Dr. Darrin Peppard's educational leadership journey began when his college roommate asked for help coaching fifth-grade basketball. That simple moment sparked a passion that would guide him from classroom teacher to award-winning principal, superintendent, and eventually to becoming one of education's most respected leadership voices.
The turning point in Darrin's leadership philosophy came during his first year as an assistant principal while processing over 2,200 discipline referrals. During a contentious staff meeting about enforcing rules on hats and cell phones, someone asked, "Why does it always have to be about what they do wrong? Why can't it be about what they do right?" This question fundamentally shifted his approach from punishment to celebration, from compliance to culture-building.
What makes Darrin's insights so valuable is how he transformed this philosophy into practical action. Rather than imposing solutions, he assembled diverse teams of educators and students to identify root causes of problems. When investigating poor third-period attendance, students revealed they were skipping because they were hungry after being forced to throw away breakfast items at the door. Simple solutions like strategically placing trash cans dramatically improved attendance. His commitment to making everyone feel "seen, heard, valued, and trusted" ultimately raised graduation rates to historic highs.
Now through his company Road to Awesome, Darrin coaches educational leaders to get clear about what truly matters to them, be intentional in their actions, and lead with purpose. His bestselling books "Road to Awesome: The Journey of a Leader" and "Culture First Classrooms" (co-authored with Katie Kinder) provide actionable frameworks for building positive school cultures. As Darrin explains, effective leadership isn't about perfection—it's about clarity, intentionality, and focusing on relationships first.
Ready to transform your leadership journey? Connect with Dr. Peppard through his website roadtoawesome.net, subscribe to his Leaning Into Leadership podcast, or join his email list for weekly insights that will help you move from crisis management to purposeful leadership. The road to awesome begins with a single step—what will yours be?
Connect with Dr. Darrin Peppard by clicking on the links!
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Culture First Classrooms Book (Amazon):
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Principal JL (00:00):
Today I am thrilled to welcome to the show
Dr Darrin Peppard.
He is a dynamic keynote speaker, leadership expert and
consultant who is passionateabout school principal and
superintendent.
Darrin brings a wealth ofreal-world insight and
(00:28):
inspiration to the table.
He's the best-selling author ofRoad to Awesome the Journey of
a Leader, and his latest book,culture First Classroom, where
he co-authored with Katie Kinder, is already making waves for
its powerful message onleadership relationships and
classroom culture.
Darrin is also the host of theLeaning into Leadership podcast,
(00:52):
where he shares practical andactionable wisdom on building
strong teams and thriving schoolcultures.
Now here is my conversationwith Dr Darrin Peppard.
Welcome back everybody toanother episode of the
(01:16):
Educational Leadership Podcast.
Today I have Dr Darrin Peppardin the house.
Welcome, darren to the show.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (01:25):
Yeah, absolutely Thanks, jeff.
I appreciate it,
Principal JL (01:29):
All right, Darrin, I'm going to ask you the same
question I ask everybody.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (01:42):
Yeah, it's an interesting story because,
coming out of high school, thelast thing I would have told you
I would be was a teacher andhonestly, in college I kind of
struggled.
I bounced from one major to theother.
I mean, I actually started as aphysical therapy major and very
quick story on that.
When I was a sophomore in highschool I was on the basketball
team.
I'm in the training room.
(02:02):
It's Thanksgiving break.
It's that Friday afterThanksgiving.
I'm in doing some rehab on anankle injury that I had and Doug
Flutie throws this miraculouspass to Gerard Phelan to beat
Miami Boston College in theOrange Bowl.
And I saw it on TV in mytrainer's room and when I had to
(02:24):
choose my first major, I'm like, hey, trainer John's got a
really cool job and he's got aTV in his office.
I want to do that.
Well, that didn't work out andhonestly, there were three or
four other majors along the wayand I just couldn't find that
calling for me.
And a buddy of mine, one of myroommates in college, came home
(02:46):
one day and he said hey, wouldyou come help me coach this
basketball team?
I kind of got roped into doingit.
I was a wrestler in high school.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Will you come help me?
I go to basketball practicewith them.
The next day, jeff, I was hooked.
I was like, oh my gosh, this iswhat I want to do.
I want to work with kids.
And it wasn't like it wasn'thigh level basketball, it wasn't
the X's and O's that got me,this was fifth grade girls
basketball.
(03:06):
So it was like bumblebeebasketball, like everybody
swarming with the ball.
That wasn't the thing.
It was.
Wow, I want to work with kids.
And went and saw my advisor thenext day changed my major for
that next semester and all of asudden I had a focus.
I had a direction.
I wanted to work with kids.
I wanted to be a headbasketball coach, a goal that
(03:29):
eventually I achieved.
But really it goes back to thatmoment in time such an odd way
to find your path in life.
But, man, I was.
I was absolutely hooked.
I love coaching kids.
Principal JL (03:45):
Yeah, I know that's kind of some very similar
to my background, my story.
It was really coaching that gotme into becoming an educator,
so that's something that you andI both share.
So let's talk about you knowyou found your passion here.
You want to be an educator.
Let's talk about getting intothe classroom.
What was the classroom like asa teacher?
(04:06):
What are some things youlearned just about yourself or
about just the profession as youwere teaching?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (04:14):
I love this question because this is one
nobody ever asked me.
When I started as a classroomteacher, I wanted to be a high
school teacher.
My major was secondary scienceand I really wanted to be a high
school biology teacher.
I wanted to be a high schoolteacher, my major was secondary
science and I really wanted tobe a high school biology teacher
.
I wanted to be a headbasketball coach and the offer
that came was a middle schooljob and I thought, man, there's
(04:35):
no way I want to.
I would.
Actually, that particular schoolwas a junior high.
Like man, I don't know that Iwant to teach junior high.
Man, I don't know that I want toteach junior high, but I'm a
Wyoming kid, grew up in Wyoming,and when you grow up in Wyoming
and you go to school at theUniversity of Wyoming, more than
(05:00):
likely you develop a completedisdain for icy, cold weather,
and so when this offer came at aschool in Northwest Arizona, I
jumped at the chance and when Ifirst got into that classroom,
first off my principal, betsyParker love her to the end of
time, one of my greatest mentorsshe hired me to teach seventh
grade life science.
I was excited, I'm going to comein I get to teach biology.
I mean, yeah, it's seventhgrade, but that's okay.
(05:21):
I'm excited I get there and Ifind out I'm actually going to
teach eighth grade physicalscience, which is not a strength
of mine, and eighth grade math,which I'm probably the last
person who should be teaching amath class.
Um, so I mean, the lessonstarted before kids even walked
in my door and I think, like forfor many teachers, especially
(05:44):
who started in the mid nineties,it was here are your keys.
Good luck.
And in the corner of my roomthere was a stack of textbooks,
and I didn't have any mathtextbooks, so I had no idea what
I was doing there.
Luckily I had a couple of weeksto prep for that.
But what I discovered, I thinkmore than anything no-transcript
(06:27):
I've carried through my entirelife it's about relationships.
You know old relationships withyour kids, and that was one of
the things I really leaned into.
And you know, I remember thatthat first year as a classroom
teacher, my very first formalobservation happened to coincide
with when I did my very firstdiscipline referral.
(06:47):
I had a kid who was mocking meand mimicking me the entire time
.
I finally had to ask him toleave and send him to the office
, and my assistant principalthat was doing the observations,
like man, you have got thepatience of a saint.
I'd have kicked him out a longtime ago.
What are you doing?
And I just I've worked reallyhard to build relationships with
(07:11):
my kids and now, jeff, that'salmost 30 years ago, there are a
whole lot of those kids I stillhave a relationship with to
this day.
And when you do that, I thinkthat is what sets you up for
success as a classroom teacher,as a building leader.
No matter what it is that youdo, if you focus on the people,
(07:34):
you focus on relationships.
I think that's probably thenumber one thing I learned.
I don't think I necessarilyfigured it out right away, but
because I felt like I wasoverwhelmed with all these other
things, I knew I was good atbuilding relationships, so I
really kind of leaned into that.
Principal JL (07:51):
Oh yeah, you're speaking my language there about
building relationships.
I think that's really key, nomatter what capacity and
education you're at if it's, youknow, a paraprofessional, if
it's, you know, a classroomteacher, you know administrative
, assistant, principal, any roleyou are in education it's about
building up those relationships, because there's things that
(08:15):
you'll you don't know yourimpact until later impacts that
that person until much later.
And when you get those phonecalls or those letters or those
emails about how you impactedthem because of something that,
hey, it was just because that'swhat you do, that's your, you
know you, you know just buildingthat relationship, just who you
(08:37):
are, um, how it impactssomebody down the road is
powerful.
So that's really, uh really.
Thank you for sharing thatpiece of advice there with
people.
Now you always talk about youknow you've been teaching for a
while and then you go intobecoming the principal.
Everybody calls it the darkside, but I still think you know
(08:59):
we have to look at it as we'reall working together right, even
though people like to calladmin the dark side on things.
But so talk about you know thattransfer or that you know
transformation from teacher intoadministration.
What motivated you to take thatleap?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (09:18):
You know, it kind of goes back to I think it
was either my second or thirdyear as a classroom teacher.
I'm almost positive it was mysecond year.
There was a moment in time, myfirst principal again Betsy man,
she had made such an impact onmy life.
But there was a moment in timeit was during the summer.
(09:39):
I was in the main office andshe was there and she just kind
of pulled me aside and said youknow, you really ought to think
about a career in schoolleadership.
And Jeff had never crossed mymind.
I mean, that is not, you know,and and the same kind of thing.
Right, you know, I come in as a,as a new teacher.
Um, on my prep there was atraveling teacher that that
(10:00):
Betsy told me later.
She intentionally put him in myroom because you know he's a
veteran, he can kind of, youknow, guide and support me and
that kind of stuff.
And and he probably, along withthe rest of the you know, the
coaching staff and all that kindof stuff, helped me form that
dark side mentality ofadministrator, bad and um.
But but when Betsy tapped me onthe shoulder and said, hey, you
(10:22):
ought to think about this, thatkind of opened my eyes and when
I first arrived in the state ofArizona, the way the licensure
worked in Arizona.
You had eight years from thetime you got your initial
teacher's license to complete amaster's program.
It was a requirement in thestate.
They ended up doing away withthat a few years later, but I
(10:44):
was getting ready to start mymaster's program and I had a
student teacher, and so when youget a student teacher, a lot of
times the university that youdo this through will give you
complimentary courses.
And so I ended up having, Ithink, my first four courses
paid for it because I had twostudent teachers in a row and I
went ahead and started in theadministrative, you know,
(11:05):
licensure program and I think Ihad this moment where at this
point, I was a head coach and Ihad, you know, I kind of had
achieved what I really wanted toachieve.
