Episode Transcript
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The CEO you should know, broughtto you by Robie Foster Miller Eric Insurance.
This week CEO Jeff Hartman, Superintendentof the Galleon City Schools. Jeff,
good morning, Good morning. Howare you. I'm good? Thanks
so much for coming in appreciate this. Yeah, well it's amazing here we
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are August. But you guys arealready back at school, right, yeah,
we are? We sure are,all right. So as we begin,
we want to start with You're thenew superintendent, so I want to
begin there and learn a little bitabout you. Maybe let's just begin with
a overall background in education here.Sure, yeah, So I've have about
twenty over twenty years in public education, mostly at the high school level.
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I was a high school principal atStone Monroe Falls High School up until until
August first, and that's outside ofoutside of Kent, so kind of in
the ACRA in Northeast Ohio region.I've just moved here over the summer.
But you know, if I've beenhigh school principal and a couple of different
locations in Pennsylvania. I've worked inMaryland, so, you know, but
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western Pennsylvania, Ohio's kind of home, you know. My family spent a
fair amount of time in Youngstown andColumbus, you know, but this whole
kind of swath of territory is reallyfamiliar. So so as we talk about
coming to Galleon, you know,when you looked at the Galleon Schools and
the job came up, and whatkind of drew you to Galleon? Sure,
yeah, you know the Gallean CitySchools they are doing some phenomenal things,
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and that's what caught my attention.The collaboration between the board, superintendent
and the treasure a number of thestaff and just the types of different things
that they were doing was really wasreally compelling. And so when they called
and said do you want to jointhe team, it was an absolute yes.
All right. Terrific to learn thismorning about the new superintendent in the
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Galleon City Schools, that is JeffHartman. So as you're back to school
roughly across the district, how manystudents are we talking about it? As
you guys head back for another year. I think we have a little lesson
than eighteen hundred. I think somewherearound you know, seventeen ninety ninety five
something to something to that effect.When you look at teachers. How many
do you guys have this year inthe district. I think total staff is
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somewhere in the neighborhood of I thinkthree hundred three fifty something to that effect,
and that would include bus drivers,bus drivers, custodians, Yeah,
operations folks. You know, ittakes a team effort to make a school
district run. Teachers are super important, and you know, but equally as
important are the bus drivers that area smiling face for when our kids start
their day and get on that bus. And you know, the custodians that
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help keep things clean and sanitary.Are our food service folks that feed kids.
I mean they're important, absolutely,Yeah, you know our secretaries.
It takes a It takes a teamto make a school district run. I'm
a team person, so teamwork makesa dream work to use that phrase.
And you know, we do goodwork at Gallion and I'm excited to be
a part of it. You know, it's amazing. Every superintendent I chat
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with I say the same statement.Running of schools like running a big business.
You think you think about you know, hundreds of staff, You think
about all the kids every day.There's a lot to oversee, right absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely, a lot ofmoving parts, and so you kind
of have to have a little bitof a little your hand in a little
bit of everything. But again,it's it's the team that makes that makes
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that all function at a high level. You know, the team I work
most closely with at Central Office,They've been doing their jobs for quite a
while. They're really good at theirjobs. They know the community, they
know their kids, and they've madeit very easy for a transition for me
to come in and learn very muchin the seek first to understand kind of
mode. I want to listen.I want to observe so that we're able
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to make better decisions moving forward.I don't want to come in and start
changing things. Let's figure out whatwe've been doing. Let's honor the work
that's been done before me and makesure that we're being smart with decisions for
the future. All Right, itsounds like everybody's excited they're beginning new year
then, right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, we started as I said,
we started yesterday. You know,if you get on the district Facebook
page, you may see a pictureof me and our intermediate principle dressed up
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as traffic cones. And that wasjust a way to break the ice and
get kids and staff to smile,particularly at the the elementary level. You
know, there were fist bumps andhigh fives, and you know, for
some of our really young tigers,it's the first time for kindergarten preschool that
they've gone to a school, andso there, you know, you can
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kind of see the concern on theirface. And so you know, you
get this guy dressed up as atraffic cone. Maybe it's a little weird,
and it might get you to smileand shake off that stress a little
bit. And then all of thosekids were all smiles by the end of
the day yesterday. All right,Now, Jeff, for somebody that isn't
aware you in the Galleon School,it's all on one campus, correct,
Yes, how many buildings? Fourbuildings? Okay, yeah, all four
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buildings. So it makes it nicefrom a from a team point of view,
you're not dispersed throughout throughout a community. And from a resource point of
view, because if there's you know, something going on at one building,
we're able to shift resources quickly.And we're talking, you know, the
buildings are less than one hundred feetapart from each other, So that makes
transitions a lot easier for kids,resource sharing, and an allocation a lot
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easier for us. All right,good to hear about all of that.
