- [Narrator] Funding for this program was provided by, - [Announcer] Chattanooga Funeral Home Crematory and Florist.

Dedicated to helping you celebrate your life or the life of a loved one for over 85 years.

Chattanooga Funeral Home believes that each funeral should be as unique and memorable as the life being honored.

- [Narrator] This program is also made possible by support from viewers like you.

Thank you!

(soft music) - [Alison] This week, I sit down with a man charged with shaping the next generation of students in Hamilton County.

- My mother and father did a great job, I think, of raising me and my siblings and really instilled in us at a very early age, the importance of education.

And so for both of them they really impressed upon us to one, serve people as best we possibly could, then two, to work to earn an education and to use that education to make a difference.

- Join me as I talk with Superintendent of Hamilton County Schools, Dr. Bryan Johnson.

Coming up next on the A List.

(lively music) (soft music) If you live in Hamilton County, chances are you've felt the impact of Dr. Bryan Johnson's work.

In 2017, he became Superintendent of Hamilton County Schools.

And over the course of his tenure, he has led the district with an eye toward excellence.

Despite the challenges we faced, including a global pandemic, Dr. Johnson and his team have made Hamilton County the fastest improving school district in Tennessee.

In 2020, he was named the Tennessee Superintendent of the Year and was one of only four finalists for the 2021 National Superintendent of the Year award.

I had a chance to sit down with Bryan to learn about his journey to success.

(soft music) Bryan, welcome to the A List.

- Glad to be here.

Thank you for having me.

- And now I definitely feel like I am sitting in the principal's office because it is not rare or it is not usual for me to call you Bryan.

I'm used to referring to you as Dr. Johnson.

So I almost feel like I need to apologize for being so informal.

- Please don't.

(Alison laughing) I appreciate it, more comfortable.

- Okay, well, I'm thrilled that we get this opportunity to catch up.

I know you are a popular face around town, especially around Chattanooga and Hamilton County, but I'm not sure everybody knows you're really impressive and diverse backgrounds.

So let's start there.

Tell me about your childhood and where you grew up.

- Yeah, so I'm a product of Tennessee, born and raised in this great state and I've spent my entire life living and working and making a career here.

So my mother and father did a great job, I think, of raising me and my siblings and really instilled in us at a very early age the importance of education.

They really felt it paramount.

My father was one of nine children, grew up with a single mother and in an economically disadvantaged type of situation.

And really his means out, so to speak, was to go to the Military and to get a trade and use that trade to earn a great living.

And my mother was one of two children.

Her father died at a pretty early age, and she was one of the first blacks to integrate the University of South Carolina.

And so for both of them they really impressed upon us to one, serve people as best we possibly could but then two, to work to earn an education and to use that education to make a difference.

So I'm very humbled that I had the privilege of having two great parents that believed and instilled those qualities in us.

- So what did you wanna be when you were little?

Was it always an educator?

- So, (Alison laughing) I think like a lot of children you watch TV, you think about whether it's a sports athlete or what have you.

I remember back when my mother used to... She was a case manager.

She used to work in social work and work with really at risk populations.

And I remember vividly thinking I'd go into business or something to that effect when I got to my 10, 11, 12 years old.

And she would often have us, she worked for Tennessee Job Corps, she would often have us come into our office on Saturdays and help with filing paperwork and me thinking I never go into public service.

If this is what it's about, I never will go into public service.

And so I really found that really serving, in particular children and families, was something that I didn't realize I was being prepared for at a very early age.

And so, yeah, I probably had some desires at some point, whether it was professional athletics in the business realm, but I find that even though those two things that I thought were passions aren't necessarily directly what I do every day.

Whether it's the competition or the teamwork elements of sports or it's having a component of business acumen in my day-to-day job, I get to apply those skills in my day-to-day work.

- So let's talk about the important thing.

Let's talk about football.

(laughs) - Okay, yeah.

- How early did you start playing?

And at what point did you decide you would actually play in college?

- Yeah, so, just like many kids I grew up Little League sports, and then at some point I got into AAU Basketball when I was probably nine or 10 years old and really enjoyed basketball.

My mother did not let me play football in Little League.