I wanted to be that headbasketball coach and we're
starting to have some successand starting to grow a really
strong program, and I felt likeI kind of had one of those two
(11:29):
roads diverge moments for me andI had to make a choice, you
know do you just continue withthe coaching I had finished my
master's degree or do we goahead and pursue the school
leadership avenue?
And at this point my daughterwas five, six years old and my
wife and I were talking aboutmoving back to our home state of
(11:50):
Wyoming.
And, jeff, I didn't want to goback to or move to another
location and get behind otherpeople in line.
I was a department head.
I had an absolutely stellarschedule.
I was the head coach, I mean, Ihad kind of ascended to where I
wanted to be as a teacher andso it was.
(12:10):
You know what.
Let's look for administrativeroles and I was fortunate enough
to land at a high school inSouthwest Wyoming as an
assistant principal and man, thelesson started right away.
There's this I don't knowmisbelief or misunderstanding
that when you have the titlebehind your name, all of a
(12:34):
sudden that changes the waythings work and it's just not
true, just like I did in theclassroom, that I needed to
really work hard to buildrelationships.
You know that that first year Iwas in charge of all high
school discipline and attendanceas a high school principal.
You can appreciate this oneschool of about, at that time,
about 1100 kids all high schooldiscipline and attendance came
(12:58):
across my desk.
So I mean, it was.
It was just nonstop, you know,catching people doing things
wrong, handing out theconsequence, and I think, I
think I very quickly, maybe evenby the end of the first
semester, felt like man, ifsomething doesn't change, I, I,
(13:20):
I can't, I can't keep doing this, I can't keep doing this job.
Jeff, I did 2200 disciplinereferrals my first year.
I mean, it was seriouslynon-stop.
And partway through the yearthis was really kind of the
moment where and I didn't labelit that or anything like that
but looking back, this is reallywhere Road to Awesome begins.
(13:44):
We're in this staff meeting andit's the staff meeting, right,
the staff meeting, the one wherewe're going to figure out what
we're going to do about the twomost important things on our
high school campus hats and cellphones.
Oh, that staff meeting, right,yeah, oh, exactly, right, yeah,
yeah.
And because I'm in charge ofdiscipline and attendance, I get
to facilitate this staffmeeting and we're I mean, we're
(14:08):
all over the place withdifferent consequences and ways
we can force them to do what wewant.
And and somebody raised a handand just said Darren, why does
it always have to be about whatthey do wrong?
Why can't it be about what theydo right.
And for me, that was a hugeshift.
I mean, I remember juststanding frozen in time like,
(14:31):
wow, why are we doing it thisway?
Um, I I started showing up alittle bit differently after
that.
I mean, there were stillconsequences for misbehavior,
don't get me wrong, but but itwas like maybe we need to start
thinking about what we'relooking for here.
If all we do is look fornegatives, we're going to find
it and we're doing a good job ofit.
(14:51):
By the way, I mean, we werereally good at finding the bad
things, and it wasn't just thekids either, it was the staff.
I mean, we were looking forthings staff was doing wrong and
our culture was terrible.
It really was.
And for me, I think you know,one of the biggest lessons, as I
made that transition that wholefirst year was what you look
(15:14):
for, what you value, what youthink is important is what
you're going to find.
And in our case, we were sofocused on those negative things
, the things people were doingwrong, that we were completely
missing all the great thingsthat were happening in our
(15:34):
school.
And making that transition tostarting to focus on what was
right versus only focusing onwhat was wrong ultimately made a
huge difference in the cultureof our school.
Principal JL (15:48):
You know you're kind of speaking to that whole.
You know.
You know you felt like allyou're doing is chasing down all
the negatives you were.
You know, just, it felt likejust you're beating people down
instead of lifting them up.
So let's talk about how you didthat.
How did you build your schoolculture and leading your team as
(16:09):
a school ?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (16:11):
Yeah, no, that's a great question and,
honestly, it began with me stillin the assistant principal role
.
The very next day after thatstaff meeting, I had a
conversation with our principaland I'm like man Randy, we got a
problem, our culture's broken.
And he said I know.
He said, but I don't know howto fix it.
What thoughts do you have?
(16:31):
And I mentioned to him at myhigh school, where I'd been a
teacher, they had this thingcalled Jostens Renaissance and
they were celebrating kids fordoing the right things.
I'm like maybe we ought to lookat that.
He's like sure, let's check itout.
I flashed back into thatmeeting and when that question
was asked, those two questionswere asked.
I remember seeing some facesaround the room that probably
(16:55):
looked just like mine, like well, why aren't we doing that?
And I went to those people thatday and said and I went to
those people that day and saidI've got an idea.
Do you want to be a part ofthis?
And eight of them said yesalmost right away.
And as a collective group, westarted talking about what are
(17:18):
the things that we need toimprove on our campus and we
looked at some key metrics.
Obviously, you want to go todata, our average daily
attendance rate was like 84%.
It was horrible.
So, okay, that's an area weneed to improve.
We looked at our graduationrate.
It was under 70% Horrible, weneed to improve here.
(17:40):
I looked at our testing and welooked at teacher retention and
a handful of other key metricsthe discipline referrals.
That's why I know that numberby heart.
But as a group we started saying, okay, let's figure out some
(18:01):
steps we can take.
We're going to go to this bigJocelyn's Renaissance Conference
this summer and we'll learnabout ways to take some steps.
But what else should we do?
And one of the members of thegroup said why aren't we asking
our kids?
We do this all the time ineducation.
We sit around a bunch of adultswho haven't been kids in a long
(18:23):
time and we think we can solvethe problem for kids and to an
extent we probably can.
But why wouldn't we want theirvoice?
And we ended up.
We went through a pretty lengthyprocess.
We had a group of almost 100kids.
We just asked the whole staffgive us the names of kids that
are leaders and not just thestud co kids.
(18:43):
I mean kids who are leaders butmaybe don't have a title.
And man, we had almost ahundred kids that we took
through an exercise and throughall kinds of different
conversations around why thishappens, why that happens.
Like our third periodattendance was absolutely
terrible.
Well, I mean, we're looking atthe master schedule.
(19:04):
Like man, what courses arethere that the kids hate or what
teachers you know that theydon't get along with?
I mean, like, what's what'shappening?
Our kids told us point blankthey were hungry.
You see, teenagers and maybethis isn't true at your high
school, I'm pretty sure it isthey don't leap out of bed an
hour in advance to go eat a nice, healthy breakfast on their way
(19:26):
to school.
No, they come rolling in withtheir Starbucks or their thing
from the convenience store.
And we had a problem with trashin our hallway.
Well, my predecessor wouldstand at the front door with a
big giant trash can.
He wasn't greeting kids, it wasthrow it away, throw it away,
throw it away, throw it away.
Greeting kids.
(19:47):
It was throw it away, throw itaway, throw it away, throw it
away.
So these kids are coming inwith hardly anything in their
stomachs, being told they haveto throw away their stuff, that
they just waited in line, youknow, at Starbucks for 20
minutes, for they're skippingthird period because they were
hungry.
So we wouldn't have figuredthat out, but our kids told us
here's why that's happening,okay.
So we put some pieces in placeto help with that.
(20:09):
Number one we stopped meetingthem at the front door and
making them throw away theirstuff.
We bought a whole bunch oftrash cans and we put trash cans
where they were needed, tookcare of the trash problem.
They weren't throwing trasharound because they were
bringing their breakfast in.
They were throwing trash aroundbecause there was no place to
put it.
And teenagers are pretty goodat just setting their stuff down
(20:32):
and hoping their mom picks itup for them, right.
But just having thoseconversations with this group of
eight, and ultimately wewhittled that group of kids down
to a group of nine kids thatultimately we called our culture
steering committee, and it wasa mix.
It was, you know, and this wasspring semester, so we had a
(20:55):
couple of freshmen, somesophomores and some juniors.
We had no seniors because theywere getting ready to walk out
the door.
We wanted kids who would bewith us the following year.
We took them along with ourcrew, we went to this big
conference and we were blownaway.
We're blown away with how youactually focus on the things you
(21:16):
want to see and then recognize,reward and reinforce them.
And, man, we made someunbelievable changes in the
culture of our school.
But, jeff, it doesn't end there.
That really helped us,especially with things like
attendance and those types ofthings, but it wasn't going to
move the needle with theacademic side.
(21:38):
We needed to make some changeson the academic side too.
We needed to really focus onhigh quality teaching and
learning in the classroom andhelping our staff move away from
that stand and deliver all thetime to really engaging students
in their learning.
(22:01):
Among the things that we did, wedid a lot of different things,
but among the things we did waswe started looking at the career
pathways that our kids had inmind, things that, for example,
in the Health OccupationsAcademy, that really not only
met state standards but alsostill connected to the interests
that the kids had in theirpotential career field down the
(22:35):
road.
Doing that work.
Holy moly, what a bigdifference.
Kids are going to go to class.
They're going to go and beengaged when there's something
that's relevant to them, andthat was part of what we
referred to as our rigor,relevance and relationships
framework.
Those three pieces in theclassroom really made a
(22:58):
tremendous difference and wereally started to see some
wonderful gains.
And I think those two thingsultimately were what led to me
becoming the principal of thatschool, was leading those two
efforts and I'll tell you by thetime I left that school, not
the numbers we wanted, but 81%and 84% graduation rates my last
(23:21):
two years, the highest gradrates in the history of the
school.
So I think so, and again I'vesaid relationships repeatedly.
Through all of this, when youreally work to get people into
the mix, when you really work tolisten to them and work towards
things that make a difference,the collective culture of that
(23:45):
school transformed tremendouslyfrom let's just use punishment
to gain compliance to a placewhere I think for the most part,
everybody felt seen and heardand valued and trusted and
that's to me that's kind of thesecret sauce, if you will.
Principal JL (24:04):
You touched on a lot of things there.
When you're just aftercompliance, you're just going to
beat your head against the wall, right.
But when you bring peopletogether, people have a voice,
they're heard, you're taking inconsideration of what the issues
are and you're taking theirfeedback, but you're not just
listening, but you're actuallyhaving actionable steps on top
(24:27):
of that.
I think that makes a hugedifference in the shift in the
mindset of a school culture andhow you get people rally around
and help everybody be successfulin that environment.
So really, that's really just apowerful story to share with
people about how you go from.
(24:48):
You know we're going to do allthese things and I'm going to
you know, make you compliant to.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (24:59):
It was never about me.
It was never about me.
