Episode Description
Superintendent Eric Griffin shares the leadership philosophy that transformed Delhi Unified School District: empowering staff before setting expectations on them. Discover how one conversation with union leadership shifted the district from unsustainable demands to sustainable excellence, unlocking measurable gains in student outcomes, attendance, and teacher retention while keeping “what’s best for kids” at the center of every decision.
Noteable Quotes
- “You have to put your oxygen mask on first to be able to take care of others.” [00:09:22]
- “If you remain purpose driven and focus on what’s best for kids, the rest is gonna come.” [00:20:10]
- “A lot of students get lost in that word all.” [00:12:46]
- “We’re all teachers here, no matter what role you have on our campus.” [00:15:16]
- “Empower before expectation—that’s my number one word to lead by.” [00:06:55]
Full Podcast Transcript
Brighter Together [00:00:01]
Hello everyone and welcome to Brighter Together. My name is Janet Courtney and my special guest today is Eric Griffin. Eric is the superintendent at Delhi Unified School Districts, and that’s in Delhi, California. Eric, thank you so much for being willing to be on the show. I appreciate it.
Eric Griffin [00:00:19]
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Brighter Together [00:00:21]
So Eric, tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming a superintendent and then give us a little snippet of what’s happening at Delhi.
Eric Griffin [00:00:30]
Sure, absolutely. well about myself I
I like to say that I was born into education because both of my parents were teachers and three of my four grandparents were actually teachers as well. So I kinda grew up in schools and and I I from a young young age always knew that that’s what I wanted to do as well. So as soon as I graduated from college, I I started teaching actually at the same school that my dad worked. so he taught sixth grade and I taught kindergarten. And we were opposite ends of the campus. Uh-huh. And
Brighter Together [00:01:00]
Wow, that must have been neat. Wow.
Eric Griffin [00:01:03]
I spent a few years there. I started the TK program there as well. you know, here in California we have transitional kindergarten, which is for our four year olds transitioning into kindergarten. And then I I moved to another school in another district and I taught second grade, seventh and eighth grade, and then I I transitioned into leadership and I became a site principal at an all kindergarten school. Which
Brighter Together [00:01:14]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:01:27]
Wow. So the littles, you’ve had a lot of lot of the littles, huh?
Eric Griffin [00:01:31]
Yeah, and it’s interesting because I always my mom was a kindergarten teacher for thirty of the thirty-five years in in education and I always said I’ll never teach kindergarten and then my dad taught sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, and I I’ll never teach junior high and I ended up teaching both and then being the principal of an all kindergarten school. So Yeah, exactly. And I found that the the little ones are my passion. They’re they’re just so, so fun.
Brighter Together [00:01:47]
Wow.
Go figure yeah, never say never. I’ve learned that the hard way too. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, they are.
Eric Griffin [00:02:00]
so yeah, I ta I was a principal of an all-kindergarten school. We eventually transitioned to be K two and then I was pulled up to the the director level during COVID times and and from there I I just worked my way up to superintendent. So that’s where I’m at today.
Brighter Together [00:02:18]
So how long have you been superintendent at Delhi then?
Eric Griffin [00:02:21]
This will be my second full year. I took over as interim in March not last year but the year before. So
Brighter Together [00:02:29]
Gotcha. Okay. Wow. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So tell me what’s going on in Delhi since you’ve become the superintendent there.
Eric Griffin [00:02:39]
You know, we’ve got so many wonderful things happening in Delhi. we’re
And many of them were were to be fair happening before I got here. But you know, since since I took over, you know, I’m just so proud of the work that we’ve accomplished. we are a dual language district, so all of our school sites have a standard English track and then also a dual language immersion track where students receive fifty percent of their instruction in English and fifty percent in Spanish. Yeah.
Brighter Together [00:03:11]
Wow. Cool. I did not know that. Very cool.
Eric Griffin [00:03:15]
It’s pretty cool and that leads to we have a really high percentage of our students who receive the state seal of biliteracy before they graduate high school, which is awesome. You know, it just really prepares them to to go out into the global economy and especially in the state of California, you know, we have such a high population of Spanish speaking people that you know it it really sets them up for success. Yeah. so that that’s a really cool thing that we have going. we
Brighter Together [00:03:27]
Yeah.
