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Kevin Baxter: Hello, and welcome to Now. Here. This., a podcast for Catholic school leaders where we learn from inspiring individuals about their experiences leading others. My name is Kevin Baxter, and I'm the director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program at the University of Notre Dame and your host for the podcast. Today, we're speaking with Greg Richmond, the superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Greg announced in May that he'll be leaving his role at the end of August, which is still about a week away as we record this episode. So it's a great opportunity for us to speak and allow him to reflect on his work and impact in one of the largest Catholic school systems in the country. So Greg, thanks so much for being with us here on Now. Here. This.
Greg Richmond: My pleasure, Kevin. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Kevin Baxter: Yes. So the first question we kind of ask everybody, just reflecting on your own leadership journey in terms of how you kind of imagine that or, or remember that. Did you see elements of leadership at a
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young age, or how and when did you really recognize maybe this affinity for leading others in yourself?
Greg Richmond: Wow. Well, that's a good first question. As I think about it, I'm not recalling a point, like in my youth, that I would've described myself as a leader. And I even pause or hesitate to overuse the word on myself now as an adult. And what I mean by that, I feel like that word gets used a lot in some circles. If you go on LinkedIn, that's... it feels like every post is about leaders and leadership, and it gets used casually. I recognize that to, to be in the role of a superintendent is a leadership role, but I find myself more comfortable using the word service-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: as opposed to leadership. I mean, 'cause I think... I believe in servant leadership.
Kevin Baxter: Sure.
Greg Richmond: So for me, it's around how... it's not as much about how can I be... how am I a leader,
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it's how can I be of service? How can I be of service to, well, to anyone in any situation, but in the role of the superintendent, I primarily think it is service to our schools, service to our school principals, our school leaders. That's interesting. I'm very comfortable saying to our principals that they're a leader. Every time we meet, I talk about them as, the fact and appreciation of their leadership of their schools. I find the word for myself, thinking of how can I be of service to others, to our schools, to our principals, but then also how, how to be of service, because it, it's not just about being of service to others no matter what. It's around service toward a mission.
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: How can I be of service to others so that we all can better accomplish our mission?
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: And so I do recognize I'm in a position of leadership, which gives me the ability to, like, to reach out to many folks, and people have
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perceptions of my authority, so that I am in a leadership role. I think I view it as an opportunity to be of service to people and to a mission.
Kevin Baxter: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I was gonna... It's so funny you talked about the principals and, and referring to them as school leaders. I was gonna push back on you a little bit too and say, how much of this is our own sense of not wanting to kind of feel that way or be seen that way? You know, Ann Garrido has a great book about power, Redeeming Power, and talks a little bit about this discomfort we feel with power or authority.
Greg Richmond: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Baxter: And yet, in the Christian mind, there is something to being able to have influence, and how do we think about that in a humble way, right?
Greg Richmond: Yeah.
Kevin Baxter: But I love your concept of service. Even thinking about that, is that something that you feel like you've had for most of your life in terms of where you've approached, even your work prior to being superintendent in Chicago, this idea of like, a servant's heart, a servant's approach to, to how you wanna work with people?
Greg Richmond: I think so. Where, where it
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most clearly comes to mind is I think back to earlier in my career. I spent over 10 years working in the central administration of the Chicago Public Schools, and for most of those 10 years, I was running the charter schools office. I didn't start out doing it because when I started, there were no charter schools. So I just kinda, like, fell into this new thing was created. They're called charter schools. The superintendent told me to figure out what to do. Very exploratory. We had dozens; I think the very first year, 44 different groups came to us saying they were interested in starting a charter school.
Kevin Baxter: Mm.
Greg Richmond: Educators from within our own schools, family foundations, community organizations, and I feel like as I reflect back on it, how can I help these folks who have these, actually most have very compelling visions of what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, who they're trying to help. How could I be of service to help them
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accomplish those visions? In that kind of setting, and that's what's a bit unique about the charter school idea, is that like, it's not the headquarters people who are telling folks what to do. The ideas are coming from the grassroots. So in that setting, my role is around enabling others to achieve that vision.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: I don't mean it critically. The rest of the public school district administrations are in the business of telling schools what to do.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: So that's when I think back of, well, when did this kind of service practice begin? There probably were elements of it before that, that like maybe made me disposed to it or ready to act in that way, but that's when I first identified it and very much have carried much of that philosophy with me into the superintendent of the Catholic school system-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm
Greg Richmond: where, I've said all along, I say to the folks in the, in our offices downtown, "There are no kids that show up in our offices in the morning. You know, they all show up in the
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schools. And so we're not teaching anybody here. You know, we only exist to help those that are teaching be successful."
Kevin Baxter: I used to say something similar with a little bit of a twist, but I used to tell folks, especially those who just worked in the chancery office and never had the, the blessing really of working in a school environment, but that you are working to support student learning.
Greg Richmond: Yep.
Kevin Baxter: Because it's very easy to forget that when you're in a chancery office every day.
Greg Richmond: Yeah.
Kevin Baxter: But even those who are just kind of, you know, the administrative assistant, you know, kind of at the reception desk or whatever it was, I'd say, you know, "You're helping to support student learning today, so don't ever forget that's your, your role and your mission," so.
