Episode 216: Culture, Collaboration, and Buffalo Chicken Dip: A Conversation with Tony Cattani (NASSP HS POY Finalist)

Darrin Peppard (00:00)

All right, my friends, welcome back into the Leaning into Leadership podcast. Another very special episode for you today, continuing in our series where we are highlighting the finalists. We're celebrating the finalists, the 2025-2026 National Principal of the Year finalists for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, NASSP. And today on the show,

We have one of the high school finalists, Tony Katani from Lenape High School in Medford, New Jersey. ⁓ Tony has been the principal of Lenape for 18 years. He is recognized for his role in developing a positive and inclusive school culture where students and staff feel valued and supportive. Tony's a visionary leader. He has championed professional collaboration, encouraging teachers to grow by learning from

their most powerful resource, which is each other. Through more than 3,000 peer observations and collegiality cafes, can't wait to hear about that. Tony models peer observation by sharing best practices with colleagues at the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association conferences. Known as a tireless advocate for students, he consistently places their well-being and academic and personal growth at the forefront of every one of his initiatives.

His dedication and impact have set a lasting standard for leadership within the Lenape community and beyond. He is also an executive council member of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Man, what an awesome introduction that is right there. What an awesome biography that is. Tony, welcome in too. man.

Tony Cattani (01:48)

Yeah, man.

I hope I can live up to it. I hope I can live up to it.

Darrin Peppard (01:55)

Yeah, you're living that is what you're

doing, man. So welcome into the show, man. I appreciate you coming on.

Tony Cattani (02:00)

Darren, it is an absolute honor to be on your show. I listen to your show, I've seen you on other podcasts. I'm super pumped to be on here. I'm listening to you, driving in my car on long drives. My family drives everywhere. I got four girls. So we can't afford to be on planes. So we drive everywhere. So we drove to Florida last year, we drove to South Carolina. My daughter's going to Auburn. I have one that's going to University of South Carolina. So we just drove recently, listened to all your shows.

And then to be invited on your show, it's just surreal to be truthful with you. Yeah, it's just really, really cool. So I am really, really happy to be here.

Darrin Peppard (02:35)

That's awesome. ⁓

Girl dads unite right there. I'll tell you what, man. That's yeah, there we go. So so let's let's do this. Let's I kind of already framed a little bit of your your background there. But what I would love to have you do is maybe share just a little bit with the listeners with those folks who are maybe watching this one on on YouTube. And before I even do that, let me let me again say

Tony Cattani (02:40)

Yeah, man. Yep.

Darrin Peppard (03:04)

Congratulations on this recognition. ⁓ Man, it's amazing to be in that group that we were talking before we hit record. That principle of the year class that you are a part of and you were sharing that you've already started building relationships with them, having them on your podcast. ⁓ It's an incredible honor, but it's also you're now part of this class, this group.

Tony Cattani (03:06)

Thank you. Thank you.

Darrin Peppard (03:32)

this sorority and fraternity mixed together of principals of the year. And it's a pretty amazing thing. So congratulations on that. And maybe share a little bit with our listeners and viewers about kind of maybe your leadership journey. I know you've been at that school for 18 years as the building principal. So let's kind of hit the rewind machine here and learn about Tony.

Tony Cattani (03:33)

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I could talk all day because my journey has been long and fantastic, to be honest with you. So I've had some great people around me. think, you know, going back to my days in high school, to be honest with you, I think I was an average student at best. I was more interested in playing sports and things of that nature, but I was always drawn to be a leader, whether it was a quarterback, the pitcher, the president of the class since I was in fifth or sixth grade. People were always, you know, with me and I was influencing them and supporting them. And I just had a great group of people around me and ⁓

When I went to college, I just got involved. I wanted to be in business. I wanted to work in New York City, not too far from me, right? And then I had an opportunity to work with the Rowan football team. I went to Rowan University and played football there. And I worked with the Special Olympics on a couple of times. And I said, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to work with kids. I want to help people. And I completely changed the trajectory of my life.

did some different things. I coached college football for a year at Rowan University and I was forced to get my masters and because I had to coach college football, so you have to get your masters and I was really to go teach. I was teaching health and physical education at Baumbrook up in North Jersey and my life changed with a phone call from my head coach saying, would you be a graduate assistant? I was getting ready to go meet with the superintendent to sign my contract. My mom's car is running. It was a summer day. I was late hire.

