195 Leading to Provide Opportunities for All through Education with CEO of Prince George’s County Public Schools, Dr. Monica Goldson | Greater Washington DC DMV Changemaker

Mahan Tavakoli: Welcome to Partnering Leadership. I'm so excited this week to be welcoming Dr. Monica Goldson. Monica Goldson is the chief executive officer for Prince George's county public schools. She is a dedicated and dynamic leader of what is the 20th largest school district in the entire country.

She is a product of Prince George's county public schools herself, has spent most of her career there, and both of her adult sons are products of the public-school system in Prince George's county. She's really committed and has shown that commitment throughout her tenure, including guiding the school system through the pandemic. 

I really enjoyed the conversation with Monica, finding out some of her own background and her passion for education and the impact she is looking to make. 

I'm sure you will also enjoy the conversation with Monica. I also love hearing from you. Keep your comments coming, mahan@mahantavakoli.com There's also a microphone icon on partneringleadership.com. You can leave voice messages for me there. 

Don't forget to follow the podcast on your favorite platform. Tuesday conversations with magnificent change makers from the greater Washington DC DMV region and Thursday conversations with brilliant global thought leaders. Now here's my conversation with Dr. Monica Goldson.

Dr. Monica Goldson. Welcome to Partnering Leadership. I'm thrilled to have you in this conversation with me.

Monica Goldson: I am so excited to be here with you.

Mahan Tavakoli: Monica, what a tremendous journey you have had as an advocate, not only for education in Prince George's County, having spent almost your entire life along with your career in Prince George's County, contributing back to the education. 

Before we get to your current role though, would love to know about your upbringing and how your upbringing impacted the kind of person and leader you've become. 

Monica Goldson: Thank you for that opportunity. I am a product of the same school district that I have an opportunity to lead in, but it was never really my plan or goal to do that. I went to elementary, middle and high school in Prince George's County Public Schools, which is the 20th largest school district in the nation. But most people don't know and your listeners will be one of few that know this. I was actually born in St. Louis Missouri. 

And then my mom got a job in Washington, DC and we moved it was probably one of the best decisions she made. I love this area. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to meet so many different types of people from so many different backgrounds, but it has truly been her opportunity to move that has propelled me in my own personal journey.

I'm an only child. And when I graduated from high school, I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. So, I went to Florida university and enjoyed the experience. But I started out in a different area and it was not education. I come from a family of educator. So, for me, I didn't wanna do that.I wanted to create my own footsteps. I wanted to not fall in their shadow and I wanted to do something different. 

So, I went to Florida M University major in actuarial science. And you could not have told me that I was not gonna ACE all 10 of those math exams and become an actuary, except that is not exactly what happened. I graduated. 

Mahan Tavakoli: Before you go on, I have to ask though, I don't think too many kids grow up and say I want to go study actuarial science. How did you end up choosing that field?

Monica Goldson: You're right. They do not because most people don't even know what an actuary is. But I love mathematics. And when I graduated from high school, my mathematics teacher, Stan Kowalski was my favorite teacher of all time. I still talk to him. I call him, stand the man, 

Mahan Tavakoli: Oh, wow. 

Monica Goldson: And I wasn't sure. I said, okay, I wanna major in mathematics, but what can I do with it?

Of course, his first thing he said was teach. No, sir, that's not what I wanna do. He said what about electrical engineering? And I thought for a minute, okay, maybe I'll try that. But then as I got there and I started to then research, what else could I connect to mathematics? Where I wouldn't lose the credit, cause my mother made it clear, she was only gonna pay for four years. So, Monica figure it out in four years ma'am.

And as I researched, I realized that Florida and M university along with Florida state had a program in actuary science. So, I researched it and thought, oh, wait a minute, this is right up my alley. I can do this. It's projections. It's looking at data. I love numbers. 

So, I really thought that's how it would happen. I didn't start out going there thinking it would be actuarial science. Started out in mathematics and took the mathematics and business and insurance courses to focus on actuary science.