Greg Richmond: That's right, and when, when folks actually can feel that, even those folks that might take some persuasion, when they actually can feel it, believe it, that actually energizes them. Yes, I'm part of this mission also. I'm making a contribution to it also.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. So you mentioned a little bit your work in the Chicago Public Schools office, and then you were president and CEO of the National Association of
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Charter School Authorizers, and so you had this really robust career, and then you moved to the Catholic school system. So how did that prior experience help shape your work in the diocese and, and kind of what brought you to it after having that, that prior experience in the public sector?
Greg Richmond: I think what, what brought me to it, a number of people have asked me that over the years, and I mean, it's a totally legitimate question. I spent more than 25 years in public education, and then, like, seemingly just switched overnight into Catholic education. Maybe you'd say that's true. But two things I feel like brought me to the role of, of being a superintendent of Catholic schools. One is the fact that while I was in the Chicago Public Schools doing all that charter school work, we actually had some interactions with the Catholic school system. There were any number of folks... I think I came over, it's ironic in hindsight, to where our offices are now, and, like you've been there, you know.
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Yeah. Like, I came over to those conference rooms several times over the years to talk with, you know, superintendents at the time, Elaine Schuster, Nick Wolsonovich, what's a charter school as they considered... So we had conversations with them. It never was something that was a fit, but it was a bit ironic for me when I started the job as superintendent. It's like, "Oh, I've been here. I've been in this conference room." So the, the Catholic schools from a professional standpoint, that was, it's an institution that we interacted with, and Catholic schools are part of the fabric of the city of Chicago, you know, very strong historical way. And, and so I've lived in Chicago for a few decades now. So it-- the Catholic schools were part of the life of our city. They're an institution in our city. I had professional interactions with them. But then on a personal note my kids went to Catholic schools.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: I was on our school board, of our parish school board. I was the, I was the chair of the parish school board.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
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Greg Richmond: And got a bit of a glimpse of what that meant, of like how do, how does a Catholic school operate? But mostly from the standpoint as like, well, sure, like I'm Catholic. You know, my mom was a Catholic teacher. My kids went to Catholic schools. So when the opportunity came, there's an opening, it felt natural for me to consider it. Whereas I can understand, I did have some others say to me when I was first announced as superintendent, they said, "Wait, you're Catholic?" Like, sure. And part of what that said to me, it's like a commentary on our society and I also found it true when I was in the public education space, you never talked about religion or your faith. It, it was an unknown part-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: of my life to my colleagues-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: because that was just not something you talked about in public education.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And
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that's what I've really grown to appreciate during my time in Catholic schools, is our ability, a critical ability to address the spiritual dimensions of ourselves as humans with young people and help them form that. And how important that is to be able to have that be part of an education just seems absolutely critical to me.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. And, and I think about it a lot in terms of the work we do here at the Remick program in terms of leadership formation. So much of that, it, it's a spiritual side, which obviously specific to the Catholic faith, but I just feel that reflective nature of leadership, which you wanna make sure is incorporated in, in any leadership role, public, private, religious or not. So it's just an element I think that's, that's really, really important. A group we are both familiar with, the Pahara Institute program through the Aspen Institute. We are both Pahara alums, and
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it's a program where you work with about 20, 25 other educators, kind of high-level leader educators, and do some deep reading and some reflection. And it was a really profound experience for me, and I know we share that. So I'm curious just how that helped to shape your leadership, and even just based on what we were just discussing, I was the only Catholic school person in the group at the time. I believe you weren't in your role yet when you did it, but-
Greg Richmond: Correct
Kevin Baxter: but I'm just kind of thinking about that in terms of how you came through that program and helped to shape your leadership.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, I'm glad you're asking about this because, yeah, I was in it about 10 years ago maybe 12. At that point in my career, I was running the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, so that’s a leadership role of a leadership organization. And I would say what Pahara did to me, and I would encourage people to find ways to do this, is to find ways ... What it empowered me to do is, like, to tap
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into the incredible history of human thought. Around the questions of why are we here?
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: How do you lead a good life? What does a good society look like? And just a wonderful opportunity to go back and read the voices of smart people from 100 years ago, but also 2,000 years ago or, or longer. And I really am, you know, just taken by the fact that we often think, "Oh, we're the, we're the modern society. Like, we're the pinnacle of human society." But no, like, 2,000 years ago, people were, were thinking thoughts and asking questions and providing answers that many of us still struggle with. So I really valued that opportunity to... Honestly, I think this is true for a lot of folks. I was so caught up in the day-to-day, you know, the immediate circle of organizations and work that I was enmeshed in, and then to, to be able to
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step back and have the opportunity to look at existential questions, I so much appreciated it. They do such a good job there on the readings and the discussions. There were, I think, two people within our group of 24 that would have those conversations about why are we here. There were two people that would incorporate references to God-
Kevin Baxter: Hmm ...
Greg Richmond: in their answers.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And when you're in public, as I had mentioned earlier, when you're in public education, you're like, you're not allowed to do-- you're not allowed to talk about that stuff. Even if you were a person of faith, you, like, didn't have the practice-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: about how do I, how do I sit here and talk about all this? So I noticed it at the time that... And it makes me sad in, in hindsight that you'd have so many people talking about these questions, and only two were willing to incorporate faith into their answers.
