S3 EP5 Breaking Educational Inertia: Insights from Tom Haggard on Systemic Change

PODCAST Season 3 EPISODE 5 

Tom Haggard 
VP Educate NKY 

Quote of the Podcast:  

"Fill your mind with truth, your heart with love and your life with service." 

Introduction of Guest BIO –  

From working with youth in Covington as a teen to his new position as vice president of EducateNKY, Tom Haggard has assumed increasing responsibility in collective impact, advocacy and community engagement. EducateNKY was launched by the OneNKY Alliance to address systemic change in education in Northern Kentucky, with an initial focus on communities with high socioeconomic needs. Recently, Haggard successfully led five community leader stakeholder groups to a consensus on key priorities in the education pipeline. Previously, Haggard served as director of the Kentucky Out-of-School Alliance, a nonprofit public awareness/advocacy organization focused on quality after-school and summer learning programs. He is a graduate of Leadership Northern Kentucky and a recipient of the Next Generation Leader Award in Education/Workforce, in addition to being recognized as a Forty Under 40 honoree. In 2020, Haggard was elected to the Covington Board of Education where he serves as chair.  

Interview 

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators 

•  30, a 000 Ft. View – Why so we, as society invest in education? 
• What drew you to education? 
• Collective Impact  
• Community Engagement in Education 
• What are the biggest challenges to you? 
• What would you like decision makers to know? 

Podcast/book shoutouts 

Abbott Elementary 

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to education perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education.

Tom Haggard [00:00:28]:
From working with youth in Covington as a team to his new position as vice president of educate n k y, Tom Haggard has assumed increasing responsibility in collective impact, advocacy, and community engagement. Educate NKY was launched by the one Kentucky Alliance to address systemic change in education in Northern Kentucky with its initial focus on communities with high socioeconomic needs. Recently, Haggard successfully led 5 community leader stakeholder groups to a consensus on key priorities in the education pipeline. Previously Haggard served as director of the Kentucky out of school Alliance, a nonprofit public awareness advocacy organization focused on quality after school and summer learning programs. He's a graduate of Leadership Northern Kentucky and a recipient of the Next Generation Leader Award in Education Workforce. In addition to being recognized as a 40 under 40 honoree. In 2020, Haggard was elected to the Covington Board of Education where he serves as chair. So, Tom, thank you so much for joining us today for Education Perspectives.

Tom Haggard [00:01:42]:
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited about the conversation.

Tom Haggard [00:01:46]:
Well, gonna kick you off with a tough one. From a 30,000 foot view, why do you think that we as a society invest in education?

Tom Haggard [00:01:54]:
I mean, it is the future, right? I know it's cliche to say, but it really is the future. How are we ever going to, you know, continue to build that more perfect union, right? If we're not focusing on education and making sure our young people have the skills they need to be successful moving forward.

Tom Haggard [00:02:11]:
Good answer. You are totally right.

Tom Haggard [00:02:15]:
Pass. This is a this is a quiz. Right? So I'm shoot I'm shooting for an a. Yes. I'm shooting for an a.

Tom Haggard [00:02:20]:
Good job. You got you got an a. So tell me a little bit more about yourself. What drew you to education?

Tom Haggard [00:02:28]:
Yeah. So I you know, I've been working in education or at least education adjacent spaces, my whole career. I think that's just part of my upbringing. You know, we were a working class family. My parents instilled in me early on, education was certainly a building block that you could use, to build the life that you want. And so they made sure. You know, I was doing my homework every night, but also instilled that passion for learning, in me and in my brother. So, that's really where it all started.

Tom Haggard [00:02:57]:
My first job actually was working, for the city of Covington in our Covington summer youth program. So it's a summer enrichment program in the summer. It was was actually the same program I attended as a young person myself. So, you know, 16, 17, that was really my first interaction. I've been working with young people and realized I'm hooked. This this is something that I wanted to do, moving forward. And I've been blessed to have different opportunities to get to do that both, you know, in direct service working with young people, but also and make sure we were implementing, better policies that could, you know, impact every kid, throughout the state of Kentucky. So just really blessed, and grateful for those opportunities I've had.