Mahan Tavakoli: That's a great way of studying something that you were good at and something that you liked and what a great tribute to your teacher that you're still in touch with Monica. It shows the impact and influence teachers have on our lives. You liked math, but a great teacher also helped you with that. I even reflect on my own high school experience. I still talk about Mr. Gil Hall, who was a favorite teacher of mine in history, so great teachers have a big influence on our lives.

Monica Goldson: They have a large impact on our lives. And I think in my current role, the highlight of my career is the ability to go into a classroom and to watch a teacher make dreams come true. I think our teachers across the country are amazing and based on everything that they have experienced through this pandemic, they really were sometimes the glue that kept a little bit of sanity in our homes.

Parents were retired, fed up. Students needed an outlet, and teachers were the ones who really were trying to provide some sense of normalcy for whatever that could be in a pandemic. They did a phenomenal job doing it while still trying to maintain their own home. I just feel like there's never an amount of money that could really pay for the role that our educators have played in everyone's life.

Mahan Tavakoli: So, you studied mathematics actuarial science. Then why did you pursue your Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education?

Monica Goldson: So, I came home and this is how life comes full circle is why I always tell my own children never burn a bridge. I came home from undergrad. I graduated and in order to become actuary, you have to take 10 actuarial exams. You typically need to pass the first two before insurance companies will literally just pay you to just study.

So, I said, okay, the best way for me to make sure I can pass these two exams is probably for me to teach math. And I found out the school district was hiring. I contacted my high school principal and he hired me for my first math teaching job, craziness. After the first week of school. I went home.

Cause I was living with my mother. I went home and I told my mom, Hey, there's something I have to tell. You have a seat. She sat down and I said, I am not gonna become an actuary. I'm going to remain an educator. And she fell out laughing just like you just did and said, I knew it all along. So of course, this is also another lesson that, Hey, when your peers tell you're gonna do something, go ahead and believe it. And stop trying to fight it. 

But in the midst of that in teaching I moved to several positions after teaching in the classroom and realized it just felt like I needed to make an impact. And I felt like I needed to make it in a way that's larger than my classroom. So, while I had 180 kids that I was impacting, I felt like I wanted to do something where I could impact more. 

In order to do that, I felt like at that time I needed to become an. An assistant principal in a school. And so, I had to go back and get my master's degree. It was a great learning experience, enjoyed learning about everything that takes place outside of that classroom door, and then just pursued a position to become an assistant principal.

So that really was the ultimate reason why I got my master's.

Mahan Tavakoli: So, Monica, what was it about education being in that classroom that got you to decide to leave what would've been financially secure? 

One of the reasons. Insurance companies pay for actuaries to study is not too many people wanna pursue the field, so you would've had all kinds of opportunities. 

What was it that clicked with you? And you said, you know what? I wanna dedicate my life to education.

Monica Goldson: In every role I've played has never been about the money. It really has been about one my own personal happiness and two making a difference in my daily word. So, you always wanna have a sense of purpose. And that for me is what I want. While I talk about coming from a long line of educators, I grew up playing school, being in school, going back to school because I had to go back to school with my mom or my aunts.

And I always remember if this was a profession in the 1900s, that was revered to be an amazing profession in education. And I can recall my grandmother telling me the story. That at that time, when she was a teacher, teachers could not be married and she eloped to marry my grandfather.

And she eloped only because she wanted to keep her teaching job. She didn't wanna give it up. She loved it. And she always talked about how the kids loved learning and they like sponges. And when I had the ability to teach, I felt the same way. 

The unfortunate thing is that. After being married for a month, a really close friend of hers, I guess I could use the word friend loosely, told that she got married and they fired her.

Mahan Tavakoli: Oh,

Monica Goldson: And my grandmother said that point was when she stopped doing what she loved. And she would always encourage us to do what we felt would make us happy. And while at the time I thought of being an actuary is what would make me happy. Once I was in that classroom, I was in my element. I love the ability for students to say, Hey, I didn't understand that and now I do. 

I loved when kids would come into the classroom and say, math is not my favorite subject. That would be the first thing that would come out. Their. And it would be my goal by the end of the year to change their perception about it, and to prove to them that math is part of your daily life, but it's not that bad. It's not as bad as you think it is. 

And just like I still talk to my mathematics teacher, I still talk to a lot of my students to this day.

