say, actually this is probably true of any sector. I don't know if there are other sectors that see the same churn in leadership that we see in education. But you know, when somebody comes in, they have their focus and the things that they're excited about and what they want to bring and their lenses into the work, and so for that to happen every two and a half years, it just creates you never actually settle into the change in the work or to see the outcomes of what you're doing. You're just in that constant state of the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and you haven't earned enough credibility honestly as a leader to like initiate the change cycle right there.

Bob Nelson: People who make that about you as a human and not about what's in the best interest of kids, and so to some degree it takes like you got to. It sounds terrible, but you got to kind of pay your dues a little bit so that at least people know you're predict and that what you say like aligns with what you do y absolutely well, and being able to take a deep breath and really understand the system. You know because what you have in your mind ESP, and I think about this in all professions and careers.

Rachael Maves: I think about this in when I started teaching and then served as a principal and then a superintendent and even at the state. You don't really know what you don't know until you give yourself time to ask lots of questions to unearth what's happening in the system. And when you move too fast, not only do you burn your credibility but you also run the risk of putting in a lot of things that actually aren't the right fit for that system and organization and community.

Bob Nelson: And I do think that's back to the idea of putting the dots together right, like if I want to accomp, accomplish one thing and I'm going to throw this lever. This is something I really want to see happen in leadership and I'm going to throw that lever without an acknowledgement. I just move three things over here that I had not had my eye on, but that are the result of me throwing this lever.

Rachael Maves: That's right.

Bob Nelson: That's a system. That's a recipe for failed leadership. You want people to run you out of town with pitchforks and torches in the dead of night, like keep throwing levers without any understanding of the impact of the consequence. And, as a leader, you not only own the decision you made, you own all of the impacts of the decision you made.

Rachael Maves: That's right.

Bob Nelson: Like some people, like a, I didn't intend that. Well, okay, but when you threw this lever, you did that. So and you own that, yeah, and you can't put that part off on other people because it didn't go the way you wanted it.

Rachael Maves: That's right, absolutely. At the end of the day, yeah, it's yours.

Bob Nelson: Yeah, that's the single greatest thing, Rachael Maves, about leaving the super in Tennessee for about 26 days now. To date, I have not been judged on the basis of a decision another Pusher made and solely on the basis of my own decision making, with night and day, substantive, positive change, like w, okay, that was really a good change.

Rachael Maves: I bet it's been quite a transition. Bob, what are there things that you're finding that you really miss? Are there things that you're finding that you yes, I mean I think honestly right?

Bob Nelson: I mean I've been a Shameless Ascension Seeker since I was a fetus. So like losing that is kind of rough, like as a diet in the wool. You know, extrovert, that part maybe is rough. The people, you know can't. You can't go 33 years and something all of your adult life without creating some relationships with people that go Way Beyond. Yeah, just the seminal aspect of the work.

I miss all of that. I don't miss the politicking. I don't miss the constant grind. I don't miss the dull, like I had no idea how much of my time was spent in a space of waiting for the shoe to fall, like the axe to drop, like that, like something bad is doomed to happen and it's going to happen here soon. Y when that went away, it was almost like a palpable lift, like the mantle got lifted off and it got shifted to Misty as the inter room and that the weight of that was a lot more than I was really anticipating. And then, like small things, like I took my mom turned 82 last Monday and I took her out to eat at 11:30 on a Monday in the, and then I realized I've never been in a restaurant at 11:30 on a Monday.

I don't know how life functions here, but this is pretty amazing, you know. Like okay, this is really cool. And so you know I, as I said, my wife's fairly thinks I'm kind of crazy, cuz why. I mean, I don't bring much to the marriage, but my name was on the front of the check. That's a really strong marital value, like. So she's fairly sure I lost my mind.

But the reality of it is there's other stuff I want to try and there's other stuff I want to do and yeah, and there this affords me the opportunity to do that, I'll say this: leaving on your own as a superintendent is worth its weight in gold, because very few people get to do it.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, and to go out in a good standing where you feel really good about it, where you have those good relationships with your board, with your community and being able to acknowledge: is it's just the right time. I mean that's a yeah.

