Shane McCord
Dr. Shane K. McCord is serving his second term as Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools. Dr. McCord is a career educator with 27 years of experience in a variety of settings including elementary teacher, assistant principal, principal, director, executive director and assistant superintendent. Most of his educational career has been in Gilbert Schools serving the students, staff and community for 24 years as an educator and administrator. Dr. McCord earned his doctorate through Northern Arizona University.
As superintendent of Gilbert Schools, Dr. McCord serves over 33,000 students from preschool through 12th grade and more than 4,000 employees. He brings knowledge and understanding of curriculum, financial management, human resources, policy development, community partnership and the importance and need for all students to be college and career ready.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and rocket space, an event and meeting venue in the heart of the East Valley with a full service for person podcast studio. Today's guiding growth. We have amazing, amazing community member here that I cannot wait for you to tell us all about Sara.
Yes, one of my favorites. This guest is a native of Arizona and graduated from Mesa High. He has made a career in the field of education with more than 27 years experience in settings including elementary teacher, assistant principal Principal, assistant superintendent. And he has spent a majority of his time in Gilbert Public Schools. He is now the superintendent of the district, serving more than 33,000 students. An eternal optimist and a wonderful friend. We welcome Dr. Shane McCord. Hello Mr Shayne. Hello, how are you? We're so glad you're here.
Thank you for being with us. Today we start the show out with what we call rapid fire rapid fire. Alright so Sarah, all right, here we go. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future future? What's your hidden talent fishing, hip hop or rock concert, hip hop. Have you ever lived abroad? No. What's your go to snack? Reese's peanut butter cup? Getting through the show might be your answer. But what makes you hopeful? What makes me hopeful kids? Are you more of a thinker or a doer?
Yes. If someone was to play you in a movie, who would you want it to be? Gosh, I'm sure everybody says somebody really cool Sean Aston. Oh also, mm hmm. Right. There you go. What's your favorite pastime or hobby? Came up twice after digging that last question glass half full or half empty. Four, congratulations, you're in the club. Now, there it is. Gilbert City lifestyles is a locally owned publication whose mission is to find and share great stories in our community and help build a stronger, more vibrant local experience, become a digital subscriber at city lifestyles dot com forward slash Gilbert.
Let's talk about where it all began, shall we? Going back to being bring us through the history of like how you got into the education world. We'll dig into that later how I got into education. So I was a business major, a bit where I was at MCC. And then went into N. Au and followed my wife who was my fiancee at the time down because she was in education up there. So she was student teaching both. I don't even know if I actually had a choice at this point.
So um and then when she um so I went to a S. U. Business major still. And I went and after she got a job in Gilbert she was teaching kindergarten. Gilbert elementary. I went in there and I I um well I saw what she was doing and I worked with her kids quite a bit because I had some time between classes and whatnot. And I fell in love with with the kids. I'd also coached football at Mesa high for a year and loved being around just being around the kids and and what that did for me as an individual.
And so I went back to a issue and I switched my majors and added a couple more years to my college career. Um But then that's that's how it happened. Yeah. When you think back to your childhood um or any of your parents, teachers or any educators. So. No none. No. My dad quit school in 6th grade. My mom quit school in 9th grade. My dad was one of nine and they were cotton farmers in Missouri and my mom was one of nine and her dad left the family so she had to help provide for families.
So she became a waitress at that age. So yeah so that's a big decision to make to switch course like that. And also a male in the industry which is probably something that maybe um you know wasn't as mainstream at the time. What what really gave you the inspiration to like take that risk. I mean it's one thing to think that you I want to do it. It's another thing to take action and put action behind it. Well, college is a big investment and I didn't want to go to college, uh, spend a lot of time effort and come out with a degree that I didn't really want to do anything with um being in, I was a marketing major and uh, my mom pointed out, she's like, well you'll, you'll be a salesperson.
