Session 1: Manage Stress or It will Manage You

"On life's vast ocean, diversely we sail. Reason the card [map], but passion is the gale."

Alexander Pope (1.1)

The large red-tailed hawk flew effortlessly above the fields of swaying grain and green grass blending together on the landscape surrounding the heart of Gartree Center, Iowa. The predator, common to the fields and skies of this area, glided gently with the air currents of the sunny afternoon sky painted with an occasional wispy white cloud. Its objective was simple, to feed its young located in a nest not far from Gartree Center's training facility. Gartree Center, located near Interstate 80 and about sixty miles west of Des Moines, Iowa has prided itself on the development of this training facility. The facility, since its construction almost twenty years ago, has provided a service to farmers, Farm Bureau trainers, bankers, state and local officials, farm equipment company representatives, educators, and other individuals committed to the growth of this once primarily agricultural area.

As with other parts of Iowa, a state where 90 percent of the land had been devoted to agriculture (1.2), change has taken over the region surrounding Gartree Center. With fields of dark soil valued for its fertile nature, the area for many years had been considered to be a major provider of food to the nation's kitchen tables and the cattle industry's feedlots. However, in the last two decades, instead of seeing the annual conversion of the fields from one crop to another to preserve the quality of the soil, the land has been converted to vast tracts of home and condominium communities. These communities now provide employees for the companies that have sprouted up around Des Moines and along the area's interstate highway. Business centers and malls have risen from the ground to support this burgeoning population. The vast fields of corn, besides providing for cattle feedlots around the region, have in recent times become the source for fructose in our beverages, or ethanol for our gasoline engines, or the home of massive wind farms. Below the blue sky, now with heavier white clouds floating over the horizon, much still appears the same. However, much has also changed.

Gartree Center's public schools have been a window for the changes in the surrounding area. There has been a dramatic increase in class size and the need to expand the building capacity to accommodate the growing population. Along with this boom in population there has been a change in the culture of the community including expanded diversity among the families served. Add to this mix the heavier demands placed on the schools from an increasingly competitive world and the result is a learning environment that has been constantly evolving, and leaders who are looking for ways to respond to the changes and move forward. In this mid-sized Iowa town, the superintendent, the principal for the centralized K-12 school and the single department head who oversees curriculum and student services, comprise the leadership team tasked with keeping the learning field thriving.

Gartree Center has had a long history of supporting the growth in its community, regardless of whether it is in the fertile fields producing rows of corn and soy bean, or in the lively classrooms of its public schools. It is this tradition of concern for growth that had led to the construction with great pride of the training facility in town. In line with this background, the school board has had a solid record of supporting its leaders and encouraging their development. As part of this ongoing effort, Char (short for Charlene) Borde, its head, has engaged the services of a highly regarded trainer to work with the leadership team to help them develop strategies to reduce the stress typically connected with managing and leading an organization. The board has recognized that in an era of diminished resources, it is important for an organization to support its leaders in their efforts to utilize approaches which increase their focus on the existing goals. In education, this goal is about helping young people develop to their fullest potential and to become productive and contributing members of the community.

On this warm summer day Trey Norman lumbered out of his dusty and road weary SUV, walked across the parking lot, and headed through the doors of the training facility, navigating down the hallway toward the A-1 Training Room off to the right. Trey, a mountain of a man, had driven his SUV, which he affectionately calls Sushi, from his ranch in Jardine, Montana, a community of under a hundred about six miles up a winding road from Gardiner, Montana at the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Growing up in Jardine and attending school in Gardiner, he has spent his entire life in the shadows of Montana's splendid mountain scenery. The trip to central Iowa was a pleasant change of pace for him. "Where else," he would say to the group as part of his introduction, "could you see this much flat land."

A star athlete in high school on a football team that fielded only eight players on each side of the ball, typical of small town Montana sports, Trey married his high school sweetheart, Mia Culpa. Mia, the eldest daughter of two attorneys, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, but had moved to the area from Seattle, Washington with her parents. Her family lived north of Gardiner in another small town, Emigrant, located in the vast Paradise Valley. After finishing high school, Trey and Mia, newly married, headed up the road to Bozeman to attend Montana State University. Having both graduated with a major in education, Trey and Mia decided to try a new world and go to Boston, where Trey ultimately completed a CAGS degree in school psychology and worked in a suburban school for eight years.

