June 9, 2025
Episode 32: Emotional Schools: Leroy Slanzi's Leadership Journey on Building Student Resilience Through Emotional Intelligence!
Fan Mail! Imagine walking into a school where a principal tells a fart joke, and within seconds, students take deep breaths and self-regulate back to attention. Sound impossible? For Leroy Slanzi, this is everyday reality in schools that have embraced his emotional intelligence framework. With over 25 years of experience across elementary, middle, and high school leadership, Slanzi brings a unique perspective to the educational leadership conversation. Having begun his career as a special ed...
Imagine walking into a school where a principal tells a fart joke, and within seconds, students take deep breaths and self-regulate back to attention. Sound impossible? For Leroy Slanzi, this is everyday reality in schools that have embraced his emotional intelligence framework.
With over 25 years of experience across elementary, middle, and high school leadership, Slanzi brings a unique perspective to the educational leadership conversation. Having begun his career as a special education teacher, he quickly discovered that managing the emotional responses of adults was often more challenging than working with students. This insight became the foundation for his approach to school leadership and eventually led to his book, "Emotional Schools."
Slanzi argues that dramatic shifts in childhood experiences over the past 15 years—reduced free play, increased screen time, helicopter parenting—have created a generation of students struggling to manage stress and persevere through challenges. "We're seeing more kids with anxiety disorders, mood disorders, behavior disorders," he explains, noting this trend began well before the pandemic and continues to accelerate worldwide.
Rather than lamenting these changes, Slanzi developed a framework that teaches students the science behind their emotions. Even kindergarteners learn how deep breathing activates the prefrontal cortex, allowing for better decision-making. Using consistent language and visual cues throughout the school, this approach becomes embedded in daily interactions rather than existing as a separate program.
The results speak for themselves. Schools implementing Slanzi's framework report dramatic improvements in student behavior, attendance rates, and academic performance. Teachers spend less time managing disruptions and more time teaching. Perhaps most impressively, students begin to self-regulate independently, taking deep breaths when frustrated or overwhelmed instead of melting down or acting out.
Whether you're dealing with elementary students who think you "walk around with a cape on" or high schoolers contemplating their futures, Slanzi's approach offers practical strategies for building emotional resilience alongside academic skills. Ready to transform your school culture through emotional intelligence? Visit
EmotionalSchools.com
to learn how you can bring these evidence-based practices to your community.
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00:00 - Meeting Leroy Slanzi: Educational Leader
03:10 - Journey from Teacher to Administrator
06:43 - Special Education and Managing Adults
11:46 - Vice Principal Lessons and Growth
20:35 - Principal Across School Levels
29:23 - Emotional Schools Framework
38:05 - Building Emotional Intelligence in Schools
47:03 - Implementation Success and Final Advice
WEBVTT
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Today I'm excited to have Leroy Slanzi on the show.
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He is a seasoned educator with over 25 years of experience in the field.
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He is currently a practicing educational leader and has done it all from being a principal at the elementary, middle school and high school levels.
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Leroy is also the author of the influential book Emotional Schools, which dives deep into the essential role emotional intelligence and mental health play in our education system.
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Beyond the page, leroy is a dynamic facilitator of professional development, a trusted voice of numerous podcasts and a sought-after speaker whose guidance helps parents, teachers and school leaders navigate the chaos life throws our way.
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I'm excited to share with you his educational leadership journey.
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Now let's get to the conversation with Leroy Slanzi.
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Welcome back, everybody for another episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast.
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Today.
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I am so excited to bring in Leroy Slanzi.
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Leroy, welcome to the show.
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Jeff, thanks for having me.
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Man, I'm looking forward to this conversation.
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Awesome, leroy, I'd like to start off everybody with the same question what inspired you to become an educator?
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I'm a Gen Xer, I'm almost 50 years old and, you know, our parents kicked us out, told us to come home when, you know, the street lights went off, and so I was always that guy who was making sure we were having fun.