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Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: You know, the-- And it makes me so much more appreciative now that I'm in a context, a setting, environments where absolutely that's part of... Like, you-- In, in the Catholic education, you couldn't have those kind... It's like now the opposite is true. You could not have those conversations- Right ... without referencing faith, God, spirituality. So it's interesting parallel between the two, and I've thought of at times over the years, it was almost like the Aspen Institute or Pahara is like a non-spiritual pursuit of spiritual questions.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. One of the things they did with our group, and I'm assuming they... I really recognize is they tried to, I think, bring in people with a variety of different views and approaches, and whether those were political or otherwise, and I think they really wanted to engender some more... So I found that they tried to draw out of me sometimes more, more of that kind of Catholic-
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Greg Richmond: Yeah
Kevin Baxter: Catholic sensibility, because, I don't know, I don't think I was the token Catholic, but I do think there were... In some ways, that was something that I was bringing to the conversation that I think they appreciated. So it was, it was really, I don't know, I felt very affirmed in that way in terms of going through it, so.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, and the two folks and I don't want anyone to think of what I'm saying as critical of Pahara, because I love the program. They do an excellent job. There, there's just the reality of they're running this program in the society we’re in.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And yeah I found the two folks that I mentioned in our program kind of became the, "Hey, well, let's hear how a religious person would answer the question," right?
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. So you're wrapping up, obviously. Just how are you feeling about the work you've done and, and where Catholic schools are right now in the Archdiocese of Chicago as you kind of come to the end of, end of your five-year term there?
Greg Richmond: Well, how am I feeling is I feel bittersweet.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm. '
Greg Richmond: Cause, I mean, I just love, you know, Kevin,
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there are aspects of being a superintendent that are just so joyful and satisfying. And then I think you also know there are aspects that aren't as much. So I feel bittersweet and will miss the sweet parts. I feel very good about what's happening in our Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Number one, like with much of what I'm about to describe, I don't think is unique to the Archdiocese of Chicago, but ... because I think you go almost anywhere in the country and you go into a Catholic school and you meet people who are there for the mission. They're not there for the money. They're there because they care about the kids, they care about the mission, they care about fully developing children academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually. The communities in these schools are so strong, oftentimes going back generations. The academics are good. I mean, just, we have, we have great schools.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And I, I feel very good about that. I feel good about
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some of the ways we've been able to grow in recent years. I've made it an effort... Well, we were talking about earlier, that service mentality. The reason why we, downtown in the Office of Catholic Schools exist, is to be of service to help our schools succeed with kids. I think we're doing that. I think that philosophy exists. Now, it's true, there are aspects of the schools that are administration, finance, compliance. There's no escaping them, as those things are important, too. But I feel like as a system in our office, very much a service mentality is in place. Our schools are great. Academically, they're doing well. I think we're doing well in terms of students' faith development. But I say all that always believing we can do better.
Kevin Baxter: Sure.
Greg Richmond: You know, I'm one of these folks that likes to celebrate the progress and always think we can do better. So some specifics, like in reading, 93% of our
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schools are above the national average in terms of growth-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: in reading. More growth than average each year, which is great. 60% are above average in math growth. Hmm. Okay, so that's good. That's above 50. But I'm like, "Oh, there's an area where we need to figure out how to, how, how to do better." I'm feeling good about our schools and the things we've been able to accomplish in them, while recognizing there still are ways, where our schools can grow, and then as a system, we can support our schools to keep growing. I'm gonna mention, we just created... So I'm a big believer in goals.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And partly that's because, at least because I came from the charter school world.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And I was an... I didn't run the charter schools. I was the authorizer of charter schools. And for folks that don't know what that means, that means I worked for the public agencies that decided who gets a charter, who gets approved in the first place, and then monitors it. And then typically after five years determines are
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you good enough to stay open? All of that was driven by metrics and goals like, "Hey, here's where we want you to be in reading. Here's what we want your finances to look like." All that was driven by goals. So when I came in, in this job as superintendent, first thing I did in the first semester on the job was we created goals for our schools in academics, in faith, in school-- what we called school culture, finance, and enrollment. And we made some good progress in many of those areas. The thing I'm most excited about though, is that we just re- revisited and updated them and created a new goal, which we call belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Hmm.
Greg Richmond: So now these goals are, these are goals for our schools, and they apply to all of our schools. And I've, I've said to our teachers, "We're not creating these to punish you or, like, hold you accountable and say shame on you for..." We're, we're creating them so that we can work together you know, we can collaborate. Beause if everyone's just off doing their own thing, then you can't really work together.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: If we have some shared goals, then our
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office can support you and we can improve. So, but we've created a goal around belonging and the importance of students, not just students, you know, adults, everybody, but especially students, feeling that their school is a place where they belong, where people know who they are, people care about them, it's safe. That's a brand new goal we created this summer, and our schools have really embraced it and we're starting to do some fun, exciting things about it. So that, I'm, I'm very excited about the creation of that goal and, and eager to see where, where it goes.
Kevin Baxter: I love that. I also can appreciate the large system, you know, the larger system and how it's difficult sometimes to communicate goals and get everyone on board and, and so thinking about those things in, in bigger ways. And I also love the belonging concept, goal of course, but the concept of it. We talk sometimes about having welcoming schools and we want to be welcoming and, and that's important.
