Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 116: State Superintendent Molly Hart — a former CSD Principal — Carries CSD with her Every Day
It was a job at the Canyons School District that first brought Dr. Molly Hart to Utah from Georgia’s education system.
Good thing.
After a month-long search, the Utah State Board of Education recently named Hart, former principal of Mount Jordan and Albion middle schools, the state’s new state superintendent of public instruction. She’s been on the job since July 1.
I would not be here if it weren't for my experience in Canyons,” Hart said in a recent interview with Connect Canyons about her new appointment. Education in every state is “very, very different,” she said.
Hart, a recent guest on the CSD podcast, says her Canyons colleagues certainly influenced the trajectory of her career.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Connect Canyons, a podcast about learning and teaching in the Canyons School District. Today we have a very special guest, dr Molly Hart, the newly named State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who first entered Utah's education system in 2012 as a Canyons District Principal at Mount Jordan Middle School and then later Albion Middle School. She brings to the state's superintendency more than 25 years of experience in education. She's also served on the Utah State Board of Education for nine years and as Executive Director of Utah's Summit Academy, a K-12 charter school with multiple campuses in Salt Lake County. She has been widely recognized for her contributions to education, earning the Vocational Teacher of the Year Award, the Utah PTA Outstanding School Administrator Award and also the Canyon School District's 2024 Elected Official of the Year Apex Award. District's 2024 Elected Official of the Year Apex Award.
Speaker 2:Dr Hart, thank you so much for taking time from your busy schedule to join us on Connect Canyons today. Glad to be here. Dr Hart, could we start off, please, with you telling us about your journey in education, how and where it started and how you ended up as Utah's top education leader? You're not a native to Utah, is that correct? That is correct.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Michigan and attended Michigan State University and then left for Georgia, actually, and that's where I started my teaching career. I actually couldn't become a teacher like I wanted to at Michigan State because you had to give up all your jobs in order to be in the teacher ed program because student teaching and practicums their policy was that you had to spend so much time doing those things you couldn't have a side job, and I put myself through school. So what I did was became a social worker first and then graduated, got a job as a social worker and promptly enrolled in a teacher add-on teacher certification, master's add-on and became a teacher that way, and I just was determined to become a teacher. After working in social work and then getting my teaching license, I substituted because it was the middle of the year and secured a spot as a paraprofessional as well. And then, when an opening came up, I was a fifth grade and sixth grade teacher in elementary school. When they changed sixth grade to the middle school, I went with the students and joined the middle school, and that's where I discovered my true love, which is middle school. Oh, bless you. So I was an elementary principal for a little while then a middle school principal for a long time.
Speaker 3:And then my husband and I wanted to see a different part of the country and we wanted our kids to see. They had grown up in the South and we wanted to move to another region and my husband had an opportunity for a job out here in Utah and we thought we'll try the west for a while. We got here, we thought we were only going to be here for four years or so and we fell in love with it and we've been here ever since. Part of the reason we fell in love with it is because I had a job in Canyons and Mount Jordan Middle School and one of the first things that we were tasked with is rebuilding Mount Jordan Middle School and that was the project of my career. Quite frankly, I loved that project to be able to have the opportunity to reimagine middle school and what it could be and what a facility can offer a community, not just as a middle school but as a building that could be repurposed for multiple educational opportunities. We were very intentional about the build. We were very intentional about the build and we had a great architect and builder that understood the vision and I just loved that project and then I moved up to Albion Middle School state and it was a collaborative effort between parents, teachers, students, principals, and the arts is very important to the Albion community. We did some innovative things with electives, so students were very well-rounded and our students performed well academically. We did a lot of work to make sure that when students were showing signs that they were struggling, we intervened very quickly. We built an amazing program that parents, students and teachers could be very proud of.
Speaker 3:And then I jumped over to the charter world. I was spending quite a bit of time working on the board. At that time I went to the other end of the valley, down in the summits, down in the Bluffdale area mostly, but there is a campus in Draper too Really looked at increasing choice opportunities for students and meeting the needs of students in an environment. We built a eSports arena. We added dual immersion programs One of the very few German immersion programs is at Summit.
Speaker 3:The state superintendent stepped down and the day I decided that maybe this was something I would consider was a Canyons parent, I ran into them in a restaurant and I was eating dinner with an employee of USBE and they were trying to convince me that I should consider becoming the next superintendent. Trying to convince me that I should consider becoming the next superintendent and she offhandedly said I'm trying to convince her to be the next state superintendent. And the parent was go get them and you need to do this and you need to try and so before that it hadn't occurred to you no it hadn't.
Speaker 3:I was on the board I was more worried about getting a search committee together, and the more I thought about it I realized that there are so many opportunities and I could bring some of the experiences that I had to the superintendency and it just really became more and more exciting to me, and so I said to my fellow board members I'm going to be a candidate, so I'm off the. No more communication about the search committee, I'm jumping over to the candidate pool.
Speaker 2:You took a step back.
Speaker 3:I did, I took a step back and cut those communication streams so that it was a fair and good process, and clean process, so you're also ethical. Yes, that matters to me. And now we're here. What?
Speaker 2:role, would you say, did your time at Canyons have into the superintendency?
Speaker 3:Oh, I would not be here if it weren't for my experience in Canyons. People don't realize how different each state is and I was accomplished and I had led several turnarounds in my previous district out of state. But I got to Canyons and Utah has a different way of educating. Every state is very different. If I didn't have the colleagues that I had in the fellow middle school principals, colleagues that I had in the fellow middle school principals in the administration at the time in Canyons, and the staff at Mount Jordan, I would not be here. I absolutely would not be here. I wouldn't exchange my time in Canyons for anything. What is built in Canyons is really special and I carry and use the lessons that I learned with me every day.
