Want to know the secret to sustainable school funding that doesn’t depend on constant fundraising campaigns? William C. Chilman IV discovered it—and it’s transforming Harbor Beach Community Schools. In this inspiring conversation, learn how one superintendent flipped the script on community engagement and created lasting financial stability for his district.
Meet Your Guest
William C. Chilman IV is the Superintendent of Harbor Beach Community Schools, a rural Michigan district where he’s reimagined what’s possible when schools and communities work as true partners. His innovative approach to endowment building and community investment has become a model worth studying.
What You’ll Learn
This episode tackles the real challenges keeping rural and suburban superintendents up at night: How do you build community support when educators are chronically undervalued? How do you create sustainable funding without burning out your staff with constant fundraising? And how do you shift the narrative about what teachers and administrators actually contribute to their communities?
Superintendent Chilman shares his philosophy on relationship-building, visionary thinking, and creating systems that work for your community rather than asking from it.
Key Takeaways
- Community health = school health: Building strong relationships with local businesses, municipalities, and civic organizations creates a rising tide that lifts all boats
- Shift from transactional to transformational: Sustainable endowments are built on shared vision, not individual asks
- Educators deserve recognition: The pandemic proved what many already knew—teachers are essential professionals, not afterthoughts in their communities
- Think systemically about sustainability: One-time donations fade; designed systems last
- Reframe the narrative: When schools stop apologizing for their value and start demonstrating it, communities respond
Notable Quotes
“I needed to be visionary about this. Not that I don’t want to give $200 of my own money, but how can we do this and sustain it without asking an individual or having to rely on that?”
“If I want a healthy school, I have to have a healthy community. So we work very closely with all the businesses, all the municipalities, townships, cities, county, and we have to build those relationships and foster them.”
“The educators get a bad rap. They really do. And we try to toot our horns, but it’s not in our nature. We just want to come do what we need to do for kids.”
Ready to transform your district’s relationship with its community? Listen now to discover how Harbor Beach Community Schools built a $1M+ endowment and created a model of sustainable partnership. Subscribe to never miss an episode.
FULL PODCAST Transcript
Lighthouse Therapy (00:01.191)
Hello everyone and welcome to the brighter together podcast. My name is Jana Courtney and my special guest today is Bill Chillman. Bill is the superintendent at Harbor Beach Community Schools and that’s in Harbor Beach, Michigan. Bill, welcome to the show.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (00:16.6)
Thank you very much, I appreciate that, Janet.
Lighthouse Therapy (00:19.165)
I’m excited. think we’re gonna have a great conversation. Bill, tell me a little bit about your journey. We talked a little bit before we got on air and a little bit about Harbor Beach.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (00:30.21)
Yeah, this is year 34 in education for me. Started off as a teacher, coach, and athletic director. Very young, 21, 22 years old up in Brimley, Michigan, just outside of the Sioux. Went from there to the middle school principalship at Sanford Meridian over in Midland County. And I was there for 10 years. Started my family there and…
bought our first home and all that good stuff that you do when you’re first starting out. And then wanted to be a superintendent and moved over to Beale City, which is just outside of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, right in the heart of the lower peninsula. And I was there for 17 years as the superintendent thought I was going to retire, loved it there, still own home there, still love the Beale City Aggies. But at the same time,
Lighthouse Therapy (00:59.633)
Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (01:26.938)
I was ready for something new and just wasn’t ready to retire. And I saw this position over here at Harbor Beach and I’d never been to the thumb and I wanted a journey. I wanted something new and exciting. And boy, did I get it. Fell in love over here. What a great community, great school, really good staff, good kids. We’ve had a lot of success.
Lighthouse Therapy (01:45.227)
Awesome.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (01:56.806)
both academically and athletically and we’re really trying to pick things up with the arts as well. And so here in Harbor Beach I found a home a couple years ago and just love it, just love it. It’s just a great place.
