Episode 62: Westridge Principal Kim Hawkins and Elementary Deputy Superintendent Jason Cox

October 25th, 2024 /
Spencer Tuinei /

Sup with the Sup

00:00 / 34:53

Welcome everyone to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up with the ‘Sup podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau. As we continue to celebrate our principals during Principal Appreciation Month, I was joined by Kim Hawkins, our wonderful principal at Westridge Elementary School, and our Deputy Superintendent Jason Cox, a former elementary principal at Amelia Earhart Elementary.

We talked about the responsibilities and excitement of being an elementary principal. But first, here are our updates.

There are several policies for review on our district website.
- Go to provo. edu, click on Policies, Forms, and Documents. You can click on Review Draft Policies here.
  - Right now, you will see a draft policy for our cell phone policy that will be discussed and voted on at our November 12th.

Our Dixon community meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 29th at Dixon Middle School at 6 o’clock p. m. in the auditorium. There will be a trunk or treat following the meeting.
- Information about construction of the Dixon site and some of the possibilities that we are looking at as well as the financing of our district’s building projects, including Timpview High School, will be discussed more specifically at this meeting and we will be giving you an opportunity to ask further questions.

Would you like to have your voice heard on matters of the district? We have two opportunities for you to be involved with Provo City School District.
- One is a Citizen’s Connections Committee, which will meet and provide feedback to the Board of Education on a variety of topics.
- The second committee is a Parent Advisory Committee for parents of current students within our schools.
  - The purpose of this committee is for district leadership to understand the challenges and concerns that our students have as they attend our school so that we can problem solve with you on how to make our schools welcoming spaces for all.
    - If you would like to serve on either of these committees, please complete the application that has been emailed to all parents and a link will be made available on our website so that you can access the applications and choose which committee you would like to apply for.

The next school board meeting will be a study session and business meeting on Tuesday, November 12th. Please look for more information to be posted on the district website as we get closer to the date.

Continue watching for my weekly videocast in your email every Monday. These videocasts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

And now, let’s move on to our guests, Kim and Jason.

Wendy Dau: Welcome everyone to this week’s podcast. I am here with Kim Hawkins, who is the principal at Westridge Elementary and Jason Cox, who is our deputy superintendent, and has been an elementary principal as well. So welcome to our program.

Kim Hawkins: Thank you.

Wendy Dau: We are celebrating National Appreciation Month for Principals, and so I just thought it would be great to have a few principals on the podcast, so that everyone can kind of get a little, just a smidgen, a little taste of what your job is like. So just start off, Kim, by telling us what might a day include in the life of an elementary principal. Both good, crazy, bad. Kim Hawkins: So, my motto– or my theme– is every day is an adventure.

And I say that a lot. And I think that just says it all. Whether that’s really positive or maybe slightly negative sometimes. It’s busy. I would say everything from getting into the building. Is there any issue? You know, do you need the custodian? Do you need the maintenance team?

Do you need, do you have power, district people? So, you know, those kinds of things. And then it just kind of goes into greeting students, making announcements, being in classrooms, you know, being in the lunchroom outside every minute. I just feel like it’s busy. It’s busy. And it’s just fun. I guess for me, it’s just fun.

I love my job. I love all the interactions. And I love that it’s different at any moment, you know, and that could be that I’m in like the pause room dealing with a behavior issue, but still, it’s still a joy. Wendy Dau: That’s awesome. I’ve been over to Westridge Elementary and have witnessed you doing lots of different things. Like one day, I came to the lunchroom, and you were helping kids dish up salad. I think it was like on the first day of school. Kim Hawkins: Yes.

Wendy Dau: Like I don’t think people realize you are the person that has to figure it out. If the sewer backs up or like, you got to figure out who to call or if this teacher’s wireless, whatever isn’t working, or you’re the point person for all the things.

And anytime a parent is frustrated, you’re that person. You are the problem solver, right?