Tom Haggard [00:03:41]:
Absolutely. Well, that's a great segue into this new position that you've got going on. Educate NKY is kind of a a brand new concept. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what, what the roots of it were and what you hope to achieve?

Tom Haggard [00:03:57]:
Sure. No. Absolutely. So, Educate NKY grew out of the 1 NKY Alliance. You know, education has always been a pillar when we're looking at collective impact work throughout the region. Education has always been a strong pillar and and something that we need to pay close attention to and make sure it has the resources it needs to be successful. But, you know, about oh, gosh. Now we're going on maybe almost 2 years ago.

Tom Haggard [00:04:21]:
Our folks at YAYKY Alliance really saw, maybe we need to spin something off here that could really be dedicated and solely focused day in and day out to how do we improve outcomes for all children and their families throughout running Kentucky. And so, Educate NKY was created. We have a fantastic board, led by Greg Fischer, and our vice chair, Jim Vatrouba. They, I think, had a a knockout hire for our founding president and CEO, Tim Hanner. Former superintendent of Kenton County Schools, founded Navigo. And so really had a great dynamic leader to help them get us off the ground. And that this is really what we're trying to figure out. How do we create an education ecosystem in Northern Kentucky that truly ignites every eager vibrant mind? Right? And it's not about I I think the whole vision here is, you know, educating KY.

Tom Haggard [00:05:16]:
We're we're not gonna provide a new program. And I think we've all seen, like, we're we can't program our way out of some of these systemic issues that we see, both just societally and and in education sector. But if we can all kind of rally around some common ideas, some common measures, maybe then we can really start to move the needle. And so educating KI really wants to serve as a catalyst to a couple of things. 1, be an incubator. How can we bring new research ideas to life? How can we also act as an accelerator? We know there are amazing things happening both within our school districts, within our nonprofit community, at the grassroots level. How can we assist organizations in expanding their impact? Right? We may have a great program happening in Bellevue that is positively impacting the lives of 20, 30 kids and their families. How can we bring that to scale so we can see those positive impacts with 300 families or 3,000 families? We also wanna act as an activator.

Tom Haggard [00:06:21]:
So how can we be a convener? How can we collaboratively create opportunities, especially for public private partnerships? We really need to figure out, you know, how can we get that all hands on deck approach? We're bringing in business. We're bringing in educators. We're talking to our legislators. We, you know, we have our nonprofit community at the table. How can we have that all hands on approach so that every single young person in Northern Kentucky is getting that quality education that they deserve? And in turn, that's helping grow our region, and grow our economy to hopefully, transformational change.

Tom Haggard [00:06:59]:
That's so exciting. And it's not often that you get all those different types of stakeholders together. What has the reception been so far?

Tom Haggard [00:07:06]:
It's been incredible. You know, not I I talked about this briefly. You know, our our leadership on our board. But we have some incredible leaders, both from business and nonprofit, sector on our board, who are bringing a lot to bear. We also have a very diverse and dynamic advisory council. So these are folks from almost every sector throughout Northern Kentucky. And even some of our neighbors across the river have come over to lend their expertise, as well. And so those folks are really bought into figuring out, you know, how can we solve some of these problems? But a great example, I think both of Tim's leadership early on and then how the community has bought into this, back in the spring, we, had come out with our landscape assessment.

Tom Haggard [00:07:51]:
So, Shai Calvo, who actually is now our brand new president and CEO, just started a couple weeks ago. He was hired on as consultant to do a landscape assessment, a really thorough deep dive. And what does the education ecosystem look like in Northern Kentucky? But also, what are our opportunities? And so, the board had identified 5 strategic priority areas to really focus on that could be true game changers. If we were able to leverage, those 5 key priority areas, we could possibly accelerate, what education looks like in Northern Kentucky. Those 5 5 areas are early learning, family engagement, mastery learning, out of school time and exposure opportunities, and secondary options. And so what Tim and the and the board did in the spring is we convened work groups around each of those 5 strategic priorities. And so we have folks really lean in. And, you know, this was many folks who had never met each other, certainly never really worked together.