Lighthouse Therapy (02:12.871)
So for those of you that don’t know Michigan, we call the thumb, like we always put our hand up and show the state of Michigan. When we talk about the thumb, it kind of looks like a thumb. And it’s cool. It’s really cool. Yeah, I lived in Michigan for 19 years. We found out we didn’t live too far away from each other for a long time, which was neat. But yeah, so tell me.
a little bit about the demographics of Harbor Beach and then you guys have done some really, really amazing things there. I’d love to hear about that too.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (02:43.361)
Yeah. So I’ve spent most of my 34 year career in small and rural schools. The largest school that I was in was Sanford Meridian, but still pretty small. And Harbor Beach and Brimley and Beale are almost identical size between that five and 600, 700 student range, K through 12. All in rural communities, small rural communities, in small rural schools. I have a real affinity for that.
Lighthouse Therapy (03:01.885)
Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (03:12.809)
and it’s something that a passion of mine. We, MASA, our state organization for superintendents, started a small rural schools task force a few years back. And I’ve been heavily involved in that and very active in that. We meet once a month via Zoom, a couple times a year in person, and usually do some legislative work in Lansing just to make sure that people are paying attention.
to the small rural school, which makes up about 75 % of the state of Michigan in the schools. As far as Harbor Beach is concerned, we’ll stick to that right now. About 550 kids. We have two small private schools, K through eight, that feed into our high school. We have a nice K through eight building here as well.
Lighthouse Therapy (03:43.047)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:04.643)
nice.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (04:12.205)
The demographics, you know, very typical in small rural schools. The free and reduced lunch is 35, 40%, which is on the low side for a lot of small rural communities. We do have a very nice economic base here in Harbor Beach. As far as…
Lighthouse Therapy (04:34.597)
Is there a lot of tourism? that what you’re seeing there or is there other industries that are feeding it?
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (04:37.847)
You know, yeah, not on our side of the thumb. We get our fair share of tourism, of course, with Lake Huron right there. But it’s agriculture, and we have a few large businesses, factories in town. And so that, it’s a real hub, so to speak, of the thumb area, along the lake shore anyways.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:46.491)
Yeah, it’s right there. Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:56.157)
Okay. Gotcha. Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (05:07.401)
And so, yeah, it’s a great demographic. Our test scores pretty much at the county and state level. Trying to push to go to that next, you know, we’re always trying to improve, right? We’re always trying to get better academically. I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen. We’ve made some moves to try to help some of that stuff with some new literacy curriculum. We moved our fifth grade in with our middle school.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:21.0)
Always. Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (05:37.462)
Now we have a pre-K four building. We’re all one building, but we have wings of our building. Yeah, yeah. And then a five eight wing and then a nine 12 wing all with between 150 to 200 kids in them roughly. And then each of those wings has a principal and then that principal is a director. So my elementary principal is principal, special ed director, middle school principal.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:43.003)
Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:53.245)
Mm-hmm.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (06:05.537)
transportation director, high school principal, curriculum director. And then I have a tech director and an athletic director who are also teachers. They teach and then help the administrative team with those things throughout the world.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:09.469)
home.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:20.989)
That’s one thing about little schools that I always see. It’s like there’s never one hat. You don’t get just one hat. No, no, no, Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (06:27.997)
Yeah, no, really is that way. All over the state, all over the nation. that’s probably why I have kind of stayed in the small rural schools and not tried to advance my career in regards, or some people would think advance your career by going to a bigger school. I’ve seen no need to do that because I’m involved with everything and I love that.
You know, my office is in the school with the kids. I don’t think I would want to be a downtown type of superintendent. That’s not my style.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:58.481)
Right. You’re not at an administrative building miles away, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Sorry to mean to talk over you, but we were saying the same thing. Exactly. Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (07:07.339)
No, that’s Yeah, yeah. It just wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be a good fit for me at all. And every building that I’ve been in, whether it’s been assistant principal or principal or superintendent, I’ve been right in the building with the kids. And that’s why I got into education a long time ago. And so I don’t want to get away from the kids.