Brighter Together [00:03:36]
Mm hmm. Texas too, yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:03:45]
We are really invested here in our
Dual enrollment program where students take courses through the local community college and earn college credit while they go to our high school. So we’ve actually had a few students that have graduated high school with their associates transfer degree as well. So that’s pretty cool. And we’re really strongly investing in our CTE pathways to career technical education. So we’ve got a really strong medical pathway. A lot of our students are training to
Brighter Together [00:04:09]
Nice.
Eric Griffin [00:04:20]
Be certified nursing assistants. Many of them graduate with a CNA certificate so that they can go right into the workforce and then continue their education from there. We have a bunch of students that have gotten into like the UC Davis medical program and stuff from our medical pathway. We’re also expanding our agricultural pathways. And you know, we have a really great ag team that is just really focused.
Brighter Together [00:04:31]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:04:49]
there’s been kind of a shift in in in agriculture recently from you know, with all the AI and technology that has come into play, a shift from doing the actual farming yourself or or raising the animals yourself to knowing how to program and work with the technology now that is helping farmers be more productive. So really interesting to see kind of how that plays out in
Brighter Together [00:05:16]
Not amazing.
Eric Griffin [00:05:17]
preparation of our students to go out into the workforce. And so yeah, so we’ve just got some really great things that are our focus here this year is opening doors. And and you know we’re we’re trying to apply that in all areas, whether it’s opening doors just to education in in being inclusive in in our practices and including students in the general ed classroom that maybe have historically not, or opening doors to futures with these different pathways.
and and career opportunities. So it’s just a really a strong focus this year as we go forward.
Brighter Together [00:05:53]
Yeah. And you have some great leadership approach. I’d love to like dive into that a little bit with you. and you know, about empowering your people before you expect things. Let’s talk a little bit about that because I just I think it’s so critical to understand where your people are and you’re so focused on how you do things. I just would love for others to hear how that’s working out for you guys.
Eric Griffin [00:06:24]
Yeah, so I I
Over my career in education, you know, and even back home listening to my parents talk when I was a kid over the dinner table about their things, I’ve kind of just gathered these little leadership philosophies. I call them my words to lead by, and I I like to you know share them with my administrative team and the district leadership team. And and one of them is empower before empowerment before expectation. And really it’s just about you know, if we’re gonna set an expectation that you know something needs to be done.
Brighter Together [00:06:50]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:06:55]
certain way or our employees need to perform a certain task or whatever it might be. Just like we would expect our students, we need to make sure that our employees have what they need to be successful. So whether that’s the training that they need to be able to accomplish the task correctly or the materials and resources that they need or even just the time to to prepare for for that kind of stuff. You know one of the things I like to use as an example is because I have the unique perspective of
I worked here in Delhi for a partial year before I had stepped in as interim superintendent. And so I attended the board meetings and I got to hear a lot of the the things that were being brought up at the board meetings by the teachers’ union, for example. And they they would talk a lot about how we our are
Brighter Together [00:07:41]
Okay.
Eric Griffin [00:07:46]
English language development program that we use is a it’s a whole instructional model called SEAL. And it’s based on it’s developed by the Sabrato Foundation based on research similar to like Project Glad and things like that as well. But the idea is that you’re really immersing students in multiple opportunities to practice authentic language.
Brighter Together [00:08:07]
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:08:09]
So you’re embedding content in language development strategies and that is a lot of work on the teachers, right? Because they’re really having to take their standards and then look at their curriculum and look at other resources and create
resources to use with their students that use the information from the curriculum to accomplish the the requirements of the standards, but in a way that focuses on language development. So that’s a
Brighter Together [00:08:40]
Sound like a speech therapist. Yeah, for a teacher, that would be a big lift, yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:08:42]
Yeah, it’s huge, right? And it’s a big lift for teachers who, you know, the the number one thing they hear is I’m not a curriculum developer. Like I I did I don’t get paid to publish a textbook, but here I am having to basically create my own resources. And so I I would hear that over and over again and about how we don’t have time and these expectations are unrealistic and teachers aren’t are going home at eight PM and and we’re not having time to spend with our families. And you know, so one of the first things I did when I stepped in is
Brighter Together [00:08:51]
Right.
Brighter Together [00:09:02]
Mm.