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But welcoming is one thing. Having students feel belonging is another. You know, we can have our doors open, people can walk through and not fully feel that sense of belonging. So challenging I think people to really understand what that means for an individual to come into a community and feel like they belong, not just feel welcomed is really incredible.
Greg Richmond: And what I found is our, our principals have really embraced this. And they, they immediately understand that they want their school to be belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: When we announce the goal. But what they then longed for is, "Okay, but how do I know? How can you help me? How do I, how do I make my school that?"
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: So I mean, it's easy to articulate a goal. Have your school be belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: So that's what's been really, um, exciting and a little bit fun is to do that. Now we have been using a set of measures, the Five Essentials measures from the University of Chicago.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
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Greg Richmond: Which we created a custom... There's Five Essentials, we created a, a customized, call it a sixth essential, where we pulled pieces of those data to create a sixth element, you might say, the sixth essential, belonging. So it's existing questions, existing data, packaged them. We pulled the data on student peer relationships where you know, students could ask, you know, "Tell us about your relationship with your peers in the school." Teacher-student relationships What's that look like?
Kevin Baxter: Mm.
Greg Richmond: Safety. There are questions in there about safety. Interestingly, as an aside, when we look at our data, because they ask you know, do you feel safe in the classroom, in the hallway, outside the school? The place that had the lowest safety scores, I'm... This is not gonna be unique. That's why I'm sharing it. The lowest safety score is: bathrooms.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: That's where kids said they felt... I feel very safe in the classroom. I feel safe in the hallways. The lowest score, they didn't say, but that was the lowest scores
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in the bathroom. So that's an interesting thing for schools' principals to think about. Right. Oh, what's happening- what can we do there? And then the fourth measure is around academic personalism, like does the teacher know if I'm struggling or not? So we, we roll that up into a, we now call our belonging score. And this summer, we gave each principal, here's your belonging score from last spring broken down into those categories. Like, oh, you're yellow in this, you're green in this. They really appreciate it being able to see data on it, because now it's telling them, oh, here's, here's where we're doing well. Maybe you're doing great on safety, but, student-teacher trust, like maybe is an area for improvement, and so it gave them actionable things. So we're very, we're very excited about, about that, trying, tackling that.
Kevin Baxter: So we're about to wrap up. I'd love you to share the story you shared right before we started recording, Greg, about the visit that you're gonna have on your last day as
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superintendent.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, I mean, so right before we started recording, I was sharing that a week from today when we're recording this, is gonna be my last day. I love to visit schools. It's the best part of my job. So I've been visiting schools and the last school I'm gonna visit next Friday, it's like choking me up to talk about it is the school where my kids went.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: St. Walter School. It's now called St. Walter St. Benedict. When they were there it was just St. Walter. And next Friday morning, and I still remember very clearly, 31 years ago-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: when my wife and I dropped off our five-year-old daughter at, you know, to kindergarten at St. Walter. I mean, every parent remembers-
Kevin Baxter: Sure ...
Greg Richmond: dropping their kids off. And both the hopes and the fears you have when you did that. And then of course, however your child was choosing to react, but, crying or happy,
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you know? But that's where my adult journey in Catholic education began-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: was turning over and trusting the care of our daughter to St. Walter Catholic School. And never did I imagine it, never did I imagine at that time that I would end up being superintendent. And I had visited St. Walter's as superintendent a couple times, and it made me feel good. I don't know about them. But there were still, there are a couple teachers that my kids had. Mrs. Campione, Mrs. Harris. They probably felt old. I think maybe I did, too. But that was just so special to have my kids be able to get a Catholic education and then to have, I'm gonna use that word, to lead Catholic school and be of service to Catholic education for five years has really been the privilege of a lifetime. So I'm
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so, so thankful for it, the things we've been able to do in my role as superintendent, the improvement. I've just, I've long believed, like, we're all caretakers. I followed on... I like to tell stories to our principals the, the origin story of Catholic schools in Chicago, the Sisters of Mercy who came to Chicago in the 1840s and started the first Catholic school in Chicago. We're all caretakers. In each of, in each of our dioceses, the people before us created things, handed it off to us, and we're gonna hand it on to the next folks. So it's been an extraordinary privilege to be, to be part of that, a blessing of a lifetime.
Kevin Baxter: Well, Greg, I have to say thank you for sharing that story. It's a beautiful story and I think it's just a beautiful indication of where your heart is, and the fact that that's the school that you're going to visit, you know, a week from today as you, as you kind of conclude your role there. And just accept my thanks for serving in the role, and just gratitude.
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It's such as you say, it's a beautiful job, blessing in so many ways, and also a challenging job. And so just thank you for your dedicated service to the schools in Chicago.
Greg Richmond: Thank you, Kevin. And thanks for this chat today. I appreciate it. I enjoyed it.
Kevin Baxter: Great. And thank you all for joining us this week on Now. Here. This. In the show notes, there's a Google form where you can recommend a Catholic school leader to be a guest on a future program, and also provide feedback on the show. Please subscribe and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you access it. Episodes will drop every Tuesday, and until next week, be well and God bless.