It about us, or think that ithas to be about us, not
(25:31):
necessarily like from an egoperspective, but from a we are
the system.
That's when those things fail,or when that person leaves, they
go away, because it isn't aboutthe collective system, it's
about just me as an individual.
This is how I want things done.
Just me as an individual.
This is how I want things done.
None of it.
The culture focus, the careeracademies, any of those things.
(25:52):
They were never about.
Darren wants this.
It was about as a collectivegroup.
These are things we'veidentified that we want to do.
Principal JL (26:05):
I was just really fortunate to be in the position
to lead those particular effortsand work around a whole lot of
great people, yeah, no.
And then I am right there withyou.
I know, you know, being abuilding principal myself, I I
really don't like the shine.
I mean, yeah, I'm leadingefforts, but, yeah, I try to
give credit where it's due andreally it's the the collective
effort that you have with yourstaff and your students that
(26:27):
make the difference and that'sreally thank you for that.
To bringing out that point,Darren, you weren't just, you
know, a teacher, assistant,principal, principal, but you
also stepped into thesuperintendent role.
So what motivated you, what ledyou to decide I'm going to
become, you know, thesuperintendent, you know um of a
(26:52):
district, you know, after, youknow, spending some time at the
building, Right, you know, Ithink it was a combination of
things.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (27:01):
Um, when, when I transitioned from AP to
principal, uh, my first year,year and a half as principal, I
was a nightmare.
I was, you know, for some reason, you know, and, honestly, in my
second assistant principal rolein that building, I was in
charge of curriculum,instruction, special programs.
I was the instructional leaderof the school.
But I got this crazy idea whenI became the principal that I
(27:23):
had to be everything and I hadto be the superhero and I had to
do everything for everyone.
And a year and a half of that Ihad burned out.
I'd gained a ton of weight, Iwasn't taking care of myself, I
had a cell phone in each handall the time.
It wasn't sustainable.
(27:44):
And I was real fortunate whenour new superintendent came in
after the one that hired meretired.
He believed in leadershipcoaches and he hired coaches for
all of us and, honestly, jeff,most of my peers.
I think there were 13 buildingsin the district at the time.
I was the only big high school,but most of my peers were kind
(28:06):
of offended, they kind ofresented him for hiring coaches,
but I was like, oh please, Ican't get my head above water.
I need help.
My coach really helped mefigure it out.
I mean, he helped me go fromfirefighter to truly the leader
of my campus and over the courseof a handful of years, I really
(28:55):
felt like, instead of always inthe building, I was always
looking to grow my bench formore leaders on the campus.
I was just I fell in love withdoing that work and I had this
crazy idea that by being asuperintendent, I could do more
of that.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
I could do more of that.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
But that was really the bigreason that.
And of course I mean you know,let's be honest, you know you
kind of go through a progressionand for me that was just, oh,
(29:16):
that's the next challenge.
I had completed my doctoratedegree, I'd been named national
educator of the year.
I'd been, you know, stateprincipal of the year.
It's like, okay, what else canI achieve here?
You know what I mean.
Look at where we are.
I can set it up for the nextperson.
I'm ready to go take this nextchallenge.
And I enjoyed being asuperintendent, but I I did not
(29:39):
love it as much as I love beinga high school principal.
Um, when I got into thatsuperintendent role, I really
did think I could.
You know, man, I'm going tocoach leaders and help them grow
and I ended up hiring coachesfor my leaders because you just
don't have that kind of time asa superintendent at a different
(30:03):
level of the system and toreally understand so much more.
Oh, all the ins and outs ofschool finance, of you know the
political process, the, you knowthe ins and outs of legislation
(30:25):
and you know how to work withdifferent community groups.
I mean, certainly, as abuilding principal, I worked
with a lot of community groups,obviously with all of our
business partners that were partof our academies and that type
of thing.
But it's different at thesuperintendent level, the work
that you're doing in terms ofthose business partnerships and
working with all these differententities and definitely a
(30:47):
valuable experience, something Ireally truly cherished and that
I learned a lot from.
But the reason I made the leapturned out to be something that
was a bit of fool's gold.
Principal JL (31:00):
Hmm, well, that's very interesting.
I'm going to note that down.
I really enjoy what I do as abuilding level principal and you
know, yeah, there might be thatnext step down the road, but
I'm not ready for that.
I just love what I'm doing with, you know, working with my
staff, my students, buildingpeople up, and so that's kind of
(31:22):
where my niche is.
I want to kind of stay there,but I've had I've had some of
those same thoughts, so maybethat's a really good you know
and I'm not saying being asuperintendent was, it was, a
bad thing.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (31:33):
It was not.
No, it really wasn't.
And and I've I've said thisdozens of times that I think
anybody who's been both a highschool principal and a
superintendent would echo whatI'm about to say Of Same Of the
two jobs, high school principalis harder.
High school principal, you arealways on.
You might think, oh well,you're the superintendent,
though You're every you knowhigh school principal.
(31:54):
You mentioned the spotlight.
The spotlight is not brighterthan it is anywhere than the
high school principal spot.
I mean, it's holy moly.
There's a big difference thereand I think that's probably why
I loved it so much.
You mentioned.
You don't really, you know,don't necessarily love the
spotlight.
I do, and I didn't feel like Ihad to be in front of it all the
(32:15):
time and it felt like I had tobe the person to, you know, to
speak or to do this or to dothat all the time.
But I was very comfortable inthat and I really enjoyed that.
It's probably why I still, tothis day, identify as a
recovering high school principal.
I just loved that role.
I enjoyed being asuperintendent.
Don't get me wrong, man,there's something special about
(32:36):
being a high school principal.
Principal JL (32:38):
Now, there's a lot of parts about the job that I
do love.
I mean, it's the people that Iget to connect with on a daily
basis, and you know, when peoplecome up to you randomly and
talk to you about things, it'skind of nice, but at the same
time, um, that could also take atoll on you, because you know
you're hearing everything.
You know you're tearing, you'redoing great at this.
(32:59):
Ah, I heard this is kind of notgoing well, and so I mean
that's a balance, and I thinkthat's what you got to have to
learn at this.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (33:10):
I remember when I got hired, um the you
know, like the day that Iaccepted the job, my wife and I
were having a conversation andshe said, yeah, I can't even
wear sweatpants to Walmartanymore now because it's she's
like, it's like you're the mayornow, and in many ways that's
true, you know.
(33:31):
I mean some people may or maynot know who the superintendent
is in my district.
Yes, they did.
He started his teaching careerthere.
He was there for 32 years orwhatever they.
Everybody in town knew who itwas 32 years or whatever they.
Everybody in town knew who itwas.
But in a lot of places the firstplace where where I was a
teacher I didn't even know whoour superintendent was, nobody
did.
(33:51):
I mean, I'm sure some peopledid, but he was somebody that
you know.
You could have walked past himand you know, in a grocery store
and not known it as the highschool principal.
You have a 0% chance of goinginto the grocery store and not
having somebody stop you, unlessyou go, like at 6 am or
something like that.
You might have a chance, rightyou might.
Principal JL (34:10):
Yeah for sure, all right, so let's uh, darren,
let's talk about you.
You wrote a book.
I know you have a new one out.
We'll talk about that one in alittle bit, but let's talk about
that first one, the Road toAwesome.
What inspired you to write yourfirst book?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (34:29):
It's kind of an interesting story.
I started writing that bookabout six months after I
finished my dissertation.
And when I finished mydissertation I swore I would
never write anything ever again,and I think most people who
have done a dissertation wouldsay the same thing.
But I, uh, I don't know.
I started feeling this, thisitch to to share more.
(34:52):
You know, I mentioned I hadjumped into the superintendency
because I wanted to coach moreleaders and I wanted, I wanted
to impact more people and I mean, at this point in time, I mean
go back to that, that JostensRenaissance connection.
I'd been a part of their, oftheir community for a long time.
I'd built some greatrelationships.
So much about leadership as abuilding administrator, from my
(35:27):
struggle times to when I kind offelt like I had it pretty well
figured out.
I wanted to share that withothers and that's kind of what
got me going on that and, to behonest with you, I struggled
with it at first.
I probably had 10 or 12 startstop versions of of what
ultimately became the firstedition of road to awesome and I
(35:50):
just I thought I had to havethis like magic formula for
leadership, like you know.
Oh, here's, here's the magicformula, you know, and a good
friend of mine, a fellowJohnson's Renaissance hall of
famer, dr Phil Campbell, told,told me one night we were
talking about it and he saidjust write your stories.
Just write your stories andthose will make your point.
(36:13):
Those will help you figure outexactly what your points are.
And, man, it just startedflowing and flowing and flowing
and flowing.
I started thinking back todifferent stories about this and
that and the other thing andsome of the things that I've
mentioned very quick in passing.
You know the, you know the.
Why does it always have to beabout what they do wrong?
And and what is it that mattersto you as a school leader?
(36:34):
And the second edition of ofRoad to Awesome, the one that's
out now to me, it was all aboutsix key things to you, know
things to really be successfulas a school leader.
And in the book, one of thethings I talk about when I do
this all the time withleadership training, I do
(36:54):
keynotes, all that kind of stuff.
I challenge leaders to thinkabout what truly matters to them
.
I had six things that matteredto me and I don't necessarily
feel like people should agreewith my six.
That's not what's important?
What's important is that people, as leaders, are clear about
what truly matters to them andthen that they go and be
(37:17):
intentional about that work.
And that's what really inspiredme to write the first edition
but then to go back and do asecond edition of that book,
because the first edition hadbeen out for about a year and a
half, maybe two years, and I'dbeen doing a lot of speaking, a
lot of leadership training atthat point in time and I felt
(37:39):
like, okay, there are somethings that we could do
differently in that book, thereare some things that I left out,
there are some things thatreally don't need to be there, I
think, just like anything, itprobably even you know you've
discovered this with a podcast.
Every episode that you do, youget a little clearer, as you
know, with the questions you askand with where you want to go
with things.
(38:00):
Same thing was true with thatbook.
I was really crystal clear withwhere I wanted that book to go
and so, ultimately, with thatbook, I just wanted to inspire
leaders to understand thatyou're not going to be perfect
right away, but if you can getreally clear about what matters
to you, if you can be reallyintentional with your time, with
(38:20):
your actions, with yourcommunication, with your systems
, then you also can find yourown road to awesome, your own
way to go and be successful, notjust as a leader, but to help
your school be successful.
Principal JL (38:35):
That is.
That is really great.
I mean, I love you, know kindof how that inspires you and how
that your stories are helpingother people become the best
leader they can be.
Because, you're right,everybody leads a little
differently.
We all have our own journey,our own path, and that's kind of
where my podcast comes in.