Mahan Tavakoli: On one side, you got passionate about education. You studied administration of education. On the other side, you also have two sons of your own. How did you approach their education being that you had such passion for education and became an education administrator too?

Monica Goldson: It's a difficult balance. Being in the role of an educator and in that of a parent as well. And depending on the roles that I served, it changed. But what I did was try to show them the love that I have. So early on, I spent a lot of time reading to my children and one Christmas I looked up and I said, Lord, they got more books than they have toys, but grateful along the way, because they enjoy reading.

I thought, oh gosh, I'm going overkill. But I allowed them to follow what it is that they loved and enjoyed to do. And I supported that. But I also provide opportunities for them to grow. And as they got older, every Sunday night, I would go through, we have an online grade book where we could see what our children are doing.

And every Monday I would just write when they would have breakfast. I'd have a little list of what their grades were in their class for that week. Hey, these are your grades. You know the expectation. I'm sure you're gonna do what you need to do to uphold this honor roll that we are striving to have every quarter, every year.

And they did a great job doing it. So, I didn't have to have these major conversations with them except for their senior year. Both children have senioritis. So, it is true parents. Senioritis is real. 

Mahan Tavakoli: Even your sons had it.

Monica Goldson: Even my own children had senioritis both of them. But they enjoyed school. There were times where I think, they wished maybe I wasn't in the position I was in at the time. I remember my oldest son was in ninth grade and he came on one day and he said, I wish I had a different last name. And then when storming into his bedroom, I thought, okay you can't change that, sir.

But at dinner I asked him about it. He says, it's just, everyone knows who I am, and so, they expect so much from me. But it was an opportunity for me to really talk to him about, look, we're two different people. While we have the same last name, you still have the opportunity to create your own path and to do with it what you want. And you're amazing regardless. 

And then my youngest son, his profound moment, I happened to be the superintendent while he was in high school. And he actually enjoyed the experience though. I was more fearful of my role than he was, and he enjoyed it more during the inclement weather days when kids the phone would be ringing off the hook of. Hey, can you call your mom and ask her to close school tomorrow?

He enjoyed those. He thought that was hilarious. They would send me messages through Twitter. None of those things worked though. Most of the time he still ended up going to school. So, I would say so just go ahead and tell him in advance. We're probably going, forget the homework done. But they both have navigated it well and our great kids now.

Mahan Tavakoli: That's wonderful to hear. Now, Monica, one of the reasons your role in my view is very challenging is that we have a lot of societal expectations that we have put on the school system. There is lots of expectations with parents, call it helicopter parenting, snow plow parenting. In some cases, parents overly wanting to get involved in the education of their kids. 

At the same time with segments of our society, people don't have the opportunity for their caregivers to get engaged in their education. So, you are trying to cater the both sides. How do you try to balance that as a school system that is trying to meet the needs of the parents, needs of the students, needs of the teachers, whatever greater expectations put on the school system?

Monica Goldson: Excellent question. Cause each group that you named needs something different and they need it differently. So, what we've learned through communication and through this pandemic, the mode of communication for each group varies. So, we've found that for our students, they tend to get our messages through Instagram.

Our parents feel more connected when I do town halls. When I provide them an opportunity to ask questions off the cuff, not always the easiest to do when we hold webinars and they can tune in we found that using our mode of technology has increased our parent engagement at the secondary level.

So, we've learned that, a lot of our elementary parents remain engaged. The older child gets, the less they remain engaged and the more they take their hands off. And it is unfortunately, a time where we're having to say, you can't take your hand off yet. They're in middle school. They're in an adolescent stage.

There's a fine line between removing your hands from them and allowing them to move forward and make some mistakes. And when they get to high school, it's even far fewer parents who are engaged. But what we found from the pandemic is that by having zoom meetings, we have been able to engage with more parents than we've ever been able to do before.

And that's because parents can work and sign on. They can still manage their homes and make sure they tend to younger children and sign on and pay attention and be engaged. And from the pandemic, we've learned that for our Latinx community, they do better with podcast. And so, we're actually gonna start a podcast series in the fall to engage our Latinx parents.