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Kevin Baxter: Hello, and welcome to Now. Here. This., a podcast for Catholic school leaders where we learn from inspiring individuals about their experiences leading others. My name is Kevin Baxter, and I'm the director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program at the University of Notre Dame and your host for the podcast. Today, we're speaking with Greg Richmond, the superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Greg announced in May that he'll be leaving his role at the end of August, which is still about a week away as we record this episode. So it's a great opportunity for us to speak and allow him to reflect on his work and impact in one of the largest Catholic school systems in the country. So Greg, thanks so much for being with us here on Now. Here. This.
Greg Richmond: My pleasure, Kevin. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Kevin Baxter: Yes. So the first question we kind of ask everybody, just reflecting on your own leadership journey in terms of how you kind of imagine that or, or remember that. Did you see elements of leadership at a
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young age, or how and when did you really recognize maybe this affinity for leading others in yourself?
Greg Richmond: Wow. Well, that's a good first question. As I think about it, I'm not recalling a point, like in my youth, that I would've described myself as a leader. And I even pause or hesitate to overuse the word on myself now as an adult. And what I mean by that, I feel like that word gets used a lot in some circles. If you go on LinkedIn, that's... it feels like every post is about leaders and leadership, and it gets used casually. I recognize that to, to be in the role of a superintendent is a leadership role, but I find myself more comfortable using the word service-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: as opposed to leadership. I mean, 'cause I think... I believe in servant leadership.
Kevin Baxter: Sure.
Greg Richmond: So for me, it's around how... it's not as much about how can I be... how am I a leader,
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it's how can I be of service? How can I be of service to, well, to anyone in any situation, but in the role of the superintendent, I primarily think it is service to our schools, service to our school principals, our school leaders. That's interesting. I'm very comfortable saying to our principals that they're a leader. Every time we meet, I talk about them as, the fact and appreciation of their leadership of their schools. I find the word for myself, thinking of how can I be of service to others, to our schools, to our principals, but then also how, how to be of service, because it, it's not just about being of service to others no matter what. It's around service toward a mission.
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: How can I be of service to others so that we all can better accomplish our mission?
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: And so I do recognize I'm in a position of leadership, which gives me the ability to, like, to reach out to many folks, and people have
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perceptions of my authority, so that I am in a leadership role. I think I view it as an opportunity to be of service to people and to a mission.
Kevin Baxter: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I was gonna... It's so funny you talked about the principals and, and referring to them as school leaders. I was gonna push back on you a little bit too and say, how much of this is our own sense of not wanting to kind of feel that way or be seen that way? You know, Ann Garrido has a great book about power, Redeeming Power, and talks a little bit about this discomfort we feel with power or authority.
Greg Richmond: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Baxter: And yet, in the Christian mind, there is something to being able to have influence, and how do we think about that in a humble way, right?
Greg Richmond: Yeah.
Kevin Baxter: But I love your concept of service. Even thinking about that, is that something that you feel like you've had for most of your life in terms of where you've approached, even your work prior to being superintendent in Chicago, this idea of like, a servant's heart, a servant's approach to, to how you wanna work with people?
Greg Richmond: I think so. Where, where it
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most clearly comes to mind is I think back to earlier in my career. I spent over 10 years working in the central administration of the Chicago Public Schools, and for most of those 10 years, I was running the charter schools office. I didn't start out doing it because when I started, there were no charter schools. So I just kinda, like, fell into this new thing was created. They're called charter schools. The superintendent told me to figure out what to do. Very exploratory. We had dozens; I think the very first year, 44 different groups came to us saying they were interested in starting a charter school.
Kevin Baxter: Mm.
Greg Richmond: Educators from within our own schools, family foundations, community organizations, and I feel like as I reflect back on it, how can I help these folks who have these, actually most have very compelling visions of what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, who they're trying to help. How could I be of service to help them
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accomplish those visions? In that kind of setting, and that's what's a bit unique about the charter school idea, is that like, it's not the headquarters people who are telling folks what to do. The ideas are coming from the grassroots. So in that setting, my role is around enabling others to achieve that vision.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: I don't mean it critically. The rest of the public school district administrations are in the business of telling schools what to do.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: So that's when I think back of, well, when did this kind of service practice begin? There probably were elements of it before that, that like maybe made me disposed to it or ready to act in that way, but that's when I first identified it and very much have carried much of that philosophy with me into the superintendent of the Catholic school system-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm
Greg Richmond: where, I've said all along, I say to the folks in the, in our offices downtown, "There are no kids that show up in our offices in the morning. You know, they all show up in the
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schools. And so we're not teaching anybody here. You know, we only exist to help those that are teaching be successful."
Kevin Baxter: I used to say something similar with a little bit of a twist, but I used to tell folks, especially those who just worked in the chancery office and never had the, the blessing really of working in a school environment, but that you are working to support student learning.
Greg Richmond: Yep.
Kevin Baxter: Because it's very easy to forget that when you're in a chancery office every day.
Greg Richmond: Yeah.
Kevin Baxter: But even those who are just kind of, you know, the administrative assistant, you know, kind of at the reception desk or whatever it was, I'd say, you know, "You're helping to support student learning today, so don't ever forget that's your, your role and your mission," so.