Tell me a little bit about what that feels like when you have that responsibility on your shoulders, because it’s a lot. Kim Hawkins: It is a lot– and at times you’re like, “Okay, am I going to make the right decision here?” You know, but the nice thing is that I know that there’s a lot of support.

So if I do not know the answer, I know there are people I can call that do know the answer. So that’s really helpful. full in that day to day decision making process, I guess, but ultimately I’m always thinking what’s best for students. What do I need to do to make sure they’re okay, they’re safe. And then the next part is teachers.

What do I do? You know, how do I help? Cause I just want to be helpful. That’s what I’m there for. I want to be supportive. And so that’s always in the back of my mind of, okay, where do I go? What do I do? How do I help? And I hope everyone feels that way, you know, in my building that they know that if they come to me.

I will be there for them.

Wendy Dau: I think there’s no question that people feel that way.

Jason, you’ve worked with Kim for a long time, so tell us what Kim’s strengths are. I mean, she has a ton of them, but this is evidenced quite a bit where you’re talking about how helpful you are. Like, we’ve seen this time and time again.

I’d just love Jason to comment on that.

Jason Cox: Yeah, I think, you know, Kim did a great job of of saying how she approaches things and I agree that she often just looks at how can she help people. What can she do to make this situation be a good situation for everyone involved? And, you know, she has a really good humor about it.

You kind of have heard her chuckle about, you know, some of the things are really hard, but she keeps a great attitude about it as she goes throughout the day. I think people would be really surprised if they had the opportunity to spend a day with a principal and see how many people approach them with questions about all the many things that go on in a school.

It starts long before school starts and then way after the school day ends. The principal is still answering questions, which is a good thing. And again, to Kim’s point, people feel safe to approach her. They feel like she will help. She is someone that’s going to be responsive and all the rest of us who get to work with Kim feel that way too.

Wendy Dau: I agree. Thank you.

Kim Hawkins: That’s very kind.

Wendy Dau: No, it’s so true. I remember last year too, you were talking about a student that was having some challenges. And as you were describing this, I was just like, How does she still have a smile on her face? Like you just keep this air of positivity about you that is really contagious.

Like you can just feel it inside Westridge Elementary. I hope you realize that like it’s a really fun place to visit, but it starts with the leadership. And then your teachers are projecting that as well because you have some fantastic teachers. Tell me what you’re most proud of as a principal or what you’re excited about or you’re like, wow, this was something that was really challenging, but we were able to do this.

Kim Hawkins: There’s so many. Okay. There’s a lot. I think for me, the first thing that comes to mind are like you were saying, those students that may struggle for whatever reason. And I’m just passionate about helping students. And so we had a student that just struggled. He just had a really hard time doing school some days.

And I mean, sometimes we have a hard time doing work. So we get, so we get, , and so it was just, just, he had just had a rough time. We kind of came together as a team and said, what can we do? We need to support this student. We want the student to be as successful as possible. There’s a lot of positive things about him.

What can we do to help? And so our team— I have a great team. We came together, kind of thought outside the box and went, how do we do things differently? And The student ended up having the best year. Parents were happy. The student was happy. We were all just so proud. And as he moved on to the middle school setting, it’s one of those things that I’m constantly thinking, “How’s he doing? How’s he doing?”

But he had an amazing year. And I think those are the stories that stand out the most to me are the students that you can say, okay, they were here. We move them here. And we’re very proud of all the efforts that they put in to be successful in their education.

Wendy Dau: That’s great. We have been celebrating quite a bit about Westridge’s success.

You have done a ton to help students grow. You’ve been really paying your PLCs. Your professional learning communities on Fridays are knocking it out of the park. Your teachers work really well together. Tell me a little bit about why that’s happening, why there’s success there, and how students are really at the center of that.

Because I think sometimes we get questions about, why is there an early out or why do teachers need this time? I think it’s a good opportunity for us to really explain what’s done on those Friday early outs and why they’re so important to our teachers.

Kim Hawkins: Yeah.

One of the things that I talked about, one of the very first things, was interventions.