She was smart in so many ways, and so I didn't get to start playing football until I got to middle school.

And when I started playing, the first year was kind of rough because I was getting acclimated to the sport.

And by the second year, I'd become a pretty decent football player.

And so, it wasn't until I was probably in the 10th grade that I realized, just through working with the coaches and seeing how I was performing, that I had some potential to be able to play beyond high school.

And we were fortunate, went to Austin Peay and played ball there for four years and had a great experience there.

- So you're the Austin Peay football player, right?

- [Bryan] Yeah.

- At what point do you decide, this is what I really wanna focus on in my life?

- Yeah, so I went to school for business administration and so, between my junior and senior year, we had a coaching change that took place.

And one of the assistant coaches approached me and said, "Bryan, you usually go home over the summer", home is Nashville, about 45 minutes away, and he said, "We really are hoping that our student athletes will remain on campus this summer, if at all possible."

And I said, "Well, I'm happy to remain."

But my father, as I said, he was a mechanic and a bi-vocational pastor, And my mother was a case worker, a social worker.

And so they didn't make a lot of money.

And my summer earnings helped make ends meet, so to speak, and helped me do some things that I wanted to do.

And so I said, "Well, if you find me a job, help me find a job, I'll stick around."

And little did I know that they would plug me into an opportunity to work with some at-risk youth and absolutely fell in love with working with children so much so that I went back to my advisor and asked my advisor if I could change my majors.

A major going into my senior year, and the advisor said, "Well being a business major that's not smart business."

(Alison laughing) "You're almost done with this degree.

Why would you wanna do that?"

And very fortunately I continued to work at the job even through the season and beyond the season and worked some weekends.

And the principal of the school, a school there on site, approached me and said, "Hey, have you ever thought about teaching?"

And I said, "Actually I kind of have."

And she plugged me in to go to Belmont and get a master's degree in teaching and to go into the classroom and teach.

And I just fell in love with education from there.

(soft music) - Since making the decision to pursue a career in education, Bryan has served as an Athletic Director, a School Administrator and a Chief Academic Officer.

But it all started in the classroom.

As a high school teacher, he recognized the importance of setting an example for the students that he served, particularly for the male students who could look to him as a role model.

Did you find that you were sort of a rarity being a male in what was traditionally a female dominated profession?

- I think I realized that as time went on, and even now I was talking to a young man that was trying to figure out career and he's actually finished a degree and got to in-between careers and was considering education.

And he was asking me about which career band he should be thinking about and et cetera, and I shared with him just so I think something that contextually matches to your question.

What we find oftentimes in public education is that there's not as many men that go into the field, for a myriad of reasons.

But when I go back and think about my academic experience in K-12, I remember a lot of the men, I remember the woman too, but I remember a lot of the men because I didn't have very many of them.

So the ones you had, whether it was Mr. Anderson or Mr. Lane, or Dr. Churchwell, who was an Assistant Principal, Dr. Hammond, I remember those gentlemen vividly because I could kind of count on my hand in my K-12 experience, how many opportunities I had to be taught or instructed by a male teacher.

- So adding to that, so here you are one of the few males, and probably more now, but a male teacher of color.

- [Bryan] Yeah.

- And what sort of responsibility have you felt being in that role as sort of your role gets even more and more important?

- True, well, I think it's a critical question or point there, and when I think about where we are and the work that lies ahead really two things stick out to me.

Thing one is I feel the responsibility to make sure that minority males know that this is a great career field.

This is a great opportunity to affect change and to impact children's lives, which ultimately changes the trajectory, can change the trajectory of their future and ultimately position them for careers and to be great citizens and all the things that so many of us want.

So I feel that responsibility every single day.

I also feel the responsibility as a black male, in particular in the role that I have the privilege of serving in, to really help to dispel some of what I think are myths often times, and to really make sure that people understand that as a black male I feel responsible from a leadership construct to try to lead with excellence, to serve with excellence, to be able to speak coherently to what's transpiring across a system of 50,000 people, 45,000 students, and 6,000 employees and a half a billion dollar of a budget tearing responsibilities.

And to hopefully position other black males in the future to have, and minority males, to have the opportunity to serve in these roles.

