July 7, 2025
Episode 35: The Blueprint: Todd Bloomer’s Educational Leadership Journey on Balancing Family, Leadership, and School Culture!
Send us a text What makes a school leader decide to step away when they still love what they do? Former high school principal Todd Bloomer opens up about his nearly three-decade journey through education and the wisdom he gained along the way. Todd's story begins as a New Yorker who packed everything into a Geo Prism and moved 1,800 miles to teach in Texas without ever having visited the state. His leadership philosophy was born in a seventh-grade Texas history classroom when a student candi...
What makes a school leader decide to step away when they still love what they do? Former high school principal Todd Bloomer opens up about his nearly three-decade journey through education and the wisdom he gained along the way.
Todd's story begins as a New Yorker who packed everything into a Geo Prism and moved 1,800 miles to teach in Texas without ever having visited the state. His leadership philosophy was born in a seventh-grade Texas history classroom when a student candidly asked why he should care about rainfall in El Paso. This moment forced Todd to rethink his entire approach to education, shifting from textbook regurgitation to student engagement and voice—a principle that would guide his entire career.
As Todd advanced from teacher to assistant principal to principal, he developed what he calls the "Bloomer Triangle of Success," emphasizing the importance of soliciting voices from teachers, parents, and students. He shares practical strategies for building strong school culture, from strategic hiring practices that value community connections to his commitment to visiting every teacher's classroom daily. His Monday morning emails—always starting with personal stories about weekend activities and restaurant recommendations—became a touchstone that built authentic connections in a large high school with nine buildings.
Unlike many educators who leave due to burnout, Todd made the difficult decision to retire from his beloved principalship at Winston Churchill High School while still passionate about the work. He recognized that the all-consuming nature of high school leadership requires complete dedication, and he wanted to ensure his school received the leadership energy it deserved. Now transitioning to Director of School Leadership for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Todd offers candid advice about balancing family life with the demands of school leadership.
Whether you're an aspiring administrator, veteran principal, or teacher considering a move into leadership, Todd's authentic insights and practical wisdom offer a blueprint for not just surviving, but thriving in educational leadership. Check out his book "The Blueprint: Survive and Thrive as a School Administrator" to learn more about his journey and the lessons that can transform your leadership approach.
The Blueprint: Survive and Thrive as a School Administrator:
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00:00 - Todd Bloomer's Educational Journey
08:49 - Classroom Teaching & Finding Leadership Voice
13:56 - Transitioning to School Administration
22:59 - Building Strong School Culture
32:23 - The Blueprint Book & Future Plans
38:11 - Advice for School Leaders & Families
WEBVTT
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Today I'm excited to have Todd Bloomer on the podcast.
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For nearly three decades, todd has served students, teachers and communities as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, middle school principal and high school principal in the Houston and San Antonio Texas areas.
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Todd is a New Yorker that fell in love with Texas and its culture.
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He shares with us his journey in education and some golden nuggets he learned along the way.
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Todd has currently just retired from public education and is transitioning into a new role as the director of school leadership for the Archdiocese of San Antonio.
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Todd is also an author of the book the Blueprint Survive and Thrive as a School Administrator.
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Now let's get to the conversation with Todd Bloomer.
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Welcome to the Educational Leadership Podcast show.
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Today I have in the house Todd Bloomer.
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Todd, welcome to the show.
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Thanks, Jeff.
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It's an honor to be here.
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All right, todd, I'm going to start you off with the same question.
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I ask everybody what inspired you to become an educator?
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You know, jeff, both my parents were educators.
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My father was a high school teacher and a coach, and my mother was an elementary school teacher and a coach, and so I like to tell people.
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I entered the family profession and early on in my life I had two goals.
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I was either going to be the shortstop for the New York Yankees and Derek Jeter blocked me for 20 years of doing that, or I was going to be the fourth member of the great musical group, the Beastie Boys, and since I had no musical talent, that didn't work out at all either.