Darrin Peppard (05:24)

Ha

Tony Cattani (05:26)

And Casey Keeler from Rowan University called me and said, I want you to be a grad assistant. I said, coach, I'm going to go make some money. He goes, well, listen, I'll pay you $3,000 for the year to be a graduate assistant. And he said, but you got to get your masters. And what would you get your masters? And I said, let me think about it. I drove out to Bound Brook and I told the superintendent no, because I thought about it. I said, this is a passion I want to do. And I'm a passionate guy. And I follow my heart. And I knew this was something I was interested in. And so I went back and I coached football for a year. And I got my masters in.

Education on leadership because my coach told me to he said you're fit for this when you when you're ready to change out of football you're gonna do this and I went and I went back to the school I student taught at and I got a started teaching there and they saw something in me and then I started doing my internship and the next thing I got the tap and I was an assistant principal at a sister school We're a school of four high schools We have seven thousand kids in four high schools and I'm one of them with 1900 kids of mine and they put me at another school

and said, you're going to be an assistant principal. I was there for three years. Then all of sudden I got a phone call to meet. And I went to lunch with our superintendent. She said, you're going to be the principal in Lenton High School. I was 31 years old. And I was walking to a building with people that were teaching 40 years. I was 31. And I had to learn my way. And that journey really helped me because I felt like the first, I think, eight to 10 years, Dan, I wasn't the guy I am now, man. I was trying to manage. I was trying to get through. I was trying to figure it out.

It was a frustrating time. It was a time where I didn't see a lot of, you know, I saw the kids, it was really positive, but I wasn't doing the things I'm doing now. I didn't start out this way. I felt like I had a lot of support around me, but I don't think I utilized it well enough to really excel. And that frustrated me. And I'm a guy that, like I said, I coached football before in the football network. All you ever do is sit down with people that talk football.

Right? They want to talk football when you're at lab duty. They want to talk football when you're at the lunch. They want to talk football about X's and O's. They want to talk about it all the time. It's all coaches do. And I was in that life, but nobody sat and talked to me about, you know, being a leader, being a principal, you know, analyzing some different conversations and decisions to make. And we weren't really doing that a lot. until I went to, truly, I went to the 2016 NASSP conference and I heard Todd Whitaker speak and it was like this

light bulb went on for me. Like it was this, it was the weirdest thing. He was, he was the keynote speaker. went, I was kind of like half listening and then all of sudden I'm listening and this guy just, he hooked me in. And then from there, my whole, my whole career changed. Um, of reading his book to talking to Jimmy Casas and Dr. Joe Sanfilippo and, then hearing other people talk and really networking with some people in New Jersey and then beyond. And just seeing what the great things people were doing. My leadership style.

changed and I think made me better, made Lenape better and my staff. was a long journey, but a lot of factors of people that were in my life that were fantastic. My current superintendent, my former superintendent were fantastic. The principals in my district, Matt Campbell, Donna Charlesworth, and Matt Brad Bauer and Jeff Spector and all these people, just great people. ⁓ yeah, that's...

That's pretty much my journey. I stay in the Lenape District, my kids go to my district. We live in the town, we serve. ⁓ Yeah, that's my piece, Darren.

Darrin Peppard (08:42)

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. And I want to circle back to something that you talked about in there. You know, here, here you are a finalist for the National High School Principal of the Year. And I heard you say that you struggled early as a building administrator. And I think a lot of times I did too. Holy moly. Did I did I struggle that first, you know, probably two years? You know, and you said it well, you were just managing.

Tony Cattani (09:09)

100 %

Darrin Peppard (09:22)

you weren't leading. certainly, I mean, you name some big hitters right there, right? I mean, you know, you you hear Todd Whitaker speak for me, and I was at that same, that very same conference and heard Todd, I'd heard Todd once before. ⁓ When shifting the monkey had come out, he he keynoted a conference I was at, and I got to hear him talk about, you know, everything to do with shifting the monkey. And that was a game changer for me. Of course, you mentioned Jimmy, and you mentioned Joe. ⁓

also to, you know, absolutely phenomenal, phenomenal individuals. So let's let's maybe dig in a little bit on that. Because here we have, you know, a lot of leaders that are listening into this show. And they're, they're thinking, you know, boy, this this Tony Kutani guy, he's just got it all figured out. He's a national finalist. But wait a minute, he just said he was struggling to

Tony Cattani (10:18)

for years, for several years.