Let’s make sure our interventions are in place, that they’re research- based. We wanted to make sure that they were consistent, and I don’t know that that was happening. So that was the first thing we said, let’s get in, let’s make sure that we’ve got our systems in place. So we worked really hard on looking at data, looking at where we were and where did we want to go.

And luckily, our teachers, are very, very dedicated and they want the same thing. So I think that’s, that’s the key is we’re all on the same page. We talk data a lot. So our PLCs are the thing that drives all of this, you know, bringing those teachers together in grade level teams, having our special ed department, even our fine arts department going into PLCs.

Wendy Dau: That’s fantastic.

Kim Hawkins: How do we integrate, you know, the arts into the classroom as well, being able to sit down with teachers and listen to them as they’re discussing the data from the recent math test or, you know, their recent wonders or their study sync content. And just being able to problem solve and listen to them.

This is what I’m dealing with. This is what I’m dealing with. How did you teach this? Why are my scores lower? All of those things are real. And to bring those people together and to be able to have conversations in a setting of, you know, 90 minutes without anything else distracting them is really powerful.

They can make a lot of progress and have great conversations. And that’s what we’re seeing. Very, very dedicated teachers wanting the best for kids. And doing the hard work that needs to be done for success.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, it’s not easy to dive into all of that and to figure out things. Right. Jason, you’ve been in the district for a long time and have watched this PLC process.

What do you see as are the benefits that can happen if teachers take the opportunity to use this, and how important is the principal in this whole process in setting that expectation? I think Kim has set that expectation so well.

Jason Cox:

Yeah,

I agree. In fact, talking about Kim and her experience when she was at Franklin, you know, years ago, that’s a highly impacted title one school and at a title one school, there’s a lot of work on the interventions themselves and doing what she described as far as making sure they’re research based, they’re consistent, those types of things.

And she did such great work there. It’s interesting because Westridge is. All schools are unique, and it’s a little bit different in that it has a lot of kids that go to the school that are impacted. Yep. But it has both sides. Yeah. It has students who, you know, come from homes that aren’t as impacted, and so with that experience at the Title one setting, she could come and bring a lot of those things to the school that would be helpful for Westridge.

And speaking specifically about the PLCs, Kim and I both remember a time when the school district didn’t have a day specific for PLCs. Okay. And if you held PLCs, it was your choice as a principal. And, you know, I came from another district before that, where it was expected, and coming into that, it was interesting because I thought, Oh, I, I have to carve out time.

I found the value as a teacher, myself working in PLCs. Now, as a principal, I’ve got to figure this out. I’ve got to find a day that we can do this. And that’s early outs back then. You could schedule your own early out day, and we had them all over the place. Oh my goodness. Elementary schools were basically Monday through Friday.

Somebody had an early out day. That’s pretty wild. I get the chance to talk to people who have been in their career for a long time, and then brand new teachers who are just entering their career, and they come to be a part of that PLC. Both of them have something very powerful and very important to offer to the PLC.

I joked with the people at CITES the other day that new teachers bring the sunshine; you know, they They walk into the school and they have this look like, I want to change the world. And to be honest, all of us who’ve been at it for a while never want to take that out of them. Never want to take it away from them.

We want them to stay in that place of believing they can change the world. So they offer all of these new great ideas to the people who’ve been at it for a while. And the people who’ve been at it for a while have experience and can say, you know, I’ve tried that. It wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped.

Maybe we could do some things to change it. But they have all the experience they can lean on to help the new teacher when they’ve not experienced something. What do I do? You know, that’s often they have the question, what do I do? I don’t know what to do in this situation because I’ve just not done it before.

And the experienced person can give them the advice, lift them and help them to be able to feel successful those first few years too. So both groups have so much to offer to one another. And when you bring a team together and they do work collaboratively like that, you see the tone in your building change because we’re worried about all students being successful, not just my class or the kids that I get to work with.

It’s now everybody and it’s really transformational. It’s a great thing to see when PLCs are really working great in your school.