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So I coordinated everything.
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So, I think, starting early, I just loved being a kid and being, you know, coordinating kids.
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And then, eventually, as I grew older, you know, I started playing sports and then I became a lifeguarding and swimming instructor at 16 years old and I just loved it.
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So I started teaching early, when I started teaching swimming and then, you know, I ended up going into college, into teaching school, and, um, you know, the rest was history.
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I coach.
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I coached for 25 years as well as being a teacher, so, and a principal.
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So it's just always been one of those things that it's been natural for me just to be that kind of a person.
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I'm just engaged and wanting to constantly have something going on for people, right, so that was just a natural fit.
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Awesome.
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Now, leroy, what did you decide to go into teaching, what area did you become a teacher in?
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And let's talk about some of your coaching.
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Let's talk about what did you coach and how did that all transpire within your educational career Because I love American history.
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You guys are interesting down there at the same place Pre-Trump stuff.
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I just loved learning about Franklin Roosevelt and all the stuff that was going on down there.
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I was just fascinated by it.
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It also helped that I had a fantastic American history professor in college.
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He was from the States man.
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He could tell stories.
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I just couldn't get enough of him.
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I actually went to school to be a social studies teacher.
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That's what I was hoping to do Social studies, grade five, six and, ironically, my first job I ended up in a foundation skills class.
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So back 25 years ago they used to stream kids here in British Columbia, canada, and so I was in a class for kids.
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If they had learning disabilities, behavior problems, whatnot, they were put in one class, and so that's what I did.
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I taught for three years doing that and then I just found a real nation, a real passion for working with kids with disabilities.
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So I became, I did my master's in special ed and I ended up being a special ed teacher for three years and then somehow flipped into being a vice principal very early in my career.
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But yeah, so that's kind of my story there.
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I was a teacher for six years and then was an admin quick.
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There you go.
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All right, leroy.
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So let's talk about being a classroom teacher, special education teacher.
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I always feel like those people are just special people.
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They have to have patience and you know you're dealing with some really tough kids, that you know.
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They just need that extra guidance.
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They need things you know.
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You know structure and there's a lot of different ways you can go into that.
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Where are some things that you learn as a special education teacher?
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What are some things that, as your time, that stands out for you?
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I think one of the things that I had to learn early on being a special education teacher is not so much the students.
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I found that the kids were quite easy.
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They're quite entertaining, they're very passionate kids.
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They wanted to learn and again, their progressions were a lot smaller than kids who were not neurotypical.
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But what I had to learn most as a special ed teacher is how to manage the adults.
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Um, I I find that when special ed kids and and it's, I know, it's the same everywhere when special ed kids are in a, in a classroom, if you're in an inclusive school, that puts a lot of pressure on teachers because then they have to differentiate their instruction they have to work with.
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In canada we call them ieps, individualized education plans.
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I know there's all kinds of names for them, but essentially it's a plan for a kid with special needs, and so you know I'd have to deal with a lot of frustrations.
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You know a lot of of teachers struggling with keeping up with, with managing that, and then, if it was a kid who had a designation, that came with certain behaviors and whatnot.
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So I, I think, in terms of being the leader I am now, I really learned that structure and understanding emotional intelligence, which ties into my book and some of the stuff I do with, because I do a lot of work with other schools other than my own.
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I do a lot of workshops and stuff around emotional intelligence.
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I had to learn how to manage, um, that emotional intelligence piece and that social intelligence piece with the adults, with the kids.
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And then I had to learn structure, because, as a special ed teacher, the easier I could make it for teachers, the better it was for my special ed kids.
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And and I think that was probably the biggest thing I had to learn is that I I couldn't in thinking that all teachers were going to be like me, this gigantic hearts, going to work the extra two to three hours to make sure that I was prepared for my kids, because I started my career in a foundational skills class with no, not as a special ed teacher in a high school too.