"Just loved the city," he told the leadership team as he stood before them in the training room. "Became quite a Red Sox fan and loved eating the fresh fish. For a guy who grew up eating trout caught in the rivers and lakes near my home in Jardine, learning the names of the variety of fish and seafood that could be ordered on menus in Boston was like learning a new language. At one point though, it got to be that I missed the family of elk or the occasional grizzly bear that would sometimes parade across our back yard in Jardine. It was then I knew it was time to head back home. When we decided to move, the family van, now with three active children in the rear, headed west. After a stop of three years in Minneapolis to complete my Ph.D. in organizational psychology, it was off to Montana for us." The chance to provide training and consultation for a school leadership team and to be in Iowa in a new setting on the Great Plains was an opportunity he could not wait to begin, Trey thought to himself as he looked around the training room table for someone else to talk. However, there was also that trepidation he recognized he always felt when starting with a new group.

Dr. Sue Perintendi began her work in Gartree Center almost ten years ago as the head of curriculum. She arrived in the midst of a period of tremendous growth in the school district and ascended quickly to the superintendent's position. This change took place seven years ago when the previous leader decided to fulfill his lifelong dream and return to the family farm in nearby Madison County, known for all its covered bridges. Suze, as she prefers to be called by close colleagues, had a connection to the land as the child of migrant farm workers from El Salvador working in the vineyards of Livermore, California outside of San Francisco. After completing her public school education in Livermore, she headed across the country seeking a new experience. This journey ended in Buffalo, New York where she completed her graduate school education and also met her husband at the University of Buffalo. She told the group during the introductions, "We loved Buffalo. However, I also knew I wanted get out of an urban environment and find a place that felt like a city, but at the same time gave me easy access to the open farmland I knew so well as a young child. Des Moines seemed to have the balance of these elements.

"When my husband, Alfredo, also an educator, and I saw two teaching opportunities in the Des Moines Public Schools," Sue continued, "we said let's go for it. It's now been twenty four years living in the city and a decision we've never regretted." Sue drives about an hour every day from her home in central Des Moines to Gartree Center. Coincidentally, Gartree Center has taken on many of the faces of California with its increasing population of families from Latin America working on the farms and factory floors in the area. "It's so wonderful in the town to be able to speak Spanish again and to hear the occasional Latin beat blasting on a radio from a passing car," Sue said to the group. After concluding her thoughts, she paused and then blurted out, "So that you are aware, Trey, in case you hear Latin music suddenly emanating from my bag, it may be the ring tones from my cell phone. We are expecting the birth of my first grandchild, and I'm leaving the phone on in case my husband calls with any news."

Prince Ipplefield's path to Gartree Center was much different. He was born in Pensacola, Florida just as his dad was leaving his government position as an electronics technician at the U.S. Navy base there. "Dad always wanted to be a farmer," he told the group. "He always remembered and talked about his days growing up on his family's farm in the community of Mars Hill, North Carolina. When an old Navy buddy told him about the availability of farm property in Bayard, Iowa just north of here, he took my mom and all six of us in the family station wagon on a trip here, feeding his other passion by visiting every roller coaster park along the way. Needless to say, he fell in love with the rolling contour of the land around Bayard and purchased the farm." Prince continued. "When the News Gazette in Bayard announced our arrival in town, there must have been thirty families that visited the house, bringing pies and food from their gardens as part of a welcome. Not a one showed any indication of concern that we were the only African-American family ever to live in the area. Dad always said this experience was the sign of acceptance of a real community and confirmed for him that this is where we should be."

Prince continued this love of the area. He gained recognition in high school for his prowess as an athlete in several sports. After graduating from high school with honors, he received a student-athlete scholarship to Wartburg College in eastern Iowa. Once he obtained his undergraduate degree in mathematics, he went to Iowa State University for a degree in education. This training led to his being hired as a teacher and then an assistant principal in nearby Perry, Iowa. When offered the principal's position in Gartree Center six years ago, he saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime, he confided. "I can drive to work from our home in Bayard in about twenty minutes, have dinner with my wife and three kids, and get back to school for night meetings. I even have time many mornings to get out in the field to help my dad, now in his late seventies, who still farms. Being part of this community has been something special."