And I was like, well, you know, but I'll make money and uh, she goes, yeah, but you'll be in sales and I am. So I kind of sink in and then I went into my wife's classroom and you know, right then, and I knew it wasn't about the money at the time, it was just about being happy fulfilling some things for yourself and impacting the lives of others. So, uh, that's what drove me down that path. Yeah. And you shared a story about um, the significance of just being happy and the role that your grandmother played in your life with, that Yep Grandma was a huge influence.
She's so, she's an Irish immigrant came over when she was 16 years old, was never anything other than a housemaid or a housekeeper. She lived with us basically most of my life. And uh, we were two peas in a pod. And so, uh, she took care of me, I took care of her and she had a lot of belief me, I was the baby. And so I, of course, I took a lot of grief from my brother and all my cousins, and uh, but at the same time, it it kind of molded me into who I am today.
She was tough, resilient. She had, I think we counted up 17 surgeries her whole life all the way from double triple bypass new pig's valve in her heart. Uh, and she just kept going. And um, so she was someone that I could talk to and she treated me, uh, not just as a grandchild, but as, as an individual. And so, um, yeah, she, she was the person, she's brought a lot of who you are today. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Very much so. So you mentioned earlier that sales was what you thought you might be going into if you kept going down the marketing route. Right.
Do you find now though that you've been in the education world that do you see the parallel between sales and education? Oh, completely. You know, it's, it's when I started that wasn't the case, but now that's what it's all about to a degree. Um, you know, we have to market our schools, we have to market our programs. We have to market our reputation because we're always in a constant, um, tug of war with charter schools, competing school districts about enrollment and kids aren't numbers, but you want to keep your enrollment as high as you can because that equates the number of staff members you have and you want to keep people employed.
Uh, and um, so we serve the community were the largest, well, I think we're the largest employer in the town of Gilbert. We have over 4200 employees. And, um, so it's important to us to be able to provide for that. But we also, I firmly believe that we have the very best education system in our boundaries. So, you know, I think there's probably like 38, charter schools in or around our boundaries. And so we're in constant competition and your product becomes very emotional, right? I mean, parents, kids are their world.
And so it's not, um, I watch you and your leadership and I think about the very different audiences that you serve and that you are trying to stay on top of curriculum and making sure that you're bringing innovation. You have parents to answer to kids, to answer to teachers to answer to a community employers. How do you balance this? You listen, you listen a lot. Um, and you, you try to figure out where you can make compromises. You, you realize at some point you can't make everybody happy.
Um, but it, you gotta break it down to the kids at the end of the day. Um, you know, everybody will have a point of view on opinion, but if it's not good for kids, then we shouldn't be doing it. And if, if we are doing it, then how do we do it differently and make it better for them. Um, but it's, it's a challenge and um, you do, you run into different thoughts and ideas and uh, people aren't shy about sharing them and that's okay. Um, there are those that are shy about sharing them and you want to hear from them too, so you try to figure that out.
But um, yeah, it's, it's a daily, it's a daily, not a grind, I would say, but just, there's challenges and there's triumphs and everything you do when it comes to that and we try to do the best we can. So let's rewind to Val vista Lakes, valve is delayed first, your first destination, right? Well, second actually, but I taught fourth grade one year at Mesquite Elementary. I actually student taught at Val vista Lakes um, in fifth grade and then I came over after a year to Valve Liston.
I taught sixth grade there. Okay. Yeah. So those are your first moments, right? As a teacher, correct? Tell us about that. You know, um, there, there's two types of jobs in education, either teaching and administration and uh, if someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, you gotta go back to the classroom, I would run to the classroom. Um, just because that's, I mean spending time with, You know, 12, 13 year olds, you know, 11 year olds is phenomenal, they energize you, there are a lot of work, uh take up a lot of time, but they are, I mean they're about as pure as you can get and um, you also know that you can have some great influences.
Uh, it's always nice to see those kids that come back or that you've had over the years and you see where they're at and they're successful in their own right and whatever they do and, but they remember certain things that you said or did in class and um, that's special. And there's not a lot of jobs where you get that. Um, I know that a lot of people are having a hard time going in education because of the pay because of the stress that's involved with it.
