Episode Replay | Insight from a School Superintendent

TD Flenaugh revisits an interview with Mark Bielang, a superintendent from Portage Public Schools in Michigan, discussing his journey from trades to education and his commitment to career and technical education (CTE). Bielang emphasizes the importance of CTE, noting a $100 million donation for a new CTE center. He highlights the need for a supportive culture in schools. Bielang advises parents to understand their children's learning styles and encourages them to support diverse educational opportunities, including extracurricular activities that build confidence and skills.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:03

Welcome after 120 episodes of the falling for learning podcast, we are going to give you a few throwback episodes every now and then, and this episode is from my first interview of the falling for learning podcast with a superintendent named Mark belang. And he is from the Michigan schools, a superintendent of one of those school systems. He brings in a lot of insight and wisdom about how to get kids on track for learning and how to make sure that they're on track for success, and he is representing his journey as a person who started in the trades, as a person who was inspired by a teacher and as a parent, in addition to his journey and his career as an educator. So I hope that you sit back and relax and enjoy. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the falling for learning podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. Thank you so much for joining us on the falling for learning podcast. The podcast is for parents to really help them to understand tips and strategies and information that they need to make sure that their students are achieving at high levels, K through 12, right, and what they need to do on their side to make sure that they're setting their child up for success. So I'll let you kind of introduce yourself and tell us about yourself.

Mark Bielang: 1:53

Sure. My name is Mark Bielang I'm currently serving as superintendent of Portage public schools. We're a district of just under 9000 students, located in Portage, Michigan, which is in the southwest corner of the state of Michigan. Our community is it we're a suburban community is just south of Kalamazoo, mostly a typical of many suburban communities, high percentage of white students. We have some minority students in our demographics are changing. We our families speak over 50 different languages in our community, so we're trying to meet their needs as well, but that's a little bit about the district myself. I'm been in this business for quite some time, and I started out as a industrial arts teacher. I taught middle school shop, and then moved into the high school level, where I taught construction trades. Our students built homes out on the on a job site. And then from there, I decided that I really wanted to pursue administration, so an opportunity arose where I became an assistant principal of the High School. Later moved into a high school principal shift in two different schools, and finally took a superintendency in a smaller school district of about 2000 students, where I served in that capacity for 18 years, and I'm currently in starting my 11th year as superintendent of schools in Portage, Michigan. Wow, that's all I got for you there. We've got more questions,

TD Flenaugh: 3:47

of course. Thank you so much. So it sounds like you've been in education for quite a while, and so we're glad to hear and kind of lean in on some of that expertise that you've had for so many different roles within education. So what brought you into education, like, what was the reason that you decided to pursue this career?

Mark Bielang: 4:12

It was all because of a teacher I had in high school. There was a obviously, my interest has always been around woodworking, and that got me into the construction trades, that got me into industrial education. But I had a teacher in high school who took a real interest in my abilities. He saw something in me that others didn't see, and he was the guiding force that they became passionate around not only the content, but in making sure, wanting to help others understand woodworking. In this particular case, the same level of I did so as I did so. This was a gentleman that that believed in me, gave me opportunities, both in the classroom. Room and outside of school to help him on some projects that he was working on, and that's what really ignited my passion for getting an education. I knew what I wanted to do from day one going into college.

TD Flenaugh: 5:14

Wow, that's really fascinating. So that one educator really made a difference in your life as far as helping you to choose a path. And and I it would really stands out to me from that is that a lot of educators are, you know, very academic, and they really, you know, focus in on that part, but you came in from a trade aspect, I think. And so I think that is interesting. And how do you all, how do you in the school district where you serve? How do you all foster that so not just maybe an academic, but also those trades as well, and maybe even business as far as students and their career path?