Lighthouse Therapy (07:29.957)
Yeah, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you. One of the hardest things for me, and I’ve said this a million times on the show, was stop seeing kids. You know, I still serve kids, still love on the kids, but don’t get to see them every day anymore because, you know, I can serve 55 or I can serve 3,700, you know, it’s like you just do what you got to do. Right. So, and so.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (07:46.733)
Yeah. Exactly.
Lighthouse Therapy (07:51.042)
One of the things that I was reading a little bit about is you guys have set up some really interesting foundations over the years. Can you tell us a little bit about your work there with foundations?
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (08:02.241)
Yeah, my work with foundations, was on the learning part of that when I was at Sanford-Meridian, they started the Mustang Fund there. And I was a young administrator and learning from older, more experienced administrators in regards to what that means, what we were trying to do, what the vision was. Excuse me. And so I paid a lot of attention to it. And then when I went to…
Lighthouse Therapy (08:23.036)
No worries.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (08:30.253)
Beale City, we started the Beale City Education Foundation. And it was a nice little fund. Our goal was 10,000 in 10 years, and we ended up with about 200,000 in 10 years. And we were given, it started, the crazy story is, the counselor came to me, my first year as a superintendent near the end of the year, and she says, we need your $200 check. I’m like, oh, okay, what’s up?
Lighthouse Therapy (08:53.915)
No
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (08:56.525)
And she says, the superintendent always gives a $200 scholarship every year. And I was like, oh, all right, no problem. I knew there had to have been some backstory, so I wanted to find that out. And the previous superintendent had done some work, and he had set $2,000 aside. And he had gone through that $2,000 with giving out these $200 scholarships over the years.
And so I said, well, you know, I took that and I’m like, all right, I need to be visionary about this. Not that I don’t want to give $200 of my own money, but I’m like, how can we do this and sustain it without asking an individual or having to rely on that? And so went back to my roots with the Mustang Foundation and we started that, the Beale City Education Foundation. And we went from
Lighthouse Therapy (09:31.719)
Mm-hmm. Right, right.
Lighthouse Therapy (09:41.659)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (09:52.622)
given out one $200 scholarship every year. They now give out about 13 or 14 $600 scholarships annually. our goal, the vision of it is to be able to provide funding for our students, whether it’s workforce or education beyond the high school experience. And to have them pay for as much of that as possible. Kind of like the Kalamazoo Promise type of thing.
Lighthouse Therapy (10:00.743)
Nice.
Lighthouse Therapy (10:22.855)
Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (10:22.893)
But, so when I got here to Harbor Beach, I was friends with the previous superintendent and him and his team, which is now my team, they had done some work. They had a donation, a large donation that came in. And they had set up an idea for all students to get funds each year. An initial…
contribution and then get funds each year that they were enrolled in school and then they would get that money upon graduation and I looked into that a little bit, worked with the county foundation here in Huron County and come to find out they had a pretty good thing established and her and I wrote the policies and procedures, the bylaws so to speak.
how that would work. And family child savings accou at count time during stu take a snapshot of our stu students that are brand ne Beach, they receive $100 in then every returning studen
We have a two in-school deposit days each year where parents and grandparents and friends and family can Send money in with their kids to be put into their child savings accounts And then part of that is with our fiscal agents, which is frankenmouth credit union They provide us with financial literacy curriculum that my math teachers do
Lighthouse Therapy (12:02.968)
Neat.
Lighthouse Therapy (12:16.423)
Hmm.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (12:16.773)
here locally. So it’s kind of a full circle type of thing and we really we kind of tied it up into a fairly pretty good bow here over the last year and half, two years that I’ve been here and that foundation is very much geared towards individual students. We did want to do something a little different and try to have a more of a freedom and so
I worked with the County Foundation, Huron County Community Foundation, and we started the Pirate Fund. Yeah, the Pirate Fund’s a little more general in nature, so we’re actually in the middle right now of a teacher mini-grant process, so any educator that works in Harbor Beach can apply for a grant, a mini-grant.
