Education Week - February 22, 2017 - 56

LESSONS FROM
A LEADER

Lead From the
Classroom
Tech initiatives get bogged
down when classroom
educators mistrust IT
staff. The ability to tweak
network architecture
is necessary, but not
sufficient, to change
instruction.

Delegate
Decisionmaking

Find the lowest possible
point for decisions to be
made. When staff knows
they don't have to run all
decisions up the flagpole,
morale and job satisfaction
are higher and fixes are
made more quickly.

Share Your Work
Provide funding for
teachers and technology
staff alike to travel to
conferences and meet -ups.
Presenting your work leads
to greater ownership
of your work.

"maker spaces" for hands-on student building and
creation. And over the past two years, Williams has
dramatically expanded opportunities for students and
staff members to learn computer science, a key priority in recent years of both employers and the Obama
administration.
Such initiatives have been a boon to the largely
low-income and minority communities that Perris
Union serves in Riverside County, says Jonathan
Greenberg, the district's recently retired superintendent.
But it's Williams' relentless style that truly makes
him stand out, Greenberg says of the man who thrice
turned down his offer of a promotion.
"You can't tell him anything is impossible,"
Greenberg says. "One way or another, Joe Williams is
going to get his way."

Hardscrabble Beginnings
Growing up poor in Los Angeles, Williams had an
uneven home life, he says, with an absent father and
a mother who regularly kicked him out of the house.
Friends would take him in, but college wasn't really
part of the discussion.
He started working construction while still in high
school. After graduation, he stayed on, advancing to
demolition work and earning a reputation as a quick
learner and hard worker.
But after getting passed over for a promotion in
favor of (what he believed to be) a less-skilled candidate with a college degree, Williams decided he was
ready for a change. He resolved to go back to school.
In a twist, he decided to study literature and education.
One surprise source of inspiration, Williams says,
was Vin Scully, the legendary Dodgers play-by-play
announcer. As a child, Williams spent long hours
with his old AM radio, listening to Scully weave narratives that transported Williams out of his immediate surroundings and nurtured within him a lifelong
love of storytelling.
And on the job, Williams says, his bosses in the
construction industry had showed him what good
instruction looks like: lots of patience, plenty of
hands-on learning, and a commitment to finding varied ways to teach and re-teach new skills to
diverse groups.
Both influences served him well as a high school
English teacher in the Perris Union district, where he
started in 2006.
"Joe would take on the kids that everyone else
wanted to get rid of, and he would turn them
around," says Greenberg, the former superintendent.
"These were 14- and 15-year-olds, functionally illiterate, didn't like school, were close to dropping out.
He believed in them."
At times, Williams' passion and firm beliefs created friction.
As a new teacher, for example, he quickly determined that the district's heavily scripted curriculum
for struggling readers was "insulting" to his stu-

Education Week Leaders To Learn From 2017

dents. So he mostly scrapped it inside his classroom.
As a literacy coach, he sometimes pushed hard on
teachers he felt weren't doing right by kids, prompting one colleague to attempt to file a grievance with
their union.
And Williams didn't mince words with his superiors.
In response to a staff revolt over one Perris Union
principal's leadership style, Williams and a colleague
took Greenberg to lunch. Over In-n-Out burgers, Williams bluntly blamed the superintendent.
Greenberg says his initial defensiveness quickly
gave way to admiration.
"Saying that took guts," he says. "I recognized
that while [Williams] might make me uncomfortable, it's because he really cared about their school
and wanted it to be better."
By 2011, Williams had become a technology coach.
Three years later, he was Perris Union's director
of technology. Last spring, he was elevated to the
district's cabinet.
During his rapid ascent, several themes have held
constant.
Williams wants technical problems solved "at the
lowest possible point." One strategy to make that
happen: His 17 IT staffers all use digital tools, such as
Slack and Zendesk, that are more readily found in tech
startups than medium-sized school districts. Such
tools have helped to eliminate bottlenecks in communications, allowing staff members to make decisions
and respond to help-desk requests more quickly.

Teachers at Forefront
Williams also wants teachers to help lead Perris Union's conversation about technology. One of
his proudest legacies is the district's Educational
Technology Council. Previously a forum for teachers
to request software updates and air their techrelated grievances ("It was a committee attended by
people who wanted to complain about upgrading to
Windows 2003," he says), Williams restructured the
group in 2012. Now, a rotating cast of both teachers
and tech staff lead the group in discussions about
how technology can be used to improve instruction.
And Williams is adamant about never settling for
"good enough."
The results of that approach have been smooth
launches and continued growth for a number of
high-profile technology initiatives.
While the nearby Los Angeles Unified School
District ran into big problems trying to quickly distribute iPads to students and staff, for example, Williams took a patient approach to rolling out Scholar+.

Education Week - February 22, 2017

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