Tom Haggard [00:08:55]:
And they had a big task in front of them. We were gonna meet from March until June, with a incredible facilitator we had in pat Patty Nagelkirk. And we tasked those work groups with coming up with recommendations for our board of directors that could be included, in a strategic plan. And and I'm sure, you know, that that many people around the table trying to, agree on anything, incredibly challenging, but also incredibly inspiring. And so, when I came on, in April to the organization, this was my task. Right? How can we get these work groups, to some clear recommendations that were also, you know, that really we're trying to stretch ourselves as a community. You know, let's really try to think outside the box and what do we need to do to solve some of these systemic barriers and issues, that many of us who have been in this space for a long time have been beating our heads against the wall, about. But like, hey, let's do it.

Tom Haggard [00:09:57]:
Let's figure this out. And it was incredibly inspiring, to see all those folks really lean in, get uncomfortable, have some tough conversations, look at the data, and then dream big for what we could do as a region. And so each of the work groups successfully completed their mission, handed off some, what I think, are are really dynamic recommendations, to our board in late June. And and now that that's where we're at now. Right? We're at the stage where, the board and our staff were really putting those things together and trying to come up, with what our strategic plan will look like for the next 5 years. And, we're excited to hope we'll we'll be rolling that out this fall.

Tom Haggard [00:10:36]:
Well, that's a real pivotal point, isn't it? It's that action stage moving from even that idea stage to how can we actually make this kind of thing happen, especially in a system which is known for its bureaucracy and tradition and all those kinds of things. Was there anything that you kind of talked to your committee members about? I mean, I know you mentioned the dream big. What does that look like? And do were you happy with some of the out of the box ideas that came forward?

Tom Haggard [00:11:08]:
Yeah. Definitely. You know, I I think, you know, I worked in in education and in the nonprofit sector. You know, we are often coming to our work with a scarcity mindset. Right? The the resources are scarce. You know, and and how can we do this from that mindset? I think, what our board challenged us to do is let's not think through that lens. Let's think about, you know, if we need x resource or y resource, then we're gonna go get it. If that's what we really need to bring about transformational change, and to see systems level thinking of how we can truly improve education outcomes for all students across the region.

Tom Haggard [00:11:51]:
You know, it was scary at first. But then I think really inspiring. Because folks were able to say, okay, well, before having a real talk, then here's the real talk. Like, this is these are some of the steps that we need to go through. And I think that was what was really interesting to see. Because like I was saying, you had career educators in that room. You had, business leaders who had never worked inside of a school. You had nonprofit leaders who were trying to be a bridge between both.

Tom Haggard [00:12:24]:
So and, you know, we we had a lot of grassroots leaders too that were leading, you know, small organizations. So but had really deep knowledge of the communities that they were serving. And so just having all those folks together, I I know I keep using the word inspiring, but it truly is what it was. And I think you'll see you'll see a lot of that come forth, in our strategic plan when we release it this fall.

Tom Haggard [00:12:49]:
That's really exciting. That's really exciting. Tell me a little bit more about what collective impact means to you.

Tom Haggard [00:12:58]:
Sure. I mean, for for me, it really is that my hands on deck approach. You know, I I again, that that may be a little cliche to say. But for me, that is what it means is that, one, we need a common understanding of the problem in front of us. And I think that's what we've tried to lay out with our landscape assessment report that was released this spring. To say, you know, here here's our data. The good, bad, and the ugly. You know? And I would be remiss to say there's a lot of good in there too.

