Hello, Christine Johnson.

Thank you for visiting our school, celebrating high school.

We are thrilled to be interviewing you.

Are you ready to get started?

I am.

Thank you for having me.

Number one, I'm excited to be able to do this most important for young people, because I think that's actually the most finessed part of the reason why I took this job to be able to support and work with young people.

Thank you.

So first things first.

Not many people know what a the trustee does or is exactly.

So could you explain a little bit about the responsibilities you'll have to overtake undertake as the newly appointed trustee?

Yeah.

You know, the job is is a it's a pretty complex job, but it's also a simple job at the same time.

So the responsibility of the trustees are to oversee the entire course, the school district, but really oversee it through one person.

We have one employee who is responsible for actually taking care of the entire district so that employee is a superintendent who has the position is vacant now.

So either you're interested you to apply, but in all seriousness, that our responsibility is to manage our single employee.

And so that employee then works with the entire school district to ensure that academic results are strong, to make sure that we have enough money to be solvent for years in the future, to make sure that students are safe.

To make sure that the operations of the school will.

And so that suit, that superintendent's job is then to report to us about how those things are going.

Now, you can probably imagine that 40,000 employees, the superintendent doesn't know each employee Their responsibility is to oversee all of the employees.

But then to also communicate how well the district is doing to all of our community and also be honest about the challenges that we have.

And so we get to guide that employee.

So when things are are doing well, we help to make sure that the messages that the superintendent wants to get out are getting out.

When we have challenges, we support the superintendent by making sure that we are communicating, how are we going to fix those challenges?

But the job of the trustee really is just to oversee that one employee, and then the superintendent does all of the hard work.

So really, my job is why this complex is simpler than being the superintendent.

And I would not want to have that job.

Right.

But I get to manage that person with my colleagues on the board.

And so how do you feel about the hiring of a new superintendent?

How do you feel about that?

You know, I'm really hopeful.

I'm hopeful because change always brings new things.

And while change can be, it can be sometimes frightening you again.

You can think about some of the fearful things that might happen when you're going from what you used to know to the unknown.

And we have a really great opportunity to listen to a variety of different people.

You know, I'm not going to turn this around too much, but I would imagine because you all have one more year left in your eyes for creating some things that you'd like to see as students in the school district.

Yes.

So part of our responsibility as trustees, as we are hiring this new person, is to take the time to ask students, to ask families, to ask community members, what do they want to see in a new superintendent?

And what would you think makes a successful superintendent as a trustee and seeing everybody?

What do you think would make he or she super successful for the school district and to You know, the job is really challenging.

I talked about having to manage the number of employees, you know, all of the different parts of the world.

I think it still breaks down to a couple, a couple of really fundamental things.

Number one, the person has to have a really clear vision and making sure everybody understands that vision.

So whether you are a high school junior and thinking about what comes next for you or you're in kindergarten, you should be able to really understand what the vision of the this what do they set out to do when that superintendent has to be really clearly share that with all the people who are in the district.

So having a clear vision is number one.

Number two, the person has to be able to communicate really well, right?

So to be able to go talk to the governor and ask the governor for billions of dollars to be put into the school district and then also be able to go and talk to a parent who doesn't.

You may not understand why the schools governors are the way they are.

That person has to communicate with a variety of different people.

And so their ability to break down complex issues, their ability to build relationships quickly, their ability to talk to the entire community and have them trust them is going to be really important.

So one, being able to have a clear vision to communicate really well.

The third thing that the trustee is going to go to, the superintendent is going to need to be able to do is really be able to manage and delegate well.

And what I mean by that is, again, they cannot do it all themselves.

They have 40,000 employees who have to be inspired by their words, and they have to be really clear about what they want to get done and share that with their people who are on their team.

So if the if the vision is to make sure that all their are great as a reading on grade level in three years, they have to make sure that they have given clear direction to their teammates and then hold them accountable for those results.

And they then they have to be accountable themselves for the results.

So they can't just say, well, I have the teachers to do it.

They didn't get it done.

So I guess we need new teachers, right?

They need to say we didn't get this done.

I need to look at the plan to me and figure out why we didn't get it done or we were really successful in some of the schools and other schools.

What do I need to do different?

So, one, have a clear vision to communicate well.

Three delegate and hold people accountable and hold themselves accountable.

So what would make you successful in your position as a trustee?

What are some of your goals and ambitions?

You know, one of the biggest things I like to do, and I don't know if you all have come to school board meeting, there's one tonight, so if you'd like to join him, you're welcome to be there.

Diego was like, I don't know if I'm going to play the thing that's going to help me be sort of One of the things I think I think a lot about is how do I make sure that we as a community are all focused on the same goal, which is your success?

