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This is the 4J Super Insights podcast.

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Ten minutes of conversation with 4J Superintendent Dr. Andy Dye.

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And in this episode, KRVM broadcast student and award-winning podcaster Avery with the

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questions.

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Hello, my name is Avery Walkoviek and I've been at 4J since sixth grade, so about six

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years now I believe.

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And I'm going to be a senior this year.

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And so I'm here with Dr. Dye.

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I'm Andy Dye.

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Dr. Andy Dye, I'm the superintendent here in 4J.

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To get started, I have some questions just about you and just your work and stuff like

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that.

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So why did you choose your education as your career?

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It was not a direct path.

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I started off wanting to pursue a career in medicine and got through my junior year in

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college and had a collapse of faith, I think, and ended up working in the Northwest Youth

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Corps here in Eugene.

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I don't know if people are aware of that, but really enjoyed working with young people,

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felt like I was doing with them what I wanted to do in medicine, which is help people make

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good decisions about their lives and how to be happy and independent and just continue

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to pursue that interest.

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And it led me into a master's degree in education and then into administration.

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And here I am.

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Amazing, amazing.

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So what made you select 4J as the place to share your time and talents?

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You know, when I got out of school and got my first job, I didn't select 4J.

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It was a really tough time to find a job.

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Ended up working in Lebanon Unified School District a little bit north of here, close

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to Corvallis.

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Was at Lebanon High School and got reduced.

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That was when I think it was the tech bubble burst is the way we old people refer to that

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time and ended up applying for multiple positions.

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One of them at Roosevelt Middle School.

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I lived right by there, was able to walk to school and had done my student teaching with

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Judy Francis.

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I don't know if anybody remembers her Donna Moffitt and Judy Francis and she retired and

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I got the job.

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And so I started teaching middle school at Roosevelt and the district was really supportive.

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I was young in my career and they invested in me, folks at the time invested in me and

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other people that were new to the career.

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And I live here.

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So teaching is very, very complex and really difficult and you invest a lot of your time

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outside of when you're supposed to be thinking about work.

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And if I'm going to do that, I'd much rather do that in my own community where it betters

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my own community, not that other people's communities don't need better if that's a

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word.

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But I'd much prefer to work in my own community and work with families in my own community

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and make a contribution here.

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Amazing.

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Amazing.

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And then what are your guiding principles for 4J?

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You know, I've got this three, three, what I believe are hallmarks of high quality educational

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institutions that I refer to as my three rocks.

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Timely communication and community engagement and those are really two different things.

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It's one thing to give you an email with lots of accurate information and that's really

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important but that does not provide you with the information that maybe you need to be

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a better student or you need to be a better partner as a parent with us.

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If we're just always sending information out, we're not getting the necessary information

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back so that we can be better.

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So timely communication and meaningful community engagement.

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Equitable outcomes for everyone with an amplified focus on the desires, not just the needs,

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but the desires of students that have historically been underserved.

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Our schools are set up to give most everybody what we believe that they need.

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But there are also programs and opportunities that students want in schools because school

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is not just a series of classes that one takes.

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It's an entire experience, you know.

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So what are the things that need to be a part of everyday experiences for everyone to make

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school relevant?

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Like you feel as though it's got something for you beyond just preparing you for the

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next class.

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So amplifying focus on the desires of what those students who might not find school so

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relevant, how can we make it that way?

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And then safety and well-being for students and for staff, and that has changed over time.

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When I first got into education, when you referred to safety, it was more about campus

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security, no fighting, no physical threats to violence.

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Now there's a whole lot more that's involved in safety.

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It's a lot about how you feel and how the degree to which you feel like you belong in

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school from your peers, from the adults, from the community surrounding the school.

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And so that's an ever-evolving body of work.

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Right.

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How did those principles, how did you hone down those principles and how did they come

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to you as you, as you've gone along in your career?

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One of the most important things for me, I believe, has been to build and maintain an

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evolving network of professional peers.

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It's really easy to get bogged down into the relationships that you see, that you have

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on a daily basis, interact with the people that are closest to you.

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And while that's fantastic and you build strong relationships, you might not see how other

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people do things, other districts do things.

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I've had the benefit of working in multiple districts and actually in multiple countries

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and being on accreditation teams for schools all around the world.

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And that has been very helpful.

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And I have just stolen, frankly, ideas and perspectives from other people.