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And so I like to jokingly tell people that as I progressed through my schooling and becoming a teacher and a coach and assistant principal, I landed my dream job as a high school principal here in San Antonio, texas.
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All right.
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So you went from New York to San Antonio, Texas.
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Tell us about that journey.
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What got you clear?
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to Texas yeah, you know what?
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It's a great story.
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I graduated from college and New York was kind of in a hiring freeze and I've always been one that's up for an adventure.
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You know, I'm that guy that you can call and let's go, I'm ready.
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And I applied for jobs all over the country and in a great sports way.
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I only applied to jobs in cities that had all three major sporting teams football, basketball, baseball and so one of those was Houston, texas.
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And Jeff, I'd never been to Texas, I'd never been to Houston, I knew nothing about it.
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And I remember getting a phone call one morning.
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I was living in my parents' basement, I was doing some substitute teaching and hating it.
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I hated waking up in the morning to figure out if I was going to work and I was like, ah, and so I need a job.
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And so I got offered a job in Houston, texas, just outside of Houston, and accepted and I thought, you know, I'd go for one year and I went down, loved it, loved the people, loved the culture, loved the food.
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I got to be a teacher and a coach, got to experience Friday Night Lights.
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After year one I decided to go back for year two and then in year two I met my wonderful wife Sharon and we got married and family and the rest is history.
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And I'm a Texan.
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I've now been in Texas longer than I was a New Yorker.
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I still consider myself a New Yorker but I love San Antonio, texas, with all my heart.
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Oh, awesome.
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Yeah, that's really neat to just kind of hear that story about going from New York and going to Texas and kind of what gets people there.
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That's really great to hear.
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Now let's talk about teaching.
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Right, you got this job, you're in Houston.
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What about teaching did you learn to help you become the leader you became?
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You know what was it about teaching and coaching that kind of got you going, and what are some lessons you learned as your time as a teacher and coach that did prepare you for that next step in leadership?
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You know relationships.
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You know, at 22 years old I was a teacher and a coach and some of those kids that I taught my first year I'm friends with on Facebook and you know they're in their forties now and, like you know, I'm like holy cow.
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Holy cow I'm not a young pup myself, but holy cow.
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And so building those relationships with those kids and really being on my own, like being 1,800 miles from home I packed up a Geo Prism with a TV in the back and every clothing item I owned and moved to Texas, so really having to force to grow up on my own and really be able to carry myself well.
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And I'll tell a story that is really relevant to just my leadership journey because, as funny as this sounds, my first year in Texas I taught Texas history.
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It's a seventh grade class, that was a social studies class and, jeff, I knew nothing about Texas.
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I knew the Alamo and you know, I knew the TV show Dallas and you know the Cowboys and the Spurs and I mean that's, that's about it, right.
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And so you know, I'm teaching Texas history and I vividly remember my first year.
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We're teaching a unit about the amount of rainfall in El Paso, texas, and I've still never been to El Paso, texas, and I have a good friend that you know lived there and I worked with from El Paso beautiful city.
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You know live there and I worked with from El Paso beautiful city.
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And this kid raises his hand and with all honesty, and says, uh, the hell do I care how much rainfall El Paso gets, I'm never going to leave Houston.
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And uh, not a disrespectful way, but just in a matter of fact way.
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And it really made me consider, right there on the spot, that if I'm just trying to regurgitate information from a textbook, I'm going to be back in New York by Christmas because this is going to fail.
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And so really, I had to connect with kids, I had to empower kids, I had to seek a voice from kids to be able to say what's the best way to learn?
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How do you learn?
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Like you know, do you want to work on a project instead of this?
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Like, how can we do this?
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Can we do a talk show instead of a report?
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And really honestly, in 1996, I started dabbling in some really cool ways to bring instruction to life that were just outside of the box, that were just not the norm of what I was taught in college for instructional practices, because if I didn't, my kids would have hated it.
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Now I had a good classroom management and good rapport, so kids would have done what I needed them to do but they wouldn't have gained anything out of it.
