Let’s Be Frank

The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination.

Dan Millman

It’s Dr. Seuss Day at Larchmont Elementary in 2016. We are in East Tacoma, a gritty neighborhood with industrial roots. Our students’ parents are a mix of immigrants, Tacoma natives, and tough working class families. In 25 minutes or so, the dismissal bell will ring and hundreds of students will pour out of our doors into the surrounding streets. A fortunate fold of students will board the bus driven by the man who has just walked into the front office wearing a Seuss hat and red bowtie. With a booming baritone laugh, he greets the office staff and beams with excitement about the school-wide celebration of Dr. Seuss. On this afternoon, he’s brought a book that he wants to read to a class later in the week.

He is equal parts ambassador, ringmaster, and father figure. He is Mr. Frank Shepherd

Mr. Shepherd wasn’t like the bus drivers I’d encounter as a classroom teacher on bus duty or walking my kids to a bus in the afternoon. He was composed. He wasn’t frazzled. His calmness and enthusiasm infused the students with a similar calmness. I can’t count the number of times I saw him give out stuffed animals to kindergartners who had a tough day. Mr. Shepherd was the opposite of what I recall from my own childhood. The bus drivers I remember started the day barking out orders. “Sit down! Get your feet out of the aisle!” The only time they walked into the school’s front office was to deliver a discipline report to the school principal.

The millions of people who support public education in school cafeterias, school buses, and in custodial roles are an extension of work of classroom teachers and principals. They too embrace our kids and create spaces where they are celebrated and nurtured. All too often, we overlook their contributions. But every once in a while, someone comes along and reminds us of the potential for creating magic beyond the classroom. Mr. Shepherd guides us there.

Over the twenty years that I’ve worked in and around public schools, I’ve only encountered a few people who had the remarkable ability to instantly change the temperature in a room. They were individuals with larger than life personalities that radiated around them, infusing every project they touched with an air of alchemy. Mr. Shepherd was the only one I’d ever met with this gift who was not an educator by trade. Each afternoon he held court either from the door of his bus or from the driver’s seat. High-fives, handshakes, questions about the day. He did what we begged teachers to do at the start of their day. Our students were his students, but we too were students of his. Each afternoon he was teaching us powerful lessons about the energy of enthusiasm, the hope embedded in humor, and centrality of celebrations.

“Mr. Mountain, I’ve got an idea. Listen…I want to bring ice cream for everyone on my bus. They’ve been doing much better and I want to celebrate them. What do you think?” Like a teacher devising ways to reshape the culture in a classroom, Mr. Shepherd is always looking for, and recognizing the small successes and incremental wins that so many of us overlook.

Frank Shepherd is an icon. Gregarious. Attuned. He is the default master of ceremonies for hundreds of children each day as they ride his bus through the streets of Tacoma, Washington. For the fortunate, he is the first face of Tacoma Public Schools that many children see as they venture out of their neighborhoods. He sets the tone for the day for hundreds of young scholars before they ever venture through the front doors of a school. The poetic irony of his last name, ‘Shepherd’, is appropos to who he is and what he does. A shepherd watches over a flock during the day, ensuring that none of them go astray. Shepherds are found leading their flock out early in the mornings and bringing them back home in the evenings to a place of comfort and safety.

Frank Shepherd is not a fictional character. He is the personification of the idea of leading from anywhere in an organization. Months after I departed Washington State to take a role as a principal in metro-Atlanta, Mr. Shepherd found me on Facebook and took the time to extend his congratulations to me and my family.

If we are to continue to transform our communities when school resumes, it will take everyone involved to be a little more like “Frank”. Let’s be “Frank” in how we interact with our scholars, colleagues and parents. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are over 681,000 school bus drivers in the United States. Just imagine the impact that could be made in our communities if they all were a bit more like “Frank”. Bus drivers, secretaries, school nurses, paraprofessionals, cafeteria staff, custodians all add value to the work we do by way of their daily interactions with our scholars. The questions they pose matter. The compliments they give boost confidence and self-esteem. Mr. Shepherd is the first and last school employee his students encounter each day. He reminds us that each day is a new journey and, frankly speaking, we are all in the driver’s seat.

Soundtrack to this blog: On the Road Again by Willie Nelson