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There's nothing new under the sun.

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All the great ideas have been had.

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You've got to combine new ones to make something slightly innovative.

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And so it's just been through the benefit of exposure and experience and the fortune

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of, like I said, the district investing in me and helping me connect with people that

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are really good at what they do to make me better at what I do.

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And what are the ways that you have seen yourself grow or learn new things?

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Gosh, that's a complex question.

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It's a little bit of a complex one.

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I could talk about it in the last five years or the last 10 years or the last 20 years.

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But I think that, you know, I mentioned earlier, experience and experience is what you get

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when you don't get what you want.

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And good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.

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And so you have to be really honest with yourself and realize when you have maybe pursued not

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the greatest idea for a little bit too far, you've got to be willing to acknowledge some

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deficiencies in your own thinking and find people that think differently than you, people

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that are willing, whose opinion that you respect, who are willing to be really, really hard

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on ideas and really at the same time respectful to you as an individual.

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It's not a fun place to be to feel as though you have to be right all of the time.

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I think that that's really damaging to someone's psyche.

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And so growing comfortable with not knowing the answers, but seeking them from others

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until you feel like you've related in the right spot.

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I think that's been a really important part of my evolution as a professional.

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Yeah, that's incredible.

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And kind of shifting to more like, I would say light, lighthearted, less complex questions.

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What is one thing that people probably don't know about you?

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One thing that people probably don't know about me.

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Well, it depends on how well you know me.

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I've been in Eugene for a very long time and Eugene's growing, but still at the same time,

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pretty small space and if you worked in education for a long time, you see a lot of people over

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the years.

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But I'm not from here.

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I'm originally from South Carolina and I was born in Buford, South Carolina, Parasile,

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and my father was a Marine.

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We moved from there when I was really young and I grew up outside of Nashville, Tennessee

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in very little towns, Ridgetop and White House and Greenbrier and came out here actually

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by accident.

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To be honest with you, I was going to come here for a five-week job and that's turned

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into 25 years of mortgage and a career.

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So my exposure growing up as a young person was to a very different pace and I think social

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philosophy, political dynamics, economic dynamics, it's benefited me to have a different perspective

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and at the same time be here long enough that I choose to call this home.

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Yeah, that's amazing and what do you like to do in your free time?

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That changes over time too.

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I used to be a pretty avid endurance athlete.

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I did a number of marathons and half Ironman competitions, long races.

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I've played guitars sometimes kind of good and sometimes really poorly.

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Pretty big gardener and my favorite thing to grow is hot peppers and I grow all kinds

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of super hot peppers.

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All my family lives in Texas and I'm originally from Oklahoma in Texas and so we've experienced

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some really hot peppers.

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We've tried to grow them ourselves but for us at least it's been pretty tricky to do.

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Yeah, they like the heat and other than that, I very much like to be on the water whether

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it be high mountain lake or over at the coast or on one of our local rivers.

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I spend as much time as I possibly can on the water.

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Amazing and then shifting over to 4J, can you share some positive things that have happened

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to 4J at least this year?

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This past school year?

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Yes.

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Yeah, I always say this when I talk about 4J, certainly not because of the work I myself

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have done exclusively but we attract some of the most talented teachers in the area.

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Eugene is a community and as a school district has a reputation that is really magnetic to

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a wide profile of people.

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It's a wonderful place to live and it's a great place to work and I think that through

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the pandemic and all of the things that we had to endure as a community, not just a school

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district, that those bright people kept their eye on what schools can be and help pull us

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out of what I would think to be one of if not the most challenging episodes in the district's

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history.

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4J is not, Eugene in general and 4J in particular is not a community or a district that likes

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just to be told what's going to happen.

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We are all about process and getting the best answer through dialogue and through COVID that

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wasn't possible.

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And you know after doing something for a couple of years, people can get into the habit and

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forget what things, how things used to be and everyone to a person was pretty focused

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on coming out of that and changing our mindset, not just what we do from day to day but changing

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the way that we think about what might be possible and I think that that's set us up

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for a great year this next year.

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Thank you so much for being here and for doing this with me.

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This has been amazing.

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I appreciate it.

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It's my first time on a podcast so it's pretty exciting.

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Perfect.

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Well, you're doing a great job.

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Thanks.

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It's time for the next episode with Dr. Dai.