Wendy Dau: I agree. One of the things research tells us is obviously the teacher is the most important thing in advancing student learning, but the second most important person in the school day, I’m not trying to in any way disparage the role that parents play in families.

Those are, of course, the most important. But during the school day, the second person that’s the most important is the principal. Talk about what that’s like for you to know you’re having such an incredible impact. How does that guide your decision-making as a principal and the instruction and what you choose to prioritize with your teachers?

Kim Hawkins: I think my teachers will tell you that I say this a lot, you know, as we work in our SST team or SPED meetings, what do we do right now to help our students get to that next level? How do we get them to be responsible and great citizens? So I have a bigger perspective or a broader view of what I want.

Yes. I want my first graders to read, and I want them to learn their sight words. You know, I want all of that, but I also want to make sure that when they leave our building, they’re prepared. They’re prepared to get to the secondary level and do well there and then go to college or go to trade school or whatever they want to do, they can accomplish.

And so for me, it’s always the student; even when we’re talking behavior, you know, as I work with students with behavior, how do I want to treat them so that when they reflect on their interaction with me, they know that I have their back or that I’m there to support them in whatever. And so when I think about it in those terms.

Then I can see my decisions affect a broad spectrum of things, right? A lot of times I’m like, I’m not going to make a snap decision right now. You know, you need to like sit and think and breathe sometimes and Walk around the hall and then come back and say, okay, I think let’s do this and explaining the why is very important to me as well to teachers, to students, so that it’s not just, Oh, Mrs. Hawkins is making this decision because for whatever reason, she just woke up that day and felt like that was the decision that needed to be made. It’s no, it was thought out what’s best, what’s best is always in the forefront of my mind.

Wendy Dau: I think that’s very powerful in talking about that why or that rationale, because I think sometimes we’ve been sitting with that decision for a long time.

So the why is very apparent to us, right? And we’re not always really good about communicating it out. But one of the things that I hear all the time from your teachers and community is just how good you are at explaining why this change was made or why we do it this way or all of those pieces. And you’re very deliberate in that.

It’s impressive to see that, and you remind me to do that and to be better at it. It’s a really good thing to keep in the back of our minds. Most people get on board if you tell them why we’re doing something.

Kim Hawkins: For me, I always– I always say when I forget what it’s like to be a teacher, then I need to get out, you know, because I remember being in meetings and listening to my principal and getting on board– all of this information and going, “Why do I have to do that?” and not understanding. Sometimes it was just like, I don’t know if I want to do that, because I don’t know. So that was one of the most powerful lessons I learned is– if you explain the why you can get people on board, they might not be happy with the decision that’s made, but they’ll understand.

Wendy Dau: I was watching a teacher the other day, and they were doing group work ,and the teacher was going from group to group and asking questions. And I was thinking, you know, sometimes when I had my kids do group work, I was like, Oh, I get to sit down for just a minute. And our teachers do not do that. They are on their feet all the time.

And I just think about watching our principals as well is that you’re all answering your email at like eight o’clock at night because You’re out in classrooms, you’re busy, busy, busy, busy doing all of the things, taking care of all of the pieces of your school. It’s pretty– it’s pretty remarkable how many hats you wear.

Tell me what your why is.

Kim Hawkins: My why. So I have a brother that struggled. in school from the time kind of he entered school. I’m a Provo school district child.

The teachers here were the people that were trying to help him and he just struggled. It was hard for him. And I just remember growing up seeing that struggle and thinking, how could I help? How can I help him? How could I help others? And so in my office a while ago, Coca Cola did printed names on the bottles.

And so I have a bottle with my name on it and I have a bottle with my brother’s name on it. And they’re in my office. So I have that to remember the why of when I was a child. I also have in my office above my cupboards some pirate stuff, because when I was in the classroom I had a pirate themed classroom.

And so those things are there. And it’s, once again, why? I’m a teacher. I’m a teacher at heart. And I say to everyone that talks to me about being a principal, I’m like, I’m a teacher with paperwork, you know, lots of paperwork, lots of plans, lots of things you have to take care of, but ultimately you’re a teacher.