Um, and, and trust me, I get it and I understand it. Um, there's a lot of jobs out there that are stressful and time consuming and sometimes not as rewarding as you want it to be, but at the end of the day, you have 25, 30 kids that depend on you for a lot of different things and so I can't imagine a more important or enormous responsibility than that. That's cool, educators change lives and very um. unremarkable moments, right? Who was there an experience in your childhood or as you grew up that you can think of of a teacher that really influenced you. Yes.
Um, so this is, it's kind of a negative influence to be real honest with you, but you know, I got on the bus after my third grade year, last day of school and I was at balts elementary and at that time you got the paper report cards, you know, you opened them up and whatever. Well at the bottom it said promoted to blank grade. Right? Well mine was still blank and I was like, you know, teacher forgot to fill it. So I jumped off the bus. I ran back to the classroom and I'm like, hey, You forgot to put four on here.
And she looked at me and she had glasses and she kind of pulled him down to the end of her nose and looked me up and down for a second. She pulled out her red pin and she wrote four and then underneath it, she wrote parent permission. And I was, I looked at, I didn't care. It said four, right? So put it back in and I went about my didn't think twice about it. And then as I was putting a scrapbook together, my mom said, here, I got you, you and your brother to photo albums, put a scrapbook together is all your stuff.
And so I think I was in seventh grade and I pulled it out and I looked at it and I was like, what's that mean? And my mom starts laughing at me and I go what? She goes, well, they wanted to hold you back In 3rd grade and I go, what? She goes, yeah, they didn't think you should go to fourth grade yet. They wanted you another year of third grade. And I was like why my mom is like well you couldn't read? And and I go but like I was first in times tables for math and she goes, yeah but you couldn't read.
And I go, huh? And so that's stuck with me. That two things that I had a teacher that you know, she's probably doing her job in my opinion. But at the time I didn't think she cared about me. Uh Today I have a little different view of that. But then I also had parents who were like no no no no no no we're not going to hold him back. I was young, I was I started school when I was four in Arizona, you if you turned five before December 31 at that time you could go to school.
And so um I was always on the younger age or the younger side of it, but that that kind of hit me and that that that made me think a lot and that made me kind of change my focus on. Uh Well yeah, there are people watching out for you and how you do one way or the other, so you better do it as best, you can interesting perspective on that for sure. So then okay going back to the career path here, Gilbert high, right? That was the next thing left.
Uh got a job at Gilbert High as an assistant principal, I was over sophomores and um that was a culture shock. I hadn't been in a high school since I was in high school and I had a four year old and a six month old at home. Both my boys are very young and again my wife was teaching and so that was a challenge. I was gone probably three or four nights a week. Um You doing football then to? No, no, but as a assistant principal, we had 3200 kids at Gilbert High at the time.
Um you had to cover events at night and that that schools busy 24 hours a day. And so um yeah, I learned a lot, I you know people are like you know people that want to be administrators today, I have a lot of conversations with and they're like, well why would I, you know, what do you need to go to the high school or junior high to be, you know learn about administration if you want to be an elementary principle. And and I said if I wouldn't have done that portion of it um at a secondary school at a high school, um I would have been just drowning as an elementary principle because you deal with a lot bigger issues and a lot of different things as an ap at a high school than you do as an elementary principle and um so that that gave you a much different perspective and then when you got to the elementary like I had to back it off, I mean the first person I suspended was a kindergarten kid and and I was like well you know, he kept on peeing on the playground so, but but but it was one of those things where I step back and go, okay, hold on, I gotta dial it back a little bit.
So during those years, who is it that you leaned on for advice? Dr santa, cruz charlie? Yeah, the best part of my day was probably at the end of the day when I was walking to my car and at Gilbert high it's from one end of the building to the other is about a quarter mile and my office and another assistant principal's office was down at the other end, Everybody else was at the administration side. And so you had to walk that way too, get to your car and I'd always stop by charlie's office and say goodnight or just kind of download with them and I'd always get just a little different perspective on things from him and um it was, it was extremely valuable and Marxist erna, he was the athletic director there at the time and uh he just became a very good friend as well as just a calm individual who um you know looked at things differently and then of course I had Lana moore who was right next to me and she was a principal in Gilbert for a long time.