Darrin Peppard (10:19)

Yeah,

talk about some of what you did. You mentioned leveraging the people around you that you weren't letting them do things. mean, you're hitting all the important topics of how you go from crisis to clarity. So talk about some of that journey.

Tony Cattani (10:39)

So I still believe this and I'm going to talk to this at some later point. ⁓ You know, I get an opportunity in NASSP is I'm still completely an imposter syndrome, right? And I think many of us are, and I don't think anybody feels really comfortable with the recognition of being principal of the year, state principal of the year, because I don't have it all figured out. And that's something I realized in that time period that I didn't have it all figured out. And I think there were times where

I struggled to ask for help and I micromanaged and I felt like I was one of the better ones in the room. I was the most vested person in the room because my name was on the front panel of the door, whatever it was, and that ⁓ I had a tough time delegating. And then I read about what great principles do differently. And it gave you perspective of like, principles do the things that only the principal can do. There are other tasks that other people can do. And then it was about...

Man, do I want to be great, right? Or do I just want to get through, right? And get by and manage day by day. And I heard one of your recent podcasts and it really resonated with me was about task versus outcome and being task oriented and, you know, really putting things, making a decision this big, but not knowing the total outcome of what could be happening. Right. And I think I did that for a long time. And I think I still revert back to that many times, you know, in times of

Sometimes of crisis and things of that nature and I had kind of like slack slap my face but those those are the parts for me is I think one of my strengths is that I'm completely vulnerable I've been humbled humbled way too many times to not be and I think I'm a constant learner I Listen to the Simon Sinek's talk all the time. I love tick-tock, right? So I'm on there pick it's stuff picking up. I love reading books about leadership

Darrin Peppard (12:07)

Yeah.

Tony Cattani (12:32)

I love listening to podcasts. ⁓ You know, I love talking with other educational leaders. I love it. It's my favorite thing to do. Like I don't have, I play golf. That's really my other hobby. But other than that, my wife's like, all you ever do, you don't listen to a podcast about, I love college football. Okay, college football is my thing. But I like to learn from people and because our jobs are so, so important and the impact is so important that I can't squander this time.

Like I can't, felt like Darren, here's my thing is I felt like I was a pretty good teacher, right? In the moment I thought I was good, right? I connected with kids. I was young, I was 23 years old. It was easier to connect. I taught senior health. It was such a great conversation. But in the same thing, when I started becoming an administration at a very young age, I realized I would be such a better teacher now that I saw other teachers teach. And I started walking in, well, that's such a better way than what I would have done.

Like I wish I had that knowledge and I re I resented myself of a teacher because I could have gave those kids a better experience and I realized around that timeframe of 2014 to 16. That's why I went to my first conference in 2016. NASSP was I needed more because I didn't want to look back on my career and say I could have been better. I could have been great. I could have provided a great opportunity experience for our kids at Lenape and I didn't want that same feeling that I had when I walked out of the classroom.

I didn't. And like I said, I felt like I was good when I was in it. But then I realized I wasn't that good when I started looking around, seeing what other people were doing.

Darrin Peppard (14:08)

Yeah.

I think that's a common experience for administrators. know, you just, I just spent the week in Virginia with ⁓ a school division, working with all of their leaders on everything to do with gaining clarity, right? And one of the things that we talked about was, you know, we go from our classroom where, let's be honest, we assume that's what it looks like in other rooms.

And then when we step into that assistant principal or principal role, or even instructional cultural, and we start seeing other rooms, we're like, wait a minute, that doesn't look like what it did in my room. And sometimes it's like, well, most of the times, it's like, my gosh, I would be exactly what you just said, I would be so much of a better teacher if I had seen this. And if I had seen this, and I had seen this, but you also get the experience of, my gosh, wow, that's happening, right. So so that that leads me to to ask about some of the work that that

Tony Cattani (14:46)

Now, now.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Darrin Peppard (15:06)

certainly and I talked about in your intro, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with with some of the, you know, recognition that you're receiving and the recognition that that Lenape is receiving 3000 peer observations, collegiality, cafe, I have a feeling I don't want to put words in your mouth. But when when you are working hard to find ways to

learn from others, observe others to improve your own practice, you're modeling for your staff what you want. So how did, how did collegiality cafes, how did peer observations come about? And you don't get to 3000 by not having a good plan to work up towards that. You didn't just flip the switch and say, okay, here's what we're doing. So talk, talk about that process.