Tom Haggard [00:13:31]:
Right? We have a lot of things that we should be celebrating, celebrating, in our education ecosystem, for sure. But as somebody who's been in this now for quite a while, there's some ugly and some bad. And we need we need to address it together. And for me, you know, really seeing folks put egos aside, put, their kind of institutional hat aside where you know, that everyone was bringing their lived experience to some of these conversations. But folks were really putting their egos and their kind of professional hats aside and saying, you know, I'm not here to make my you know, to get money for my organization or to show how my organization is better. It truly was like, let's figure this out. We got an opportunity here. And it may be a once in a generation opportunity to bring everyone together, to measure things together, to lean on one another, to try stuff and fail quickly, and then move on, to another strategy.

Tom Haggard [00:14:29]:
But I think that's the opportunity we have now. And so, you know, that collective impact model really was, you know, how are we addressing a common issue? We have that in front of us. Now let's put forward some strategies where we all got some skin in the game. And we have a true North Star to show us where we're going. And I think, you know, that that is the exciting and perhaps once in a generation we have, in front of us with educating Kia.

Tom Haggard [00:14:57]:
That's really exciting to me because I I feel very much that there's a lot of finger pointing that goes on, and we just need to stop and say that it is everybody's responsibility to ensure that our young people are becoming effective citizens that can be productive and happy and healthy and all that kind of a thing. And it's not just in the school. It's not just at home. It's not just in what we measure. It's it's all of us trying to to kinda row the boat in the same direction. And and I think that that's something that that people kind of forget because education has been so siloed. You know? I mean, literally, the whole model is built on 1 teacher in a classroom with a bunch of kids with the door closed. You know? And so finding ways to be able to cross pollinate good ideas to elevate things that are doing really, really well.

Tom Haggard [00:15:56]:
This may be too early to ask that question given where you sit, but have you has there been any discussion around how we can go about identifying those great things that we could scale and amplify?

Tom Haggard [00:16:08]:
Yeah. Certainly. I mean, I think, you know, we're probably a little bit too early to talk about, you know, kind of maybe what some of our investments will be. But I I think you're you're certainly seeing more eagerness and openness to just what you're saying, Liza. But how do we work this out together? We're thinking about In this phase of our work, I would also be remiss to say, I don't think I mentioned this. But our board is, wants to focus first on our many of our communities, along the Ohio River. Right? So we wanna figure out how can we bring about change in in Ludlow, Covington, Newport, Bellevue, Dayton, and Southgate specifically. And so for, you know, a a middle school teacher, at Holmes Middle School, by chance, you know, a a 7th grade math teacher, they who are their peers to talk to? Right? Like, you're in a small system.

Tom Haggard [00:16:58]:
And kind of what does that support to, like, share ideas, bounce stuff off of. But if we were bringing together the 7th grade math teachers from Buffalo and Covington and Newport and Bellevue and Dayton, who who are sharing many students, who their students share a lot of demographics. I mean, I I'm one of those students. I I'm a Covington kid, born and raised. So I'm I'm one of those students. But, you know, that just creates an amplification that, you know, could really take off and provide not only professional support, but could also generate some incredible ideas. And so I think that's one of the things that we're really excited to figure out is, you know, there is a rich history, especially in our communities along the river, and a deep history there. But, you know, how can some of those school districts work together as a system to support one another and support the students and families who live there? I think that's an incredible opportunity.

Tom Haggard [00:17:53]:
And if we're able to backstop that with the resources, that they need to be successful and to coordinate both business and nonprofit to work alongside, that is pretty powerful. And so, you know, a couple years out from that, I I think if we're able to get this right, you can see some incredible things happening.

Tom Haggard [00:18:12]:
Has there been much discussion around time? I do some work with the, Fayette County School District here, and and teachers regularly tell me that, you know, resources is not always money. Right? It's time. And their days are so packed full that they don't have time to do this kind of collaborative work that they'd really like to do. Has there been any discussion around kind of blowing up the school day a little bit from the education side to to facilitate this type of thing?