Brighter Together [00:09:10]
yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:09:12]
Interim superintendent is scheduled a meeting to sit down with our union leadership, and I said, let’s just talk because that’s unrealistic. We can’t expect our teachers to stay until 8 p.m. every night. We can’t. They’re gonna burn themselves out. It’s like you know, the the saying goes, you have to put your oxygen mask on first to be able to take care of others and support others. So let’s talk about how we can realistically approach this because if you talk to people, the the
Brighter Together [00:09:22]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:09:27]
Right.
Eric Griffin [00:09:42]
The strategies we’re using are good. People love the strategies. They’re they’re what’s best for kids, which is, you know, my number one guiding philosophy, my number one word to lead by is you have to remain purpose driven, right? You have to
continually focus on what’s best for kids. So we all agree that the strategies are are what’s best for kids, but the implementation is causing an issue. So that’s where that empowerment before expectation is, right? We’re gonna do what’s best for kids, but we’re gonna set our teachers up to be successful. So whether that means we’re gonna focus on a smaller number of strategies that we can be successful with, or whether it means we’re gonna give our teachers the autonomy to take in the information that they’re learning from our our professional development partners and then say
Brighter Together [00:09:56]
Mm-hmm. Right.
Eric Griffin [00:10:25]
Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me in my classroom. I’m gonna do this strategy instead, so that they’re not spinning their wheels on something that they’re getting frustrated with because they know it’s not gonna have the effect that we’re trying to have with our students. So it’s it’s just about you know really being mindful of of the hard work that our people are doing and the expertise that they have, and because you know they’re the ones that are in the field every day, they’re the ones that are are are
Brighter Together [00:10:37]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:10:54]
in the trenches, so to speak, and and we need to to understand their perspective and give them what they need to be successful.
Brighter Together [00:10:55]
Yeah.
Brighter Together [00:11:02]
You sound like me. Because Lighthouse is the same way. You know, it’s like we’re a therapy company run by therapists for therapists. Give the therapists what they need to do their job to be successful for the betterment of students. Put the students, always think about the students first. You know, keep the students in mind with every single thing that you do, but then empower your people to be successful and remember who it is that’s teaching them and who’s doing the work every single day. It’s yeah, I love that.
I love that. And so what have you seen like since you’ve done that? You’ve been you this is your second you’re going into your third year, is that right? Or is it is that right? So you’re two years in and
Eric Griffin [00:11:37]
So it’s my second full year. I had a few months of of the the year before that.
Brighter Together [00:11:41]
Right. So you are going into your third full year, right? So so you have enough time that you’ve got some data. Have you seen has it been fruitful? Have you seen improvements?
Eric Griffin [00:11:46]
Basically.
Eric Griffin [00:11:52]
what I’ve seen yes, I mean we’ve seen an improvements in in the student outcomes, of course. but I think perhaps even more important than that is maybe not more important than that, but but equally as important.
Brighter Together [00:11:55]
Yeah, of course, right.
Brighter Together [00:12:04]
No, I think it isn’t i i because you already have a foundation of take care of the kids. But if you don’t take care of your teachers, right. And that’s the pu so I think it is foundational. I think I think you have a very strong foundation, but you’ve you identified if we’re gonna do this, we have to do this. So so absolutely.
Eric Griffin [00:12:10]
Right.
Eric Griffin [00:12:21]
Yes, exactly. And it’s the culture piece, right? It’s the it’s people feeling respected in their work. it’s another one of my words to lead by is each and every one. And that applies to our students, right? Because you know, one of the things I like to talk about is that when you look at a school’s mission statement or or you hear about
Brighter Together [00:12:25]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:12:29]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:12:46]
School or an educational organization is doing, they’ll often say things like, We believe that all students can achieve at high levels, or we believe that all students will succeed. And what we what I have found, at least in my experience, is that a lot of students get lost in that word all. And so rather than using that word all, I challenge my people to use the words each and every one because it’s much more difficult to get lost there when we’re thinking about each and every student.