Tony Cattani (15:41)

100%.

Yeah, it...

Yeah, I mean the peer observations has been significantly a game changer in our building and then it led to the collegiate cafes and our sobbing circles and it led to passion projects but the collegiate cafe was the baby of it and it was one of those things I had I my happy place is my back porch overlooking the pool and I started thinking about you know I was I was tired of meeting with teachers doing you know observations once a year twice a year you know right

We tell them you teach thirty seven thousand four hundred fifty three minutes a year on our schedule and I come in for fifty seven minutes a year and I tell you if you're good, better and different. when I was meeting with them, I was telling them I was just in another class and Darren is killing it. The way he assessed students was fantastic. You got it. You got to talk to Darren. And I didn't have a mechanism for him then to go to talk to Darren. And our teachers were learning from other teachers just by happenstance.

whether they had lab duty outside the teacher that kept his door open, he was really loud and they learned some stuff from them, or a kid saying, we just did this really cool activity in my class and this is what Mr. Guitare did, this is what Ms. Colangelo did and they heard about that, or got people coached together and they might talk about their lessons. But I told you earlier, coaches talk about X's and O's a lot of times more than they talk about teaching, right? It's just, we didn't have that collegiality conversation during that time. We weren't sharing best practices.

Darrin Peppard (17:14)

Right, yeah.

Tony Cattani (17:22)

And we were just, this profession is super isolating. We say it's eight inches difference, right? Eight inches of cinder block separate us and we have no idea what's on the other eight inches of that wall. And I realized that if I were saying to a teacher, hey Darren, you should try this because I did this when I was teaching would be, it would be arrogant. It would be, you know, minimizing to their profession. Cause I haven't taught in five, six, seven, 10 years, right? And, ⁓

I had to give examples of others and I had to make it vivid for them to see this. So ⁓ we created a peer observation model and that's my baby and we had a pilot program. I got a really diverse group of teachers, know, first year teachers to my 40 year teacher, right, to my union rep. And my major part of that year when we started this seven years ago was I had a big part of my staff were 40 years old. So I brought them in, right?

I wanted every department recognized, but I wanted that because I knew they were the influencers of the crux of my entire building. And we did it for on the end of the school year. We did it for the very first month of September in that school year. And then I had them presented a faculty meeting. had extended faculty meeting and they presented what they did and what they learned from each other and how rewarding it was. And what they do is, it's not where I'm going in to watch you and like kind of pick apart what you're doing.

You identify your greatest skill set and we break them down from, know, do you create growth mindset in your classroom? Do you check for understanding? Are you a dynamic lesson designer? Right? ⁓ And do you have class, great classroom management skills? And what you do is you identify that there and so you say, I'm really good at classroom management. I feel like that's my strength. If you're really, if that's your best, then the other three things you can work on. And ⁓ so what happens is

If I'm really good at checking for understanding, then I want to go into your classroom because you're really good at classroom management. So I'm going to learn from you because you've identified that not as supervisor, no one else. And that's what we did. We created a website. have all the people. Everybody identifies their strength. You go onto the website, you say, I want to get better at classroom management today. You you say, OK, Will Boush is teaching today during class two. That's my prep. And then you contact Will Boush and say, I want to come in. And he says, yeah, come on in tomorrow.

And then you go in and you watch them for 25 minutes, not the whole 57 minute period. And then you get to learn from them. And it's been a game changer. I knew we had something when some of our most challenging staff, we did it the next day after the faculty meeting. And we've done now, I mean, this year we're over five, it's over 400 this year, just for this year. And we have, you know, 80 % of our staff doing at least one, right? And it just happens without us doing anything anymore. And we've extended it now. Now we...

We recognize teachers. They send a positive message to the person on the website. They fill out a Google form, and it sends it to you and also the supervisor. then the supervisor says, hey, Darren, I heard you did a really good job with having Megan Laffey in your class the other day. I saw the message. And then we share it out on my weekly email to everybody about all the positive messages people are sharing. It changed the dynamic of our entire building to where then people started doing collegiate cafes during lunch.

where they were sharing their best practices. So I'd have someone share what's two great tips of classroom management. And they would do a 15 minute presentation and then 15 minutes of everybody sharing. And we would have 15, 20, 25 staff. The best part about this is, I could talk about this all day, ⁓ is that we've never covered a class for it. This is all done during their prep. Not one, of the 3,500 whatever, I've never covered a class.