Tom Haggard [00:18:43]:
Yeah. You know, I like, specifically, you know, I I don't remember a specific conversation about, like, the traditional school day. But what I would say is that I I think what's been exciting is all things are on the table. Right? Like, what truly, what is it? And I think that is the message that we've gotten from our board, is to say all things are on the table. If we can identify a strategy that is going to have an outsized positive impact in the lives of students and families, then we're gonna pursue that. I think, you know, it's been interesting having educators at the table. Our board has also, had some deep engagement with the superintendents of districts throughout Northern Kentucky to really get their thoughts and ideas on what could what is possible. So again, I think all things are on the table.

Tom Haggard [00:19:32]:
And as we, you know, build some of this out, I think it might be really exciting to see what comes out of it. You know, I I would say, you know, one of the things that kind of my part of my professional background has been in the that out of school time space and, you know, that that support space. And so, you know, I I think we always, folks are always trying to figure out what is the silver bullet. Right? We want that one silver bullet answer. And we all know that it doesn't exist. But the one thing I have always argued is that the closest thing we have, there's a silver bullet for students, is more time. Right? They need more time with a caring adult role model who is is versed in the content that they're struggling with, who can help excite them, get them excited about learning, and just more time. And so I think that was it was very intentional that out of school time and exposure opportunities were part, were one of the strategic priority areas for us.

Tom Haggard [00:20:26]:
Because we really view that as a leverage point to really not only help students deepen and further their learning, but also help educate so that we can use the community as a classroom. We have people who have your back that wanna support you, who want to bring in new and different experiences for your students, and that you're not alone and you don't have to do it all yourself. And we wanna bring those resources to bear.

Tom Haggard [00:20:52]:
That's a really important message for educators to hear. And also giving them permission to think out of the box and iterate. And, you know, we we kicked this off talking about, you were hoping to get an a with the answer to your first question. And so much of this type of transformational change will probably mean we'll try some things and they won't work. And so, you know, failure has to be able to be an option. Exactly. Exactly. Especially when you're looking at really, you know, making things different.

Tom Haggard [00:21:25]:
So I was glad you kinda brought that up, separately earlier too.

Tom Haggard [00:21:29]:
For sure.

Tom Haggard [00:21:30]:
And, again, this is a huge boat to turn that we're talking about. It it it is, and it's gonna be a lot of little layers of little things that will will help float it and turn it in the right direction and whatnot. Mhmm. But what do you view at this point as the biggest challenges that you face?

Tom Haggard [00:21:47]:
Yeah. I mean, I I think it it's the boat. Right? The boat is large and heavy, and it is going to take so much inertia to get it pointed in a different direction. And, you know, the status quo is the status quo for a reason. And that's really it. I think that is the challenge. As somebody who has always tried to think about the possible, that can be really difficult in the education space. Because there is just so much baked in and the bureaucracy is so deep.

Tom Haggard [00:22:20]:
It's sometimes hard to view what is the possible. So I mean, I think that's the challenge ahead. I, like I said, I was inspired seeing folks from all those different sectors to start to think about what could be. You know, and I think we have, some great champions in the state legislature who are ready to say, hey, there might be some new and different ideas here. And maybe, Northern Kentucky needs to lead the way, in what education looks like. And like I said, you know, just going back to our board, I think those are folks who really want to, like, go deep on this issue and learn and hear from all the experts, but then really be agitators to say, okay, like, let's keep moving, let's keep going, let's keep, heading in the right direction. And I think, you know, little by little, if we all start to push together, you really do start to turn the boat. But that's gonna be our challenge is to both not only continue to gather a community of champions who want to see change and want to think about the possible, but also just have that sustained effort over time.

Tom Haggard [00:23:29]:
Right? We're not gonna change this in 2 years. Right? We need a sustained effort over the course of a pretty long span to make sure, that we can get there.

Tom Haggard [00:23:40]:
Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned your board multiple times during this conversation. And and some of that is really having the right people on the on the boat or on the plane or in the bus or whatever you wanna call it. Tell me about a little bit more about the makeup of that board and why you think they've been so powerful.