So, we've kinda learned so much more about each group than we ever would have known. I believe I say this all the time, while I complain about the pandemic, it helped us to grow as an organization dramatically. I think we would've still been doing some of the very traditional things, a monthly PTSA meeting at a school.

And upset because we only had the same 20 parents to come out. Not realizing that by doing a meeting via zoom and recording it, and then allowing parents to go back and access that information later on has allowed us to get more parents engaged and people fully understanding what this is expected of their child and how they can support their child.

It's still a continued learning experience. But we're a better school system because of our ability to say, Hey, we acknowledge, we made some mistakes years ago and we wanna make changes now to meet the needs of our community. And then I wanna just add really quickly. We have things that are happening in our communities that we can't allow to go unnoticed without talking about it.

The George Floyd situation. For us as a district, it hit hard for me because I have two young men and I'm an African American and what that meant for them hit me so hard. But then I thought back to, I have 131,000 students. If I'm feeling this way, there are lots of other parents who probably feel the same way.

So, I issued a letter just to the Prince George's County, public school, community, sharing how I. Saying that we wanted our teachers to have an opportunity, to just have an open conversation with students about how they felt too. And I think it helped us to start to grow as a community of learners around the value and respect of each other and each person's voice.

The unfortunate thing is that we continue to keep having incidents. We go from the George Floyd incident. We dealt with the insurrection. We're dealing with the treatment of LGBTQIA+ community members. It's just never ending. That's why I just feel like the teacher's role is so important because they're teaching so much more than what's in a textbook. But I believe, this generation is gonna be far better than my generation.

Mahan Tavakoli: That's why, it's a big responsibility that you carry on your shoulders in that I don't necessarily think historically, we were looking at the school system, the teachers, the principals, and in your case, CEOs of the school district to be having these conversations. While it's important, we were looking at a very narrow set of expectations for those folks. 

What you have done really well though, is first of all, rather than communicating with people the way you want to communicate, you are looking at communicating with them the way they want to consume information, and it's wonderful to hear that. 

For example, I love podcasts, Monica. I can listen to podcasts hours on end. I have a very hard time watching YouTube videos. But the point is that you are looking to communicate with the parents and engage with them the way they want, rather than this is the way we as the school system communicate.

And secondarily there are societal issues, that we want and expect schools to play a role in at least some of the conversations, not solve it for us, but have those conversations, and you have been leading in that effort. 

So, you were appointed as CEO of Prince George's Count public schools after almost 30 years of your career there in July, 2019. And then you had a little time under your belt before all schools, including yours, were pummeled with this pandemic. How were you able to first assess what was going on and how were you able to handle the challenges that you were?

Monica Goldson: We first started down the road of never-ending decision making around this pandemic. We were just like everyone else. We were literally learning as we were flying this plane while we would cut on the TV and learn about the pandemic, just like everyone else. But we were expected to then hurry up and make a decision. It's almost as if, okay. You heard the five o'clock news. What's the decision school system. It's 5:30 now. You are 25 minutes late. 

So, I look back on it, my team and I laugh about it now, but we were literally meeting every day, Saturday and Sunday included every evening at six o'clock. From six to eight, making major decisions around what to do for our staff and students and families.

We spent the majority of the day researching calling people and then trying to execute. Early on, I was smart enough to connect with some medical experts who I could call at the drop of a hat. They worked at Kaiser Permanente care first children's hospital major administrators where I could just call and say 

I don't understand this. What do you mean you gotta take a temperature? And what do you do after you get this temperature? And what does that mean? And, we went, if you think about it, we went from believing that the virus lived on every object for many days, leave your groceries outside on the steps, spray 'em down, wipe 'em down.

Don't bring them in. Remember those days, see. Yeah, exactly. See, I know you would to don't let a in, if they have a temperature, all those things and you can find out, Hey, you cannot have a temperature and still have it, but we learned a lot. 

So, we've made a lot of decisions by connecting with so many other organizations outside of PCPs. And then I always put myself in the shoes of a parent and an educator whenever I made those decision. I can tell you there were days where I made some really hard decisions for our community. I am a faith believer and I remained in constant communication with my pastors because there were times where I couldn't sleep at night cuz I just felt okay, within my gut, I know that this is the decision I have to make. Not sure what the consequence will be. But willing to lose my job over the decision. Always made those decisions while I stood in the shoes of an educator and a parent, I always used data. I used facts and data around it. 