Um it was always nice to be able to bounce things off her. That's the nice part about being at a high school or junior high, there's always more than one administrator. So you have that other person elementary generally you're the only person. So it's all on you. Yeah. So when the opportunity came up to um apply for Superintendent, what were you thinking? Yeah, I still ask myself that question. No, it's uh you know, again opportunities, all I wanted to be was an elementary principle after that. It became director of community ad then executive director of human resources, then assistant superintendent of admin services and every single one of those opportunities um you know, just kind of appeared more than anything.
It wasn't that I was looking for it. And so this is another one of those type of things where um you know, I was in Mesa at the time and I love Gilbert and I always have and there's there's there's just something special about Gilbert public schools and the town of Gilbert and East Mesa that draws people to you. I where were looking at candidates for one of our junior highs right now. And I asked that question of them like why do you want to come here and they talk about the school district and they talk about the town and um, that's, that's different.
And if you haven't been anywhere else, you don't know. And, but when you do and you come back, I mean my time in Mesa was phenomenal. It was perfect for the perfect time. But um, you come home, it's like every time I walk into val vista lakes, it's like, I'm still coming home, there's just something there. So, yep, yep. That's cool. So you have two sons? I do. And as you're going through this process, um, I'm curious what a educators perspective is as you look at your own Children going through the process, going through the systems.
Do you see it in different view or, I mean, I'm just curious how that looks from your lens there. I think you as a dad, you have to, you have to step back a little bit and and let them go through the process to degree on their own and inject when you think you're supposed to, uh, sometimes I injected when I probably wasn't supposed to, in terms of advice. Um, you know the son who's a firefighter, he almost became a math teacher at Campo verde high school.
Um, and they had, they were ready to hire him, but he was still waiting for the word from Mesa fire department whether or not he was going to get a job there. And I, I told them, I said, listen, they're going to hold off for another week, But if you sign a contract with us, you're not going to leave until after the year, I'm not going to let you break your contract because these kids depend on you. And he's like, no, no, I get it. And then two days later he got the call.
So um and then my son came in and at Val vista Lakes and he's fortunately he's got a team there in sixth grade that he absolutely loves and adores the principal, Patrick Miller uh is is exceptional. He's very personable. Uh and very good at having fun at the same time, making sure that they're working towards that goal and that's making sure kids are educated. Uh My son who teaches there, his kindergarten prep teacher is a teacher at the same school. So that's funny because my he's the kid that used to stand inside her kindergarten prep classroom when it was at my school at Houston and he would kind of bite on his fingers because he was nervous and then he'd hear my voice come over the loudspeaker for the morning announcements and he'd start crying.
I'm sure he loves that, I'm saying this right here, but that's okay. Um Any rate. Um that's that was the process and those they, we have a very good relationship, we're very close, we're very tight and so they're not afraid to call me out as, as a dad? And they know it goes both ways, but yet the communication is always open. So, so where did the football part come in? I'm trying to figure out where that came into here. So I was at MCC and my football coach at the time at um, Mesa high when I was there, he was still there and he needed someone to help coach running backs.
And so he called me and I said, yeah, so that's what I was during college. That was during college. Yeah, yeah, yeah, not know nowhere else. Um, I'd help out at Highland High when both my boys played there and Pete Walheim was the football coach on friday nights. But yeah, that's a special special place in the world for football coaches. They don't get paid nearly enough to do what they do for the time and effort that they put into it and they take away from their own families.
I mean, it's if, you know, uh, spouses of football coaches, you know, those are special people too, because they're involved with football coaches. I happen to know a few of those. So I'm going to sing your praises a little bit, which makes you uncomfortable, but you are so well received by the community and you work so hard to um, see big picture and, and you're, you are well received with the business community and with your, your parents and your students and what is it? What is the magic that makes that happen?