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And through that interaction and through that getting to know and through that really checking on kids and then really differentiating and seeing it allowed kids that might not have enjoyed history or Texas history to really come alive, because they got the experience in a different way.
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It wasn't a worksheet, worksheet, worksheet, test on Friday.
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It was let's stand up and let's act things out, let's stand up and be unique in what we're doing.
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And so you know that really, you know, drove me, and so to take that into the assistant principal and the principal role, you know the school is as much the kids as it is ours, and students have a voice and oftentimes, you know, we ask teachers about voice in a school and we ask parents about voice, but we don't ask kids.
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But I did and I do, and it's important that I have the pulse of the campus.
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Now, if the kids came to me, jeff, and said we want an open campus and want to leave, to go during lunch.
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Well, I can't allow that, that's a district policy that we can't have.
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But I can listen and it's important that there's a differentiation, because it's important for voice and vote.
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Just because students want something doesn't mean they automatically get something.
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And so, really, from that lesson where that kid raised his hand and said he don't care about rainfall in El Paso, it taught me that I have to listen to my stakeholders.
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I have to listen and there are times where their voice is relevant and it matters and their opinion is just as important as opinions of anybody within there, and sometimes we have to change because of what our clientele or our students dictate to us.
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And so, really, back in 1996, in the fall of 96, teaching about the limited number of rainfall in Texas took me 29 years to really seek voice.
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And within my book I talk a little bit about the Bloomer Triangle of Success and it's a kind of a tongue-in-cheek way to put it, but if you can picture a triangle and a triangle is the strongest shape in geometry, and on each point of the triangle it's got three parts that need you to be able to solicit voice from teachers, parents and students.
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And so, really, from that lesson, I think that from that day in class really took me to be the leader that I am today.
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just that one thing kind of just sets your course.
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That's really great and awesome to hear.
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Now let's talk about that next step.
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Okay, you kind of have that experience in the classroom and then it was like, hey, I'm going to move into the assistant principal role.
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And so let's talk about what was it that had you go classroom teacher coach into assistant principal.
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Um, you know what was that?
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What was that story?
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What's the story behind that?
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What inspired that?
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I worked with a coach at my middle school when I moved from Houston to San Antonio and he was going through and doing his master's after practice and he'd come back Eric Ornley, he's the principal in San Antonio He'd come back and in the, in the you know the, the coach's lounge and the coach's office you know we talk sports and then he'd talk about what he was learning in his instructor, in his classes, and it really inspired me and I convinced a friend of mine, hector Perales, who was a coach and a teacher with me at the middle school, to to go back.
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And really it was, you know, surrounding yourself with just great people and like I always felt like I had a command and a presence, that I could be an effective leader.
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I started volunteering to work on my off period with assistant principal on the campus and really enjoyed the day-to-day, the investigations, the you know, the referrals that they gave me working with parents, trying to problem solve, working with kids, working with teachers and it really inspired me and that little bit of taste of what an assistant principal was like one period a day, really fueled me to want to go back and get my master's and you know, if anybody's out there, listening and thinking about it, drag along a friend, like, honestly, we went.
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There was four of us that drove about 60 miles really, before, you know, online was vogue, and we drove about 60 miles and we went every other Saturday and then we went all through the month of June and, like, the four of us together, misery loved company, and so we were able to band together to be able to do that.
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And so, really, you know, inspired by a good buddy of mine who's a heck of a principal and a good friend, and then brought along a couple others, and I'm happy to say that, hector Perales, who I dragged along reluctantly, I hired him to be an assistant principal at the high school that I was at.
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And so, you know, really good stuff.
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And so, really, just inspired by people like and you know, nick Saban says it, you know, surround yourself with winners or sit with winners.
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The conversation's different.
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And when you get around people that really want to change the world, uh, for lack of better terms or ideas, like that's what I was in I was in those circles of people all of a sudden that were like, hey, we don't have to accept this and let's, let's make change and let's stop talking about it.
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Let's, let's do it.
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Yeah, that's let's do it.