Lighthouse Therapy (12:52.091)
I saw that I was like, what is the pirate fund? I’m glad you went there.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (13:14.037)
and we can give that out. What we did is we wanted some local control. So we had this Storrs Family Child Savings Accounts and we had this Pirate Fund and it was being controlled at the county level. And we said we need something here locally. And so what we did is we set up the Harbor Beach Educational Endowments and that is a family of funds that currently houses
That family of funds currently houses the Storrs family child savings account and the pirate fund and now we are working with others to bring in our athletic association and have them create a fund. Our FFA, we have a very strong FFA here in Harbor Beach. We’re hoping to have somebody open an FFA fund in the educational endowments that are housed.
The endowments are controlled locally with the HBEE, which is the Harbor Beach Educational Endowments, but they are housed or the fiscal agent for that, the holder of that is the Huron County Community Foundation. So.
Lighthouse Therapy (14:23.069)
Gotcha. Okay. And FFA is Future Farmers of America, right? it? Yes. Yep. Yep. Awesome. So that explains, you’ve got to, for those of you that are listening, in the background, there’s a skull and crossbones on the, on the, the, it’s a cabinet or something on the wall behind him. And I’m like, there’s gotta be a story there. And if it’s a pirate fun, it makes a whole lot sense, a lot of sense that you would have a skull and crossbones, but it also says,
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (14:26.899)
It is. is. Yes. Future Farmers of America. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (14:42.252)
Yes.
Lighthouse Therapy (14:52.881)
I can’t read it all, but it’s something about legacy and inspire and yeah, grit. Yeah, awesome.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (14:55.809)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really is. our mascot, obviously, the Harbor Beach Pirates. We call our school the ship, the pirate ship. And so we have lot of pride in the pirates. Matter fact, this year we just got done winning a state championship in Division 8 football. And unfortunately, our basketball team, yeah, thank you, fortunately our basketball team.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:03.463)
Gotcha.
Gotcha. Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:17.105)
Nice, congratulations to you guys.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (15:23.487)
They won their first ever in school history regional title a week ago and they ended up getting beat last night in the quarterfinals. But they played their hearts out and made the school and the community proud.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:35.388)
Yeah, they still have something very much to be proud of for sure. Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. My son, the last thing we did before the pandemic got crazy, he was, cause he was a senior, he was a 2020 grad, poor kid. I cried, I cried halfway through from March to May. He was like, mom, it’s okay. I don’t know why. And he was my youngest. Mom, I don’t know why you’re crying. I don’t know why you’re crying. And I was like, you don’t know what you’re missing, babe. You just don’t know. But I remember the last thing we did was he didn’t, he was a wrestler.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (15:38.059)
Yeah, yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:04.357)
He didn’t go to rest. He didn’t go to state, but others in the team. So we all went to state up in up in, I think it was in Lansing, if I remember correctly, I remember to the state wrestling tournament that year. And I think that was the last cause they ended up not having the basketball state tournament. And actually it’s less, it was Leslie high school and Leslie had qualified for state and they didn’t get to go. So it was a sad time, but yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (16:14.113)
Yeah, yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (16:31.341)
I have my youngest is a 2020 grad and they were trying to three Pete as district finalists and the game got canceled in basketball. We, yeah, you know, we, I thought I really felt like the educators in the state of Michigan worked their butts off to make sure that kids in the state of Michigan.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:35.218)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:42.267)
Yeah, so heartbreaking, so heartbreaking. Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (17:00.183)
didn’t miss out on, we had graduation in July. We went to every length to try to make it as normal as we could in completely extraordinary, unnormal times. And so was real proud. know that firsthand from Beale City, that’s where I was during the pandemic as a superintendent, but all the schools around us at that time and across the state.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:05.626)
You
Lighthouse Therapy (17:15.441)
Right, right.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (17:29.535)
really work their butts off. you know, the educators get a bad rap. They really do. And we try to, we try to toot our horns, but it’s not in our nature. We just want to come do what we need to do for kids. And, and we, and I try to stay out of the weeds with, with all of the, the crap sometimes, so to speak, that we have to deal with.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:39.323)
No. Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:48.894)
politics and yeah, yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. And that’s what brighter together is all about. You know, it’s giving you guys a voice, giving you an opportunity to talk about, cause there’s so many amazing things that are happening and you know, it just, there’s, could, we’re not going to go down that road, but there’s so many things I could talk about when it comes to the pandemic, because there were so many amazing stories that came out of it. And so many educators that just bent over backwards to serve the kids and to, to have a.