Greg Richmond: That's right, and when, when folks actually can feel that, even those folks that might take some persuasion, when they actually can feel it, believe it, that actually energizes them. Yes, I'm part of this mission also. I'm making a contribution to it also.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. So you mentioned a little bit your work in the Chicago Public Schools office, and then you were president and CEO of the National Association of
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Charter School Authorizers, and so you had this really robust career, and then you moved to the Catholic school system. So how did that prior experience help shape your work in the diocese and, and kind of what brought you to it after having that, that prior experience in the public sector?
Greg Richmond: I think what, what brought me to it, a number of people have asked me that over the years, and I mean, it's a totally legitimate question. I spent more than 25 years in public education, and then, like, seemingly just switched overnight into Catholic education. Maybe you'd say that's true. But two things I feel like brought me to the role of, of being a superintendent of Catholic schools. One is the fact that while I was in the Chicago Public Schools doing all that charter school work, we actually had some interactions with the Catholic school system. There were any number of folks... I think I came over, it's ironic in hindsight, to where our offices are now, and, like you've been there, you know.
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Yeah. Like, I came over to those conference rooms several times over the years to talk with, you know, superintendents at the time, Elaine Schuster, Nick Wolsonovich, what's a charter school as they considered... So we had conversations with them. It never was something that was a fit, but it was a bit ironic for me when I started the job as superintendent. It's like, "Oh, I've been here. I've been in this conference room." So the, the Catholic schools from a professional standpoint, that was, it's an institution that we interacted with, and Catholic schools are part of the fabric of the city of Chicago, you know, very strong historical way. And, and so I've lived in Chicago for a few decades now. So it-- the Catholic schools were part of the life of our city. They're an institution in our city. I had professional interactions with them. But then on a personal note my kids went to Catholic schools.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: I was on our school board, of our parish school board. I was the, I was the chair of the parish school board.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
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Greg Richmond: And got a bit of a glimpse of what that meant, of like how do, how does a Catholic school operate? But mostly from the standpoint as like, well, sure, like I'm Catholic. You know, my mom was a Catholic teacher. My kids went to Catholic schools. So when the opportunity came, there's an opening, it felt natural for me to consider it. Whereas I can understand, I did have some others say to me when I was first announced as superintendent, they said, "Wait, you're Catholic?" Like, sure. And part of what that said to me, it's like a commentary on our society and I also found it true when I was in the public education space, you never talked about religion or your faith. It, it was an unknown part-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: of my life to my colleagues-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: because that was just not something you talked about in public education.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And
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that's what I've really grown to appreciate during my time in Catholic schools, is our ability, a critical ability to address the spiritual dimensions of ourselves as humans with young people and help them form that. And how important that is to be able to have that be part of an education just seems absolutely critical to me.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. And, and I think about it a lot in terms of the work we do here at the Remick program in terms of leadership formation. So much of that, it, it's a spiritual side, which obviously specific to the Catholic faith, but I just feel that reflective nature of leadership, which you wanna make sure is incorporated in, in any leadership role, public, private, religious or not. So it's just an element I think that's, that's really, really important. A group we are both familiar with, the Pahara Institute program through the Aspen Institute. We are both Pahara alums, and
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it's a program where you work with about 20, 25 other educators, kind of high-level leader educators, and do some deep reading and some reflection. And it was a really profound experience for me, and I know we share that. So I'm curious just how that helped to shape your leadership, and even just based on what we were just discussing, I was the only Catholic school person in the group at the time. I believe you weren't in your role yet when you did it, but-
Greg Richmond: Correct
Kevin Baxter: but I'm just kind of thinking about that in terms of how you came through that program and helped to shape your leadership.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, I'm glad you're asking about this because, yeah, I was in it about 10 years ago maybe 12. At that point in my career, I was running the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, so that’s a leadership role of a leadership organization. And I would say what Pahara did to me, and I would encourage people to find ways to do this, is to find ways ... What it empowered me to do is, like, to tap
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into the incredible history of human thought. Around the questions of why are we here?
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: How do you lead a good life? What does a good society look like? And just a wonderful opportunity to go back and read the voices of smart people from 100 years ago, but also 2,000 years ago or, or longer. And I really am, you know, just taken by the fact that we often think, "Oh, we're the, we're the modern society. Like, we're the pinnacle of human society." But no, like, 2,000 years ago, people were, were thinking thoughts and asking questions and providing answers that many of us still struggle with. So I really valued that opportunity to... Honestly, I think this is true for a lot of folks. I was so caught up in the day-to-day, you know, the immediate circle of organizations and work that I was enmeshed in, and then to, to be able to
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step back and have the opportunity to look at existential questions, I so much appreciated it. They do such a good job there on the readings and the discussions. There were, I think, two people within our group of 24 that would have those conversations about why are we here. There were two people that would incorporate references to God-
Kevin Baxter: Hmm ...
Greg Richmond: in their answers.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And when you're in public, as I had mentioned earlier, when you're in public education, you're like, you're not allowed to do-- you're not allowed to talk about that stuff. Even if you were a person of faith, you, like, didn't have the practice-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: about how do I, how do I sit here and talk about all this? So I noticed it at the time that... And it makes me sad in, in hindsight that you'd have so many people talking about these questions, and only two were willing to incorporate faith into their answers.