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So you can imagine, you have special ed kids in there and a calculus 11 class or you know, you know a kid who's neurodivergent and they, you know, and they're on the spectrum there and they're, they're, can do pre-cal, but their behavior may not be what the teacher wants in there, right?
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So that was the biggest learning thing is I that really kind of slapped me in the face that I better get a firm grip on emotional intelligence to make sure that this, this is best for my kids.
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So, during your teaching time, what is the one thing you love the most about teaching?
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Uh it, the kids still is.
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Um, I, I just love interacting with kids.
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So a good example.
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So I've been in several elementary schools, and every elementary school I've been in I don't have a principal's office, I work out of a classroom.
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So that way I'm part of the.
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You know, I'm a cog in the wheel, and so I support my teachers and my kids by being in a space that's open, the doors are open all the time and I do that because I have to be around kids.
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And same thing with coaching.
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Here in Canada we don't get stipends for coaching, we actually volunteer our time, and so I coached basketball for almost 25 years and I coached swim club for some time too.
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And I did that because I just enjoy being around kids.
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I enjoy the growth, I love watching them learn, I love how they you know, when you get them going they develop that grit and perseverance and passion, all that sort of stuff.
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Yeah, and I know you kind of touched on it a little bit about understanding emotional intelligence and how that shaped you as a teacher to help you into the role, into leadership.
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Are there anything else that shaped you during your teaching time to take that next step and what was that?
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And then, how did that inspire you to become a principal assistant principal in this case?
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To start off with, how did that all wrapped up together?
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there.
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Well, I think, like a lot of people that go into admin, sometimes we have great administrators when we're teachers and sometimes we have shitty ones.
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And I think, and I, and I think you know, I, I was lucky cause I had both.
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I had some good administrators, but I also had some, um, some not so good ones.
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And I I felt early on in my career which is is I don't know how normal it is, but early on I felt that if I could get into a leadership position, I would run a school differently.
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I would do it differently, not only for my kids, but for my teachers, because I love teachers.
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I think teachers are our greatest asset, our greatest resource.
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Teachers, you know to to be, um, what they can be, um, through emotional intelligence.
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Your, your culture will thrive and your, you know, your numeracy and literacy rates will, will go up.
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Your attendance will decrease, uh, it decrease in the sense that you won't have as many kids absent and and that's been the truth so, um, I think part of it was that is that I wanted to.
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I wanted to affect change on a bigger, on a more macro level than just on the classroom.
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Yeah, that's really interesting.
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You talk about how you know you have some principles that you watched right and how you go hey, you know what I really like, how, what that guy does, or hey, I really like what she did or didn't do, and you kind of take notes.
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I was kind of the same way as a teacher, where I was watching my leaders going.
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I like that.
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I didn't quite like that.
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Maybe I'll do something different than that, and so it sounds like you kind of did the same thing as I did is when, as a teacher, you kind of watched your leaders and it kind of helped you develop maybe your leadership style or how you would like to go about doing that.
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So let's talk about your assistant principalship.
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You know what got you into it.
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Was there a moment where it was a tap on the shoulder that someone says it's time?
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Did you know it was time?
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Did it just kind of sneak up on you?
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Did it happen organically?
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There's so many different ways that you know how did you step into that leadership role as an assistant principal.
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Yeah, interesting.
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So I was a department head in the high school in student services which, so you're the department head of counselors, special ed teachers, you know anyone who supports students, work experience teachers, that sort of thing.
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And I was in a really toxic school at the time and so I actually put in a request to transfer schools just to go to a school where I wasn't, because I can't, I couldn't affect change on the toxicity.
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So I thought I'm not one of those people that I'm going to sit around and bitch about something.
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If I can't make a change, I'm not going to just complain and complain and spin whales, I'm going to move, right.
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And I think that's that's my, my advice to teachers and principals.