So, I will tell you, I was one of the first districts that made the decision. To go virtual for the upcoming school year after we concluded in March, everyone went virtual in March, but then we had to in the summer make a decision about that next school year. And I was the first one to say, we were gonna go virtual. That was probably one of the most difficult decisions I had to make because I knew having spoken to lots of other superintendents, they were gonna open. But we were also the hardest hit county in the state of Maryland. 

And I read my emails. I get probably about a thousand emails a day and I have the nerve to read them all. And I could just read the fear in the parents' email and students were emailing and staff and doctors were still like, I don't know, I'm unsure about this. So, I made a decision and I can tell you, I reached out to the county executive. Angela also works and I say this all the time, she was the most supportive person ever. When I said to her, look, with everything in me that this is the right decision, but let me stand by myself. Let me take the fall if it's not. And she said, I'll do it with you.

I understand what you're saying. You've convinced me it's the right decision, but I'm not gonna let you stand by yourself, and she didn't. And I look back on it and while it was a hard decision, it was the best decision for the community, for my students, the parents, the staff, and myself. 

And then I think the next time, I thought, okay, I'm past that hurdle. And then we got to another hurdle where the governor said everyone had to return March 1 and that was made in January. And that was another time I was like; okay I guess I'm gonna lose my job for real now. I'm really about to get fired this time, because I just felt like I had already asked teachers to do a lot.

And now what I was asking them to do was to put their family in harm's way by going back into the classroom without the vaccination. And I will say I'm in an amazing organization, leadership, greater Washington. And this one night I could not sleep because I was trying to figure out how could I get my teacher's vaccinated before they went back into the classroom? 

And one of my teammates from leadership greater Washington called the next day from Kaiser Permanente and said, Monica, is there anything I can do to help you? And I'm telling you, tears rolled down my face that morning because it was as if God had answered every prayer I needed.

And for the next three months, Kaiser committed to getting every last one of my employees who wanted it vaccinated, and I have 20,000 employees. And we surveyed, we had 8,000 who wanted it but we ended up vaccinating 12,000 people, but it was major. And because of that, I was then able to open the doors for those families who wanted students to come back toward the end of last school year.

But if it had not been for other people who really were just watching from the outside, looking in, it could see me grappling with the decisions that I had to make. It was not by myself. I couldn't have done it by myself. And that was just a great example of a phone call from a colleague who said, what can I do?

Who truly meant it? Now people sometimes tell, say, what can I do? And they don't really mean it. But he actually did call and say, what can I do? And what I told him, he said, all right, let me, okay. Give me a few hours to get the right people on the phone and let's figure this out, and we did.

Mahan Tavakoli: What a powerful and beautiful example, Monica. And also, that serves to the point that we are all in this challenge of tackling the, whether it was the pandemic or the education challenges that we have ahead of us.

Together, it is not the expectation that it's up to one individual or one group to tackle it. We, as a community, need to be supportive in tackling the challenges, whether it was with the vaccination or in getting the technology to the students that needed it, or the many challenges that are going to cascade from the experience we've had over the past couple of years. 

We are experiencing record inflation, massive disruptions in supply chain. In addition to that, there is a real mental health crisis for the population, especially students. So, what are some of the challenges that you see that the school system needs to tackle now which therefore the community needs to become more responsible in supporting the school system to tackle?

Monica Goldson: Mental health supports are so needed right now. When I started in this role as CEO, I thought, okay. In my four-year term, I just wanna make sure that every school has a mental health provider. Didn't realize that we were gonna experience a pandemic and they were gonna need it even more. Now, what we find after returning from the pandemic, our students have now fallen backwards in terms of social skills. 

Basic things that we took for granted, we had to stop and teach at the elementary level. I had teachers who say I had to just stop and teach how to tie shoes. Because we took for granted that kids were home and we thought, Hey, parents are just gonna fill in the gap there but the truth of the matter is in homes, parents were trying to figure out how to make ends meet.