- What was your transition from teacher to principal like?

Was it challenging for you?

- It was, it was.

And I would say that the teacher to principal or teacher to assistant principal, first transition, and assistant principal to principal, those transitions weren't quite as tough as the principalship to the district office role.

So what I found as an assistant principal and a principal that kept me I'll say grounded, is I had the ability every single day to really be in direct contact with students.

And so even though I came out of the classroom per se and may have stopped impacting directly my 100 or 75 or 25 students that are in front of me at that particular point, I still had, as an assistant principal, a group of 300 students, I was in a pretty large high school, that I would have an opportunity to have direct access to.

And then when I become a principal, kind of the same thing.

When I transitioned to the district office, it was a little bit different because in those toughest of moments in public education, in particular when you were in the school, I could always go into a classroom, and see the great work that's happened, or I could always pull up to a student at lunch and sit with them and have those conversations about how things are going.

And a lot of times that that's where I still find my fuel.

And so I could do that at a more regular pace when I was in the school versus going to the district.

- So what compels a guy who admittedly loves the classroom, and loves the student interaction, to move from a school to a central office.

- Yeah, yeah, so I struggled, if I'm being very transparent, I struggled when I moved from the school, in particular the principal to the district office move, because a lot of times when... And this is true I'm sure with any profession, but a lot of times as you move up, so to speak, you don't see your direct impact as immediately as you do.

If I taught a bad class, I could fix that right away.

The next day or the next class period, oh, I need to make this adjustment because they didn't get that the way I thought they would have.

You don't always get that opportunity when you're in leadership roles.

So for me, what really became the driver was the opportunity to impact a larger group, to have influence on the quality of education that students received.

And honestly, I love leadership.

And so, I get to spend a big part of my time working with leaders that are impacting other leaders.

And obviously knowing that those leaders are impacting our teachers and our teachers are impacting our students.

And so, you see your impact and influence in that way.

So that was ultimately the driver for me.

(soft music) - That impact is certainly being felt by the students, teachers, parents and community members in Hamilton County.

Since moving to Chattanooga to accept the role of Superintendent, Dr. Johnson's leadership has been marked by collaboration, service, and perhaps most importantly, listening to the students and to the community that he serves.

It is a leadership style that has served the district well, as Hamilton County schools have experienced historic academic growth and achievement over the course of his tenure.

But that doesn't mean that the path to success has been easy.

I know oftentimes you are praised and oftentimes you are criticized- - More criticism.

- (laughs) It's the nature of the beast.

So how do you stay grounded?

How do you not let, or do you, the professional attacks at times not affect you on a personal level?

Because I can imagine that's a hard thing to keep those two siloed.

- Yeah, so my faith is really important to me and it keeps me grounded.

My wife and family keep me very grounded.

I think it's an order of what's most important at the end of the day.

If I can come home and I'm still loved, which is depended on what happens there.

But most times I get to come home, I'm still loved and appreciated.

Those are the things that matter most.

So I was, a little while ago, clearing out my voicemail because sometimes my deleted voicemails won't delete and my son, who just got a phone for Christmas and is wearing it out when he has access to it, was calling me, not just then, but it left me a voice message and he said, "Hey, dad, it's me calling.

I love you, call me later."

(Alison laughs) And I replayed that about three times just now.

It's those moments that they really keep you grounded.

And I think I had to really understand early on that in truth everybody's got opinions, everybody's got perspectives and everybody's got rights to those opinions and perspectives.

And you can choose to do one of two things when you're in these roles.

You can stay focused on the work.

You can stay focused on the end desire or end goal for children, or you can get lost in what's going on around you.

So I've tried to kind of be pretty tunnel vision.

My skin has definitely got thicker.

And you just understand that some of it is a part of being in this being it his role and serving in this capacity.

- For someone who's in a role that they are constantly being bombarded with every challenge we can all imagine, what does success look like on a daily basis?

And what does it look like in terms of your life and professional goals.

- Yeah.

- And is it hard to measure?

- Yeah, so it's great you asked that question.

Our senior leadership team right now is reading Simon Sinek's "Infinite Game".