I'm not a writer.
I'll talk all day long if youlet me, so this is where I'll
(39:00):
get in and meet people like youand other guests I've had on the
show, learning through theirjourneys but sharing those
journeys out, because there's somany different ways to lead but
at the same time, there's not alot of resources out there, and
you're one of those resourcesthat are out there to help
people learning, grow when itcomes to this educational
(39:22):
leadership role.
Now you have a new book out.
I believe you and Katie Kinderwrote it together.
Let's talk about.
You know, culture first,classrooms.
Tell us about this new book.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (39:34):
Oh man, I I'm super, super proud of this
book and you know, it kind ofcame about in an odd way.
Uh, katie and I Katie and Iactually met in person finally a
couple of years ago.
We were both speaking at aconference in Las Vegas.
I went to her session, she cameto hear me speak and we
(39:55):
connected, had dinner with agroup of friends and just
started to have a lot ofconversations.
At that time she had justjumped out of her instructional
coach's role and into the workshe does now supporting schools
and teachers all over thecountry, and I asked her to be
on the podcast.
I'm like, hey, I'd love to doan episode of the podcast with
(40:16):
you.
And we're doing the podcastepisode.
And I had just started teachingat the university level.
I teach an advanced classroommanagement course for Fort Hayes
State University out of Kansasand I was telling Katie about
the course and the moreconversations we had, the more
we realized that she and I justsaw eye to eye on what really
(40:40):
classroom management is allabout, which is not about
management at all.
It's about culture.
It's about developing culturein your classroom and if you
start with that, so much ofthose other things really take
care of themselves.
And so, you know, I, I, one ofthe things I had shared with her
(41:01):
was when I started teachingthat, that course, I asked my
students.
I do this every semester.
I asked my students what do youthink of when you hear the
phrase classroom management?
That's the first, the firstdiscussion board.
Let's talk about that.
And, jeff, you know what I hear, right, how do I?
How do I handle it when theymisbehave?
How do I get them to do what Iwant them to?
Um, things like that.
(41:22):
Well, build relationships withthem, you know, set the tone
from the very beginning, havesome very clear structures and
teachers that either we hadworked with or that we were
seeing in classrooms now.
(41:53):
And ultimately, we ended upasking 24 people to write
something for us about how theybuild culture in their classroom
, in their building or in theirdistrict.
And taking those pieces andkind of breaking them down into
ultimately seven differentcategories of how you build
(42:16):
culture in your classroom led tojust, I think, an amazing book.
And I don't say it's amazingbecause I wrote it.
I will say my writing in thisbook, I think, is even better
than it is in Road to Awesome,only because I've grown as a
writer.
Why this book's amazing, though,are the 24 educators from
around the country, who, in mostcases, not all there's a few
(42:39):
that are names that people mightknow, but for the most part,
they're teachers who are justgetting after it every single
day, and they're not out thereon social media talking about
themselves.
They're not national speakersor they're not writing a book.
They're just absolutelycrushing it on the day-to-day
(43:01):
grind in their classrooms, andit's.
It was so awesome for for Katieand I to share our platform
with them to give them therecognition that they deserve to
.
You know, have some people learnabout, uh, people like um Stacy
nation or um Tanya Follum or umman.
(43:26):
That's just so many of them.
Um, you know, just some amazing, amazing human beings.
I'm really excited about thisbook because it really does lay
out for you whether you're a newteacher, or you're a classroom
teacher who's maybe struggling alittle bit, or you just need
something to boost you, or maybeyou're a school leader,
district leader, and you're like, hey, I want to do something to
(43:48):
really kickstart the culture inour classrooms.
This book really lays it outand gives you some great, just
smart moves from great educatorswho are in the classroom right
now.
Principal JL (44:01):
Awesome.
I love how you have 24different people in the book.
That's the one thing.
I feel like it's going to bereally powerful for people to
see and know that there's somany different ways to do this
and being able to share theirstories is really an empowering,
impactful way, way.
But you're also utilizing thatcollective efficacy you've
(44:24):
talked about where you get abunch of people together and
they here's some.
Here's some ideas on how how tobuild that that classroom first
culture.
So well, thank you guys forthat book and writing that, and
I'm going to recommend people toget it and we'll put it.
Put it down in the show notesfor you as well.
So, Darrin, let's talk aboutyour work today.
(44:44):
You know you're no longer asuperintendent.
You you're a speaker, you coach, you consult, you write books.
There's a lot of things.
So what are you up to now?
You know in this.
You know day-to-day grind.
You're a podcaster.
You could talk about leaninginto leadership Great podcast.
(45:05):
I recommend everybody to take alisten as well.
So just tell us about whatyou're up to.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (45:10):
Yeah, for sure I appreciate that.
So, yeah, the work that we dohere at Road to Awesome has
quite a few buckets to it, butultimately we are all about this
.
We are about helping educators,helping leaders, get clear, be
intentional and walk in theirpurpose, and we do that in a
handful of ways.
You mentioned the speaking andprofessional development that I
(45:33):
do.
Keynote speaking is something Ithink is just wonderful.
It's a great way to share amessage, but it also opens doors
to work with individual leaders, to work with leadership teams,
to work with schools anddistricts, and I provide a lot
of professional development forleaders and leadership teams and
(45:55):
then also for school levelteams through the culture, first
, classroom stuff, to reallyfigure out you know where are we
trying to go, what are thesteps we're going to take to
really be successful andultimately, how can, how can we
collectively be the bestindividuals that we are?
How can we get ourselves on ourown road to awesome?
(46:17):
Couple that with, certainly,the coaching and consulting.
There's a whole bunch ofdistricts that I work with,
where I am working one-on-one orin small or large group with
leadership teams or individualleaders just to kind of help
them through the day-to-day.
So many leaders today, jeff,have jumped into the position
(46:42):
and I mean this is prettytypical.
We get into the role.
We don't know how to do therole until we go do the role
right.
But I think in your journey andmy journey there was at least
there were some other piecesalong the way that when we had
the opportunity to becomeassistant principal, principal,
whatever, we had some experiencethat made the transition a
(47:06):
little bit easier.
So many leaders today aremoving so quickly into these
roles that they really need thatoutside support and a lot of
leaders are finding outsomething that has been true in
the business space, in thecorporate space, for a very long
time Having that other personto bounce things, off of that
ear, that can ask you goodquestions, can help guide you
(47:29):
through different types ofscenarios.
Having that coach makes such adifference.
My coach, he saved my career.
That's why I do what I do now.
He saved my career.
I might've even saved my life.
I don't know.
I was, like I said, gainingweight, not taking care of
myself, working myself into theground.
So that's another avenue thatwe go about supporting leaders.
(47:55):
Certainly there's a lot ofcontent that we develop.
You mentioned a couple of books.
I'm working on a couple morebooks right now, but we also
here at Road to Awesome have ourown publishing branch where we
publish books of.
I think we're on our 35th or36th book right now with other
educators around the worldbecause we want to help them get
(48:19):
their voice out there, justlike I've had the opportunity to
get my voice out there.
And then, yeah, the contentstuff.
I mean we generate content likecrazy around here the podcast
typically, we release betweenfive and six episodes a month.
Every single Sunday, leaninginto leadership is going to drop
an episode, and we always haveone special midweek or mid month
(48:41):
episode that'll drop on aWednesday or a Thursday.
I, you know, do a weekly blog.
Jeff, I'm all about this.
This is just simply who I amand this is why I do everything
that I do.
I really believe every one of ushas this unique ability to help
.
The person that we used to beand the person I want to help
(49:01):
that I used to be, is thatstruggling early career leader
who just can't figure out how doI lead effectively, how do I
stop running around putting outfires, how do I stop just acting
like a crazy person andactually feel like, hey, I can
get into classrooms, hey, I canbe the instructional leader, hey
, I know what my systems aredoing, I know how to lead on my
(49:25):
campus, in my district, in mybusiness, whatever the case
might be.
I love to do that work and wedo it in just so many different
ways here at Road to Awesome,and that's certainly grown over
the years.
When we first started, it was alittle bit of speaking.
Now it has become, you know,something that is is quite a bit
(49:48):
bigger and something that we'rereally proud of, and it
continues to grow.
Principal JL (49:52):
Yeah, hey, Darrin, that's.
That's great.
I mean to have people like youout there to help educational
leaders and people to learn,grow, to coach them up, to give
them resources, but also tosupport them and also to elevate
them as well.
I love that because there arepeople out there that need
people like you to come in andhelp them out.
(50:14):
For me, I had Coach AngelaKelly was one person that helped
me through my educationaljourney.
I met her through listeningjust to a podcast in 2022 and
working through that and justkind of figuring out, because I
had a lot of questions, you know, on what I was trying to do and
(50:34):
where I was at and being ableto find resources in different
ways.
But then, having you know, Ithrough this podcast and I got
to meet you.
I got to meet a lot of othergreat people out there doing the
work, and so I reallyappreciate the work that you are
doing in helping educationalleaders and I would tell people
(50:55):
man, just you know, if you guysneed somebody, Darrin here in
Nebraska.
He's living in Omaha, so he'sright down the road from where
I'm at, so give him a shout.
So let's talk about how canpeople connect with you, darren,
if they're interested in yourwork.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (51:12):
Absolutely yeah.
So a couple of easy ways to getin touch with me Uh, the
website is road to awesomenet.
You could send me an email,darren at road to awesomenet.
Or just go to the website, um,click on contact us and send us
a message.
Um, when you go to the website,click on contact us and send us
a message.
When you go to the website,it'll pop up right away to join
our email list.
Please join our email listbecause you'll get all kinds of
(51:35):
the content that we're talkingabout.
You'll get all kinds of contentsent to you that hopefully is
really relevant to what you'relooking for.
We have a weekly newsletterthat comes out.
Every newsletter that comes outevery Monday that you know goes
out to all of our subscribers,and then all kinds of other
different things that uh thatcome out.
You know about our, uh, ourprincipal academy and we didn't
get to talk about that one, andthat's fine, but there's all
(51:57):
kinds of stuff.
So go to rodossumnet and checkthat out.
Uh, if you're a social mediaperson, I am Darren M Pepperd on
literally every platform, allright, yeah, I'm going to go
ahead.
Principal JL (52:09):
I'm going to put those links and those things
down in the podcast description,so the show notes, so people
can can find you real easily onthose things.
Well, Darrin, this has been areally great conversation.
This has been a really greatconversation.
I enjoy bringing you on thepodcast today to share your
journey and all the great thingsthat you are doing to help
(52:31):
educational leaders.
I really appreciate your time.