Speaker 2:You received Canyon District's Apex Award as Elected Official of the Year. I'm sure that was exciting, validating, also humbling.
Speaker 3:probably Tell us about that when, I felt like Canyons was my home. It had so many layers of satisfaction to it. I was proud of the work in Canyons and I was proud that I could contribute, not just as part of Canyons, but as somebody supporting Canyons. When I decided to run and then became school board member and elected official, I did it because I wanted things to be better and extraordinary for our teachers, really and truly. That's why I ran in the first place, and then to have that recognized by Canyons was so meaningful to me.
Speaker 3:It just brought it full circle, because to me, I always wanted people to know that the reason I did it was for teachers, was for schools. It wasn't for me. It wasn't because I love politics, for heaven's sake. It was because I wanted things to be better, and so it just brought it full circle for me. If I didn't think we were going in a good direction, I probably shouldn't be in my position, though. So I think you have to have an unending sense of hope, and that's a hallmark characteristic of an educator is to believe, no matter what, that you can make a difference, and I carry that with me into the superintendency. And because of my willingness to have those conversations, I am building those relationships with legislators, those relationships with legislators.
Speaker 2:I've only been on the job since July 1st Maybe an unfair question. Your experience in education, you would know. What do you think are the main challenges and opportunities in education in Utah today?
Speaker 3:One of the biggest opportunities is to get everybody rowing in the same direction. We all have been in multiple person kayaks or canoes and people are not rowing in the same direction and the boat goes nowhere. And you're working even harder and you're going nowhere, or somebody's not rowing at the right cadence and you end up going in circles. That's what education? If you're not careful, that's what can happen in a state or an organization, and so, as state superintendent, one of our opportunities is an opportunity for me to help get everybody rowing in the same thing as the opportunity oh absolutely.
Speaker 3:When. Is it not just different sides of the same coin? The problem is, when we don't coordinate, or we're trying to do too much, or the legislature is trying to do too much. You're always just trying to find that sweet spot, and that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Utah's school children, actually throughout the country are they grow up? They're growing up in a different way than we are. They're facing a lot of more interesting challenges. There's a lot of homelessness. There's a lot of need out there. There's AI coming on board. What's your take on all these things? How do you help those kids deal with all these new things that most of us didn't grow up with?
Speaker 3:We have to be very careful and intentional about jumping on any sort of bandwagon, first of all and second of all, not forgetting what's our main thing. And our main thing is Everybody wants children to succeed. Everybody wants our school children to be ready for whatever their next step is, whether it's a second grade being ready for third grade, whether it's a high school student being ready for whatever their next step is. We just want our students to be well prepared. We want our students to be able to move with ease throughout their life, whatever it may be. Move with ease throughout their life, whatever it may be.
Speaker 3:And so we need to look at all those things. Whether it's AI or it's some other challenge. We need to think about what do we want students to be able to do or handle? And then we think about the tools, or we think about the barriers, or we have got to keep our North Star, and our North Star is to make sure students are ready to learn. A lot of energy lamenting the realities and how much the world has changed, even in five years since the pandemic, but that's not our job. Our job is not to lament or to jump on bandwagons. Our job is to figure out what's best for our children regarding those things and make a plan and move forward.
Speaker 2:You've got to keep that North Star. You're in the superintendency. You've also been in the classroom. How do you best help students? Is it from the bottom up? Is it from the top down? Is it some mix in between?
Speaker 3:Yeah, first of all, the minute you leave the classroom, you must acknowledge that you are obsolete. I don't care if you are the national teacher of the year, the international teacher of the year, the most popular teacher at the school you are at the minute you leave the classroom you are obsolete. You need to keep your ear to the ground and talk to the people who are actually teaching, because reality changes and so that, remembering your limitation, my limitations I was in the classroom a long time ago. So, yes, I have that background, but I am not the expert. But I am not the expert. So, to answer your question, it's a mix.
Speaker 3:You've got to make sure that you're not making assumptions. People are not making assumptions about things that other people could speak on more eloquently and with more detail and nuance. But, at the same time, a teacher's worldview is their classroom and that's an N of one. You also have to talk to superintendents and you have to keep your ears wide open to the parent experience. We have to make sure that we're listening to people that have varying perspectives the perspective of a community organization or, let's say, an employer. They have a different perspective on our education system than our classroom teacher. Both are equally as valid and we need to hear from all of them. And then we need to make specific plans, be transparent about those plans and move forward in making improvements.
Speaker 2:Last question In its most basic, boiled down to its pure essence form what is your job as Utah State Superintendent for Public Instruction?
Speaker 3:My job is to bring those voices together, bring a multiplicity of voices together and then serve all of them. As an educational leader in the state, my day includes meeting with higher education, with parent groups, with internal employees in the agency. I lead USBE, the agency under the direction of the board, and the board is comprised of elected citizens that lead education and I then lead their army in implementing and executing their vision. I also provide, along with our staff, provide information and those resources to the board so that they can make good decisions and interface with the legislature so they too can make good decisions. My job is varied.
Speaker 3:The agency is the agency that distributes all funding for schools. So, whether it's federal funding or state funding, it comes through our agency and we have a responsibility to distribute that fairly and accurately. We also have a responsibility to share data we collect from the student information systems and we have a duty to then share that information up to the legislature, out to the communities and down throughout our agency so that good decisions can be made by all parties. As state superintendent, the role is multifaceted it's bringing people together, it's executing the mission, it's sharing information and it's the keeper of that North Star. My job is to keep the focus on the children of Utah.
Speaker 2:Great Thank you. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 3:It's been really fun for me.
Speaker 2:Informative, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
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