And through the first several meetings that I've had, I've been on the board now since January 2nd.

There's been a lot of division and I think to some degree sometimes there are some negative attitudes about the direction that we're going, about things that we've done previously about how we move forward.

And I think it's really challenging for anybody to to move forward as a group if you're always divided.

Could you imagine if your high school was trying to accomplish something and freshman wanted this sophomore, sophomores wanted that juniors went to the third thing and And so you want something different?

Well, to some degree, it feels like that in our district.

And so one of my biggest goals is to make sure that we are all online and committed to the same thing we said.

I think we've said on more than one occasion we want student success, and then we argue pretty vehemently about how to get there.

But then I have not yet seen us find the middle ground for how we work together to move to that direction.

So my my sincere hope is that through really good communication, through listening to one another, we can work together to find the path that helps us give you, deliver you all of the excellent education that you deserve.

That's beautiful.

Very true.

How has your background helped you choose this career path, and why did you want to become a trustee?

You know, I have I think about where I come from.

So I'm born and raised in Washington, D.C.. Yeah, the nation's capital.

One of my favorite city.

And then this is my second favorite city.

So born and raised in D.C. and my family, we live in a working class neighborhood.

I loved my community, all my street.

I was one of those probably 30 or 40 kids.

But my house, I have two brothers and our expectation was that higher education was going to happen.

So we got a lot of opportunity to pursue higher education.

And then as I started thinking about where my friends were on my street and my neighborhood and our block, I thought, it seems quite unfair that I wasn't any more talented, I wasn't any smarter.

I didn't I didn't want anything different for my life than my friends.

I just got opportunity through education and thought, what if every single student, every single person had the opportunity to pursue their dreams and whatever that that might be, because they had an excellent education.

And so for me, that was the driving force and to get into education.

So I move from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas to get into the education space.

And I started at a nonprofit, and then I worked six years and as a school leader where I got to support young people just like you every day.

I got to see them every morning, I got to shake their hands.

They came in and it really fueled my fire, too, to know that people can make a difference in young people's lives.

You all have the drive, you'll have ambition, you'll have intelligence.

We need to set up the structures to make sure you can thrive.

And so after I took a break from that, I wanted to figure out how do I make more impact in my community?

How do I continue to support more young people reaching their goals?

So that was really the drive behind being a trustee.

And lots of people will say, Well, you don't even get to vote and this is a really hard job.

And so why would you even want to do that?

But if you if I didn't decide to do it, who would?

True.

Right.

So touching on that based on you're not even able to vote, how do you think you can be an effective member without being able to vote?

You know, I talk to young people often and I tell them that you have to advocate for yourself.

You have to know what you want to be able to get what you want and so what?

I can't vote.

That doesn't mean I'm voiceless.

Yeah, right.

In every single meeting, I can come prepared to discuss the topics I can have, listen to my community, and then I can use my own voice and plus my experience to then talk about what I think we should do and move forward.

And so while my my colleagues may not always do exactly as I may have decided the desire for them to do, I think I've helped them think differently about what they would have done had I not been there.

And so I think it's important to always know your voice is actually incredibly powerful.

So even when you are here on campus, you might think, Well, there's all these layers between me and the principal and how do I get something done?

You still have the opportunity to create a coalition.

You have the opportunity to share what you want to get done.

And so when you have those things like voice is the most powerful tool that you can use to make change anyway.

And I always think about it like this.

Even if I were to have a vote having one of 11 votes.

All right.

So I'm 1/11 of of of a decision.

But my voice gives lots of people to think differently because community members involved, I think that's equally powerful.

So I think that about some of the interviews or anything else you'd like to add or you want the public to know.

Yeah, you had two things.

One, I love feedback is I love for people to share when I've done something well or when I need to do something better.

And so my email address and phone number are very publicly available.

So and I answer every email that I get.

I think it's important to communicate to people about things so know that I would love to see people's feedback, whether it's from students or from the public.

And the second thing I'm going to push everybody to do is to get involved.

Right.

You cannot stand on the sidelines and say, well, I wish they would do better if you're not helping.

Actually, part of the problem, what am I, you know, read next in mathematics after a long time ago.

And one of the things he also he often said was, you know, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Yeah.

And so I really challenge everyone, whether you are in school today or you just live in a community to figure out how you can help.

But part of my job is to help you understand how you can help.

So that's part of the communication part.

Well, that's beautiful.

Thank you so much.

We're very honored to be interviewing you today.

It was actually a very wonderful experience I'm at the Honors mine.

So thank you all and have done a great job and looking forward to seeing how you all will continue to flourish in this role.

And if I can be helpful in any way, I can tell you my category is available publicly.

Please reach out.

I'm always I'm always willing to help in any way I can.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Is absolutely