I'd like to thank you for beingon the show today.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (52:38):
Absolutely, jeff.
I appreciate it and thank youfor the work that you're doing
and getting this podcast outinto the universe.
There's always room for moreleadership podcasts, so thanks
so much for having me on.
Principal JL (52:50):
All right, Darrin, you have a great day you too.
Wow, what a great conversationwith Dr Darrin Peppard.
I hope you got as much out ofthis conversation as I did.
His passion for leadership,culture and putting people first
is both inspiring andactionable.
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to check out Darrin's
(53:13):
books Road to Awesome andCulture First Classrooms, and
don't forget to listen to hispodcast Leaning Into Leadership
for even more insight andinspiration.
As always, thank you for tuningin to the Educational
Leadership Podcast.
If this episode resonated withyou, please share it with
someone who needs to hear it.
Leave a review and subscribe soyou don't miss out on future
(53:37):
conversations like this one.
Until next time, be 1% better.
Today I am thrilled to welcome to the show
Dr Darrin Peppard.
He is a dynamic keynote speaker, leadership expert and
consultant who is passionateabout school principal and
superintendent.
Darrin brings a wealth ofreal-world insight and
(00:28):
inspiration to the table.
He's the best-selling author ofRoad to Awesome the Journey of
a Leader, and his latest book,culture First Classroom, where
he co-authored with Katie Kinder, is already making waves for
its powerful message onleadership relationships and
classroom culture.
Darrin is also the host of theLeaning into Leadership podcast,
(00:52):
where he shares practical andactionable wisdom on building
strong teams and thriving schoolcultures.
Now here is my conversationwith Dr Darrin Peppard.
Welcome back everybody toanother episode of the
(01:16):
Educational Leadership Podcast.
Today I have Dr Darrin Peppardin the house.
Welcome, darren to the show.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (01:25):
Yeah, absolutely Thanks, jeff.
I appreciate it,
Principal JL (01:29):
All right, Darrin, I'm going to ask you the same
question I ask everybody.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (01:42):
Yeah, it's an interesting story because,
coming out of high school, thelast thing I would have told you
I would be was a teacher andhonestly, in college I kind of
struggled.
I bounced from one major to theother.
I mean, I actually started as aphysical therapy major and very
quick story on that.
When I was a sophomore in highschool I was on the basketball
team.
I'm in the training room.
(02:02):
It's Thanksgiving break.
It's that Friday afterThanksgiving.
I'm in doing some rehab on anankle injury that I had and Doug
Flutie throws this miraculouspass to Gerard Phelan to beat
Miami Boston College in theOrange Bowl.
And I saw it on TV in mytrainer's room and when I had to
(02:24):
choose my first major, I'm like, hey, trainer John's got a
really cool job and he's got aTV in his office.
I want to do that.
Well, that didn't work out andhonestly, there were three or
four other majors along the wayand I just couldn't find that
calling for me.
And a buddy of mine, one of myroommates in college, came home
(02:46):
one day and he said hey, wouldyou come help me coach this
basketball team?
I kind of got roped into doingit.
I was a wrestler in high school.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Will you come help me?
I go to basketball practicewith them.
The next day, jeff, I was hooked.
I was like, oh my gosh, this iswhat I want to do.
I want to work with kids.
And it wasn't like it wasn'thigh level basketball, it wasn't
the X's and O's that got me,this was fifth grade girls
basketball.
(03:06):
So it was like bumblebeebasketball, like everybody
swarming with the ball.
That wasn't the thing.
It was.
Wow, I want to work with kids.
And went and saw my advisor thenext day changed my major for
that next semester and all of asudden I had a focus.
I had a direction.
I wanted to work with kids.
I wanted to be a headbasketball coach, a goal that
(03:29):
eventually I achieved.
But really it goes back to thatmoment in time such an odd way
to find your path in life.
But, man, I was.
I was absolutely hooked.
I love coaching kids.
Principal JL (03:45):
Yeah, I know that's kind of some very similar
to my background, my story.
It was really coaching that gotme into becoming an educator,
so that's something that you andI both share.
So let's talk about you knowyou found your passion here.
You want to be an educator.
Let's talk about getting intothe classroom.
What was the classroom like asa teacher?
(04:06):
What are some things youlearned just about yourself or
about just the profession as youwere teaching?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (04:14):
I love this question because this is one
nobody ever asked me.
When I started as a classroomteacher, I wanted to be a high
school teacher.
My major was secondary scienceand I really wanted to be a high
school biology teacher.
I wanted to be a high schoolteacher, my major was secondary
science and I really wanted tobe a high school biology teacher
.
I wanted to be a headbasketball coach and the offer
that came was a middle schooljob and I thought, man, there's
(04:35):
no way I want to.
I would.
Actually, that particular schoolwas a junior high.
Like man, I don't know that Iwant to teach junior high.
Man, I don't know that I want toteach junior high, but I'm a
Wyoming kid, grew up in Wyoming,and when you grow up in Wyoming
and you go to school at theUniversity of Wyoming, more than
(05:00):
likely you develop a completedisdain for icy, cold weather,
and so when this offer came at aschool in Northwest Arizona, I
jumped at the chance and when Ifirst got into that classroom,
first off my principal, betsyParker love her to the end of
time, one of my greatest mentorsshe hired me to teach seventh
grade life science.
I was excited, I'm going to comein I get to teach biology.
I mean, yeah, it's seventhgrade, but that's okay.
(05:21):
I'm excited I get there and Ifind out I'm actually going to
teach eighth grade physicalscience, which is not a strength
of mine, and eighth grade math,which I'm probably the last
person who should be teaching amath class.
Um, so I mean, the lessonstarted before kids even walked
in my door and I think, like forfor many teachers, especially
(05:44):
who started in the mid nineties,it was here are your keys.
Good luck.
And in the corner of my roomthere was a stack of textbooks,
and I didn't have any mathtextbooks, so I had no idea what
I was doing there.
Luckily I had a couple of weeksto prep for that.
But what I discovered, I thinkmore than anything no-transcript
(06:27):
I've carried through my entirelife it's about relationships.
You know old relationships withyour kids, and that was one of
the things I really leaned into.
And you know, I remember thatthat first year as a classroom
teacher, my very first formalobservation happened to coincide
with when I did my very firstdiscipline referral.
(06:47):
I had a kid who was mocking meand mimicking me the entire time
.
I finally had to ask him toleave and send him to the office
, and my assistant principalthat was doing the observations,
like man, you have got thepatience of a saint.
I'd have kicked him out a longtime ago.
What are you doing?
And I just I've worked reallyhard to build relationships with
(07:11):
my kids and now, jeff, that'salmost 30 years ago, there are a
whole lot of those kids I stillhave a relationship with to
this day.
And when you do that, I thinkthat is what sets you up for
success as a classroom teacher,as a building leader.
No matter what it is that youdo, if you focus on the people,
(07:34):
you focus on relationships.
I think that's probably thenumber one thing I learned.
I don't think I necessarilyfigured it out right away, but
because I felt like I wasoverwhelmed with all these other
things, I knew I was good atbuilding relationships, so I
really kind of leaned into that.
Principal JL (07:51):
Oh yeah, you're speaking my language there about
building relationships.
I think that's really key, nomatter what capacity and
education you're at if it's, youknow, a paraprofessional, if
it's, you know, a classroomteacher, you know administrative
, assistant, principal, any roleyou are in education it's about
building up those relationships, because there's things that
(08:15):
you'll you don't know yourimpact until later impacts that
that person until much later.
And when you get those phonecalls or those letters or those
emails about how you impactedthem because of something that,
hey, it was just because that'swhat you do, that's your, you
know you, you know just buildingthat relationship, just who you
(08:37):
are, um, how it impactssomebody down the road is
powerful.
So that's really, uh really.
Thank you for sharing thatpiece of advice there with
people.
Now you always talk about youknow you've been teaching for a
while and then you go intobecoming the principal.
Everybody calls it the darkside, but I still think you know
(08:59):
we have to look at it as we'reall working together right, even
though people like to calladmin the dark side on things.
But so talk about you know thattransfer or that you know
transformation from teacher intoadministration.
What motivated you to take thatleap?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (09:18):
You know, it kind of goes back to I think it
was either my second or thirdyear as a classroom teacher.
I'm almost positive it was mysecond year.
There was a moment in time, myfirst principal again Betsy man,
she had made such an impact onmy life.
But there was a moment in timeit was during the summer.
(09:39):
I was in the main office andshe was there and she just kind
of pulled me aside and said youknow, you really ought to think
about a career in schoolleadership.
And Jeff had never crossed mymind.
I mean, that is not, you know,and and the same kind of thing.
Right, you know, I come in as a,as a new teacher.
Um, on my prep there was atraveling teacher that that
(10:00):
Betsy told me later.
She intentionally put him in myroom because you know he's a
veteran, he can kind of, youknow, guide and support me and
that kind of stuff.
And and he probably, along withthe rest of the you know, the
coaching staff and all that kindof stuff, helped me form that
dark side mentality ofadministrator, bad and um.
But but when Betsy tapped me onthe shoulder and said, hey, you
(10:22):
ought to think about this, thatkind of opened my eyes and when
I first arrived in the state ofArizona, the way the licensure
worked in Arizona.
You had eight years from thetime you got your initial
teacher's license to complete amaster's program.
It was a requirement in thestate.
They ended up doing away withthat a few years later, but I
(10:44):
was getting ready to start mymaster's program and I had a
student teacher, and so when youget a student teacher, a lot of
times the university that youdo this through will give you
complimentary courses.
And so I ended up having, Ithink, my first four courses
paid for it because I had twostudent teachers in a row and I
went ahead and started in theadministrative, you know,
(11:05):
licensure program and I think Ihad this moment where at this
point, I was a head coach and Ihad, you know, I kind of had
achieved what I really wanted toachieve.
I wanted to be that headbasketball coach and we're
starting to have some successand starting to grow a really
strong program, and I felt likeI kind of had one of those two
(11:29):
roads diverge moments for me andI had to make a choice, you
know do you just continue withthe coaching I had finished my
master's degree or do we goahead and pursue the school
leadership avenue?
And at this point my daughterwas five, six years old and my
wife and I were talking aboutmoving back to our home state of
(11:50):
Wyoming.
And, jeff, I didn't want to goback to or move to another
location and get behind otherpeople in line.
I was a department head.
I had an absolutely stellarschedule.
I was the head coach, I mean, Ihad kind of ascended to where I
wanted to be as a teacher andso it was.
(12:10):
You know what.
Let's look for administrativeroles and I was fortunate enough
to land at a high school inSouthwest Wyoming as an
assistant principal and man, thelesson started right away.