Sometimes they were dealing with food and security. They were dealing with keeping a roof over their head, keeping a job, having to leave home in the pandemic to go to a job. And they just could not stay on top of those items. Students coping skills and the ability to get along with others, we find our students are a lot more aggressive than they were when they left us.

And so, for every person and organization who has the ability and resources who can help, it really is helping our students to one, hear them because a lot of times the aggression comes from them feeling that their voice hasn't been heard. When we really spend time having a conversation with them and getting to the root of the issue, they didn't get to express grief with the loss of family members during the pandemic. In many cases, they didn't fully understand what was happening in their own personal family dynamics. And sometimes, they believed that what happened in their home was their fault. 

So, every opportunity to provide creative outlets for students, whether it's through writing, arts, music, to be able to share how they feel. To make sure that they understand their voice is valued. Times they felt like they could have helped their families but their parents weren't always forthright and honest with them on what they were experiencing in the home, so they built up some animosity sometimes towards their parents, because they felt like they didn't treat them as responsible adults, even though they weren't. And it's been interesting to talk to students and hear them to figure out how I can support.

So, the mental health piece is key. For communities of color. It used to be that saying that you were going to speak to a therapist, it was like taboo. Now our kids are saying, Hey, I need to talk to someone and Hey mom or dad, the school has someone and I can talk to, I need you to come in and join me in this conversation.

So, parents, if a child says that to you, don't be scared. They're not there to indict your parenting. They're there to understand their own plight and upbringing and how to be a better person in the long run. And I think as a parent, that's all we ever want for our children. We want them to have better experiences than we had.

Mahan Tavakoli: By providing those services to the young adults and their families, you're contributing back to the community. Monica. The other element is that the people that are really on the front lines of this battle are the teachers all across the country. There is a teacher shortage. There is huge pressures on teachers. 

What do you think is going to take for us to solve the teacher? Shortage and the challenges we have in recruiting, developing, retaining compensating teachers adequately?

Monica Goldson: Oh, now that is the million-dollar question. We've gotta think of some non-traditional ways to begin to recruit into this field. One, there are lots of career changers who have an ability to say, you know what? I now realize that I want to make a difference in the lives of children. And so, our state education departments can help by creating a pathway for those career changers not to have to literally go back to school and take so many courses that it makes it a task that is so hard to complete to wanna go back and give back. So, that's number one. 

Number two is to begin to find students early on, who want to go into education. So, for us, we have a teacher's middle college program, we have students in our middle program who are starting out as high school students and getting their associates degree in teaching.

And then we will pay with scholarship supports from the University of Maryland and in Howard University and Bowie state, they can now go get their last two years in teaching from those three universities with scholarship support. Then we turn around and hire them right back as teachers. So, they're coming back just like I did to teach in the same school district that they grew up in.

So, for me, that's great. they've already got a real quick learning curve because they know about the community, they've experienced what students have experienced, cause they were there before and they want to get back to that same community. 

I'm so happy that this is our second class that graduated this may with their high school diploma and associate's degree and are now going to college so they can get their Bachelor's Degree in Education and can come back and teach.

Mahan Tavakoli: That's a wonderful way of both recruiting more teachers, but also more teachers who like you, who came from the same community, therefore understand the needs of the students and the community better. Another side of it, Monica, would love to get some of your thoughts and perspectives. 

There is an ongoing conversation, where on one end, people say that we need to provide access to four-year colleges and four-year education to all students. While on the other side, people are saying that maybe a four-year education of college is costing a lot, leaving people with high levels of debt. We should find alternative ways to give the young adults opportunities, post their high school to enter the workforce. 

What are some of your thoughts with respect to career opportunities and education post high school education?

Monica Goldson: Not every child wants to attend a four-year college or university. I'm an example of one who's done that, but that doesn't mean everyone wants to. And so, we are offering more robust offerings than what we're calling career and technical education. 

When I was in school, it was called vocational air. It's totally different now. Very much technology driven. More industry standards based. There are technical skills assessments that you have to take at the end of that high school completion around masonry, electrical supports and technologies. Cisco. Cosmetology barbering. You name it. There's so many that we offer.