Tom Haggard [00:24:01]:
Yeah. I I I think the the number one reason why I think they've been so instrumental and powerful in this is because, you know, I would stack our board up against anyone's. Right? It is a powerhouse board made up of, you know, CEOs, not only from business, but from the nonprofit community. Folks who have been engaged in the nonprofit education space for a long time. You're, you know, really just getting involved right now. So kind of when you bring that collective brainpower together, it's, I think, it would be really easy to become impatient to, okay, we gotta go. We gotta move. We gotta do stuff.

Tom Haggard [00:24:37]:
What I think they have been great at is the balancing act of pushing to make sure we're starting to gain movement, but also realizing this is a long term project, right? We're not going to see the immediate results of this in a year, in 2 years. They're gonna continue to push us to say, you know, we wanna see indicators changing. Right? Let's see some leading indicators that we know can show, over the course of a long term, we're gonna go where we need to go. But I think like that that's been the secret sauce, and that they're willing to learn, they're willing to listen, they're willing to take in this massive amount of information, kind of sift through it, and be really thoughtful, not jump to conclusions. You know, it can be really easy to say, right? You know, all these schools are failing. The test scores are awful. You know, we just need to open up new schools. Let's do this.

Tom Haggard [00:25:29]:
Let's, you know, but they're not doing that. They're saying, okay, well, what about this? Or what about this? Maybe there does need, maybe we do need a new school option here. But maybe back here, we need to think about, you know, what are the resources, maybe we need to be resourced appropriately in some of these areas. So it's just been really inspiring to see folks, of their stature really lean in and also be incredibly engaged. So I think I believe it was almost every single member of our board joined one of the work groups. And so they met 6 times in a pretty short amount of time for lots of hours and sifted through the data with folks. And we're at the table, rolling up their sleeves, having some heated conversations sometime. And then, you know, hugging.

Tom Haggard [00:26:17]:
Because this is incredibly I mean, education is incredibly personal for everyone. Right? We we all have our own lived experience that we bring to the table. We all have our hopes and aspirations for the future of what we wanna see. But that's what I love. They're they're incredibly engaged. They wanna do the right thing, and they're committed to making sure, that we have the resources to do it.

Tom Haggard [00:26:37]:
Well, kudos to them. That is phenomenal. And with that kind of of power, you are really positioned to do some amazing things. That leads me to our final question. What would you like for decision makers to know? And you can define the decision makers however you'd like.

Tom Haggard [00:26:53]:
Sure. I think what I what I'd like decision makers to know is that there are no quick fixes. There is no silver bullet hanging out there that we just, you know, haven't implemented yet. This really takes all of us owning our education system, being responsible for our students, you know, it does go back to, you know, I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. And it's incumbent upon all of us to lean in and do what we can to make sure that we're leaving our community just a little bit better than what when we found it. And so just know that it takes some time. But to be a good listener, to listen to professionals who've been doing the work for a long time, but also feel free to, you know, ask the what if questions or what about this and what about this And continue to push and agitate until, you know, we really truly feel like every single child in our community has that world class education that they deserve.

Tom Haggard [00:27:54]:
I think we all have a role in that. And so I I hope that's what folks will do.

Tom Haggard [00:27:58]:
Well, that is fantastic. And this has been such a neat and inspiring conversation. I'm so pleased by the the direction that you guys are taking. And thank you for stepping up to play an important role in it.

Tom Haggard [00:28:12]:
No. Thank you so much for allowing me to have the opportunity to have this conversation. And, you know, I I hope folks will continue to engage with us, and learn more about what we're doing because, it is about building a community of champions, for this work. So we love everyone to be a part of it.

Tom Haggard [00:28:29]:
Well, I will make sure to put the website in the show notes. Can they find the, report there as well as the landscape report?

Tom Haggard [00:28:36]:
Absolutely.

Tom Haggard [00:28:37]:
Excellent. Well, I thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

Tom Haggard [00:28:41]:
No problem. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Liza Holland [00:28:45]:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which education perspectives you would like to hear or share. Please subscribe and share with your friends.