Mark Bielang: 6:01

Yeah, I've been a big proponent of career and technical education, obviously coming from that background. Back then we called it vocational education. Now we call it CTE, career technical education. We're very fortunate in our area to have a very strong program and partnerships with the nine other school districts that belong in our county. We're organized around a county based system, so the nine schools have combined efforts, and we call currently, it's been called education for employment, where different schools will offer different programs, and our students are bused back and forth or drive to other schools to get programs that we may not offer our community, our larger community, the TD, Kalamazoo County community, has supported a millage to support career and technical education, and we had a an anonymous source who gifted us $100 million plus the land build a CTE center. Wow, that construction has just started, but we're pulling together many of the programs that the locals had into a central site into a beautiful facility, and so our students will have access to programs like never before. And we're hoping that by eliminating kind of that, you know, that competitive nature that exists between students and schools, some kind of some some students from going to another school because they're a competitor in athletics, you know, in the arts. So having a neutral site we we believe, will increase enrollment in those areas and provide state of the art technology that they'll be able to operate there in.

TD Flenaugh: 8:00

Okay, that's really fascinating. So you are saying that that money is for all nine of those school nine of those counties, or something like, is that, right?

Mark Bielang: 8:11

It's nine different school districts, but we belong to a service agency, and so the kind of the vehicle that's receiving those funds is the the ESE, the educational service agencies, they're responsible for constructing a facility and coordinating the programs that will be held at that site.

TD Flenaugh: 8:35

Okay, that's really great to hear. You know, pulling of resources, people working together, and all of it's for the, you know, promotion of students and making sure students have what they need, right, and not just thinking about the academic aspects. I've definitely been guilty of that as a teacher that you know, started off on a really academic it is really not always recognizing the importance of the vocational or career technical and education, and then also the business aspect of of what students can do to contribute to the economy and our society. So I'm glad that you all are bringing that together, and that definitely sounds like something that people around the United States can take notice of and maybe duplicate different type of programs like that for you. So that's really good.

Mark Bielang: 9:30

Yeah, not, you know, not every student is destined to go to college. And you know, preparing students for whatever they believe their next phase of life will be is so important to us, and that doesn't preclude the fact that students who go through a CTE program can't go on to college. Many do. I mean, I did. I was in in vocational programming, industrial education in high school, but knew I wanted to be a teacher. But. That was my content area. So I think kids need to find their own passion and dabble in different things. You know this, it doesn't just start in high school. This, this Career Technical Center. We're already starting programming for seventh and eighth graders, exposing them to different careers where beyond just what their family might be involved in. And so many of our students don't see those those trades and those activities going on, so they don't even understand what the possibilities are. So exposing those our youngest children to our younger than, I would say, youngest, but our younger children to to what's possible is so important to us as well.

TD Flenaugh: 10:43

Absolutely, I'm really glad that you have this aspect that is really thriving and being nurtured in your school district and the surrounding districts that you work with. Yeah, I just think that's one of the missing links, right? We forget. Some of us forget students who aren't on the academic path. And I think there was a time, depending on the school district or the area, that when they tracked kids you know, like, maybe you know, someone's for trade or someone's for academic, that maybe at the end that I wouldn't have the skills, like, if I chose the trade, I wouldn't have the skills depending on my my other classes didn't prepare me to be able to go to college, but I think now most of the districts have it normalized. Where there's all the classes pretty much will prepare you. Of course, there's advanced level, but even the basic level or the regular classes still are going to be able to prepare you for college. And I don't think that was the case always. And so sometimes people don't really notice that, because before you put were put on a track and you didn't have a college level courses that you need it. So

Mark Bielang: 12:02

we're very fortunate our our community and I speak, according specifically, has been very supportive of of education in general. I mean, they've been very generous with with with providing us with new facilities. We're in the middle of a building project now. We're replacing five of our oldest elementary schools. We've already built new middle schools, and that's all the support our students. We want to make sure that our students are in the best possible places they can be. And you know, so we we do offer things like the International Baccalaureate program too, for those that really want to push themselves that in that way. So again, that's that doesn't happen without a lot of community support and understanding that it takes additional funds to run those kind of programs, right?