And so looking at my brother and saying, okay, how can I help? How can I change the world for another student? So that’s my why.

Wendy Dau: Awesome. Tell us about one of your favorite students or a favorite story or something where you’re just like, this is what I think back on when I’m having a really hard day as a principal.

Kim Hawkins: This is also what motivates me.

I had a student that really struggled academically. Home life was hard, didn’t have a lot in like material things, and it was probably this time of year, you know, getting cold, and I just kept watching and thinking, “I haven’t seen a coat, I haven’t seen anything warm,” still kind of in those summer clothes, and just kept watching her and thinking, “Hmm, what’s going on?”

And so I went out and I bought her a coat, and I thought, this was, you know, way before, we helped students with social workers and all of that. So years, a hundred years ago, I, I was a little nervous. I didn’t know how she would respond. I didn’t know how the family would respond. I mean, I didn’t want to be offensive in any way.

I just wanted to be helpful. And so I gave it to her one day before she went out to recess and just said, “Hey, why don’t you put this on?” Not “This is yours, “whatever. It just, “Why don’t you put this on? It’s kind of cold out there. Let’s, I’ll put my jacket on. You put this on, let’s go.” Went out to recess, came back in, had the coat on still.

She wore the coat the rest of the day. And at the end of the day, you know, walking the students out, she came up to me and she said, “so can I– can I wear this coat tomorrow?” And I said, “Oh, you can take it home.” And she said, “I can take it home.?” And I said, “Yeah, if you want it, it’s yours. You can have it. ” And she got the biggest smile on her face.

And went like bopping, you know, out the door. And the next morning, she came to me. She had tears in her eyes, and she thanked me for the coat. I thought, okay, if I can impact one child, you know, a year, with something like that, then it’s worth the job. And I feel like we impact students lives. And I always want it to be a positive impact.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. That’s what I hope for. No question.

Jason, talk to us a little bit about all of the things we make principals do. Because we make them do a lot. They have a hard job and they handle it gracefully. And especially Kim handles it gracefully. Talk to us a little bit about what that’s like.

Jason Cox:

The job of being a principal has really changed over the years.

I guess it’s– you can kind of joke about it, but when you’ve been at it for 30 years, what it was like when you started is not anything like what it is now, right? But when I became a teacher, a principal’s job was more about the management of a school. You know, they really worked on making sure people were in place, you know, things happen day to day.

The building was running okay, but the instructional leadership side of it wasn’t quite the expectation then that it is now. And so as that role has changed and the principal is being asked more and more to, to impact learning. Like you mentioned, you know, they need to be in the classrooms. They need to be doing observations.

They need to be leading professional development. So that means they need to have a background and an understanding of the instruction itself. They need to feel the confidence and the ability to go in and coach someone who’s not doing well and give them advice on how to improve. And that’s all just on the instructional side.

Kim mentioned a few minutes ago, some of the things that are hard to measure, which are the soft skills of making people feel comfortable, making them feel welcome. Having students feel like it’s not a terrible thing to have to go and visit with the principal, you know, and that goes both directions. It goes for students and adults.

So, you know, you’re trying to help everybody feel comfortable about coming in to visit you. But you’re right. We ask a lot of principals. We ask so much of them. I think their role is so key to the school because, when you think about it, they’re the bottleneck. Everything flows through them that goes to the school and flows back through them that comes to us or those of us who work outside of the school.

That means they see everything. And so again, it’s just such an important job. You know, I love the fact that Kim mentioned how kids are so important to her. I think that idea of having an impact on students. If you don’t feel that, I don’t think you can last very long in the job of being a principal.

Because, really, it’s not a business job. It’s about people. All of us have strengths and weaknesses. You know, everyone who’s had the chance to be a principal. And it, sometimes those things become very glaring. Like, Oh, I’m really good at the soft skills. I like to talk to people. I like to help them feel good.

