Students at Amity Regional High School helped craft Connecticut’s K12 cell phone policy and continue to serve on several advisory boards. Stepping into various leadership roles gives them growing influence in administrative decision-making.
Principal Andre Hauser says the school’s culture promotes “conditions for success.”
Note: The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What is your leadership philosophy?
It boils down to a couple of fairly simple concepts. I’ve been a high school principal for 16 years and a building administrator in Connecticut high schools for 22 years. I’ve had a lot of time to make mistakes and learn from them.
Ultimately, it comes down to the concept of “we before me.” It’s not about me. It’s about the kids and the work.
I see my role as creating the conditions for success and putting others in a position to shine in their leadership. That means creating as many opportunities as possible for kids, focusing on developing good teachers and practices, and then building a strong and independent leadership team.
Speaking of opportunity, how are you helping students advocate for themselves and their peers?
In a lot of schools, kids often say, “Well, that’s an adult task.” But we’ve built such a community of student agency that kids naturally look for opportunities to lead.
In Connecticut, our state board of education has two student representatives. Each of the four years that I’ve been here, I’ve had students apply to be on it. One of them was instrumental in the development of the statewide cell phone guidelines for schools to use.
Our statewide principals organization, the Connecticut Association of Schools, has student advisory boards. Each year, we have multiple students serve on the student equity advisory board or the student athletic advisory board.
Closer to home, our district’s board of education has two student representatives, a junior rep and a senior rep. Every year, those spots are filled through a competitive interview process where students who apply are interviewed by me, our student government advisor and whoever is going to be the senior rep the next year. Finally, they’re interviewed by the superintendent.
These kids give monthly reports on the state of the schools at board meetings, and they’re really active participants.
How are students influencing your decision-making at the school level?
We’re doing school for kids, not to them. To make good decisions for kids, you need their input.
I have a principal’s committee that meets weekly. Many of the members come from our student government, but it’s open to anybody. We meet at 7 a.m. on Friday mornings, and I usually get 20 to 25 students showing up.
It’s completely student-led. We’ve got a junior and a senior who co-chair it, and they have a weekly newsletter for the student body. There’s always a link in the newsletter for anybody who wants to introduce a topic for our next meeting.
I take plenty of notes and then take care of what we discussed and report back to them the next week. Meanwhile, the synopsis of our conversation will be shared in our newsletter that weekend.
That’s a really important piece of getting the student perspective. You have to build opportunities for it. You can’t just hope that students will walk up to you in the cafeteria.
What advice do you have for leaders who want to replicate the work you’re doing surrounding student advocacy?
There are three things that come to mind. First, start with a “yes” mindset. When someone approaches you with a far-fetched idea, ask yourself, “How could we make this happen,” rather than simply saying “no.” That little shift really pays dividends.
Next, you have to create structures for student agency. My principal’s committee is a good example of that. We’ve got a school climate committee that has student representatives, an active student newspaper, and things like that.
Third, if you want to boost student advocacy and agency, you have to be explicit about it. If you want feedback, you have to ask students for it.
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