I don't think it's magic. I mean you're you're you're looking at me today and I have a button up shirt, jeans and tennis shoes on. It's friday, that's how we work it in Gilbert public schools and I think we're, and it goes back to Wally Galecki, it's that humanistic approach, um, that's the hardest part of the job because there's many times when you can't be that person, the situations don't dictate or you got to make those tough decisions. And so I think if you're just, if you're just true to yourself, I'm pretty much the same person at home that I am here maybe a little bit, although my boys did call me Hannah Montana for a while just because I had two different identities, but uh, you gotta love that, right?
But it was, but I think essentially it's, it's who you are and you know, and if you let people in, I think sometimes leaders are afraid to let people into them and who they are personally and I'm okay with that. I mean, you're gonna accept me for who I am one way or the other or you're not and, and you know, that's up to the individual because that's what I should be doing as, as, as an educational leaders, we have kids and families and staff members from all different backgrounds walks of life, different beliefs, political systems, whatever.
And you know, that doesn't bother me, I, I just want to make sure you're a good person. And if you're not, let's talk about that, let's get you on that path. So a little ptsD, but let's talk about your leadership the last two years. Oh yeah, probably the toughest two years of your entire career, I would guess. Um And yet, um you kept things moving and you kept everybody feeling really comfortable. And I'm curious, especially when it comes to your leadership team, how did you continue to inspire and see them through that without yourself?
You know, losing a little bit of of hope. Sometimes I'll tell you it, that's the best part is that it was a team effort. And when I say team, you know, folks in my cabinet, uh the administrators, teachers, you know, everyone support staff, uh and also the governing board, you know, they had a rough go of it as well. And um it kind of brought them even closer together to a degree. Um You've got five different people from five different walks of life and beliefs and thoughts, and but what everyone learned was about compromise and you know, geographically where we're setting again, you had clashes of uh political beliefs when it came to a pandemic.
And um that's okay. Um and you got to step back and look at it differently about again, what is best for kids, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, you might have thought this was best for kids. And then towards the middle of your, like, well, wait a minute, maybe that's a little bit different, You know, um a lot of kids suffered through this. Um, and a lot of families did, we would get videos of, of parents sending us clips of their kids crying at home because they couldn't go to school.
Um you know, and and you know, those types of things or if we did open up and go to school, we'd get email saying you're, you're gonna kill kids. And so I mean there was playing on your psyche one way or the other. Um, but uh we communicated a lot with each other and we did a lot of check ins with each other. That pandemic. I remember it was during spring break of that year and I was putting ship lap on our kitchen island, having a great time.
It's always that time to kind of do a project that my wife wants. Right. Well, yeah, yeah, at least my wife thinks so my skills are not that good. Um but I turned and I listened and something came on the tv and I was like, how this doesn't sound good. So I called everybody in and two days later we shut the schools down, you know, for what we thought was going to be a week. Uh we, we do look back now and laugh at ourselves a little bit just because we thought this thing would be done in over two weeks tops.
Well, I think the whole world did. Yeah. and it was eerie around here because we showed up to work every single day, you know, when a lot of people were not, we showed up every single day, sometimes Saturdays and Sundays and um, but it was eerie when you drive around town and there was nothing going on. I mean it was, that was that freaked me out a little bit, but what do you think came out of it? That's positive, either a lesson that you learned or something that's been implemented?
I learned lessons every day. Sarah that and I'm wrong. Uh, so many times during the day. Um, and that's what I love about education. That's what I love about leadership is that you're never going to be right all the time. You're going to make mistakes and you can beat yourself up over it. Some are bigger than others, but you gotta, you gotta continue to believe in yourself and you got to surround yourself with some phenomenal people. Uh, what I learned a lesson learned, um, man or what we gained out of it.