Providing leadership for the curriculum issues and overseeing student services in the district for the last seven years is Hedda Departmento. One of nine children growing up in an apartment in the northern section of the Bronx in New York City, Hedda spent her time after the school day helping out in her dad's pizza parlor, one of the most popular hang-outs in the neighborhood. She loved looking at her dad twirl the pizza dough on his index finger and throw it in the air while making a new pie. Most observers thought this was done just for a show, but Hedda knew that the twirling in fact stretched the dough to make it fit the entire pan on which the pizza was cooked. Hedda even got to be pretty good at making pizza herself, though she always preferred reading her books while at the store. Hedda always felt she was a little different from other kids in the neighborhood. She reported, "I knew I had to get away and learn about the world beyond 233 Street in the Bronx." She achieved this by staying with extended family in Italy for several years upon her high school graduation and seeing all of Europe while there.

Somehow, while overseas, she learned of a small school called Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, and decided to attend there. It turned out to be an ideal and supportive place to feed her passion for learning about the world, a quality that led her to the career path of teaching, then curriculum development. Iowa seemed to be the last place this girl from the Bronx would settle, but when her partner found a job in agribusiness in West Des Moines, she decided it was time to try something new. "I could not have made a better choice," she proudly stated, now having been in the area for fifteen years. "This region, in particular Gartree Center, has been a real community, thoroughly accepting of individuals with all different perspectives on life and eager to engage whoever wants to contribute. It's a little like my old neighborhood in the Bronx where we had the feeling of being one community, all located within the boundaries of several city blocks. However, here that same feeling comes from a larger geographic area, as families are spread out of over many square miles."

Having completed the introductions, Trey recognized it was time to start the training program. Making this transition to a new group was always a challenge for him. While passionate about the material and the connections he always made with a new geographic area and different people, this feeling was always tinged with a bit of sadness. Beginning these sessions also means being away from my home, my wife and my three children, he allowed himself to think for a passing moment, but I just need to move ahead and be positive as I have l learned to do over time. "Wow, what a group, all with such interesting life journeys on your way to Gartree Center!" Trey commented as he pushed his wire-framed spectacles up the length of his nose. "Time to begin, I guess." Looking around the room at the three participants, Trey's right hand stroked his lightly bearded chin and he began. "I know you are aware that Char Borde asked me to stop down here to talk about some ideas that could help you address the stress experienced in your position.

"The board, Char tells me, is quite pleased with your collective and individual work as members of a leadership team. It wants to ensure that each of you has the tools to sustain the creativity to develop solutions for the challenges facing the school district in the years ahead. From Char's description of these challenges," Trey continued, "what you find challenging is quite similar to what leaders in a wide range of fields encounter. She thought it would be helpful if we began our sessions by identifying these challenges. Reviewing these could also serve as a good starting point for our conversations today, if you agree. In addition, it's my feeling that it always helps to know what other leaders are facing. I have listed these challenges (1.3) on Slide #1-1. I think the information should be self-explanatory. Let me know your thoughts on these."

Sue looked briefly towards the others on the leadership team, then decided to speak first. "It is interesting to see this perspective, Trey, and it does offer a framework for the challenges we face in public education. In fact, I meet with members of the business community at the Chamber of Commerce on a monthly basis and many of the problems we talk about are similar." "So you're saying there are some common concerns shared, Suze," Trey commented. Before Sue could respond, Hedda spoke affirmatively without looking her way. "There are similarities in many ways with the broad categories you identified and what we experience in public education, Trey, but some of the specifics, I think, are different."

Trey thought for a moment that Hedda's interruption of her supervisor at this point in the training seemed awkward and a bit out of the ordinary. While he pondered, Hedda continued. "For example, the global economy does impact us. I suspect we in education are less conscious of which country abroad produces our learning tools. For sure though, the pressure of competing in an international arena has been a driving force in the standards-based teaching and standardized testing which has become a large part of the school culture. In addition, to some degree the changes in the global economy have forced workers and their families to relocate into our geographic area as the economies in their countries struggle. This relocation has also led to the challenges faced with teaching and managing classrooms now that we have a more diverse student population.