Dr. Mark Foust | Superintendent, Kerrville ISD
As a young educator, I greatly admired our head football coach; he taught me an important lesson I still use today. He had a fundamental belief: in order for our team to be successful, they had to execute a few plays that no other team could stop. These were plays that we could always “hang our hats on.”
We practiced these plays until our players could run them in their sleep. We preached that these plays were unique and unstoppable. Through the years, we became known for those plays. Our athletes believed in them; our coaches believed in them; and our opponents knew we were going to run them but could do nothing to stop them.
The same philosophy can be applied to school leadership. Superintendents need a few key strategies to “hang our hats on,” so our students can be successful. These “plays” need to be simple, understood and aligned across the community.
Transitioning into the superintendent’s role for Kerrville ISD, I found a tight-knit community that loves its schools. There are excellent leaders and teachers in place, and our students are simply amazing. Together, we have developed our plan to move this district forward, and there are certain “plays” we are “hanging our hats on” as we progress on our journey of continuous improvement.
To begin this journey, we needed a shared vision. A complex organization like a school district has different schools and departments that need to work together. We all need to know our focus, our priorities and our goals. The challenge was how to go about creating that vision? It needed to be simple, easily understood and aligned across our community. Defining what we aspire to produce, what our graduates should look like, was an essential starting point to creating a shared vision. Stephen Covey calls this “beginning with the end in mind.”
Answering key questions like why we exist, who are we, how do we know we are being successful for kids are all important questions to be able to answer. We brought in a diverse group of our district stakeholders to answer these questions, and their work resulted in our KISD Profile of a Graduate. We defined the end product, and continuously emphasize it throughout the organization.
Simultaneously, our campus and district leaders identified and defined five KISD Instructional Standards that should be happening in all our classrooms, every day. We created posters and branding that are prevalent in every classroom, office and district facility in Kerrville ISD: simple, understood and aligned across our community.
Next, we invested a lot of time discussing what we, as a community, value and believe in education. After much discussion and feedback, we developed a Vision Statement, Values & Belief Statements and five goals that are part of our district strategic plan and guide the work we do each day: simple, understood and aligned across our community.
Further, we did everything possible to narrow our academic focus. When I was coaching, we had a lot of plays, but we only had three plays we truly hung our hats on. In our schools, there are many academic standards we must meet, but we narrowed the focus to our three most important goals: all students reading on grade level by grade 3; successful math instruction as measured by on-time successful completion through Algebra; and a post-secondary “pathway for every student” through college, career and military readiness: simple, understood and aligned across our community.
We intentionally and consistently revisit our Profile of a Graduate, Instructional Standards and our Vision, Values, Beliefs and Goals to ensure they are simple, easily understood and aligned across our community.
Successful superintendents have a few “plays” they hang their hats on to ensure student growth and to inspire all students to become lifelong learners and productive citizens.
Simple, easily understood and aligned across our community — It is our superpower.
Dr. Mark Foust serves as Superintendent of schools for the Kerrville Independent School District. Dr. Foust earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Texas A & M University, his master’s degree in education administration and supervision from the University of Houston — Victoria, and his doctorate in education from the University of Houston.
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