safe space for them, cetera, know, lunches and food. Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (18:20.053)
The taught me one thing, Gannett. The pandemic taught me one thing. Educators are never going to go away when we are way more valuable than anybody ever thinks that we are. It really solidified that profession, in my opinion.
Lighthouse Therapy (18:38.385)
Yeah, for sure. 100%. So, okay. So foundations are money. I just want to back up just a tiny bit to define for me and for the listeners, what qualifies as a foundation? Like it’s not money that goes directly to the school. Is that correct? Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (18:58.413)
Correct. So people, we do fundraisers, people contribute money. The child savings accounts is even a little bit different of a piece. But generally for a foundation, a school to have a foundation or a fund at a foundation, it’s money that they have produced, like I said, with fundraisers or donations. And it’s endowed. It’s endowed in the foundation. So it’s pulled together with all the money.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:07.964)
Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:19.399)
Okay.
Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (19:26.923)
the local foundation then usually their community foundations, counties or cities have them and then that money’s endowed and you basically spend a portion of the interest each year that you get. To administer, whether it’s scholarships, grants, awards, to do different projects. I’ve seen everything from
Lighthouse Therapy (19:32.806)
Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:43.111)
to administer the fund. Gotcha, gotcha.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (19:54.84)
people putting money into foundations and building playgrounds to scholarships to $300 grants for many teachers to get a set of novels. So it really is, that’s really more with the Pirate Fund or the Beale City Education Fund or the Mustang Fund. That’s what those funds were. The child savings accounts, that’s in the foundation, the money’s endowed, the kids are earning interest.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:04.751)
gotcha. Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:15.623)
Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (20:23.757)
And that’s how we get the money each year to give to our new students, new kindergartners or any new transfers in, and then the money that we spend on those students that are still with us. So we’re spending the interest to give back to the kids in that way. And we put it in their account. And then they’re able to learn through the financial literacy about financial growth and interest and why you need to save and things like that. there’s a lot of different ways.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:30.716)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:39.133)
Gotcha.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (20:53.687)
to create and structure your foundation. That’s what myself and the executive director for the Huron County Community Foundation, that’s what we did when I got here in Harbor Beach. We created that process and procedure for Harbor Beach. And I had that experience when I was at Beale City doing it with the Beale City Education Foundation. I also sat on the board of directors for the Mount Pleasant Area Community Foundation for nine years as well.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:03.709)
Gotcha.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:21.981)
Wow.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (21:22.352)
as the educational rep.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:24.699)
Neat. Very cool. Very, cool. You’ve got your fingers in a lot of things going on there. That’s awesome.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (21:31.054)
That’s why I love the small school superintendent. We talked a little bit about it earlier as far as jobs within a school, but one of my jobs as a superintendent, besides the teaching and learning and student achievement and what happens here on a daily basis, it’s really about economic growth and development in our community. If I want a healthy school, I have to have a healthy community. So we work very closely with
Lighthouse Therapy (21:34.449)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:57.703)
Right.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (22:00.737)
with all the businesses, all the municipalities, townships, cities, county, and we have to build those relationships and foster them. And one of those is the county community foundations. And so I try to sit on those boards. I try to sit on boards for some of our social, your Rotary Club and things like that as well, because.