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Yeah, that's really important to surround yourself with people that are like-minded, where, hey, we want to change things, we want to do things differently, because what's currently working is not working, so there's got to be a better way to do things.
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No-transcript some lessons you learned as an assistant principal that helped you, um, when you took that principal ship down the road.
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Uh, problem solving number one um, you know problem solving number one um, you know problem solving time management.
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Um, going back again to soliciting voice and listening, uh, and then working with adults.
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Um, you know the the problem solving is is is the best, and as a as a former coach, you know we're problem solving all the time.
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You call a play and it doesn't work.
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You got to figure something out.
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You got like 30 seconds to do it and you know you can't just practice it during the game.
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You have to have preparation leading up to it and so the planning for it, and so you know I would make a calendar each day.
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I'd arrive before the sun came up on as assistant principal and I'd get my stuff done because I truly believed you know people before paper, and, and one of the things that I learned, you know, just being a coach and a teacher, transitioning to an assistant principal and then to a principal, was I didn't want to be in an office, Like I enjoyed people, and you can get trapped in an office and play assistant principal, play principal all day long and you can do it.
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There's lots of things to do.
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You got reports and emails and calls and meetings and yada, yada, yada.
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You name it.
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You got stuff to do, but you know what.
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You can't run a school from an office.
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You have to be visible and you have to be out there interacting with people and you have to set the tone.
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And if you expect teachers to interact with kids and the principal, by golly you better be leading the example and interacting with every kid that went by and saying hi to every teacher that went by.
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And so really time management, really problem solving and really just being out with people.
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And then, lastly, the thing that I think separated me from a lot of other assistant principals and then into the principalship I loved my job and I had great joy in my job wherever I went.
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And I loved lunch duty.
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I love talking to kids about fantasy football during lunch duty.
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I love passing period duty.
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I love finding the quarterback of the football team, the drum major, the cheerleader captain.
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I love talking to the kid that I saw working at McDonald's and just acknowledging them and making sure that they felt recognized and supported.
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And I did that as an assistant principal and I transitioned that into the principal role.
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Awesome.
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So what was it that inspired you to go from assistant principal into principalship?
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You know I'd been an assistant principal seven years.
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I'd been an assistant principal both the middle school and the high school and I fell in love with the high school Like honestly, I just fell in love with the pace, the energy, the older age of the students, the extracurricular and I always knew I wanted to be a high school principal In our district, the one that I just retired.
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So in the district I just retired from, really the path was become a middle school principal and then become a high school principal.
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That was the blueprint to success that they had.
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It was a very good blueprint.
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Before you can run a school of 2,500, let's see if you can run a school of 750 or 1,200.
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And so I was given an opportunity to go.
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I was blessed.
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I applied for a lot of principalships that I didn't get, never gave up.
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I always sought feedback from how I could do better, always self-analyzed and thought, okay, it's not my turn and sometime my turn will come up.
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I landed a principalship at a wonderful middle school, a secret gem, about 1200.
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Kids loved it.
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Could have stayed there forever, I could have retired from there.
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But you know, jeff, we're leaders, we're competitive people.
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We're, you know, we're coaches by nature and we always want to try something and we always want to leave something a little better than we found it.
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And I had reached four and a half years as a middle school principal and I felt it was time and the neighborhood school that I live in that all five of my children went to uh, that high school opened up and I was the assistant principal there for four and a half years uh, four and four years, uh, uh.
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Before I became a middle school principal, I lived a mile down the road.
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The church that I went to was the same church the kids went to.
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The grocery store was their grocery store.
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The park I ran in I saw kids, my neighbors were my kids and I thought, you know, this is a community I love and I wanted to make a difference, and what better way to make a difference in a community is, then, serve your community.
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And so I applied and in 2019, I was named principal of Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio, texas, and I had reached the epitome of my career and really honestly you know, jeff, I just left the profession about a month ago and I still have gas in the tank and, honestly speaking, I left where I fell on a high, like I'd hired all my assistant principals, all my counselors but one.