And we're, just yesterday we were discussing our just cause and every organization that's successful has just causes and it's not explicitly about a metric at the end and not a finite thing that you can feel or touch but it's that infinite thing.

And so, when I think about success and our organization and our school system, I look at a few things.

One is everybody safe, buses, arrive, drop kids, is everybody going to school and made it home safely.

That's always something that's underlying there.

But then when you move beyond that, it's have students learned?

What have they learned?

Can they articulate what they've learned for that given day?

We really doubled down a few years ago on clear targets.

And really it was about the student understanding what they were supposed to know or be able to do by the end of the lesson and them actually knowing it.

Two, if we haven't done that is the teacher aware of maybe what went wrong, because things go wrong in every lesson all the time.

And it's our job as educators to determine how we might re-teach it or how we might share it in a different way to help students understand.

And do we have plans for intervention?

So, when I really think about a successful day, it's have we done our very best to provide students with a quality education in that given day.

And have we really identified areas that are going really well and areas that we can improve and everyday I can have a list of all of those things.

I've got a list of things today that this went pretty well.

And I've got a list of things that, all right this hadn't gone so well already.

And then what are we doing to get there?

So, success to me is really that continuous process.

It's not an individual specific thing, it's really about getting better every single day of what we're trying to do in educating children.

- With that said, I imagine that the accolades are not the way you measure or gauge success.

However, I can't let you go without at least acknowledging being named superintendent of the year.

What was that like for you?

- Well, I think it's a testament to our school system.

I remember when I...

In our community, when I came here in 2017, July, I remember there had been probably 18 months in this school system that were just pretty, extremely challenging.

I think we, obviously the Woodmore bus crash, we had the Ottawa hazing incident, you had scores that weren't where anybody necessarily wanted them to be.

And I think trust and all those kinds of things were kind of unsettled within the community, within the public school system.

And I think when we look, three and a half years down the road, to think about what we've been able to accomplish, it's really a testament to the fortitude and the will of the community.

It's a testament to the great work of our teachers and our leaders.

And it's really a testament to the students.

No individual is recognized without a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of work.

And so to be a State Superintendent of the Year and a national finalist and a National Ed Week Leader to learn for all those kinds of things that have happened are really a testament to being in a special place at a special time, getting to do work that we just love to do.

- And as you look back on your life and on your career so far, what's the best lesson that you've learned?

- I think the best lesson that I've probably learned so far would be that no matter how good that you are, you're not that good.

(both laughing) And I really do mean that.

I get up every morning knowing that I've been gifted personally with some talents, but I don't take for granted those gifts.

And I always know that those gifts aren't just innately because Bryan's great.

I have the fortune of working with like an insanely talented team of people, who do their work exceptionally well.

And I try to give space to do their work and then develop a lot of trust.

So I'm just, I'm reminded that humility in these roles and hearing and understanding people and trying to serve people is always top of mind because for every mountain there's a valley.

And I seem to sometimes live in the valley for a long time (Alison chuckles) but then we find a mountain that pops every now and then.

So it's just, it's a focus on the work.

And then the other thing I would say, if I got a second, is that the privilege of being able to educate children is just that it's a privilege and it can absolutely be life-changing.

And when I go back and I think about my father and my mother and their experiences, and me getting to live out the experience that I have because she was one of the first blacks to integrates University of South Carolina and my father made a decision to go to the Military.

Those exposures for children, education can be an absolute game changer for generations.

So now my son has a different layer of experiences because of what my parents decided to do that positioned me to be able to do some things.

And so, it's special.

- Wow, we might've taken you out of the classroom years ago but you still are an amazing teacher.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for sharing with us today.

- Thank you for having me.

(lively music) - [Announcer] Get on demand access to even more of the shows you love, with WTC Passport, an exclusive benefit for members of WTCI PBS.

Watch your favorite shows in Passport on the PBS video app, download it today.

- [Narrator] Funding for this program was provided by, - [Announcer] Chattanooga Funeral Home Crematory and Florist.

Dedicated to helping you celebrate your life or the life of a loved one for over 85 years.

Chattanooga Funeral Home believes that each funeral should be as unique and memorable as the life being honored.

- [Narrator] This program is also made possible by support from viewers like you.

Thank you!