I have to represent the school for the entire community and we are a business within the
Lighthouse Therapy (22:33.201)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I’ve talked to some superintendents there, some schools, especially in these rural, they’re the primary employer at some districts that I’ve talked to in the past. know, because for me, I don’t, you when we invite people to be on this show, it is not a qualification that you have to have a certain number of students in your school. It doesn’t matter if you’re public or private or virtual or charter or whatever. The point always is let’s talk.
to the people that are doing education, the decision makers. We always talk to superintendents or special education directors or coordinators in that vein, and in that vein because I’m special education. And that’s like, born and bred in me, take care of all of the kids, but also talking about education, special education is my background. it’s just amazing to see and to have been able.
to do what I do and talk to you. I think you’re like in 200. I think this is show, I mean, look really fast. Show number 218. So yeah, in a year’s time, I have done 218 shows because that’s our commitment, our commitment to you as educators and as the people that are working so hard for those kids is to get as many of the stories out as I possibly can. So it’s a big part of my week, yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (23:58.958)
just as you have done and doing some prep work and finding out about me and Harbor Beach, I was able to see some of your shows and know a few of the people that you’ve interviewed. So that’s really outstanding.
Lighthouse Therapy (24:11.537)
Yeah, well, thank you. It’s been, it has been an absolute joy for me. And I always tell people, it’s like, I got really smart people over here on the front side, doing the front side, get, you know, attracting schools and telling them we have some street cred now too, because we’ve been around for a whole year now. So people are much less like, what are you asking me to do? You know, I don’t get that anymore. And then on the back,
We have amazing people on the back end who are doing the editing and making me look smarter than I am like I say and Doing all of that work and then we give it and if you don’t know this about brighter if you’re listening I know you do bill But if people are listening we give everything that we do back to the schools because we want you to use it We want to give this this is a project that isn’t just about promoting Janet and lighthouse therapy It’s about promoting what is happening in education and giving it to the schools gives you an opportunity to
to use it in a way that hopefully will help your district and help you. yeah. So educators, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so talking about foundations and understanding them and knowing that you have that background. And the other thing is you’ve been in administration, you told me I think since you were 26, is that right? Before that even?
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (25:09.325)
help our educators across the thumb, across the state, across the region, across the nation.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (25:28.653)
Before that, I started administration at 23. So of my 34-year career, 33 of them have been, I’ve been in administration, some of those as administrator slash teacher, but I have been in administration for 33 of the 34 years I’ve been in it.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:32.701)
at 23. Wow.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:42.685)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:48.498)
which is amazing. So you have so much knowledge. The other thing I was, I wanted to mention too, you said you were a superintendent for 17 years at one school. That’s, that’s not typical for a superintendent. is not seven years. I think the max that like, generally speaking, that the average that superintendents do on the higher end is seven years. So long time. It’s a long time.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (25:59.521)
It is that.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (26:09.889)
Yeah. Yeah. Yup. Nope. I loved my time there and it’s a great place and we built it to a pretty strong academic and athletic and artistic school. And when I came here, there was already some strong roots and some strong things that Harbor Beach had. And so hopefully we’re just building on those, right? We’re just, we’re taking them from where they were and we’re trying to build on them and improve even though they were already pretty good.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:32.582)
Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (26:39.821)
there’s always room for improvement.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:40.955)
Yeah, always right. Yeah. Okay, one last question. And if you’ve watched my shows, you might already know what I’m gonna ask you, but I’m gonna ask it. but and we know all schools need money. So we’re not gonna talk about money. But if you could just miraculously fix one thing in your world as a superintendent right now what you’re doing, and never have to worry about it ever again, what would that one thing be?
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (26:47.408)
Okay.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (27:07.095)
Probably parent involvement and notice I didn’t say parenting notice. didn’t just push it back on them And you know say they wish they could do it better. I want them involved I want them to be one of my partners We always the schools that I’ve been at we’ve always looked at this as an educational pyramid the base of it is our community and
Lighthouse Therapy (27:35.015)
Takes a village, right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yep.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (27:36.622)
It takes a village, right? It’s that’s the base. And then we have these four walls that make that pyramid up, and that’s the students, the staff, the school itself and the parents. And we need them involved. We need them to be here, be supportive, understand what we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to do it, not fight us at every turn, but really be involved with us.