The only time I covered a class is when I had a teacher that was a Singleton and really wanted to go see another teacher in our district. You go to see like a Spanish class or like a Latin class. You have one Latin teacher. They wanted to go see what they do in their Latin class at Shawnee, Cherokee or Seneca. That's the only time, but there's probably 3,500 now. I would count on one hand that I had to cover somebody's duty or a class. Yeah, they do it on their own.

Darrin Peppard (21:34)

Yeah, you know, one of the things number one, I think that's awesome. Number two, it's something that's standing out to me. And you said it without saying it. This isn't a requirement. You didn't you didn't say everybody must do x number. Rather, here's this menu, here's this opportunity for you to grow.

go for it. So yeah, please.

Tony Cattani (22:00)

So let me tell you, that

push was, that motivation was, would you be your child's teacher? Right? And I said, I want you to think about, if you brought your kid into Lenape High School, would you be your child's math teacher? Would you be your child's history teacher? I said, I want you look right to left and I want you to be honest with yourself. And a lot of them said it and I asked them during my post observations, right? Like, would you be your child's teacher? And they're like, no, I would want Tom Tamburello to be my kid's teacher in math. No, I would want.

Kevin Meader to be my teacher in history. I would want so and so to be my teacher in science, Mrs. Flake, because they're really good with kids. They care and try every day. And I'm like, that's an issue, right? Like we need to get better. And I was tired of, I wanted every student to have their, greatest teacher. And you know, as a principal and my kids come to the school district, I get to have a little bit of a say where my, what classes my kids are in. But not every person has that in public school, right? You don't have that choice.

So I felt like that was a real problem where there was achievement gaps and sometimes because of our staff that weren't great. So like the Todd Whitaker says, I'm gonna talk to his name all the time, is like, my job is to hire great teachers and make our good teachers great. And when I read that page, that's where this all came from for me. And I wanna put a great teacher that cares and tries every day in front of these kids. I really, mean, that's everything to me.

Darrin Peppard (23:18)

Yeah, no, 100%. And I think that's something that sometimes school leaders, when they get stuck, like you talked about being in management, in trying to be everything to everybody, that they forget the importance of that instructional leadership and what it really means for instructional leadership.

You know, for some people, when when we talk about instruction leadership, they just they just assume, you know, that means doing walkthroughs. Well, I heard Principal Kafele say this just the other day. You know, if if the walkthrough is just about you showing up, then.

you're not. That's not instructional leadership. That's compliance. What I am hearing from you, and loving by the way, from an instructional leadership standpoint, you're providing the opportunity and empowering them to grow collectively. So the collective efficacy, efficacy piece from

Tony Cattani (24:27)

No doubt.

Darrin Peppard (24:31)

from what you are doing, I think is and there's probably a dozen easily benefits here. Earlier, before we just talked about this, I was thinking about how you are creating such an incredible culture focused on teaching and learning. ⁓ So those two pieces together, I'm going to say these two pieces and then I want you to run with it. Collective efficacy and a culture of teaching and learning.

is what I am hearing Lenape High School is all about.

Tony Cattani (25:04)

Yeah, man. So we talk about all the time. We say we have to utilize our best resources. That's each other. And ⁓ we have built something to where the level of confidence now on our teachers are able to take some different risks because they've identified themselves as a strength. And then it's been validated by other teachers that come into the room saying that this teacher is fantastic, Tony. Like you got to send more kids and mean, more teachers into their room and they have. So imagine this. ⁓

You have a teacher and this is one of the examples I give to my teachers is this is like you tell everybody you're really good in classroom management. Right? You put that out there. It's out for everybody in the entire our school to see that you have identified yourself as good in classroom management. You think you might want to live up to that? Right? Like if you told everybody like you had really good Buffalo chicken dip and you've been bragging about Buffalo chicken dip and Buffalo chicken dip and then all of sudden we have a party and everybody says you better bring the darn Buffalo chicken dip. Right? So what would you do that night before?

Darrin Peppard (25:56)

⁓

That's right, the pressure's on.