Bob Nelson: It's a good thing for your listeners to Think Through too, like if are hitting a wall and you feel like I'm not making change here, sometimes we stay in things that are not the best for us. Yeah, Beyond, maybe, the direction that we should and I think taking some standing and like taking things in your own hands and kind of putting yourself out there in ways that feel really frightening is not always the worst thing.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, absolutely well. I'd like to wrap up with this final question, Bob and I'm I'm always interested to hear what people say to this one. But what question? In education are we not asking that we really should?

Bob Nelson: Be so one of the things that makes me totally crazy is your ability to demonstrate your knowledge is inversely proportional to the amount excuse me, not inversely directly proportional to the amount of privilege you have. So let me explain. Like in Fresno Unified, we have compy Tech or we have Manchester GATE, these are schools for gifted and talented kids who are super capable and we push them beyond the limits of what we would expect from a normal child at that grade and age range. But what they get is the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge in alternative. Ways. They can write a song, they can wrap it out, they can do a screenplay they can, and so the halves continue to have in our system.

Yeah, meanwhile, kids that are poor of color and from poverty keep getting desks in rows. And you have to do well in the test, and I'm going to give you two periods of literacy because I'm going to double down on the strategies that were already unsuccessful for you, without giving you any opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge in ways that are 21st century or deeper learning.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Yeah, and that's super scary as we enter an AI world and this world that we're preparing kids for, which is all about being able to think outside the box, so your most capable people have the greatest ability to think outside the box, and the very real possibility exists for chronically underserved children to have no place or space in the world that we're creating for tomorrow.

Bob Nelson: Like that scares me no end, and I do think it's, and there are people that are fighting it. I think of the folks at like a nonprofit, like battel for kids, where they're trying to figure out how do I get 21st century deeper learning into the hearts and minds of young people across the systems rural, suburban, Urban, like how do we crack that nut for everybody? Parsec is doing that, like some of the data visualization work that they do. That kids can demonstrate their ability to show their understanding in alternative ways is critical.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, right, it is a quantitative analysis, but it's also a qualitative analysis, Jour. Right, like you have to.

Bob Nelson: It's funny, like the first thing you said to me is: you have to tell the story. You do. You need the data and the numbers and the quantitative methods, but you need the story too and the qualitative understanding to make sense of the quantitative data. Yeah, I do think, like sometimes you know. We don't give kids qualitative, we give them a Ste steady diet of quantitative and then tell them, hey, you're not doing well, absolutely, and I know that you already know this, Bob, but this: one of the like core values at parse SEC is that you have to be able to have the qualitative and quantitative, which is why we have the data analytics in our dashboards, but then we also have reel, so that you can start to get that information from your student students, from your families, from your communities. For all of those reasons, it you cannot move, change or grow without that qualitative piece and being able to hear the story.

Rachael Maves: Entirely agree, and I appreciate that you work for an entity here locally who is not only lifting the valley but kind of gets that largely and frankly, the work that Parsec is doing. Dovetails with me because you're keeping leaders in the seat longer. Yeah, the tools that you create are able to help provide substance for people to stay so that people can validate the good things that they're doing. It's really good.

Bob Nelson: Yeah, well, it's key Partnerships with you know leaders like you, Bob, and others that I think are bringing light that really critical piece, and I'm so thrilled that you have a role now in training this next generation of Administrators because that, from the very beginning, they'll have that same value then and understand the necessity of being able to pull those in, and I think that's just fantastic. That's true. I do have the Master's students getting their Master's project or thesis done, and so that focus on, hey, mix methods. Right, it is the story and the numbers.

Rachael Maves: Yep, that's exactly right. Well, I just want to say thank you, Bob, for joining us today. I really appreciate this opportunity to connect with you and I know it won't be the last. So thank you so much for your my incredible pleasure.

Bob Nelson: Thank you, Rachael Maves. Thanks for what you're doing for kids all across our nation and right here in central California.

Rachael Maves: Thanks, I appreciate that.

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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.