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Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: You know, the-- And it makes me so much more appreciative now that I'm in a context, a setting, environments where absolutely that's part of... Like, you-- In, in the Catholic education, you couldn't have those kind... It's like now the opposite is true. You could not have those conversations- Right ... without referencing faith, God, spirituality. So it's interesting parallel between the two, and I've thought of at times over the years, it was almost like the Aspen Institute or Pahara is like a non-spiritual pursuit of spiritual questions.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. One of the things they did with our group, and I'm assuming they... I really recognize is they tried to, I think, bring in people with a variety of different views and approaches, and whether those were political or otherwise, and I think they really wanted to engender some more... So I found that they tried to draw out of me sometimes more, more of that kind of Catholic-
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Greg Richmond: Yeah
Kevin Baxter: Catholic sensibility, because, I don't know, I don't think I was the token Catholic, but I do think there were... In some ways, that was something that I was bringing to the conversation that I think they appreciated. So it was, it was really, I don't know, I felt very affirmed in that way in terms of going through it, so.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, and the two folks and I don't want anyone to think of what I'm saying as critical of Pahara, because I love the program. They do an excellent job. There, there's just the reality of they're running this program in the society we’re in.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And yeah I found the two folks that I mentioned in our program kind of became the, "Hey, well, let's hear how a religious person would answer the question," right?
Kevin Baxter: Yeah. So you're wrapping up, obviously. Just how are you feeling about the work you've done and, and where Catholic schools are right now in the Archdiocese of Chicago as you kind of come to the end of, end of your five-year term there?
Greg Richmond: Well, how am I feeling is I feel bittersweet.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm. '
Greg Richmond: Cause, I mean, I just love, you know, Kevin,
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there are aspects of being a superintendent that are just so joyful and satisfying. And then I think you also know there are aspects that aren't as much. So I feel bittersweet and will miss the sweet parts. I feel very good about what's happening in our Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Number one, like with much of what I'm about to describe, I don't think is unique to the Archdiocese of Chicago, but ... because I think you go almost anywhere in the country and you go into a Catholic school and you meet people who are there for the mission. They're not there for the money. They're there because they care about the kids, they care about the mission, they care about fully developing children academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually. The communities in these schools are so strong, oftentimes going back generations. The academics are good. I mean, just, we have, we have great schools.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And I, I feel very good about that. I feel good about
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some of the ways we've been able to grow in recent years. I've made it an effort... Well, we were talking about earlier, that service mentality. The reason why we, downtown in the Office of Catholic Schools exist, is to be of service to help our schools succeed with kids. I think we're doing that. I think that philosophy exists. Now, it's true, there are aspects of the schools that are administration, finance, compliance. There's no escaping them, as those things are important, too. But I feel like as a system in our office, very much a service mentality is in place. Our schools are great. Academically, they're doing well. I think we're doing well in terms of students' faith development. But I say all that always believing we can do better.
Kevin Baxter: Sure.
Greg Richmond: You know, I'm one of these folks that likes to celebrate the progress and always think we can do better. So some specifics, like in reading, 93% of our
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schools are above the national average in terms of growth-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: in reading. More growth than average each year, which is great. 60% are above average in math growth. Hmm. Okay, so that's good. That's above 50. But I'm like, "Oh, there's an area where we need to figure out how to, how, how to do better." I'm feeling good about our schools and the things we've been able to accomplish in them, while recognizing there still are ways, where our schools can grow, and then as a system, we can support our schools to keep growing. I'm gonna mention, we just created... So I'm a big believer in goals.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: And partly that's because, at least because I came from the charter school world.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: And I was an... I didn't run the charter schools. I was the authorizer of charter schools. And for folks that don't know what that means, that means I worked for the public agencies that decided who gets a charter, who gets approved in the first place, and then monitors it. And then typically after five years determines are
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you good enough to stay open? All of that was driven by metrics and goals like, "Hey, here's where we want you to be in reading. Here's what we want your finances to look like." All that was driven by goals. So when I came in, in this job as superintendent, first thing I did in the first semester on the job was we created goals for our schools in academics, in faith, in school-- what we called school culture, finance, and enrollment. And we made some good progress in many of those areas. The thing I'm most excited about though, is that we just re- revisited and updated them and created a new goal, which we call belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Hmm.
Greg Richmond: So now these goals are, these are goals for our schools, and they apply to all of our schools. And I've, I've said to our teachers, "We're not creating these to punish you or, like, hold you accountable and say shame on you for..." We're, we're creating them so that we can work together you know, we can collaborate. Beause if everyone's just off doing their own thing, then you can't really work together.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: If we have some shared goals, then our
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office can support you and we can improve. So, but we've created a goal around belonging and the importance of students, not just students, you know, adults, everybody, but especially students, feeling that their school is a place where they belong, where people know who they are, people care about them, it's safe. That's a brand new goal we created this summer, and our schools have really embraced it and we're starting to do some fun, exciting things about it. So that, I'm, I'm very excited about the creation of that goal and, and eager to see where, where it goes.
Kevin Baxter: I love that. I also can appreciate the large system, you know, the larger system and how it's difficult sometimes to communicate goals and get everyone on board and, and so thinking about those things in, in bigger ways. And I also love the belonging concept, goal of course, but the concept of it. We talk sometimes about having welcoming schools and we want to be welcoming and, and that's important.