There's this I don't knowmisbelief or misunderstanding
that when you have the titlebehind your name, all of a
(12:34):
sudden that changes the waythings work and it's just not
true, just like I did in theclassroom, that I needed to
really work hard to buildrelationships.
You know that that first year Iwas in charge of all high
school discipline and attendanceas a high school principal.
You can appreciate this oneschool of about, at that time,
about 1100 kids all high schooldiscipline and attendance came
(12:58):
across my desk.
So I mean, it was.
It was just nonstop, you know,catching people doing things
wrong, handing out theconsequence, and I think, I
think I very quickly, maybe evenby the end of the first
semester, felt like man, ifsomething doesn't change, I, I,
(13:20):
I can't, I can't keep doing this, I can't keep doing this job.
Jeff, I did 2200 disciplinereferrals my first year.
I mean, it was seriouslynon-stop.
And partway through the yearthis was really kind of the
moment where and I didn't labelit that or anything like that
but looking back, this is reallywhere Road to Awesome begins.
(13:44):
We're in this staff meeting andit's the staff meeting, right,
the staff meeting, the one wherewe're going to figure out what
we're going to do about the twomost important things on our
high school campus hats and cellphones.
Oh, that staff meeting, right,yeah, oh, exactly, right, yeah,
yeah.
And because I'm in charge ofdiscipline and attendance, I get
to facilitate this staffmeeting and we're I mean, we're
(14:08):
all over the place withdifferent consequences and ways
we can force them to do what wewant.
And and somebody raised a handand just said Darren, why does
it always have to be about whatthey do wrong?
Why can't it be about what theydo right.
And for me, that was a hugeshift.
I mean, I remember juststanding frozen in time like,
(14:31):
wow, why are we doing it thisway?
Um, I I started showing up alittle bit differently after
that.
I mean, there were stillconsequences for misbehavior,
don't get me wrong, but but itwas like maybe we need to start
thinking about what we'relooking for here.
If all we do is look fornegatives, we're going to find
it and we're doing a good job ofit.
(14:51):
By the way, I mean, we werereally good at finding the bad
things, and it wasn't just thekids either, it was the staff.
I mean, we were looking forthings staff was doing wrong and
our culture was terrible.
It really was.
And for me, I think you know,one of the biggest lessons, as I
made that transition that wholefirst year was what you look
(15:14):
for, what you value, what youthink is important is what
you're going to find.
And in our case, we were sofocused on those negative things
, the things people were doingwrong, that we were completely
missing all the great thingsthat were happening in our
(15:34):
school.
And making that transition tostarting to focus on what was
right versus only focusing onwhat was wrong ultimately made a
huge difference in the cultureof our school.
Principal JL (15:48):
You know you're kind of speaking to that whole.
You know.
You know you felt like allyou're doing is chasing down all
the negatives you were.
You know, just, it felt likejust you're beating people down
instead of lifting them up.
So let's talk about how you didthat.
How did you build your schoolculture and leading your team as
(16:09):
a school ?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (16:11):
Yeah, no, that's a great question and,
honestly, it began with me stillin the assistant principal role
.
The very next day after thatstaff meeting, I had a
conversation with our principaland I'm like man Randy, we got a
problem, our culture's broken.
And he said I know.
He said, but I don't know howto fix it.
What thoughts do you have?
(16:31):
And I mentioned to him at myhigh school, where I'd been a
teacher, they had this thingcalled Jostens Renaissance and
they were celebrating kids fordoing the right things.
I'm like maybe we ought to lookat that.
He's like sure, let's check itout.
I flashed back into thatmeeting and when that question
was asked, those two questionswere asked.
I remember seeing some facesaround the room that probably
(16:55):
looked just like mine, like well, why aren't we doing that?
And I went to those people thatday and said and I went to
those people that day and saidI've got an idea.
Do you want to be a part ofthis?
And eight of them said yesalmost right away.
And as a collective group, westarted talking about what are
(17:18):
the things that we need toimprove on our campus and we
looked at some key metrics.
Obviously, you want to go todata, our average daily
attendance rate was like 84%.
It was horrible.
So, okay, that's an area weneed to improve.
We looked at our graduationrate.
It was under 70% Horrible, weneed to improve here.
(17:40):
I looked at our testing and welooked at teacher retention and
a handful of other key metricsthe discipline referrals.
That's why I know that numberby heart.
But as a group we started saying, okay, let's figure out some
(18:01):
steps we can take.
We're going to go to this bigJocelyn's Renaissance Conference
this summer and we'll learnabout ways to take some steps.
But what else should we do?
And one of the members of thegroup said why aren't we asking
our kids?
We do this all the time ineducation.
We sit around a bunch of adultswho haven't been kids in a long
(18:23):
time and we think we can solvethe problem for kids and to an
extent we probably can.
But why wouldn't we want theirvoice?
And we ended up.
We went through a pretty lengthyprocess.
We had a group of almost 100kids.
We just asked the whole staffgive us the names of kids that
are leaders and not just thestud co kids.
(18:43):
I mean kids who are leaders butmaybe don't have a title.
And man, we had almost ahundred kids that we took
through an exercise and throughall kinds of different
conversations around why thishappens, why that happens.
Like our third periodattendance was absolutely
terrible.
Well, I mean, we're looking atthe master schedule.
(19:04):
Like man, what courses arethere that the kids hate or what
teachers you know that theydon't get along with?
I mean, like, what's what'shappening?
Our kids told us point blankthey were hungry.
You see, teenagers and maybethis isn't true at your high
school, I'm pretty sure it isthey don't leap out of bed an
hour in advance to go eat a nice, healthy breakfast on their way
(19:26):
to school.
No, they come rolling in withtheir Starbucks or their thing
from the convenience store.
And we had a problem with trashin our hallway.
Well, my predecessor wouldstand at the front door with a
big giant trash can.
He wasn't greeting kids, it wasthrow it away, throw it away,
throw it away, throw it away.
Greeting kids.
(19:47):
It was throw it away, throw itaway, throw it away, throw it
away.
So these kids are coming inwith hardly anything in their
stomachs, being told they haveto throw away their stuff, that
they just waited in line, youknow, at Starbucks for 20
minutes, for they're skippingthird period because they were
hungry.
So we wouldn't have figuredthat out, but our kids told us
here's why that's happening,okay.
So we put some pieces in placeto help with that.
(20:09):
Number one we stopped meetingthem at the front door and
making them throw away theirstuff.
We bought a whole bunch oftrash cans and we put trash cans
where they were needed, tookcare of the trash problem.
They weren't throwing trasharound because they were
bringing their breakfast in.
They were throwing trash aroundbecause there was no place to
put it.
And teenagers are pretty goodat just setting their stuff down
(20:32):
and hoping their mom picks itup for them, right.
But just having thoseconversations with this group of
eight, and ultimately wewhittled that group of kids down
to a group of nine kids thatultimately we called our culture
steering committee, and it wasa mix.
It was, you know, and this wasspring semester, so we had a
(20:55):
couple of freshmen, somesophomores and some juniors.
We had no seniors because theywere getting ready to walk out
the door.
We wanted kids who would bewith us the following year.
We took them along with ourcrew, we went to this big
conference and we were blownaway.
We're blown away with how youactually focus on the things you
(21:16):
want to see and then recognize,reward and reinforce them.
And, man, we made someunbelievable changes in the
culture of our school.
But, jeff, it doesn't end there.
That really helped us,especially with things like
attendance and those types ofthings, but it wasn't going to
move the needle with theacademic side.
(21:38):
We needed to make some changeson the academic side too.
We needed to really focus onhigh quality teaching and
learning in the classroom andhelping our staff move away from
that stand and deliver all thetime to really engaging students
in their learning.
(22:01):
Among the things that we did, wedid a lot of different things,
but among the things we did waswe started looking at the career
pathways that our kids had inmind, things that, for example,
in the Health OccupationsAcademy, that really not only
met state standards but alsostill connected to the interests
that the kids had in theirpotential career field down the
(22:35):
road.
Doing that work.
Holy moly, what a bigdifference.
Kids are going to go to class.
They're going to go and beengaged when there's something
that's relevant to them, andthat was part of what we
referred to as our rigor,relevance and relationships
framework.
Those three pieces in theclassroom really made a
(22:58):
tremendous difference and wereally started to see some
wonderful gains.
And I think those two thingsultimately were what led to me
becoming the principal of thatschool, was leading those two
efforts and I'll tell you by thetime I left that school, not
the numbers we wanted, but 81%and 84% graduation rates my last
(23:21):
two years, the highest gradrates in the history of the
school.
So I think so, and again I'vesaid relationships repeatedly.
Through all of this, when youreally work to get people into
the mix, when you really work tolisten to them and work towards
things that make a difference,the collective culture of that
(23:45):
school transformed tremendouslyfrom let's just use punishment
to gain compliance to a placewhere I think for the most part,
everybody felt seen and heardand valued and trusted and
that's to me that's kind of thesecret sauce, if you will.
Principal JL (24:04):
You touched on a lot of things there.
When you're just aftercompliance, you're just going to
beat your head against the wall, right.
But when you bring peopletogether, people have a voice,
they're heard, you're taking inconsideration of what the issues
are and you're taking theirfeedback, but you're not just
listening, but you're actuallyhaving actionable steps on top
(24:27):
of that.
I think that makes a hugedifference in the shift in the
mindset of a school culture andhow you get people rally around
and help everybody be successfulin that environment.
So really, that's really just apowerful story to share with
people about how you go from.
(24:48):
You know we're going to do allthese things and I'm going to
you know, make you compliant to.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (24:59):
It was never about me.
It was never about me.
It about us, or think that ithas to be about us, not
(25:31):
necessarily like from an egoperspective, but from a we are
the system.
That's when those things fail,or when that person leaves, they
go away, because it isn't aboutthe collective system, it's
about just me as an individual.
This is how I want things done.
Just me as an individual.
This is how I want things done.
None of it.
The culture focus, the careeracademies, any of those things.
(25:52):
They were never about.
Darren wants this.
It was about as a collectivegroup.
These are things we'veidentified that we want to do.
Principal JL (26:05):
I was just really fortunate to be in the position
to lead those particular effortsand work around a whole lot of
great people, yeah, no.
And then I am right there withyou.
I know, you know, being abuilding principal myself, I I
really don't like the shine.
I mean, yeah, I'm leadingefforts, but, yeah, I try to
give credit where it's due andreally it's the the collective
effort that you have with yourstaff and your students that
(26:27):
make the difference and that'sreally thank you for that.
To bringing out that point,Darren, you weren't just, you
know, a teacher, assistant,principal, principal, but you
also stepped into thesuperintendent role.