And so that that’s our philosophy for our students and and student success, but it also applies to our staff, right? We need to make sure that each and every one of our staff members are empowered to, you know, meet our expectations. And and that includes a lot of our staff that are often overlooked. And and staff that really play a critical role in our our students’ education, that either through a systemic belief or or just
just years of experience being undervalued, they don’t necessarily recognize the importance of their role. And I’m talking about people like people who work in our cafeterias, people who clean our classrooms, people who work in the front office, people who don’t necessarily have direct educational interactions with our students, but absolutely lay the groundwork for the work that happens to teach kids to read and write. You know, a kid can
Brighter Together [00:13:57]
Yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:14:16]
Can’t go into a classroom hungry and realistically be expected to focus on math and reading. So it’s vitally important that our cafeteria staff and our food service staff are doing their part to make sure that our students have full tummies so that they can go learn. It’s vitally important that our classroom spaces are clean and safe so that our students have a comfortable space to go to and our teachers have a comfortable space to go to to teach. And you know, it’s vitally important that our schools look good and are safe.
Brighter Together [00:14:20]
Right.
Brighter Together [00:14:23]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:14:33]
Right.
Brighter Together [00:14:42]
Right.
Eric Griffin [00:14:46]
Outside so that students can have a safe place to play and you know have that brain break that’s so needed, and that it’s a place that they’re proud to come every day. So that’s one of the things that we really push hard here is we include all of our classified staff in our professional development days, and we try to target our professional development opportunities to be really relevant to every person’s role in the district. We differentiate that professional development just like we would for.
Brighter Together [00:14:55]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:15:16]
Our students in the classroom because we we tell them up front, we’re all teachers here. No matter what role you have on our campus, you are teaching our students. Maybe you’re teaching them the value of hard work. Maybe you’re teaching them the value of being kind to one another. Or maybe you’re literally teaching them reading, writing, and math. But whatever it is, you play a critical role in our students’ education because we’re not just raising readers here. We’re not just raising mathematicians.
Brighter Together [00:15:21]
Mm-hmm.
Eric Griffin [00:15:45]
here we’re raising future leaders and they need to have all these life skills that that our our people are modeling every day for them.
Brighter Together [00:15:48]
Right.
Brighter Together [00:15:53]
Awesome. So I so let’s go back to my question because we kind of went off a little bit. So you’ve seen improvements. Yeah, and we talked about the foundation and that’s we kind of covered that foundation, but when’s in the last two years and you’ve been doing this, what have you how have you seen the what has been the fruit of your labors?
Eric Griffin [00:15:58]
Sorry.
Eric Griffin [00:16:15]
I think they you know, there’s there’s obviously the the data driven piece, you know, we in the past two years I I wanna say we’ve made like twelve percentage points increase in reading and and something similar in math. We’ve seen our attendance rates drop to I mean our our absence rates drop to pre-pandemic levels, you know. Our our one of our elementary schools I believe last year had about a three percent chronic absenteeism rate, which means less than three percent
Brighter Together [00:16:20]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:16:32]
Absence rates, yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:16:45]
Of our students miss more than 10% of the school year, which across the state of California we’re sitting about 20% right now. So it’s pretty significant. So you know, there’s there’s been those pieces that that have shown some definite improvement. And then, you know, because of that, because we’re seeing that improvement, and then because we’re focusing on each and every staff member and their contribution, just the culture has shifted too, where people have adopted that each and every one mindset.
Brighter Together [00:16:53]
Yeah, that’s good. That’s impressive.
Eric Griffin [00:17:15]
And people have really, you know, we we went through a a really tough year last year because we had there’s budget issues across the state, across the country, and and we’ve got
Brighter Together [00:17:26]
Yeah. I was I was thinking about that. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I was thinking about that. I wish that our government would and I don’t want to get political, but it’s like if they could see, and that’s part of why Brighter Together’s here, the hard work every single day that people like you are it was running through my mind before is like this is something that I wish our government would do, like see and empower and fund the things that need to be funded.
Because it’s broken and we know it’s broken. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. 1000%. Yes. Yeah. And not and and and the expectation can’t be from one test score. I’m sorry. I have such a hard time with that. It’s like you have no idea what you are what your expectations are when you are putting all of your eggs in one basket in one test score on one day when God knows what that child had gone through that day. You know, and we always
Eric Griffin [00:17:55]
Exactly. They need to adopt that empowerment before expectation.
Yeah.
Brighter Together [00:18:23]
As an educator and as a speech therapist, we always say, look, here’s the test that we gave when we do an IEP, here’s the report that we did, but that’s a a moment in time. It is one moment in time, and that is a springboard for everything else, but it may or may not be a good indication of where that child is functioning. Because and we will even say that in the report, you know, it’s like the child w what was the status of the child emotionally? What did we see? How was the child responding?
when you were giving that test because and and none of that is taken into consideration. None of it. And it’s just you guys are supposed to like make everything perfect on that one day because that’s how we’re gonna judge you. And it’s so backwards and upside down and and beyond insane. And yet that’s what you’re expected to do. it makes me crazy. I don’t know how you do it. Yeah.