Jeff Hartman, this week's CEO youshould know, is in studio. He
is the superintendent of the Galleon CitySchools. All right, So let's step
away from work and find out alittle bit more sure about Jeff Hartman.
Let's step back to the beginning.If you would tell us where was Jeff
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Hartman born? Oh? Wow,so Pittsburgh, So a community outside of
Pittsburgh. Family is still there.It's the North Hills. So Pittsburgh's kind
of divided into North Hills and SouthHills. So that's where my family is
right now. They're currently in asmall town north of Pittsburgh called Butler.
Okay, now, next, ifyou would tell us where'd you go to
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high school? High school was ButlerHigh School, Butler Senior High School.
And then we did college at SlipperyRock University, which is a little bit
north of there. That was undergradand then I did all my graduate work
at the University of Pittsburgh. Growingup, did you always know I wanted
to go into education, want tobe a teacher? Maybe administration, superintendent
or were there are other goals youknow, growing up and something took you
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down this path. Yeah, yeah, so you know the path I remember
thinking early on, you know,I wanted to either be a teacher,
a police officer, or a soldier. And I want to say early on,
I'm probably talking maybe fifth or sixthgrade. And you know, I
was able to do two of thosethree things. I was able to you
know, I enlisted and did sometime with the Army Reserve, obviously,
went into the teaching field, andand you know, at times I feel
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like I'm a police officer. Soyou know, maybe I was able to
hit all three. But that wasa conversation that happened early on, kind
of with myself. But one ofthe things that a lot of people don't
know. You know, I'm doingthis education thing, and you know,
people think, well, you wentto college and that's your trajectory, and
that wasn't really the case. Youknow, my dad was a steelworker,
mom was an office manager. Youknow, college wasn't a foregone conclude for
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me. I'm a first generation collegekid. I have two younger sisters,
same thing with them, and thereason that I'm here doing this job is
because the people around me and thepeople in school that we're able to help
support me and help me achieve mygoal. So professionally, personally, my
motivation is to pay it forward andyou know, leave schools better than they
found them, and you know,help teachers help kids. Always really interesting
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to learn everybody's story kind of howthey got where they are today. So
it's great to learn about you.While we're on the topic of you,
Jeff Hartman, I don't know ifyou're married, kids, anything like that.
Could you tell us more about JeffHartman in the family, Yeah,
not married, but have a significantother. We just bought a house,
so we're feverishly unpacking boxes and uhand taking a look at the house and
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doing all those you know, changingcarpet and bainting and all that. And
then I have an eleven year oldson, Chris. He lives with his
mom in Pittsburgh and comes out everyother weekend and we engage in any number
of NERF gun battle and you know, Minecraft games and legos and you know,
all the things that eleven year oldboys are into nowadays. Awesome.