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If you can't, if you're in a district or if you're in a school and it's just not changing and you can't, don't wallow in that, just get out and go somewhere else, right.
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And so I actually went to go somewhere else and the superintendent kind of said to me go, say he goes, I'd like to meet with you, because I heard you're going to move because there's a smaller district.
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And I said yeah, I said I I'm gonna go, I would like to be special ed teacher of the school and on that level in the seniority list he goes.
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Well, if you don't mind, can you apply for the vice principal position out at a different school?
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He goes you're doing some good work.
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I understand your.
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You're doing some good work.
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I understand your department.
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You're doing some stuff around.
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I was using the AVID program.
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It's an American program, so we're using the AVID program and I was leading that and I said vice principal.
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I said I've been teaching, I've only been at this for six years.
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He goes.
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I think you got what it takes and so I applied and the rest was history.
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I became a vice principal or assistant principal in the States and yeah, and it's been 19, 20 years.
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I've been an admin since then your vice principalship.
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What are some things you learned, what are some things that you've gained from that that helped you become a better leader, and what advice could you give somebody in that role that is looking to get into that assistant principal role down the road?
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So again.
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You know I'm going to keep you're going to hear me throughout this podcast.
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Going back to emotional intelligence, I, I, I.
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There's one story I had.
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So I became a vice principal and things were going great.
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I made sure like I I'd be.
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I sat in on school-based team meetings.
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I was the head of the special ed department.
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I wanted to make sure I stuck to things that I was really good at.
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I dove into athletics because I was coaching, you know, but I wasn't really familiar with, you know, dealing with behavior and having to suspend kids and the first kid I ever suspended in my life.
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I phoned home and I said to the mom I'm like hey, listen, your daughter's doing this, that and the other.
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They crossed the line, it's time for them to go home.
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And mom said to me Nope, I'm a pardon.
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She said my daughter's not suspended, she'll be at school tomorrow.
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And I was like what I was in my head?
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I'm like you don't get to say that.
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And I said I'm sorry.
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I said I'm suspending your daughter, they can't be on school property there.
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And it blew up and I raised my voice, she raised her voice and it just went sideways and afterwards I was done.
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I kind of hung up the phone, not knowing if this kid was going to show up the next day.
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And I went to the principal next door and he said to me he said, leroy, have you ever eaten crow?
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And I said no, I've never eaten crow.
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I've eaten a lot of things.
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I've eaten rattlesnake, I mean, and he goes well, if you put a little salt on it it tastes pretty good.
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And I said, well, what do you mean?
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He goes well, you handled that parent all wrong.
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He goes.
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When you talk to a parent, the first thing you should be asking them is for help.
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And I said, oh, he goes.
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So when you're phoning to suspend a kid, you need to say, hey, this is the situation that's going on.
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We're kind of hitting a line.
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I need some help from you.
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Can you tell me what you're doing, how you're?
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And he's preaching to me about emotional intelligence.
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And I went into this having my emotions rise and fall with this parent.
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She clearly flipped her lid and I wasn't being empathetic and you know I wasn't being mindful and I wasn't.
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It just went sideways.
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And so I learned early on as a vice principal.
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And again I go back to being a department head and then being a vice principal.
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It comes down to teachers and you have to be emotionally intelligent if you're going to develop a strong culture in your school, because if you're not, your school environment is going to become toxic and your parental environment is going to become toxic.
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So that first suspension I know the kid's first name, last name, I know mom's first name, I know I will never forget that, and that was 20, 20 years ago and I have never and since then I've suspended I don't know 500, middle schools, elementary schools, middle schools.
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You're guaranteed to suspend some of those clowns and to this day that's the one suspension.
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That's the one parent who refused the suspension.
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It never happened again after that and that is something that's resonated with me.
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And when I have vice principals I teach that I front load anyone new coming into being assistant principals about emotional intelligence.
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And now every school I go into we have an emotional intelligence structure, that we have an emotional schools framework that we use.