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I had football coach, my band director numerous positions.
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I loved the staff.
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I loved going to work.
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Teacher satisfaction was off the charts.
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Students' involvement was off the charts.
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Academically we're progressing in all the right spots.
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And I thought to myself I don't know if I'll ever be able to have this kind of year again and I decided it's time to step away.
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I'm going to hand the school off to another wonderful assistant principal who's going to take it to places I couldn't take it to.
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But I loved 24-25 as a principal.
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When I look back, that was my quote unquote favorite year as a principal.
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And so why do know, why do you leave?
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Well, you know I left and sadly we have a narrative in our profession of people leaving because of burnout and being forced to leave.
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I didn't leave because of that.
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I left when I still loved my job, like I'd get up and go to work with a, with a beat in my step, and my wife would say to me what time are you coming home?
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And I'd be like 10 o'clock tonight and while that wears on a man after a while, it didn't bother me Wherever I was.
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I loved my job.
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If I'm at a band concert on Tuesday, man, I loved it.
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If I was at a musical or a play on a Wednesday, that was my Broadway and I brought my wife along, my father was along for the journey and all my children were there, and so you know, I kind of summarized the question right there.
00:17:54.625 --> 00:18:10.055
But you know, I jumped in because, like it was an opportunity to serve the community and, honestly, um little known fact about me, I have a couple of tattoos and I even debated at one point getting a tattoo with the high school on it, you know, but but I I chickened out and I didn't.
00:18:10.916 --> 00:18:19.220
But I love the community that I served and that's why I jumped to be a high school principal and I feel like it's important to tell people why I left.
00:18:19.220 --> 00:18:24.823
Also, I left because I still love my job.
00:18:24.823 --> 00:18:38.593
But I would hate, jeff, one morning to wake up, my wife say what time are you going to be home and then me to complain about it or me not to want to go to that band concert or that choir concert or that you know, cross country meet at 730 on a Saturday after I worked.
00:18:38.593 --> 00:18:45.702
A Friday night football game until 1030 at night and I've worked three Saturdays this month Like I owe it to kids and parents to be all in.
00:18:45.702 --> 00:18:53.759
And if you're a high school principal out there and I'll just speak to high school principals out there the only way you can do it is all in.
00:18:53.759 --> 00:19:01.157
You know, the late great Mac Miller said you know you can't swim unless you jump in and it's the only way to do the job.
00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:01.980
And.
00:19:02.442 --> 00:19:04.226
I have a full, not a full, tank, Jeff.
00:19:04.226 --> 00:19:14.250
I got about two-thirds of a tank of gas, but I worried that next February that could be getting close to you know, E and my campus deserves the best and that's why I stepped away.
00:19:14.832 --> 00:19:17.278
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's really important.
00:19:17.278 --> 00:19:30.099
I know, like in my my journey, my personal journey, if I ever get to the point to where I don't like what I do or I don't love what I'm doing, that's my cue to say you know a time to step away, but I absolutely love what I'm doing.
00:19:30.099 --> 00:19:31.541
I'm a high school principal as well.
00:19:31.541 --> 00:19:34.817
You know I've been in, you know, small rural schools.
00:19:34.817 --> 00:19:36.544
I've been in the Metro and Omaha.
00:19:36.544 --> 00:19:37.528
I've been up.
00:19:37.528 --> 00:19:41.699
You know all different sizes of schools and high school is kind of like where my niche is.
00:19:41.699 --> 00:19:46.873
I knew high school is where I wanted to be and that's where I'm at and I love what I do.
00:19:46.873 --> 00:19:51.698
And you know I'll be going into my fourth year at the current principal ship that I'm at right now.
00:19:52.198 --> 00:20:02.606
Now we all know running larger school buildings and schools in general it's time consuming, there's a lot going on.
00:20:02.606 --> 00:20:05.017
But how do you build a strong culture?
00:20:05.017 --> 00:20:07.633
How do you build that team you kind of talked about?