Tony Cattani (26:04)

You would make sure that chicken was cooked perfectly. You would make sure that that hot sauce was the exact one that you went to the store yourself and got it, that you were going to bake it and cook it to be your best because you know, you've been telling everybody how good your buffalo chicken dip is, right? And then you want people to eat it. And what would you do when you put it out? You want to stand back and watch and see what people say about it, right? People want to put the chip in there. They want to eat the buffalo chicken dip. And then you want them to say, that's the best buffalo chicken dip I've ever had. It's the same thing with teaching.

You told everybody you're creating classroom management. Now you got the chance of people coming in your room and checking you out, right? Like now, all of sudden, you better be good. So if I'm getting them good just for that 25 minute observation, I don't think so. I think they are now prepping every day for that chance of some one of their peers to come in that room. Not me, not me. They're not worried about me coming in. Like we do over 1200 walkthroughs a year in my building, right? We're in classrooms all the time.

My, our doors are open. they're open for administrators are open for other teachers, but I'm getting the best of their skillset and they get to personalize their PD. Darren, they get to say, yeah, I want to get better at checking for understanding. I want to get better at how I design lessons. I want to be more like Devon Deming. I want to be more like Beth Toth, right? I want to be more like such and so and so, right? So like, I want to get better. I want to go watch them teach. It's developed teachers talking about teaching and instructing and doing really cool stuff.

And then they come up with different ideas that are better ideas than I could ever come up with, right? They're a lot brighter than I am. They're in the classroom, right? You give your best teachers a problem, they solve it quicker than I could solve any issue. So ⁓ it's completely changed our building and our culture and climate amongst our teachers and our kids. Because then we started doing it with kids too.

Darrin Peppard (27:55)

So I want to extend that because something something else dawned on me as you were talking. And and I think this ties into both the culture and the collective efficacy pieces. But I would imagine that the public perception of Lenape High School is extremely strong. And I'll I'll I'll back that up by saying this and then you can.

you can take and run with it. A good friend of mine, now retired high school principal Todd Bloomer from San Antonio, Texas. He has said on this very podcast that one of his strategies going into Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, those types of things is to remind his staff to have that one story, that one story about that one student, that one lesson that

when their grouchy uncle or their goofy neighbor or whatever starts saying something bad about the school that they can then say, No, no, no, here's what you need to know. I say that because with so many teachers visiting each other, I think it's probably even more than just, well, no, that's not true about Lenape High School. But I would imagine a lot of the

no, that's not true of that teacher. I've been in their classroom. Can you talk a little bit about any of that that you've experienced?

Tony Cattani (29:31)

Yeah, so I think we have a great reputation and I'm not just saying that. think that I've been here for 18 years, right? And I know the community. I'll put it this way. In the community, we have teachers. So I was asked a question during one of my interviews for NASSP about teacher retention and how much of it is a problem and hiring and the shortage. And I had to say, like, I got to be honest with you, I don't deal with that. I have teachers that stay.

I have teachers that they never leave. I have a couple teachers that are 40 years and once retiring this year after 42, 43 years, right? And I have the line, like I had a history job open just recently at 65 applicants. I had a business opening. I had 27 applicants for business, right? And they were like, we'll quit our jobs to come teach and work at Lenape High School because my teachers are telling the story to other teachers of the collegiality to it, the level of support they have from one another, right?

We have a fantastic place. told you earlier, like I've been in this district 26 years as a teacher, as an assistant principal, as a principal, and I don't see myself ever leaving this district. We have something really special here. But every time I get a chance to talk about our staff, whether it's at the student of the month presentations, we have the families come in for breakfast, whether it's at our people's choice, whether it's at academic awards, whether it's a crystal apple or senior pinning or you know, all these things, right? All these things happening. I...

preach about my teachers and my kids. like everybody said, you take care of the adults, they take care of the kids. that is an absolute feeling amongst the South Jersey, New Jersey area of what Lenape Regional High School District is. And particularly at Lenape High School, a level of support, a little level of growth. And the, another cool part is I'm a, I'm a risk taker. I will put myself out there and I will flat, I will fall flat on my face and try to do something crazy with instruction or a really cool professional development.

because I want to model that for my teachers that it's okay. Just give it a shot. If it flops, it flops. It's okay. We tell them, invite me in for those lessons. And we call them popcorn lessons. And we have a Google form, right? Because I'm going to bring, I'm going to eat my popcorn. But if you want me to give you some feedback on it or bring a couple of teachers in, let's do it. Right? And we have people that do that. We do that as well. So I think the community knows my teachers care about their kids and that they're doing everything in their power to personalize their professional development to get better.