So what motivated you, what ledyou to decide I'm going to
become, you know, thesuperintendent, you know um of a
(26:52):
district, you know, after, youknow, spending some time at the
building, Right, you know, Ithink it was a combination of
things.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (27:01):
Um, when, when I transitioned from AP to
principal, uh, my first year,year and a half as principal, I
was a nightmare.
I was, you know, for some reason, you know, and, honestly, in my
second assistant principal rolein that building, I was in
charge of curriculum,instruction, special programs.
I was the instructional leaderof the school.
But I got this crazy idea whenI became the principal that I
(27:23):
had to be everything and I hadto be the superhero and I had to
do everything for everyone.
And a year and a half of that Ihad burned out.
I'd gained a ton of weight, Iwasn't taking care of myself, I
had a cell phone in each handall the time.
It wasn't sustainable.
(27:44):
And I was real fortunate whenour new superintendent came in
after the one that hired meretired.
He believed in leadershipcoaches and he hired coaches for
all of us and, honestly, jeff,most of my peers.
I think there were 13 buildingsin the district at the time.
I was the only big high school,but most of my peers were kind
(28:06):
of offended, they kind ofresented him for hiring coaches,
but I was like, oh please, Ican't get my head above water.
I need help.
My coach really helped mefigure it out.
I mean, he helped me go fromfirefighter to truly the leader
of my campus and over the courseof a handful of years, I really
(28:55):
felt like, instead of always inthe building, I was always
looking to grow my bench formore leaders on the campus.
I was just I fell in love withdoing that work and I had this
crazy idea that by being asuperintendent, I could do more
of that.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
I could do more of that.
Nothing could be further fromthe truth.
But that was really the bigreason that.
And of course I mean you know,let's be honest, you know you
kind of go through a progressionand for me that was just, oh,
(29:16):
that's the next challenge.
I had completed my doctoratedegree, I'd been named national
educator of the year.
I'd been, you know, stateprincipal of the year.
It's like, okay, what else canI achieve here?
You know what I mean.
Look at where we are.
I can set it up for the nextperson.
I'm ready to go take this nextchallenge.
And I enjoyed being asuperintendent, but I I did not
(29:39):
love it as much as I love beinga high school principal.
Um, when I got into thatsuperintendent role, I really
did think I could.
You know, man, I'm going tocoach leaders and help them grow
and I ended up hiring coachesfor my leaders because you just
don't have that kind of time asa superintendent at a different
(30:03):
level of the system and toreally understand so much more.
Oh, all the ins and outs ofschool finance, of you know the
political process, the, you knowthe ins and outs of legislation
(30:25):
and you know how to work withdifferent community groups.
I mean, certainly, as abuilding principal, I worked
with a lot of community groups,obviously with all of our
business partners that were partof our academies and that type
of thing.
But it's different at thesuperintendent level, the work
that you're doing in terms ofthose business partnerships and
working with all these differententities and definitely a
(30:47):
valuable experience, something Ireally truly cherished and that
I learned a lot from.
But the reason I made the leapturned out to be something that
was a bit of fool's gold.
Principal JL (31:00):
Hmm, well, that's very interesting.
I'm going to note that down.
I really enjoy what I do as abuilding level principal and you
know, yeah, there might be thatnext step down the road, but
I'm not ready for that.
I just love what I'm doing with, you know, working with my
staff, my students, buildingpeople up, and so that's kind of
(31:22):
where my niche is.
I want to kind of stay there,but I've had I've had some of
those same thoughts, so maybethat's a really good you know
and I'm not saying being asuperintendent was, it was, a
bad thing.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (31:33):
It was not.
No, it really wasn't.
And and I've I've said thisdozens of times that I think
anybody who's been both a highschool principal and a
superintendent would echo whatI'm about to say Of Same Of the
two jobs, high school principalis harder.
High school principal, you arealways on.
You might think, oh well,you're the superintendent,
though You're every you knowhigh school principal.
(31:54):
You mentioned the spotlight.
The spotlight is not brighterthan it is anywhere than the
high school principal spot.
I mean, it's holy moly.
There's a big difference thereand I think that's probably why
I loved it so much.
You mentioned.
You don't really, you know,don't necessarily love the
spotlight.
I do, and I didn't feel like Ihad to be in front of it all the
(32:15):
time and it felt like I had tobe the person to, you know, to
speak or to do this or to dothat all the time.
But I was very comfortable inthat and I really enjoyed that.
It's probably why I still, tothis day, identify as a
recovering high school principal.
I just loved that role.
I enjoyed being asuperintendent.
Don't get me wrong, man,there's something special about
(32:36):
being a high school principal.
Principal JL (32:38):
Now, there's a lot of parts about the job that I
do love.
I mean, it's the people that Iget to connect with on a daily
basis, and you know, when peoplecome up to you randomly and
talk to you about things, it'skind of nice, but at the same
time, um, that could also take atoll on you, because you know
you're hearing everything.
You know you're tearing, you'redoing great at this.
(32:59):
Ah, I heard this is kind of notgoing well, and so I mean
that's a balance, and I thinkthat's what you got to have to
learn at this.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (33:10):
I remember when I got hired, um the you
know, like the day that Iaccepted the job, my wife and I
were having a conversation andshe said, yeah, I can't even
wear sweatpants to Walmartanymore now because it's she's
like, it's like you're the mayornow, and in many ways that's
true, you know.
(33:31):
I mean some people may or maynot know who the superintendent
is in my district.
Yes, they did.
He started his teaching careerthere.
He was there for 32 years orwhatever they.
Everybody in town knew who itwas 32 years or whatever they.
Everybody in town knew who itwas.
But in a lot of places the firstplace where where I was a
teacher I didn't even know whoour superintendent was, nobody
did.
(33:51):
I mean, I'm sure some peopledid, but he was somebody that
you know.
You could have walked past himand you know, in a grocery store
and not known it as the highschool principal.
You have a 0% chance of goinginto the grocery store and not
having somebody stop you, unlessyou go, like at 6 am or
something like that.
You might have a chance, rightyou might.
Principal JL (34:10):
Yeah for sure, all right, so let's uh, darren,
let's talk about you.
You wrote a book.
I know you have a new one out.
We'll talk about that one in alittle bit, but let's talk about
that first one, the Road toAwesome.
What inspired you to write yourfirst book?
Dr. Darrin Peppard (34:29):
It's kind of an interesting story.
I started writing that bookabout six months after I
finished my dissertation.
And when I finished mydissertation I swore I would
never write anything ever again,and I think most people who
have done a dissertation wouldsay the same thing.
But I, uh, I don't know.
I started feeling this, thisitch to to share more.
(34:52):
You know, I mentioned I hadjumped into the superintendency
because I wanted to coach moreleaders and I wanted, I wanted
to impact more people and I mean, at this point in time, I mean
go back to that, that JostensRenaissance connection.
I'd been a part of their, oftheir community for a long time.
I'd built some greatrelationships.
So much about leadership as abuilding administrator, from my
(35:27):
struggle times to when I kind offelt like I had it pretty well
figured out.
I wanted to share that withothers and that's kind of what
got me going on that and, to behonest with you, I struggled
with it at first.
I probably had 10 or 12 startstop versions of of what
ultimately became the firstedition of road to awesome and I
(35:50):
just I thought I had to havethis like magic formula for
leadership, like you know.
Oh, here's, here's the magicformula, you know, and a good
friend of mine, a fellowJohnson's Renaissance hall of
famer, dr Phil Campbell, told,told me one night we were
talking about it and he saidjust write your stories.
Just write your stories andthose will make your point.
(36:13):
Those will help you figure outexactly what your points are.
And, man, it just startedflowing and flowing and flowing
and flowing.
I started thinking back todifferent stories about this and
that and the other thing andsome of the things that I've
mentioned very quick in passing.
You know the, you know the.
Why does it always have to beabout what they do wrong?
And and what is it that mattersto you as a school leader?
(36:34):
And the second edition of ofRoad to Awesome, the one that's
out now to me, it was all aboutsix key things to you, know
things to really be successfulas a school leader.
And in the book, one of thethings I talk about when I do
this all the time withleadership training, I do
(36:54):
keynotes, all that kind of stuff.
I challenge leaders to thinkabout what truly matters to them
.
I had six things that matteredto me and I don't necessarily
feel like people should agreewith my six.
That's not what's important?
What's important is that people, as leaders, are clear about
what truly matters to them andthen that they go and be
(37:17):
intentional about that work.
And that's what really inspiredme to write the first edition
but then to go back and do asecond edition of that book,
because the first edition hadbeen out for about a year and a
half, maybe two years, and I'dbeen doing a lot of speaking, a
lot of leadership training atthat point in time and I felt
(37:39):
like, okay, there are somethings that we could do
differently in that book, thereare some things that I left out,
there are some things thatreally don't need to be there, I
think, just like anything, itprobably even you know you've
discovered this with a podcast.
Every episode that you do, youget a little clearer, as you
know, with the questions you askand with where you want to go
with things.
(38:00):
Same thing was true with thatbook.
I was really crystal clear withwhere I wanted that book to go
and so, ultimately, with thatbook, I just wanted to inspire
leaders to understand thatyou're not going to be perfect
right away, but if you can getreally clear about what matters
to you, if you can be reallyintentional with your time, with
(38:20):
your actions, with yourcommunication, with your systems
, then you also can find yourown road to awesome, your own
way to go and be successful, notjust as a leader, but to help
your school be successful.
Principal JL (38:35):
That is.
That is really great.
I mean, I love you, know kindof how that inspires you and how
that your stories are helpingother people become the best
leader they can be.
Because, you're right,everybody leads a little
differently.
We all have our own journey,our own path, and that's kind of
where my podcast comes in.
I'm not a writer.
I'll talk all day long if youlet me, so this is where I'll
(39:00):
get in and meet people like youand other guests I've had on the
show, learning through theirjourneys but sharing those
journeys out, because there's somany different ways to lead but
at the same time, there's not alot of resources out there, and
you're one of those resourcesthat are out there to help
people learning, grow when itcomes to this educational
(39:22):
leadership role.
Now you have a new book out.
I believe you and Katie Kinderwrote it together.
Let's talk about.
You know, culture first,classrooms.
Tell us about this new book.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (39:34):
Oh man, I I'm super, super proud of this
book and you know, it kind ofcame about in an odd way.
Uh, katie and I Katie and Iactually met in person finally a
couple of years ago.
We were both speaking at aconference in Las Vegas.
I went to her session, she cameto hear me speak and we
(39:55):
connected, had dinner with agroup of friends and just
started to have a lot ofconversations.