So, we're creating a Northern and Southern location for career and technical education support. We're starting this fall with our Southern academy for grades 9 through 12. It's wall to wall, career, and technical education academies for our students. Those students will then leave from high school and go into the world of work because you're right, you don't have to accumulate that large debt. You have industry support. We have advisory companies that support each of those academies to make sure that we have state-of-the art technology and they're learning what they need to go right into the world of work. And we find a lot of our students are taking that path and we strongly encourage it.

We support it. President Obama did a college signing day. We now have changed that to college and career signing day because we acknowledge that, Hey, when students get to choose their college, there's some students that are now signing on to the career of choice because they just passed their technical skills assessment.

And in all of our CTE, that's the acronym for courses, we're adding an entrepreneurship course. Because what I want students to be able to do when they graduate is while you may need to go work for a company to continue to get that hands on experience, one day, we're hoping that they will have their own company and then they can employ other people just like them.

So, it's important that they see that, Hey, this is what it would take to be an entrepreneur. We don't always want them to just work in that field. We want them to lead in it as well. So, strongly encourage it. We know that the cost of attending a four-year college or university is extremely high.

We also now require financial literacy as a graduation requirement. And one of those units in that course is around accumulating debt. And most of our students will initially get that debt accumulation from student loans and credit cards. So, we wanna make sure before they leave here, they understand the importance of finding options other than student loans if they want to pursue any academic pursuit to find other ways to finance.

Mahan Tavakoli: You're setting up these young people for a lifetime of success, because with the debt weather credit card or student debt, in some cases, they can be burdened for many years. So, you're providing different opportunities for the Monica. 

Now, when you reflect on your leadership of Prince George's County schools, in addition to having had to lead through in the pandemic. If we reflect back on it, five, 10 years from now, however long you end up serving as the CEO, what would you like to be your key leave behind? 

What is the impact you want people to say “This is what Monica Goldson did for prince George's county public schools”?

Monica Goldson: Now you sound like my executive coach. I think what I wanna leave behind for our staff, our students, and even in the community is a sense of community that everyone felt like their voice was heard and they feel like they're a major contributor toward their child's education. But I also wanna leave behind, even while we were in the midst of the pandemic, I came in knowing that we have the oldest, aging building infrastructure in the state of Maryland. Our school buildings are average ages, 50 years of age,

The same classrooms in schools I went to, I sat in looked the same now, disheartening. And even while everyone was focused on the pandemic, I still was trying to figure out how we could pull off a public-private partnership to build new schools.

And so, my legacy will be the ability to leave behind 12 new school buildings that students will have the opportunity to have state of the art experiences, to know that someone thought even in the midst of a pandemic, that we were still important enough to be in a school that could foster our dreams.

And those buildings will stand well past the test of time and the end of this pandemic and the next one coming. But that, through all of it, perseverance is what got us through this. And they're gonna be better students because of it.

Mahan Tavakoli: Those environments, Monica, have a big impact on us even when people choose to go to offices now, a lot of times hybrid, it makes a big difference. The kind of building and the kind of office they walk into that has an impact on whether they see themselves as professionals and wanna collaborate or see themselves as someone who is a minion in a large organization, going into a corner, getting the work done. 

Same thing in terms of education, in that, the access to the technology, the capabilities, the buildings, the environment have an impact on that education. So, we can't minimize that factor. The other thing I would love to get your thoughts on Monica is that you have played a leadership role in the school system at all levels and leadership as someone that has gotten to know some principals plays a significant role in how well the school is run. 

So, you have a certain level of control. Teachers have a big influence on the individual, but it's the principal's leadership that in my humble opinion, has a real, huge impact on the well-functioning of a school. So, what are some leadership practices or leadership resources you typically find yourself referring to or recommending for leaders or the principals in order to be able to lead their teams and organizations in this case schools tests?

Monica Goldson: You're right about school principal a major part of the function of any school district. So, I have 208 leaders that are a reflection of me. That's what I say to them all the time. If you don't feel any pressure at all, feel that one people. And we started out early on doing strength finder so that everyone could understand what their strengths were and what skills their team members also had so that they could learn to work together, to build off of those strengths, to figure out how to collaborate within their buildings, to address everyone's different learning needs and how to meet the needs of their parents and communities based on that. 

