CC#2: Dr. Todd Dain - Shawnee Mission South HS

Dr. Todd Dain, principal of Shawnee Mission South High School and 2023 NASSP Principal of the Year, discusses school culture and the intentional efforts he makes to bring in new staff members at the start of the year. 

00:00 Introduction and Welcome to Cool Coffee

01:08 Dr. Todd Dain's Journey to Becoming a Principal

05:39 The Power of Building Relationships in Education

14:52 Onboarding New Staff Members: Understanding Student Backgrounds

18:29 Creating a Positive and Supportive School Culture

25:20 Being a New Principal: What to Be Tight On and What to Be Loose On

26:53 Shawnee Mission South High School: A Strong Culture of Diversity

27:57 Closing Remarks and Future of Cool Coffee

(FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW)

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TRANSCRIPT

Rick Sola (00:02) All right, good morning as it is here July 19th. I'm sitting here with Dr. Todd Dain of Shawnee Mission South High School, USD 512, home of the Raiders. And Dr. Dain, this is kind of the first of these podcasts. You are the guinea pig, as I was just sharing with you. I really appreciate you being here. Welcome to Cool Coffee.

Dr. Todd Dain (00:29) Cool coffee, I love it. I'm excited to launch this thing and really just grow our network of school leaders here in Kansas.

Rick Sola (00:40) Well, that is the goal and Cool Coffee has kind of a, I guess a double meaning. Hopefully it's a good podcast and something people want to listen to. I thought of Cool Coffee because so many times in our job, by the time we get to our coffee, it's cooled off a little bit. you brew it and you put it down and then things happen and you get back to it it's a little bit cool. So hopefully we'll have a lot of fun on this podcast.

I don't wanna take up too much of your time. I know you're super busy. You just got back in town. You're part of what I'd like to do as we talk to different principals across the state is I'm really interested in hearing everybody's road to the chair, you know, and it's so vast. And just in a quick nutshell, can you share just a little bit about your road to the chair you're in right now?

Dr. Todd Dain (01:35) Yeah, absolutely it seems like it's been a long road now, but you know started out as a teacher obviously and and Was a teacher in Shawnee mission and began kind of exploring

my path towards my masters. And at the time I was teaching and coaching at Shawnee Mission West High School and my good friend and colleague, Steve Shelton said, hey, we need t