00:20:07.633 --> 00:20:19.582
Hey, I got this school from this point to this point, to the point to where you know what it's in a great place and I know the next person is going to be able to come in and take it even to greater things.
00:20:19.582 --> 00:20:21.288
So how did you build that?
00:20:21.288 --> 00:20:23.719
What was it like when you got into the role?
00:20:23.719 --> 00:20:30.929
And then how did you build that up to this past year, to where you just guys were humming and just going on also, yeah.
00:20:31.490 --> 00:20:43.330
You know culture is, you know, created each day, each moment, and luckily I inherited this great school also, you know the the previous principal, dr Justin.
00:20:43.330 --> 00:20:49.095
I actually became my boss he's at central office now as executive director and so he left me a good ship.
00:20:49.095 --> 00:20:53.130
You know, like the ship wasn't bare, the ship was going in the right direction.
00:20:53.130 --> 00:21:19.031
So I inherited something that was an excellent, you know school, and so the way I enhance that is, you know, you hire strategically and you know I was able to hire all five of my assistant principals and you know each one of them has unique strengths and I was able to pick them based on the strengths, and one of the things that I really like and value is people that live in my community.
00:21:19.031 --> 00:21:21.785
I shared a little bit that my children went to school there.
00:21:21.785 --> 00:21:28.303
Three of my assistant principals either currently live in the community or had children that attended our school.
00:21:28.303 --> 00:21:38.653
Churchill, and I think when you do that, you work just a little bit harder, because that's your children's school, those are your neighbors, those are your friends, and so I think that's a unique dynamic to our campus.
00:21:38.653 --> 00:21:47.636
I also wanted to make sure that the shout out to Ginger McDaniel, a teacher on my campus who coined a phrase long timers.
00:21:47.636 --> 00:21:53.813
Those are people that have been on my campus, teachers that were there longer than the kids have been alive, that were on the campus.
00:21:53.813 --> 00:22:22.157
So you're looking at 14 years plus and really embracing that knowledge and really walking alongside of them and listening to them and tapping into their corporate knowledge for what you have and really embracing them and then hiring really well for rising teachers coming to the campus, for rising teachers coming to the campus and, you know, really working with those first-year teachers on the campus to be able to make sure they had a good structure on boarding and foundation to where they felt a part of the culture.
00:22:22.157 --> 00:22:26.499
You know, jeff, you talked a little bit about a large high school 225 adults on the campus.
00:22:26.499 --> 00:22:33.965
You know there are adults in different departments that you know have no idea who you know in the math department, they have no idea who in the math department.
00:22:33.965 --> 00:22:36.314
They have no idea the science department, they only know their people.
00:22:36.314 --> 00:22:39.175
And so how do you bring them on, how do you make them feel at home?
00:22:39.175 --> 00:22:44.438
Because every campus, every leader you talk to, says we build a family culture on our campus.
00:22:44.438 --> 00:22:46.576
Well, if you don't know who's down the hall from you.
00:22:46.576 --> 00:22:50.994
That's not a family culture and I, as the principal, will have to model that.
00:22:50.994 --> 00:22:53.338
And so, honestly, the see the people mantra.
00:22:53.720 --> 00:23:01.819
I tried to visit every teacher's classroom every single day and I failed at that every day, but that was my goal and that got me out of the office and got me into different buildings.
00:23:01.819 --> 00:23:16.421
Like Churchill High School had nine buildings and about 35 acres, a very open campus, and if you played in the office all day long, you may not make it to certain parts of a building, but like once a month, and then imagine if that teacher was off that period.
00:23:16.421 --> 00:23:21.810
You know teachers may never see the principal and so, honestly, how does that culture, you know, get built?
00:23:21.810 --> 00:23:23.375
Like it starts with the principal.
00:23:23.375 --> 00:23:35.464
Like, honestly, you have to model what you expect and then you have to, you know, inspect, you know what you have to make sure that you are holding yourself accountable and your team accountable to what you expect of your staff.