Maybe let me look, let me, let me take it from that point of view. I think um, there are certain things that skills that people acquired during that time that they continue to use for kids today. Um, we learned that at parent teacher conferences, there's more than one way to get a hold of a parent and to get them in. We've learned how to communicate differently with families. Uh and we've also learned that um how valuable we are to families. And I think families actually realize that a little bit different to, um, but we uh we continue to grow, we continue to build on those lessons and hold them.
I mean when we first went remote, there was a bottleneck in the internet service and it just, it we were just geared up ready to go with, our chests were pumped up, pumped out, ready to roll. We knew this was going to go off without a hitch half hour into it. We're like, oh my god, and what happened here, you know? And so some things were working, some weren't, and so we learned from that, but it wasn't anybody's fault necessarily. I think that's the other thing, I think people want to blame a lot of people about a lot of things and I think that's come up over the last couple of years and not just pandemic, but politics and um we can't, we can't do that.
We can spend all of our time pointing fingers at people and uh making them believe they're the cause of all of our issues. But um that's that shouldn't be the case. We've got to work together. I know it's a household what we learned is that my kids actually do want to go to school, isn't it? I mean? And I think, you know, even our staffs like, okay, this is great for a while, but we miss kids. We miss seeing them and yeah, and when we first started going back and it was hybrid and I'd walk and I'd go through schools and you would just see a totally different mindset and just energy.
And so do you ever wonder about the path not taken of maybe just staying in the classroom and what life might be like? Oh yeah, So I got to sub because in january when omicron hit and well, it actually that portion of it in terms of hitting our schools was worse than any other time during the pandemic. And in terms of substitutes And we, uh, we didn't have enough subs. I mean, we have 400 on our roster ready to roll, but even half of them were like, no, I'm not working, which I understand.
I mean, that's, that's a choice they can make. I ended up subbing in a 6th grade classroom at Pioneer Elementary and um, you know, I got home and I was like, well, here we go, let me, let me just go do this, you know? Um, but, but it was also good for me and granted, I can't begin to explain What a teacher goes through today compared to what I went through, you know, 20 years ago. I mean, that's that would be asinine to me to actually think that, but um, I know that eh, it's, it's about attitude in anything we do and be, you gotta be prepared as much as you can.
Good teachers plan extremely well and I think we have just a ton of teachers that do that and I think they also learned some of that through the pandemic as well. And so, uh, we've got to cut him some slack sometimes to absolutely rough little world. Hey, this has been a great conversation. I've learned a ton from. You have a lot of respect for you and what you do for our district and the town of Gilbert. So thank you. Thank you very much. As the father of nine Children, I can say we take full advantage of your resources.
Nine Children. I thought you were kidding when you mentioned that outside. I just thought you picked a number out of the air. Nine. Alright. I figured you could relate. Wow, wow, wow. I have to. And two plus 33,000, Yeah. Two plus 33,000 and three dogs. Yeah. We didn't even spend any time talking about my dogs, but we'll do that Maybe at another segment if you have a pet segment, but you have to say how cool it is that your sons both went into service oriented fields. They, they are, you know, it's in its different conversations with each one.
When the oldest one talks to me about fire fighting. You know, he'll tell me about people who die. You know, I worry about that for him. Uh, psychologically and um he handles it well, but I know when he doesn't because he'll want to talk about certain things for a little bit longer and that's okay. That's what we're here for. Well, it's always an honor to spend time with you. You actually, I just want to tell our listeners that you've actually served as a mentor to me and I've learned so much from you these past few years, especially I've leaned on you a lot and I always think to myself when I'm having a bad day, Shane stays probably much worse.
And so I thank you for being there. Like, well somebody is worse off than me today. I appreciate that. That's good. No, you've just led with such dignity and integrity and you really do take time to listen and involve your stakeholders and from a very genuine place. And so I've always respected that about you, thank you very much. I appreciate it and love spending time here. So what an amazing episode. Right, And if you like this, we have plenty more subscribe to our tribe and join our fans and you can learn about all these great episodes we have, we'll set them right to you.
Thanks for being here today. Thank you, guiding growth conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast, This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story, or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand.
Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you, reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