I have a really hard time holding people to certain things. I have a really hard time telling people that they have to be here on time or, you know, whatever it may be. The other part of being a good principal is being balanced in all of those things, having the ability to do all of it to a certain level.

Wendy Dau: I think having clear expectations becomes really important and communicating that, but also providing the right support so people can meet those expectations. I also think about, even when I started as a teacher, like parents couldn’t email you, you know, there was a delay. And so it was almost like if the parent had to drive in the car to come down and meet with the principal, they might be more calm by the time they get there.

Whereas if they can just get on their email or their text message, you’re on call all the time. Like people are emailing you and they want immediate responses and they want resolution to their problems, and that’s a hard thing to balance. Talk about how you have to kind of set some boundaries so that you can have a personal life as well and what that looks like.

You know, if you’re talking to a new principal, what would be some advice you would give them for how to do that successfully?

Kim Hawkins: I still need to work on that.

Wendy Dau: I know, I know. Me too.

Kim Hawkins: I’m gonna be honest, I’m not the best at that. That’s a difficult thing. And I’ve always said that teaching, being in schools, being a principal, it’s my job and my hobby.

I really believe that. I feel like for a new principal, I would say it’s okay to say, No, it’s okay to say, hold on. So even when I get an email, it used to be that I thought, Oh, I’m going to have to respond right now. Like right this minute, I have to solve that problem. And it’s okay to call a parent and say, do you know what?

I’m going to work on this. Give me a day. Give me two days. I will get back to you by this time. And so I’ve given myself a little bit of grace that way to say, “I don’t need to solve the problem right now. I can take some time to figure it out.”

Wendy Dau: Yeah.

Kim Hawkins: But I think it’s helpful to have like a supportive family, a supportive system.

My family, they know how passionate I am about education. And so they’re very supportive. My daughters are supportive. Um, they grew up in my classroom. They grow up helping me with all kinds of things. Even today, you know, they’ll stop by and help me with something if I need it. And so having a support system is really important, but having those hobbies outside of school, you You know, having things that you’re looking forward to after school is important as well, because it can be time consuming.

You can spend all day at school and you can spend all night if you wanted to. You could. Doing, just answering emails, to be honest, would take you all night, but I’m still working on it.

Wendy Dau: I know. If you ask my family, they’ll say, she needs a little work. My family would be like, she’s not very good. Yeah, that’s what they would say.

Jason, you help us with a lot of new principals that are coming in and you see a lot of the stresses that happen. What advice would you give individuals as they’re in this career and trying to support teachers and families and students? What will help them?

Jason Cox: Yeah, some of our new principals might find this kind of funny because I’m sure I’ve said it to them, but, as people have come in, I think you leave the classroom and become a principal because you want to now have a greater influence on the number of students lives you impact, right?

You were in the classroom and you get to work with 25 to 30 kids and that’s great, but you start to see, I might be able to help change systems in our whole school if I were the principal.

Wendy Dau: Yeah.

Jason Cox: And so you leave the classroom for that reason and you come out and you’re excited like you were as a new teacher to do the right thing and to do the best for everyone and to make all of these changes.

And I think sometimes we get caught up in wanting to make too many changes too fast. And, you know, we often talk about how if you don’t have the right culture in your system, then you’re not going to be able to keep sustainable change. And so you could go into the building as a new principal and ask people to do a lot of things differently.

You can change the structure of the day. You can, you know, just make a lot of changes, but if you don’t have people understanding the why, like we talked about before and have people have that level of excitement that you do to a certain extent about why we’re doing some of the things, then it won’t be sustainable.

It’ll be something where you’re just pushing uphill all the time. And as soon as you stop pushing, it’ll go away. My advice for new principals is always to go in and try to find two or three things that are really key things that you have experience about in the past that you saw in your classroom, or in a former school that you were teaching in that were successful, and that you’re going to get the most bang from your buck from your time doing those things in that first year– because you don’t want to choose too many things you need to really limit it to two or three things and put a lot of energy into explaining the why.