00:23:35.464 --> 00:23:44.083
I always look for reasons to say yes, you know, jeff, if you came to me and said, hey, my kid is getting an award, they're in fourth grade, I want to be there.
00:23:44.083 --> 00:23:52.135
Well, that was my job, not for you to take a sick day or a half day, but my day, to get you some coverage to get down there, because that's what we do for family, to get down there, because that's what we do for family.
00:23:52.135 --> 00:24:01.221
You know, jeff, if you had a loved one that was sick or hurt or God forbid passed away, you know we need to do what we need to do to take care of you and your family and that's what we tried to be able to do.
00:24:02.163 --> 00:24:04.805
I sent a Monday morning email 730 every Monday.
00:24:04.805 --> 00:24:09.288
I delayed delivery and hit the inbox every Monday morning at 730.
00:24:09.288 --> 00:24:19.251
And, honestly, the first two paragraphs talked about what I did with my wife and kids over the weekend and that was my way of telling them like, family is important and you need to do this and we actually.
00:24:19.251 --> 00:24:28.412
It evolved into places that I went to eat and I would say something like man, I had the best hamburger and it was here, and if you've got a good burger, let me know.
00:24:28.412 --> 00:24:31.012
And people started sharing like that.
00:24:31.385 --> 00:24:54.320
And so, like, organically, like, like you connected with people that you might not connect with, over things you might not have ever thought before, we lost a cat over COVID and um, a morbidly obese cat, you know, named Meatball, and Meatball, you know, passed away and I shared that journey in my Monday email and a teacher reached out with a homemade cat recipe to try to save Meatball.
00:24:54.320 --> 00:25:03.251
And I had struggled to connect with this teacher, you know just, you know, for no other reason but myself, and you know that was our bond.
00:25:03.251 --> 00:25:34.392
And so now we talk, you know pets and cats all the time because of those small things, and so you have to model family, you have to stress the importance of it, but you also have to be visible and you also have to be the biggest champion of your school, and so in that Monday morning I made it a point to shout out and to celebrate, you know, not just the score of the football game, but that cool lab that we went into in science, that activity I saw in social studies, that the academic UIL, the speech and debate, the band, all of those things that were extremely important to what you had.
00:25:34.392 --> 00:25:36.250
And then I was visible.
00:25:36.250 --> 00:25:46.938
Kids could come up to me and ask me anything, and I made it a point to talk to kids and get to know kids, and I wanted every kid on my campus of 23 or 2400 kids to think I knew their name.
00:25:46.938 --> 00:25:55.606
I didn't know every kid's name because that's next to impossible, but I wanted them to think, jeff, if you walk off campus, I know who you are and you know what.
00:25:55.606 --> 00:25:57.276
I've lived in the community 25 years.
00:25:57.276 --> 00:26:00.950
I probably know your mother or father because I've dealt with your family before.
00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:03.865
I might even text them right now to call them if you left.
00:26:04.467 --> 00:26:14.144
And so that, just living in the community, embracing who I was, being Mr Churchill at times because I had a chip on my shoulder about my campus, I was an advocate for it.
00:26:14.144 --> 00:26:18.173
I was visible, I walked alongside teachers, I supported teachers.
00:26:18.173 --> 00:26:30.936
I also supported kids to the point where you know we were family and to the point where you know kids, you know, kind of just referred to me as a bloomer and it was cool because I had, like this relationship with them.
00:26:30.936 --> 00:26:55.422
And then, last thing, I'll just tell you I weren't a pair of Adidas every day to school, like big campus, and it was just hard to be around and outside it's South Texas, it's hot all the time and, uh, kids constantly commented on my shoe game and so those were type of things that just built this like weird culture that you can't quantify, that all of a sudden, kids started commenting on my fit and I had to look up urban dictionary, forgot what fit was because I didn't understand.
00:26:55.422 --> 00:26:57.022
But you know, those are type things.
00:26:57.085 --> 00:27:00.602
And then, honestly, you say stuff like hey, jeff, what music are you listening to?
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