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That's embedded into what we do.
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So our culture is thriving within in that capacity, right?
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So yeah, that's a really great story to learn, I think, as assistant principals.
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Like I have never been assistant principal for some reason, I went from teacher right into the building, so, but I was a small town, small rural school principal where I still dealt with all the suspensions.
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I dealt with everything.
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You know I had hats today, all the suspensions, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
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So I know I've been through that.
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I've learned lessons like that, to where, how you approach, how do you talk, how do you get the parent to help you with their child, because you're always trying to say, hey, you know your kid better than I do.
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So how can we work together to make this so this situation doesn't A become worse but B we can move forward without having a repeat of this behavior or the situation that you're working through with that.
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So that was a really great story that you shared there, leroy.
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Thank you for sharing that.
00:17:21.814 --> 00:17:28.980
So let's talk about you know you went from assistant principal to to principal, to building leader.
00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:36.586
What was it, um, that inspired you to go from that role into that role, um, was it a?
00:17:36.586 --> 00:17:38.829
There's, there's a story that goes behind it.
00:17:38.829 --> 00:17:40.451
Did it kind of happen naturally?
00:17:41.131 --> 00:18:12.041
or, um, know what, what, what, what perspired for you to go from the assistant principal or vice principal into principalship, um, but I uh, by the end of the three years that I was an assistant principal, it was, it was time for me to now to do, you know, to implement a system and develop a culture that I thought was going to.
00:18:12.041 --> 00:18:28.808
You know, I got hired for both of them, so I had to turn one down and I ended up, uh, middle school principal for my first gig, and that was tough.
00:18:28.808 --> 00:18:29.588
Middle schools are tough.
00:18:29.588 --> 00:18:36.693
I was a teacher at middle school for three years, so I already knew, um, but then I became a principal of a middle school.
00:18:36.713 --> 00:19:02.178
So, um, uh, it was, it was something that was necessary and it was just time, cause you get to a point when you're, when you're, an assistant principal, it's like you want it to be your own baby, right, you want to, you want to nurture something and grow it, and then you know and you learn a lot in those I, because I was only there for three years before I I moved to an elementary school for six, um, um, but it was uh, you know, it's a beautiful, beautiful three years yeah, let's talk about that a little bit.
00:19:02.218 --> 00:19:17.038
Let's talk about you know, do you have a story that you could share about being a middle school principal, cause we all know there there's gotta be something there, um, but also talk about going from middle school, cause you also talked about being a high school principal.
00:19:17.038 --> 00:19:47.441
Talk about, like, what it's like to be a middle school principal, what it's like to be an elementary principal, and then what is it like to be a high school principal, because they're all three just different animals and you just have that unique experience and I love people to just understand the difference between those three different, those different areas as a principal, yeah, if somebody came to me cause I'm 51 now and I've been doing this for 25 years If somebody came to me and said, hey, can you be a principal of this middle school?
00:19:47.529 --> 00:19:49.996
I'd say no, I think.
00:19:49.996 --> 00:19:53.542
I think all middle schools should be labeled as Bart Simpson academies.
00:19:53.542 --> 00:20:02.913
Um, you know, girls are are overly dramatic, more so than they are in high school, cause there's it's all, emotional, it's all.
00:20:02.913 --> 00:20:05.739
Oh, you talked about a culture of emotional intelligence and this is my.
00:20:05.739 --> 00:20:16.459
I wished I would have known then what I know now about developing an emotional schools framework where I could have implemented the right framework with the right common language and the right competencies.
00:20:16.459 --> 00:20:20.537
Um, but I tell you, it was like I was living in an episode of bart simpson.
00:20:20.616 --> 00:20:25.259
Every day there'd be kids flicking lights on and off, garbage cans would sometimes get lit and lit on fire.
00:20:25.259 --> 00:20:28.960
Vaseline on door handles, condoms in the spots they shouldn't be in.