And we model it. We model it. Everybody's modeling for each other, which that wasn't the way seven years ago. It wasn't that exact way. We were very isolated like a lot of other professions.

Darrin Peppard (32:10)

I think that's outstanding. I really do. And, and no surprise here. Our time has absolutely flown by. This is this has been such no, do not apologize. It's been amazing. Absolutely amazing. Just tons of, of leadership gold nuggets along the way. ⁓ So we're at that point in the show, then, ⁓ Tony, where I'm gonna ask you the same question and ask everybody. And, man, you have shared so many great leadership pieces here. But but what might be

Tony Cattani (32:17)

Sorry.

Darrin Peppard (32:37)

a way that you are really leaning into leadership right now.

Tony Cattani (32:40)

Yeah, I think it's two-part. I knew this question was coming. I listened to your podcast, right? You really make me think and I think it's two part right now. One part seasonal and another part that you made me think about actually in your pep talk was ⁓ one I start with was just the task and outcome and being consistent with that and being diligent to keep that in the forefront of my mind because there's times where, you know, I want to get things accomplished. Everybody has a checklist, right? And that checklist gets blown up.

but also to really consider the outcome and slow down sometimes. You can tell I'm a fast talker, I'm high energy, right? Even though I've been doing this job a long time, I love what I do, but I feel like I'm leaning into that. I feel like, you know, sometimes we need to slow down and do the right process and get more people involved and let our people continue to grow in some different areas. That's one. And I think the other one is really refilling my bucket right now, right?

mean, this is being recorded in June. We graduate June 17th. We've had a really challenging year this year with a couple different student incidences in our building. And we're growing for those things. But I think it's that time of the year where I'm looking to refill my bucket. And this stuff, meeting with you and talking with you and networking with all the principals of the year across the country, doing the Proud Principals podcast and meeting with people there has just been refilling my bucket of trying to learn about other people and the things they're doing. And I am...

Like I said, I feel like I'm an imposter syndrome. At some point, somebody's gonna say, you're the state principal of the year in New Jersey. You're the finalist. But I'm realizing talking to all these people that no one has all the answers. No one's got it all to put together. Nobody. And that the more we can bring these people together, the better we're gonna be. And that's one of the things I would like to do with the finalists is just continue to network and bring people together. But that fills my bucket. That really fills my bucket.

Darrin Peppard (34:38)

Yeah, for sure. And certainly, you know, now with with that principle of the year with the principle of the year national finalist, certainly a platform that that gives you even more opportunities to to bring those people together. People are going to want to get in touch with you, follow you that type of thing. How do they find Tony Katani? How do they find the proud principles podcast?

Tony Cattani (35:02)

Yeah, so you can go to ⁓ on X you can go to at Katani Tony or you can go on Instagram ⁓ proud at proud principles podcast. I don't even have my own. I started getting into Instagram. I know to get more into it, but I am my daughters are teaching me a lot of stuff. So those are the those those are the main two. But you can always contact me via email at Lenape regional high school district at Lenape High School. You can easily find me. I'm the guy with the red jacket on.

being proud of my kids and screaming Lenopy Pride everywhere we go because we're proud of where we're from here in the Lenopy Regional High School District at Lenopy High School. So that's it. That's pretty simple.

Darrin Peppard (35:41)

And now that's outstanding. And we'll put all that stuff down in the show notes so that people can make it real easy to find you. ⁓ Again, Tony, congratulations on state principal of the year, national finalist, and wish you the best of luck. And thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Tony Cattani (36:00)

Darren, it was an absolute pleasure. I'm really, I appreciate your time. Let it be pride.

Darrin Peppard (00:00.844)

All right, folks, excellent conversation there with Tony Katani. Certainly appreciate him joining me here on the podcast. And again, to each of them, man, just a huge congratulations on the recognition for being national finalists for principle of the year. Episode 217 coming up on Sunday, just to give you a little bit of a teaser there. We have Craig Randall, and we're going to be talking about trust-based observations.

And then folks will be right back at it next Tuesday with our second of three middle school finalists, Sherry Bullert. Cannot wait to keep it rolling. So thank you so much for joining me here on episode 216 with Tony Katani. Get out, have a road to awesome week.