Uncertainty is common when starting up a new job and life in a new city and adding in a global pandemic during that time does little to ease stress in such a transition.
Northview Elementary Principal Nick Goos knows that well, having relocated his family from Blue Springs, Missouri in the Kansas City metropolitan area during the Summer of 2020 upon his hire by the USD 383 Manhattan-Ogden school district. Dr. Goos is now in his second semester since succeeding former principal Dr. Cleion Morton and says though there were additional hurdles involved in coming to Manhattan as COVID-19 cases were quickly increasing, an optimistic attitude helped the Goos family clear them more easily.
“There’s times where it’s like, was moving during a pandemic the right thing?” says Goos. “But I think if you believe in what you’re doing, you believe you made the choice that’s right for yourself, the school, you just stay focused on the positives and it keep you moving in the right direction and you figure out a way.”
The 20-year educator says the principal position at Northview had additional benefits as well: namely, an opportunity to have his family – including his third, seventh and tenth grade children – all in one place. His wife, Karen Goos, started work as Kansas State University’s vice provost for enrollment management in November 2019. He says he kept his eyes open for work in the Manhattan area after Karen took the position and that he feels fortunate to have come across the opportunity so quickly.
“I think we value the things that we came to know about Manhattan,” says Goos. “The university opportunities that offered, the great community, that support around both the university and the school.”
Goos began his career teaching 4th and 5th graders before entering administration 15 years ago as a middle school assistant principal in the Blue Springs School District. Most recently serving as principal at Voy Spears Elementary, he says the example his parents set as teachers and his desire to make a difference inspired him to start his path as an educator.
“Growing up in schools and just knowing what I know about schools and how it felt for me, I wanted that for all kids and I wanted to be that difference-maker that said ‘you know, you might have struggled with this, but you overcame it and now look at how far you’ve gone because you did,’” says Goos. “When kids come back and they visit me and they’re in college and they tell me about how they’re working on some theatrical thing and they’re acting in their school’s play, […] that’s so fulfilling.
“That’s, to me, what I think makes life so great is that when I make a difference or when the school makes a difference for somebody – they overcome something.”
Goos has an educational philosophy of setting high expectations, but also ensuring to meet kids where they’re at and working to build solid relationships with them and whole families.
“Some kids will come with a lot of experiences when it comes to education and they're ready to take off and do these things and some other families don't have quite as much,” Goos says. “What's refreshing as an elementary school person is that we really are there to meet all the different varying needs and to push kids to grow as much as they can, [and] foster those interests that they have because this is really the launching pad for our youngest kiddos to go and do great things – and they're going to do great things in all different kinds of areas.”
Goos is a graduate of the University of Central Missouri, where he received his education bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he studied educational leadership and policy. His graduate research interests centered on distributed leadership in Midwestern elementary schools and led him and Dr. Barbara Martin to conduct a case study of three Midwestern schools with thriving professional learning communities where they identified collaborative cultures as well as shared leadership and decision-making as key components of successful school leadership.
The research, published in the international Journal of Education and Culture Studies in 2019, has helped shape his approach to taking over the lead role at Northview Elementary. Rather than come in with his mind made up on strategies to grow and improve the school, he’s looked to his new colleagues and community to shape the path forward together.
“It was really about building relationships and listening,” says Goos. “I think leaders sometimes come in and they do more talking than listening, and so one of the things I think that’s important when you’re new is – especially given the situation – let’s listen, let’s support, let me figure out what’s going on with pandemic changes and then we can get to some of those things.
“I didn’t come in with [a mindset] like I had to do these things. It was support teachers, support families in a really tough pandemic situation, and get to know them along the way.”
Goos says it’s difficult to compare Northview and Blue Springs given he’s not yet experienced much of life and education in Manhattan outside of pandemic-times, but despite the population differences between the two areas he did note one area of similarity: community support.
“People care about their schools, about each other, about education for their kids,” says Goos. “I see supportive communities, which I think speaks to the quality of both schools, both districts.
“And to be perfectly honest, that really is exciting for me as somebody who cares a lot about kids. It really works best when it's schools and families and communities all working together.”
Goos also notes there have been pandemic-related challenges to acclimating to the new environment – it’s harder to get acquainted with parents and colleagues with fewer opportunities to hold events and meetings where he’d usually get to meet the community.
Goos has adjusted by doing what he can to ‘over-communicate’ and be visible as much as possible to bridge any gaps. Some of his methods include sending weekly emails to parents, having a presence during pick-up and drop-off times, popping into parent-teacher conferences, and ensuring he’s available to the Northview Elementary community whenever needed.
"I can’t just sit here and wait for people to come, I have to go out and find that,” Goos says. “You have to be purposeful about the things that you do to be visible, because right now it's not about coming in and visiting for lunch because that's not an option.
“I have to put myself out there as a principal of a school so that then they can trust that I'm here for kids and they can come to me and we can work through whatever it is that we're working on.”
Originally posted at https://northviewnotable.substack.com/p/principal-goos-brings-collaborative
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