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:32.780
I'd go into the gym and kids are jumping off the mezzanine onto mats.
00:20:32.780 --> 00:20:34.251
There's, you know, there's.
00:20:34.251 --> 00:20:39.763
It's just energy and and and nothing serious, like nothing.
00:20:39.763 --> 00:20:53.373
I mean, when a garbage can got lit in fire, it was kind of serious, but there was never anything really serious, it was just all of this like juvenile boy behavior.
00:20:53.373 --> 00:21:03.661
The girls it was more dealing with drama and, and you know, girls can be mean to each other oh man, they beat each other up, but the boys it's just constant, you know it, just constant.
00:21:03.661 --> 00:21:07.500
And, uh, it wore me down just because I would.
00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:12.395
The hardest part was that I would find a lot of it hilarious, like I'd get to do something.
00:21:12.395 --> 00:21:21.051
I'd have to discipline them, because I believe in consequences as well as teaching self-regulation and emotional intelligence, and and I would go back into my office and I would just laugh.
00:21:21.051 --> 00:21:23.759
I'm like, oh my god, that was the most funny thing in the world.
00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:31.579
Like I just find the stuff that did the humorous, even though they'd sometimes get suspended and and it just it was just like this, right?
00:21:31.579 --> 00:21:36.342
So, yeah, that was, it was tough being in a, in a middle school, it is tough.
00:21:36.342 --> 00:21:48.069
I give a lot of credit to middle school teachers man, they, wow, wow they.
00:21:48.069 --> 00:21:49.012
School teachers, man, they, they, wow, wow.
00:21:49.012 --> 00:21:50.135
They're dealing with kids at the, at an interesting.
00:21:50.135 --> 00:21:52.903
And I've raised two kids too, right, my son is now 18 and in college, my daughter's 16 in high school.
00:21:52.903 --> 00:21:54.548
But man, oh man, I it's, it's, that's just that age 11 to 13.
00:21:54.548 --> 00:21:55.190
There it's like holy moly.
00:21:56.290 --> 00:21:56.791
Oh yeah.
00:21:56.791 --> 00:22:00.422
So what was it like to be a principal at the elementary level?
00:22:05.950 --> 00:22:07.680
Uh, you know, it's funny cause people ask me you know where my favorite level is?
00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:11.336
Because I've been in a couple of high schools and a couple of elementary schools and you know what I really?
00:22:11.336 --> 00:22:13.867
Because I coached and I coached high school.
00:22:13.867 --> 00:22:29.640
At the high school level, I did coach elementary stuff too, but what I really liked about high schools is that kids, when they're in grade 11 and 12, are really mature and they're starting to think about life and you know they, you know they worry about their mental health and they worry about what's going to happen with their future and they worry about what their career is going to be.
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:37.211
Um, you know, and it's kind of cool that way, that's, it's just a more mature kind of sort of a peaceful environment.
00:22:37.291 --> 00:22:42.959
I find, with the odd except when their behavior is bad, it's bad and it and it and it could be dangerous at times, right.
00:22:42.959 --> 00:22:52.224
And then I look at elementary and in an elementary school kids think you're super mad, they think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, right, and that's who doesn't love.
00:22:52.224 --> 00:22:55.657
You know, when I talk emotional intelligence, it's all centered around your ego.
00:22:55.657 --> 00:23:00.394
It's how your ego is either overactive and under, uh, underactive, and when you're in an elementary school.
00:23:00.394 --> 00:23:01.817
You can't leave it every day.
00:23:01.817 --> 00:23:08.413
You leave thinking you're the best principal in the entire planet, right, because I think the kids think you walk around with a cape on.
00:23:08.413 --> 00:23:12.742
So you know, I, I, I think I'm more partial to elementary, because I do.
00:23:12.742 --> 00:23:20.160
You know, when kids smile and adore you, like my own children when they're little I can't get a hug out of my daughter right now, and she used to worship me, right.
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