TD Flenaugh: 12:58

So yeah, so that makes me think, as well as about what your ultimate goal is as a leader, and, you know, maybe like, what are your five year goals as a leader of Portage schools?

Mark Bielang: 13:13

Well, I'm, I'm kind of towards the end of my career as a superintendent, five years from now, I hope to be, you know, retired and doing some things that I haven't been able to do. But you know, our primary goal here has been to create the best possible environment for student success. You

TD Flenaugh: 13:44

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Mark Bielang: 14:28

And you know so our kind of, our strategic commitments that we call them, are primarily focused on our students, but we also realize that they need to be in a culture that supports them. So as I look at what I'd like to see happen down the road is for that culture to continue to grow, so that we can be as best positioned as possible to support all of our students, no matter what they want. Them to the table when they come through our doors is that we can create an environment that supports them so that they can be successful, to reach their potential and and that's hard work, because there is no end to that work. That's that's ongoing work, just, you know, if you think there's an end to building culture, then you've got a pretty short sighted view of what has to happen, and culture is hard to change. There's so much, I wouldn't even call it resistance. There's so much pressure to maintain what is because people are afraid of change or unwilling to change or scared of change. I don't know how to frame that exactly, but change is difficult, and culture requires change. Changing culture requires people to change as well. So I just I hope that some of the practices that we've begun to institute in our district continue to grow and and become hardwired so that they happen all the time automatically. Can you

TD Flenaugh: 16:11

tell us a little bit more about some of those practices that you have, that you are cultivating and that you hope continue,

Mark Bielang: 16:19

the one of the Sure, the one of the one of the things that we really become good at is the is rounding all of our leaders round on other people. So using myself for an example, outside of the evaluation process, I meet with members of my executive team so that there are, there are nine people on that team. I meet with them. It's a quick, informal way of touching base with folks to find out what's going well in their day. They're, you know, a set series of questions that take no more than five or 10 minutes, what's going well? Are you getting the resources that you need? What can we do to improve and is there anyone who has supported you that you'd like me to recognize? So that gives us a chance to recognize employees who have, have contributed, contributed to someone else's success. So rounding has been an effective process. I also round with school board members, so twice a year, I meet individually with each board member and ask similar questions that gives me a sense of where they're headed outside of the boardroom, where we're not having that discussion in a public way. And then the important part of that is closing that loop. So once I completed my rounding with administrators, we sit down together and I report out this is what I heard from you, and it gives everyone a chance to hear what everyone else is saying, not individually by name, but I look for themes and threads that I can share with them that you know, that raises some issues that we've been you know, further need to to do. And I do the same thing with the school board. Well, means as a board, it's usually part of my evaluation process where we do that and it gives them a lot of good feedback, it gives me a lot of input and feedback as well. So that's the that practice of rounding our principals do that with their teachers. They can take a group of other employees, paraprofessionals, our support staff, custodians, maintenance, food service, staff. So it's not just limited to, you know, direct reports, but but anybody in the organization that you want to get feedback from the other the other practice that that we've really institutionalized is surveys. We survey our students, we survey our parents, and we survey our employees, so we get ongoing feedback from those groups as to their perceptions about what we're doing. So same thing holds true. There. We get the information and what, what many people, what many schools don't do is is report back what they heard. So for example, with students, I get a report after the after students take the survey, and I happen to have a I formed a student advisory board that meets with me on a monthly basis, and at a high level, I'll share results with them and and then we focus on, on the on the top one or two things that we're doing well, and we get feedback from from I'll use students as an example. You know, what are we doing that we need to keep doing? That gives us, gives us these. Is these results in these categories, and then where, where we scored lower. It's the same sort of thing. What? What can we do? What would what would cause us to get a higher score in these areas? What would we need to do and get that same feedback? So it gives me a sense of the types of things we need to work on. It allows me connect with our students to know what's on their mind, and and then we develop action plans from that and and then that cycle continues to go. So it's like that plan, do Study, Act cycle, but we're making sure that we let people know what we're doing, so that next time they take the survey, they're reminded of what we've done to improve on what we said we're going to do. And that's built. I said it at the at the district level, but each building level leader gets information for their building from their parents, from their staff and from their students, and that's where the really the work takes place. So those are a couple things. I know that was a little long, but

TD Flenaugh: 21:08

no, it was excellent, very thorough, and it really sounds like you have a lot that you can share with other leaders around the country. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to pause for a moment. I can't.

