Dr. Amber Block

The best advice I've ever gotten is to be humble in everything, and to see people as people first, and not just a number in an organization. This has really shaped how I approach leadership and how I interact with everyone I work with, reminding me that behind every role is a real person who deserves to be valued and respected.

I would say that everyone is always replaceable, and it's really important to focus on your own emotional health so that you can show up as your best, without burning out or striving to make everyone happy. At the end of the day, if you're not emotionally healthy, leadership is gonna burn you out, and so take care of yourself, take your PTO days. Take mental health days, and do the things that you need to do so that you can pour back into others.

Right now, there's a lot of challenges in public education. Number one is just a lack of funding and support nationwide from the federal government, and because of that, we're seeing a lot of turnover in staff and burnout because we're asking teachers to go above and beyond in doing things that we can't exactly pay them for. It cuts a lot of resources and access, especially in the urban core, and that is really impacting the quality of education that we're able to provide. Another major challenge is screen addiction amongst our kids, which has really created a lot of dysregulated little humans that come to school. Kids and families don't have the skills to regulate their nervous systems, and so that turns into really big behavior problems and escalation, and we just don't have the resources or the physical support from human capital to support the intense behavior challenges that we're seeing. It's really easy for parents to just hand their kid a screen and tell them to be quiet as an easy babysitter versus playing with them or reading to them, so we're seeing kids that don't have a lot of the skills that they used to have. They're not able to think for themselves, they really respond to instant gratification, and when it comes to being in class, it's really hard for kids to sit still. All of that just plays into the burnout that we're seeing in this field.

My faith is definitely the foundation for everything I do, and so I value humility and service - servant leadership. I really try to be the hands and the feet in everywhere I go, whether that's personal or professional. A phrase I kind of live by is be less of a Pharisee and more like Jesus, and just love people well. Those are really the keys for me.