An Interview with Dr. Cavness

An Interview with Dr. Cavness

For the leadership interview, I spoke to Dr. Rodney Cavness, Superintendent of Port Neches-Groves Independent School District.  One thing that has stood out to me since working for Dr. Cavness is that he is very knowledgeable of the state legislature and how their dealings will affect our schools.  One of the questions that I asked him was “What would you recommend an aspiring administrator to be reading to keep up with updates from the legislature?”  He recommended that I read Texas ISD everyday to stay current.  Also he said that TASBO puts out a legislative update that is very good.  Dr. Cavness said that he spends a good portion of his time in the office reading to stay current.  When I asked him his definition of leadership he defined it as “knowing how to organize people and resources to see a vision become a reality.”  With this he stressed that you must build capacity.  I really liked his answer when I asked him about the positive aspects of being in a leadership position, like superintendent.  He told me that he gets to make decisions that will impact 4800 kids and sets of parents.  He stressed that by helping the schools you are also helping the community and can see a positive result by people moving into your district because of the quality of education.  When asked about the attributes of a good superintendent, Dr Cavness said you need to be tough, knowledgeable, visionary, people person, and non-complacent.  After talking briefly about Superintendent Competency #5, I asked Dr. Cavness “how do you accomplish such wide ranging strategic planning?”  He said that you have to look at the district’s vision and compare it to the needs assessment, and from there you make a strategic plan.  One aspect that he stressed was that you have to be willing to turn some of the decision making loose to the experts in the field.  Being that I have a minimal amount of knowledge on budget, I asked him how he got to know a lot about this area.  He stressed again that you have to surround yourself with experts who know about budget because you will deal with it every day.  His approach has been to have a balanced budget where kids won’t suffer from lack of resources.  He also talked about learning the budget template that changes every couple of years.  I definitely gained some knowledge and personal insight into my boss through this interview.