Mark Bielang: 21:27

You're gonna edit this in. Very sorry. No problem. No problem. Okay, um,

TD Flenaugh: 21:39

all right, so my question, my last question is, I'm like, what message do you have for parents as they're guiding and helping their kids learn and grow? What message do you have for them that they could do or that will really be helpful in giving them the an advantage?

Mark Bielang: 22:00

Well, that is, that is a huge question, because it you know, as kids change as they're going through an educational system. You know, I think the better you know your kids, The and are able to to share that information with their teachers, so that teachers to help teachers build that relationship with kids. That relationship piece in my mind is so important, you know, I just I look at when my three kids were growing going through schools, and I've used them as an example when I think of the term rigor, relevance and relationships, I had three kids, each one of them was tied to one of those characteristics. Our oldest was all about rigor. Throw her as much as she could get, you know, and she would handle it, and she that was, that was how, how she was able to thrive was is teachers who recognize that our our middle daughter, was all about relationships. If you couldn't connect with her in a personal way, she wasn't able to to produce what she you know, and reach her potential. And then our youngest, our son, was about relevance. If he didn't understand what he was doing, why he was doing it, he wouldn't put the effort for it to do that. So so I think parents understanding their children's kind of their learning style, or where they really thrive, and being able to work with with staff members on on helping support that aspect of it, or at least recognizing that I found to be very helpful. One of the things I wish I would have done, in retrospect, was kind of force them into certain opportunities that that would help them develop skills that would help them later on, and that was, you know, things like forensics or debate or or areas where they're, where they're they're up in front of of their peers or the public to perform, because those are skills that develop confidence and allow you to to flourish outside of the classroom in the future. So those are just a couple things that come to my mind, initially, excellent.

TD Flenaugh: 24:32

I think you have so many gems, you know, to offer parents. You are a parent. You are a, you know, a leader, you've been a teacher. So so many different aspects of your experience are, I feel like are very helpful for our audience as they are trying to navigate, you know, the educational system for their child and what works best for them. And it really resonates with me as well, because. Because as I talk to parents, I really talk to them about, of course, math skills, reading, writing, but I also really stress the speaking and listening, because that means so much when people have to go on interviews or when they're articulating themselves and working together with people that Miss missing aspect, could really be a make it or break it for kids, so you recognize that you said the same thing. So thank you so much for meeting with us. So you I don't know, like if there's a way you know if parents want to reach out to you, or if they want to find you, or they want to see your speeches or your meetings, where can they find you?

Mark Bielang: 25:47

Sure our we just updated our website. I think it went, went live last Friday. So there may still be a bugs, a few bugs in there, but we can be found at Portage. PS, dot, O R G, that supported P O, R T, A, G, E, P, S, dot O R G, and that's our website, and people can learn a lot more about us there. Great.

TD Flenaugh: 26:14

Thank you so much for your time, and I really appreciate you following up and very excited that you know I got to talk with you and just hear some of your wisdom and from all your experience. So I will be in contact with you. We're going to place this on it'll be on Spotify, and I Heart Radio wherever you can get podcast, pretty much. And also we will put it on our Youtube as well. So thank you so much. Mr. B Lang, and have a great day.

Mark Bielang: 27:00

Well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. It was fun to do this. It's, you know, you don't always get a chance to talk about, you know, your own personal journey and where you've been and where you still want to go. And so thanks for this opportunity. I hope there's a morsel or two that people will be who will help by this. Great thanks. Thank you so much.

TD Flenaugh: 27:22

Thanks. Bye. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast. New Episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com at falling for learning or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more. For more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.