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But welcoming is one thing. Having students feel belonging is another. You know, we can have our doors open, people can walk through and not fully feel that sense of belonging. So challenging I think people to really understand what that means for an individual to come into a community and feel like they belong, not just feel welcomed is really incredible.
Greg Richmond: And what I found is our, our principals have really embraced this. And they, they immediately understand that they want their school to be belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: When we announce the goal. But what they then longed for is, "Okay, but how do I know? How can you help me? How do I, how do I make my school that?"
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: So I mean, it's easy to articulate a goal. Have your school be belonging.
Kevin Baxter: Right.
Greg Richmond: So that's what's been really, um, exciting and a little bit fun is to do that. Now we have been using a set of measures, the Five Essentials measures from the University of Chicago.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
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Greg Richmond: Which we created a custom... There's Five Essentials, we created a, a customized, call it a sixth essential, where we pulled pieces of those data to create a sixth element, you might say, the sixth essential, belonging. So it's existing questions, existing data, packaged them. We pulled the data on student peer relationships where you know, students could ask, you know, "Tell us about your relationship with your peers in the school." Teacher-student relationships What's that look like?
Kevin Baxter: Mm.
Greg Richmond: Safety. There are questions in there about safety. Interestingly, as an aside, when we look at our data, because they ask you know, do you feel safe in the classroom, in the hallway, outside the school? The place that had the lowest safety scores, I'm... This is not gonna be unique. That's why I'm sharing it. The lowest safety score is: bathrooms.
Kevin Baxter: Yeah.
Greg Richmond: That's where kids said they felt... I feel very safe in the classroom. I feel safe in the hallways. The lowest score, they didn't say, but that was the lowest scores
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in the bathroom. So that's an interesting thing for schools' principals to think about. Right. Oh, what's happening- what can we do there? And then the fourth measure is around academic personalism, like does the teacher know if I'm struggling or not? So we, we roll that up into a, we now call our belonging score. And this summer, we gave each principal, here's your belonging score from last spring broken down into those categories. Like, oh, you're yellow in this, you're green in this. They really appreciate it being able to see data on it, because now it's telling them, oh, here's, here's where we're doing well. Maybe you're doing great on safety, but, student-teacher trust, like maybe is an area for improvement, and so it gave them actionable things. So we're very, we're very excited about, about that, trying, tackling that.
Kevin Baxter: So we're about to wrap up. I'd love you to share the story you shared right before we started recording, Greg, about the visit that you're gonna have on your last day as
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superintendent.
Greg Richmond: Yeah, I mean, so right before we started recording, I was sharing that a week from today when we're recording this, is gonna be my last day. I love to visit schools. It's the best part of my job. So I've been visiting schools and the last school I'm gonna visit next Friday, it's like choking me up to talk about it is the school where my kids went.
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm.
Greg Richmond: St. Walter School. It's now called St. Walter St. Benedict. When they were there it was just St. Walter. And next Friday morning, and I still remember very clearly, 31 years ago-
Kevin Baxter: Mm ...
Greg Richmond: when my wife and I dropped off our five-year-old daughter at, you know, to kindergarten at St. Walter. I mean, every parent remembers-
Kevin Baxter: Sure ...
Greg Richmond: dropping their kids off. And both the hopes and the fears you have when you did that. And then of course, however your child was choosing to react, but, crying or happy,
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you know? But that's where my adult journey in Catholic education began-
Kevin Baxter: Mm-hmm ...
Greg Richmond: was turning over and trusting the care of our daughter to St. Walter Catholic School. And never did I imagine it, never did I imagine at that time that I would end up being superintendent. And I had visited St. Walter's as superintendent a couple times, and it made me feel good. I don't know about them. But there were still, there are a couple teachers that my kids had. Mrs. Campione, Mrs. Harris. They probably felt old. I think maybe I did, too. But that was just so special to have my kids be able to get a Catholic education and then to have, I'm gonna use that word, to lead Catholic school and be of service to Catholic education for five years has really been the privilege of a lifetime. So I'm
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so, so thankful for it, the things we've been able to do in my role as superintendent, the improvement. I've just, I've long believed, like, we're all caretakers. I followed on... I like to tell stories to our principals the, the origin story of Catholic schools in Chicago, the Sisters of Mercy who came to Chicago in the 1840s and started the first Catholic school in Chicago. We're all caretakers. In each of, in each of our dioceses, the people before us created things, handed it off to us, and we're gonna hand it on to the next folks. So it's been an extraordinary privilege to be, to be part of that, a blessing of a lifetime.
Kevin Baxter: Well, Greg, I have to say thank you for sharing that story. It's a beautiful story and I think it's just a beautiful indication of where your heart is, and the fact that that's the school that you're going to visit, you know, a week from today as you, as you kind of conclude your role there. And just accept my thanks for serving in the role, and just gratitude.
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It's such as you say, it's a beautiful job, blessing in so many ways, and also a challenging job. And so just thank you for your dedicated service to the schools in Chicago.
Greg Richmond: Thank you, Kevin. And thanks for this chat today. I appreciate it. I enjoyed it.
Kevin Baxter: Great. And thank you all for joining us this week on Now. Here. This. In the show notes, there's a Google form where you can recommend a Catholic school leader to be a guest on a future program, and also provide feedback on the show. Please subscribe and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you access it. Episodes will drop every Tuesday, and until next week, be well and God bless.