Eric Griffin [00:19:12]
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it it drives me crazy too. And it’s like w in what what profession would you go into? What what anything in your adult life do you go through where you have to take a test or something and you get one chance at it? It it it just doesn’t happen. And but but that’s how we’re judged by that one day and and how those students feel that day.
Brighter Together [00:19:27]
Right. No. No. Yeah. By that one day. And they are using and and the media uses it. And I’ve this is a this is a platform. People have heard me talk about this many times because like it just drives me nuts. It just drives me nuts. But yeah, so anyway. And yet you are succeeding. And that’s the that’s the thing, the testament to education in this country that I think gets lost is that
You have we have these incredibly insane expectations that they’re giving and yet you guys are succeeding. You’re seeing improvement in cess scores. You’re seeing improvements in these things, even though that that expectation is unrealistic. It it just gives me chills. So awesome.
Eric Griffin [00:20:10]
Well yeah, ’cause and I think it’s because, you know, if you remain purpose driven and you focus on what’s best for kids, the rest is gonna come. So there’s really no need to focus on on that particular test or whatever, because if you’re truly doing what’s best for kids, if you’re y sure, of course you need to use the standards to guide you and and all that kind of stuff, but
Brighter Together [00:20:15]
Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:20:19]
Yeah. Yeah.
Brighter Together [00:20:30]
Right.
Eric Griffin [00:20:32]
If you’re doing that and you’re doing the the work well and and you’ve got people in there who are really passionate about that, the rest is gonna come. The test scores are gonna go up.
Brighter Together [00:20:38]
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. That is fantastic. So, Eric, where do people go? Cause obviously you have such great philosophies and I know that someone’s gonna go, Ooh, I wonder if he would give me an answer to, or if someone wanted to reach out to you or find out more about your school, where would they go? To find you.
Eric Griffin [00:21:02]
Sure. I mean I’m always happy to to chat with anybody about anything education. Obviously I have a lot to say. So they’re welcome to reach out to us here at the district. I also have a little website of my own that that I offer advice of leadership coaching and stuff, just you know, share my experience in education. So that’s called Equitas Leadership and and it’s all about just, you know, making sure that we’re serving each and every one.
Brighter Together [00:21:29]
Awesome, spell that for me so that those of us that that don’t spell so good know how to get there. Or they’re listening.
Eric Griffin [00:21:33]
Yeah. EQ U Yeah. EQ U I T A S. Equitas Leadership. Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:21:40]
What toss leadership dot com? Is it dot com? Okay. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, Eric, I’ll tell you, it has been I knew this was gonna be a great conversation and it absolutely has been. And a thank you for your passion. Thank you for how hard you work for the kids in Delhi and for your teachers, because you know, we are doing things and you guys are doing things that is going to in
Eric Griffin [00:21:44]
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Brighter Together [00:22:10]
empower and impact the world to come and it matters. So thank you for all your hard work. And thank you for being on Brighter Together. Awesome.
Eric Griffin [00:22:16]
Yeah, well thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all that you do to highlight the hard work that our our educators are doing every day and and the support that you provide for districts because you know, especially now, the the staffing support and the the program support that places like Lighthouse provide, it’s invaluable for districts and and we really appreciate it.
Brighter Together [00:22:40]
Yeah, it’s been a great partnership. And so I I’m gonna touch on it real quick. You know, Lighthouse does provide some services to Delhi and we are s we love partnering with you guys and and it just is when you when you can work together with people and see the kids improve, you know, that’s the best that that’s that’s why I do what I do. Every sing just like you guys, yeah, every single student for us is the same. And I think that’s why we work so well together because we have the same philosophies and we just
All want what’s best for kids. So so thank you. Yeah, awesome. Have a great school year. It is August 11th. If you’re listening to this, it’ll probably be out more like the beginning of September. but school, the school year 2627 is ramping up, and we are excited to step into another amazing school year. So blessings to you and to your team and to for a great 26-27.
Eric Griffin [00:23:38]
Thank you so much.
Brighter Together [00:23:40]
Mm-hmm.