Lighthouse Therapy (27:48.573)
Mm-hmm.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (28:03.827)
And so if there was one thing that I think that would change not just education, but our society in general is those parents being actively involved in their school and their community and helping us as a partner lift up not just their kids, but all kids. And if we do that, we lift the school up, we lift our staff up, and we lift the community up.
Lighthouse Therapy (28:33.083)
Very nice, very, it’s a beautiful answer, Bill. Absolutely love it. So tell people where do they go, because I know there’s gonna be somebody that’s gonna have a question about doing a foundation, because you’ve got so much knowledge and we talk so much about it. So where do people go to find out a little bit more about you and about your school, Harbor Beach?
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (28:52.621)
Well, www.hbpirates.org is our website. That will get you to at least the base. And then with Google, you’ll be able to see a lot of the different things that I am involved in. Like you said earlier, I have my hands on a lot of pieces, whether it’s foundations or bond issue and projects that we’ve done.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:12.05)
Yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (29:20.129)
I also have my own educational consulting business. I work with private companies as well as schools and boards and try to help them spread this message of community growth and development. So yeah, that’s the best place. That’ll get you a pretty good starting point. And in there, you’ll be able to contact me. So if you want to send me an email.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:23.549)
I
Lighthouse Therapy (29:44.251)
Yep, yep, usually you can touch it, right? Yeah, yeah.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (29:47.093)
Yeah, you want to send me an email, I’ll be happy to send you all the rest of my contact information. But we start usually with that contact of an email and then go from there.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:55.014)
Yep. Absolutely. Thank you, Bill, so much. I knew it was going to be a great conversation, and it absolutely has. So thank you for sharing your knowledge and your passion. And stay warm. know it’s March. It’s starting to warm up a little bit up there.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (30:11.917)
It was 70 degrees here on Monday and it is now 28.
Lighthouse Therapy (30:18.392)
That’s Michigan. That’s Michigan. You want the weather to change? Just wait five minutes, right? 19 years. I lived up there for 19 years. So, and let’s see. So I’ll just, I’ll make you a little bit jealous. Corpus Christi today, right now where I’m at, it’s 80. It’s 80 degrees. Yeah. So March 11th, 80 degrees.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (30:24.232)
Exactly, exactly so.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (30:38.061)
We’ll be off that.
Lighthouse Therapy (30:39.461)
Yeah, that’s true. Well, when we live, we actually live on Padre Island. So we’re in and it’s spring break here and we’re like inundated with the spring breakers. So I never thought I’d live in a community where it’s, it’s a tourist area. And that’s truly where we are is like there because we live on Padre Island, not South Padre, but Padre Island in Corpus Christi. And it’s beautiful. I love it. I’m blessed beyond measure. But when the when the tourists start coming in and you know, it’s like
You hear people like, Oh, there’s a tourist, we’re tourists. We’re acting like a tourist. You see, you can spot them a mile away because they’re all the ones that are it’s cold out for us at 75 degrees and they’re in a bathing suit with just a polo. I’m like, no, no, no, no. Oh, I bet. Oh, my boys. Yep. Soon as it gets to be 50 degrees in Michigan, shorts are out. Everybody’s in their shorts because they’re just like, Oh, it’s warm.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (31:23.565)
Yeah, we had a little bit that here on Monday when it was 70. We had people walking around in their shorts and t-shirts.
Lighthouse Therapy (31:35.581)
50, I’m freezing at 50.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (31:36.141)
We have, right outside my office, we have this huge snow pile from the parking lot being cleaned. And on Monday, we had kids in shorts and t-shirts, and they’re climbing on the snow pile that’s 30 feet high, you know?
Lighthouse Therapy (31:47.271)
Timing it, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, fun. That’s so fun. Well, it’s as I said before, thank you, Bill. It has been an absolute pleasure.
William C Chilman IV, ED.S. (31:58.53)
I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