My team has this running joke that empathy is like number 50 in my strength find or categories and just anyone who knows strength finds knows it stops way before 50. It stops at 32 I think it is and they say mine is at 50. But I'm attuned to know that empathy is not there. So, I try to make sure, oh my gosh. And that decision was like empathetic with the thoughts and needs of others.

And so, I ask are building supervisors, administrators, principals, to do the same thing. Look at what your strengths are, know what is at the bottom of your strength finder, so you can make sure you're attuned to that as well. And then we do a summer leadership institute every summer with our principles for professional development.

And we talk about having courageous conversations. We have read books like Steven Covey's Trust and Inspire. We've talked about how to be fearless in decision making. We've talked about how it feels to be in an island by yourself. I have tried to really encourage them to follow a model that is supported by the Carnegie foundation.

It's an improvement science model plan, do study act model where you're gonna make some mistakes. You gotta plan for it. You study for it. You keep making changes. Look at your data. If it doesn't work, come back, tweak it, redo it. It's okay to go out on the limb and try some things to improve your work environment. 

And we will continue to have those conversations. We look forward to it every year. We go overnight. We have courageous conversations with each other about the work. What was difficult. Where we made mistakes. I'm very vulnerable with them on where I made mistakes, where I made decisions around things, and I thought one thing would happen and something different happened so they can see I want them to model what I do. 

Then we talk also about work life balance too. So, we have some time where we do just walk the beach or have yoga or talk about family because you can't be an amazing leader if you don't take care of home as well. Then we hold sessions. Also. I try to hold sessions with the team around some candid conversations.

An opportunity to just have a sit down it's called what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. They come in, they ask any question they want, I give them the honest truth but I think what it does is allow each person to realize that they're not in this by themselves.

The road of leadership is lonely, and decision making isn't easy, but with time practice, thought partners and with a great support system and great resources, like some of the books I mentioned, each person can grow professionally each year.

Mahan Tavakoli: I love the recommendations that you shared, Monica. First of all, one of the challenges that I see with leaders is the blind spots that you talked about. And in most roles with greater experience and the higher up we move in the world, the bigger our blind spots become. So, being aware of the blind spots and consistently wanting to improve on it is a sign of a great leader.

So, it's fantastic that you do that for yourself and you encourage your principles to do that. Courageous conversations are really important. I'm glad you engage in that. By the way, I had a conversation with Steven Covey and trust and inspire love the fact that's what you're promoting in the school system. 

Now you mentioned that it's important to balance work and life. So, you have one of the most high-pressure roles that I can think of. Having had to deal with all the challenges of the pandemic, virtual learning, all of these things. How do you do balance your life? What do you do for fun? Monica?

Monica Goldson: I knew you would ask that question. I'm not the best at always work life balance. 

Mahan Tavakoli: Monica, that is Carl Young's Wounded Healer. In that Carl Young says a lot of times the people that give advice, they're half a step ahead. The reason they give that advice is. They need to hear themselves. So, it sounds like you are telling others, they need to balance work life because you need to hear it.

Monica Goldson: That's it. That is, it. That is me every day. So, you were so right, I have two, I love jazz music and I find myself at my common state. When I'm listening to jazz or when I'm on vacation and listening to jazz. I love jazz cruises recently when I went to a jazz festival in Florida and it was like the best three days of just sitting, listening to music all day long in the sun.

And the other thing I love, which is calming is to sit by the water and just hear the sound of water and to look out and to just see infinite sky and water. It just brings a sense of calm and all ness in all that can be created in this world. It just reminds me that I am just a very small pebble in all that this world has to offer and provide.

Mahan Tavakoli: What a beautiful perspective to have as a leader to keep you humble and grounded. Able to contribute back to elevating so many people's lives, not only the hundred and 30,000 students, but all of their families and the entire community in prince George's county. 

Thank you so much, Dr. Monica Goldson for taking the time to share some of your journey and some of your learnings and your leadership with the Partnering Leadership podcast.

Thank you, Monica.

Monica Goldson: Thank you for having me. This was amazing.