Okay. Helping people understand why you’re needing to do those things and then make those few changes as that happens. And people see success from it. Everyone loves to feel successful and that helps you gain momentum as a principal. And then once you go into the next year, you’re going to be successful.

Keep that in mind. Two to three things. What are the two to three really key things that I want to impact this year and try to make improvement on? And I think as you do that, again, the school just starts to gain momentum. You’ll have people coming to you with ideas and that’s when it starts to really become fun.

Wendy Dau:Yeah, because then the people in your school are really owning the culture of the school and the outcomes that are happening. One of the things I’ve noticed about Westridge, Kim, is that your teachers are very dedicated and they stay. Like one of the things that we’ve talked about is, you know, when you have a high amount of turnover, it really is hard.

You’re resetting every single year and it’s hard to gain that momentum. Tell me some of the things that you do as a leader to help your teachers to really build that culture because they love Westridge. They want to be there and that’s in large part because of the environment all of you have created, but certainly you as the leader have done a ton of work to make that happen for your teachers.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Kim Hawkins: I feel like they know they can come to me– an open door policy, and I know that they will come to me if there’s an issue or sometimes just to talk–

Wendy Dau: Yeah.

Kim Hawkins: –Not even school related. You know, just to talk about how the weekend went. So I think being very open and also being open– being honest and vulnerable yourself as a principal, being able to say, “Today was a rough day, you know, like, wow.” But on Fridays before our PLCs, we talk celebrations. And I think that’s a really good thing, especially a lot of times it’s for me, like the week or the day has been really rough and I want to hear something great that’s been happening.

And so we share out the celebrations that have happened that week and we clap for each other. So that’s one thing I. I think that we do well. I’m in PLCs, so I’m hearing the issues, I’m hearing the successes. I feel like teachers know they can text me in the middle of the night, they can email me, they can call me, I’ve just made it very clear that I’m there for them and I want them to reach out to help.

I try to recognize our teachers, I try to give them just something small every month to just say, thank you. Thank you. That was a long way, you know, chocolate on Fridays is a real help. You know, we have a– a Westridge Delicious Bar on Friday where like so delicious, but it’s Westridge Delicious. And that is out there for them.

The minute I’m in the building, it’s set up, you know, so they can get their drink, but get their mix in. So just some of those things. that really you go, it’s not much on my end, but I think it makes an impact.

It demonstrates that you’re willing to serve and to support and that you’re willing to be there.

And I think like a positive mindset, you know, just– we can do this. We can do hard things. We’ve got it. There might be a bump in the road. We’re going to fix it. We’re going to tweak things. We’re going to keep going because it’s worth it.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, it’s awesome. Is there anything else you would like to share about a day in the life of a principal at Westridge Elementary?

Kim Hawkins: It is a joy. To use, you know, your theme, it’s magical. It is magical for me. Even those hard days are magical. end the day and the kids leave and you kind of reflect, you know, as you’re driving home or you’re sitting in your office going, okay, did I make an impact today? Did I make someone smile? Was I supportive in some way?

And those are all the things that bring me joy. If I can say, yeah, I think I made a student smile. Yep. I got that side hug. You know, the student that I had to have a conversation with yesterday and it wasn’t really great. There was a little bit of an issue. The next day they come and they’re still smiling and they still want to interact with me.

And I want to interact with them. All of those things make this job magical. And, like I said, when I forget what it’s like to be a teacher, then that’s when I need to leave. But right now, I’m super, super happy and I’m still excited about it all. And it’s still magical. It’s still magical for me.

Wendy Dau: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much. We want you to know, Kim, how much we appreciate all that you do, not just for our students at Westridge and those families, but just the mentoring and the example you are to the leaders across our district. And it’s a real privilege to work with you.

Kim Hawkins: Well, thank you. I appreciate you guys very much.

Wendy Dau: Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up With the ‘Sup. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcast. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu.

Don’t forget to join us again next week when we are back with an all new episode of What’s Up with the ‘Sup. Have a great weekend everyone.

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