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Now, if you get spare time, and I know, you know,
helping run a school and all thatis a lot of work, and it's
a twenty four seven three sixty fivejob. I get it. But if
you have spare time, what doyou like to do? Do you have
any hobbies? Yeah? Yeah,so I'd like to go biking. So
you know, one of the reasonsthat this area is really attractive is the
number of rails to trails that wehave in the region. So I'm a
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supporter of that kind of conservation typeof thing. So like to do a
fair amount of non educational reading justto give my brain a distraction, you
know, travel that kind of thing. So really just trying to when you're
engaged with kids, and you're engagedwith adults that work with kids, you're
you're you're invested emotionally, you're investedcognitively with your brain, and you know,
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you need to find outlets for selfcare. And in this case,
I try to give my brain abreak by getting on a bike and going
down a trail or you know,picking up a good book and just kind
of escaping that way for a fewminutes. A right. Good. We
are visiting this morning with Jeff Hartmanagain Galleon City Schools Superintended All right before
I let you go, wanted tokind of give you the microphone again for
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a moment. Is there anything newyou guys have this year in terms in
the school building, what you guysare excited about. I know you,
it's always a great when you starteda new year, and you always have
goals and all kinds of cool things. But anything new you want to share
about the new year? Yeah,So two things I think it might be
important for listeners, you know.The first is that safety is always our
top priority. And in the Ithink it was the early spring, it
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might have been the winter of lastyear, the district installed what's called the
Scentgic system, And so what thatis is an immediate alert system. Every
staff member has essentially a button thatthey carry with them and they're able to
push that button and it can alertoffice staff to any number of issues,
medical issues or you know, ifyou have an intruder or you know,
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even an unthinkable situation. And inthose high stress situations, you know,
there's strobes, there's PA announcements,there's screens are taken over for the kids
and for the staff. It's aslockdown protocol and effect, and so Scentgics
aims to reduce and minimize that time, make it as instant as possible to
alert everybody that there's a security situationhappening. Equally important is the prevention aspect,
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and in any of the literature andany of the research on school safety
issues, there's always somebody that knowssomething, and so the key for us
is to make it very very easyfor any number of people to report school
safety concerns and so on our website, we have a new button it's school
Safety Reporting. There is a newtipline that is there where people can call
or text, there's an email address, there's an anonymous reporting form, so
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we have a variety of medium forpeople to report school safety issues. That
information goes to building administrators, myselfand RSRORO. So preventions important and the
alerting is important. So that's kindof one aspect and the other aspect is
I'm getting to know everybody. Sowe're going to create a series of listen,
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learn, and lead sessions and thoseare going to be with parents,
kids and staff at each one ofthe buildings. And if you're a parent
of a middle schooler or a highschooler at Gallean City Schools and you're listening
to this, please come to thosesessions. At those upper grade levels,
engagement tends to drop off, andwe want to hear from parents. We
want to hear you know, whatare your experiences, How can we make
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it better? What do you wantfor your kids? Because if I'm going
to make informed decisions for our school, I want to make sure that I
have as many points of view aspossible. Great, and you're actually going
to my last question. You're kindof leading me there. You're saying you
would love for them to attend thesesessions. Next question was, Hey,
if somebody wants more information about theGalleon schools, they have a question,
I'm assuming to find out when thesedates are and everything. They would visit
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the school website. Absolutely, Yeah, come to our school website. If
you want to get in touch withme, they're you know, mail addresses
there. I'm certainly can call centraloffice. I'm good with communication. I'll
get back in touch with you andopen up those lines of communication because you
know, we're all on the sameteam. We're all trying to support our
kids, and strong schools are reallythe centerpiece of a strong and vibrant community
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and we're there well I'll tell youwhat you want to know. How responsive
Jeff is. I went to theschool website and I found his email and
I sent him a message, wouldlove to have you come into the studio.
And I think you got back tome in just a few minutes to
be able to set things up.So and I think that's important when when
somebody wants communication in the school,whether it's from the superintendent of principles,
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it's a teacher, you want thoselines of communication absolutely aute. So it's
terrific to have you in this morning. Did we miss anything you want to
let people know about? Cover everything? I think we covered quite a bit
of territory, all right. Soit's been terrific to learn the story of
the new superintended in the Galley andCity Schools. Jeff Hartman this morning.
This week's CEO you should know Well, Jeff, congratulations on the job,
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Welcome, welcome to the area,and we wish you continued success. Thank
you appreciate it. Jeff Hartman,Superintendent of the Galleon City Schools, the
CEO you should Know. Read abio, see a photo, and hear
the extended interview at WMAANFM dot com. This is John Roby of RFME Insurance.
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