At that time she had justjumped out of her instructional
coach's role and into the workshe does now supporting schools
and teachers all over thecountry, and I asked her to be
on the podcast.
I'm like, hey, I'd love to doan episode of the podcast with
(40:16):
you.
And we're doing the podcastepisode.
And I had just started teachingat the university level.
I teach an advanced classroommanagement course for Fort Hayes
State University out of Kansasand I was telling Katie about
the course and the moreconversations we had, the more
we realized that she and I justsaw eye to eye on what really
(40:40):
classroom management is allabout, which is not about
management at all.
It's about culture.
It's about developing culturein your classroom and if you
start with that, so much ofthose other things really take
care of themselves.
And so, you know, I, I, one ofthe things I had shared with her
(41:01):
was when I started teachingthat, that course, I asked my
students.
I do this every semester.
I asked my students what do youthink of when you hear the
phrase classroom management?
That's the first, the firstdiscussion board.
Let's talk about that.
And, jeff, you know what I hear, right, how do I?
How do I handle it when theymisbehave?
How do I get them to do what Iwant them to?
Um, things like that.
(41:22):
Well, build relationships withthem, you know, set the tone
from the very beginning, havesome very clear structures and
teachers that either we hadworked with or that we were
seeing in classrooms now.
(41:53):
And ultimately, we ended upasking 24 people to write
something for us about how theybuild culture in their classroom
, in their building or in theirdistrict.
And taking those pieces andkind of breaking them down into
ultimately seven differentcategories of how you build
(42:16):
culture in your classroom led tojust, I think, an amazing book.
And I don't say it's amazingbecause I wrote it.
I will say my writing in thisbook, I think, is even better
than it is in Road to Awesome,only because I've grown as a
writer.
Why this book's amazing, though,are the 24 educators from
around the country, who, in mostcases, not all there's a few
(42:39):
that are names that people mightknow, but for the most part,
they're teachers who are justgetting after it every single
day, and they're not out thereon social media talking about
themselves.
They're not national speakersor they're not writing a book.
They're just absolutelycrushing it on the day-to-day
(43:01):
grind in their classrooms, andit's.
It was so awesome for for Katieand I to share our platform
with them to give them therecognition that they deserve to
.
You know, have some people learnabout, uh, people like um Stacy
nation or um Tanya Follum or umman.
(43:26):
That's just so many of them.
Um, you know, just some amazing, amazing human beings.
I'm really excited about thisbook because it really does lay
out for you whether you're a newteacher, or you're a classroom
teacher who's maybe struggling alittle bit, or you just need
something to boost you, or maybeyou're a school leader,
district leader, and you're like, hey, I want to do something to
(43:48):
really kickstart the culture inour classrooms.
This book really lays it outand gives you some great, just
smart moves from great educatorswho are in the classroom right
now.
Principal JL (44:01):
Awesome.
I love how you have 24different people in the book.
That's the one thing.
I feel like it's going to bereally powerful for people to
see and know that there's somany different ways to do this
and being able to share theirstories is really an empowering,
impactful way, way.
But you're also utilizing thatcollective efficacy you've
(44:24):
talked about where you get abunch of people together and
they here's some.
Here's some ideas on how how tobuild that that classroom first
culture.
So well, thank you guys forthat book and writing that, and
I'm going to recommend people toget it and we'll put it.
Put it down in the show notesfor you as well.
So, Darrin, let's talk aboutyour work today.
(44:44):
You know you're no longer asuperintendent.
You you're a speaker, you coach, you consult, you write books.
There's a lot of things.
So what are you up to now?
You know in this.
You know day-to-day grind.
You're a podcaster.
You could talk about leaninginto leadership Great podcast.
(45:05):
I recommend everybody to take alisten as well.
So just tell us about whatyou're up to.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (45:10):
Yeah, for sure I appreciate that.
So, yeah, the work that we dohere at Road to Awesome has
quite a few buckets to it, butultimately we are all about this
.
We are about helping educators,helping leaders, get clear, be
intentional and walk in theirpurpose, and we do that in a
handful of ways.
You mentioned the speaking andprofessional development that I
(45:33):
do.
Keynote speaking is something Ithink is just wonderful.
It's a great way to share amessage, but it also opens doors
to work with individual leaders, to work with leadership teams,
to work with schools anddistricts, and I provide a lot
of professional development forleaders and leadership teams and
(45:55):
then also for school levelteams through the culture, first
, classroom stuff, to reallyfigure out you know where are we
trying to go, what are thesteps we're going to take to
really be successful andultimately, how can, how can we
collectively be the bestindividuals that we are?
How can we get ourselves on ourown road to awesome?
(46:17):
Couple that with, certainly,the coaching and consulting.
There's a whole bunch ofdistricts that I work with,
where I am working one-on-one orin small or large group with
leadership teams or individualleaders just to kind of help
them through the day-to-day.
So many leaders today, jeff,have jumped into the position
(46:42):
and I mean this is prettytypical.
We get into the role.
We don't know how to do therole until we go do the role
right.
But I think in your journey andmy journey there was at least
there were some other piecesalong the way that when we had
the opportunity to becomeassistant principal, principal,
whatever, we had some experiencethat made the transition a
(47:06):
little bit easier.
So many leaders today aremoving so quickly into these
roles that they really need thatoutside support and a lot of
leaders are finding outsomething that has been true in
the business space, in thecorporate space, for a very long
time Having that other personto bounce things, off of that
ear, that can ask you goodquestions, can help guide you
(47:29):
through different types ofscenarios.
Having that coach makes such adifference.
My coach, he saved my career.
That's why I do what I do now.
He saved my career.
I might've even saved my life.
I don't know.
I was, like I said, gainingweight, not taking care of
myself, working myself into theground.
So that's another avenue thatwe go about supporting leaders.
(47:55):
Certainly there's a lot ofcontent that we develop.
You mentioned a couple of books.
I'm working on a couple morebooks right now, but we also
here at Road to Awesome have ourown publishing branch where we
publish books of.
I think we're on our 35th or36th book right now with other
educators around the worldbecause we want to help them get
(48:19):
their voice out there, justlike I've had the opportunity to
get my voice out there.
And then, yeah, the contentstuff.
I mean we generate content likecrazy around here the podcast
typically, we release betweenfive and six episodes a month.
Every single Sunday, leaninginto leadership is going to drop
an episode, and we always haveone special midweek or mid month
(48:41):
episode that'll drop on aWednesday or a Thursday.
I, you know, do a weekly blog.
Jeff, I'm all about this.
This is just simply who I amand this is why I do everything
that I do.
I really believe every one of ushas this unique ability to help
.
The person that we used to beand the person I want to help
(49:01):
that I used to be, is thatstruggling early career leader
who just can't figure out how doI lead effectively, how do I
stop running around putting outfires, how do I stop just acting
like a crazy person andactually feel like, hey, I can
get into classrooms, hey, I canbe the instructional leader, hey
, I know what my systems aredoing, I know how to lead on my
(49:25):
campus, in my district, in mybusiness, whatever the case
might be.
I love to do that work and wedo it in just so many different
ways here at Road to Awesome,and that's certainly grown over
the years.
When we first started, it was alittle bit of speaking.
Now it has become, you know,something that is is quite a bit
(49:48):
bigger and something that we'rereally proud of, and it
continues to grow.
Principal JL (49:52):
Yeah, hey, Darrin, that's.
That's great.
I mean to have people like youout there to help educational
leaders and people to learn,grow, to coach them up, to give
them resources, but also tosupport them and also to elevate
them as well.
I love that because there arepeople out there that need
people like you to come in andhelp them out.
(50:14):
For me, I had Coach AngelaKelly was one person that helped
me through my educationaljourney.
I met her through listeningjust to a podcast in 2022 and
working through that and justkind of figuring out, because I
had a lot of questions, you know, on what I was trying to do and
(50:34):
where I was at and being ableto find resources in different
ways.
But then, having you know, Ithrough this podcast and I got
to meet you.
I got to meet a lot of othergreat people out there doing the
work, and so I reallyappreciate the work that you are
doing in helping educationalleaders and I would tell people
(50:55):
man, just you know, if you guysneed somebody, Darrin here in
Nebraska.
He's living in Omaha, so he'sright down the road from where
I'm at, so give him a shout.
So let's talk about how canpeople connect with you, darren,
if they're interested in yourwork.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (51:12):
Absolutely yeah.
So a couple of easy ways to getin touch with me Uh, the
website is road to awesomenet.
You could send me an email,darren at road to awesomenet.
Or just go to the website, um,click on contact us and send us
a message.
Um, when you go to the website,click on contact us and send us
a message.
When you go to the website,it'll pop up right away to join
our email list.
Please join our email listbecause you'll get all kinds of
(51:35):
the content that we're talkingabout.
You'll get all kinds of contentsent to you that hopefully is
really relevant to what you'relooking for.
We have a weekly newsletterthat comes out.
Every newsletter that comes outevery Monday that you know goes
out to all of our subscribers,and then all kinds of other
different things that uh thatcome out.
You know about our, uh, ourprincipal academy and we didn't
get to talk about that one, andthat's fine, but there's all
(51:57):
kinds of stuff.
So go to rodossumnet and checkthat out.
Uh, if you're a social mediaperson, I am Darren M Pepperd on
literally every platform, allright, yeah, I'm going to go
ahead.
Principal JL (52:09):
I'm going to put those links and those things
down in the podcast description,so the show notes, so people
can can find you real easily onthose things.
Well, Darrin, this has been areally great conversation.
This has been a really greatconversation.
I enjoy bringing you on thepodcast today to share your
journey and all the great thingsthat you are doing to help
(52:31):
educational leaders.
I really appreciate your time.
I'd like to thank you for beingon the show today.
Dr. Darrin Peppard (52:38):
Absolutely, jeff.
I appreciate it and thank youfor the work that you're doing
and getting this podcast outinto the universe.
There's always room for moreleadership podcasts, so thanks
so much for having me on.
Principal JL (52:50):
All right, Darrin, you have a great day you too.
Wow, what a great conversationwith Dr Darrin Peppard.
I hope you got as much out ofthis conversation as I did.
His passion for leadership,culture and putting people first
is both inspiring andactionable.
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to check out Darrin's
(53:13):
books Road to Awesome andCulture First Classrooms, and
don't forget to listen to hispodcast Leaning Into Leadership
for even more insight andinspiration.
As always, thank you for tuningin to the Educational
Leadership Podcast.
If this episode resonated withyou, please share it with
someone who needs to hear it.
Leave a review and subscribe soyou don't miss out on future
(53:37):
conversations like this one.
Until next time, be 1% better.
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