Leadership Profile, Chris Brecht: ‘Humble Leadership’ at the center of strategic plan implementation

From the very beginning, Chris Brecht, now Boulder Valley School District’s director of strategic initiatives, had his sights on leading the district's efforts around the All Together For All Students Strategic Plan. 

A global pandemic delayed his aspirations – but not forever.

Brecht started at the district a few weeks before COVID-19 struck, forcing the closure of schools and pushing district leaders to find new ways to keep students learning.

“Like so many others, my job went from what was on my job description to now ‘Other Duties as Assigned’ is 90% of your job,” Brecht recalled.

The silver lining to the very challenging situation was that, as someone brand new to the district, he immediately had the opportunity to meet and work closely with a wide array of people throughout the organization, including district leaders.

“Before, I was just trying to remember people's names,” Brecht remembered. “A couple weeks later, I'm on nightly calls with all of these people. I got to know everybody, super quickly.”

“It also gave me a realization of just how many great people there were at BVSD,” he added. “There's so many good, talented people and because of this crazy situation, I get to work with all of them now.”

While this might have been overwhelming to most, Brecht stepped up and quickly became indispensable. 

His years of supporting leaders, communications and project management first at Edison Learning and then at Adams 12 Five Star Schools positioned him well for the the moment. His ability to handle difficult assignments including changes to attendance boundaries and school start times, as well as bond projects, made him an excellent choice to lead the efforts to bring students back to in-person learning.

While “reintroduction,” as it was called, was challenging, he says the boldest decision made by BVSD leadership during that period wasn’t about when and how to bring students safely back to the classroom. It was the choice to continue forward with the work of the strategic plan.

“It is a completely understandable decision for school district leaders to say, ‘let's pause, take the time to breathe and let everybody kind of figure out life after the pandemic,’” Brecht acknowledged. 

Instead BVSD decided to lean further into the work outlined in the strategic plan.

“It is not something that everybody had the courage to do during that time," Brecht said. “As we looked at the elements of the plan we said, ‘We still believe in these things. We believed in them before and we believe in them even more so now.”

He credits district leadership with what he calls “stick-to-itiveness.”

“Superintendent Anderson and Deputy Superintendent Lora de la Cruz remained committed,” Brecht recalled. “They continued to focus on these things because we care about them and it is what is best for kids.”

“This pandemic hurt. It hurt some of our families really badly,” Brecht continued. “It made those core values and the things that we were chasing so much more important, because now that impact was so much greater.”

The hard work of our educators – before, during and after the pandemic – has paid off. 

While other school districts across the nation reported dips in student achievement and growth, in BVSD students quickly got back on track. Most remarkable was the turnaround at some of our worst performing schools, including Alicia Sanchez Elementary, which earned the Governor’s Bright Spot Award for the student growth recorded at the school during the pandemic.

“We've made a lot of progress and we've already hit many of the strategic goals that we set,” said Brecht. “It is crazy to think about, but we have and it is thanks to our educators.”

Last year BVSD presented our strategic plan and the result at the Learning Forward Conference, when it was held in Denver. 

“We were able to tell the story of this major transformation,” Brecht said. “There's been a culture shift and it is a testament to the great people we have across the system, the principals and the teachers that we have.” 

He believes that the tangible results at both the district and school levels will be crucial to the sustainability of the strategic initiatives moving forward.

While it is true that often other strategic plans or educational trends have come and gone, the fact that the focus on this strategic plan is based on foundational best practices that produce significant outcomes for students makes it easier for educators to implement the practices now and into the future. Brecht’s role now is to continue to push the institution forward.

“I'm a competitive guy, so if you give us a goal, I’m determined to beat the goal,” Brecht said.

That said, he believes in “humble leadership,” borrowing the term used by Adams 12 Superintendent Chris Gdowski. 

Brecht continues to use his trademarked strengths in coordination and communication across the organization to ensure that we are carefully listening, to ensure that we are moving at the right pace and providing the resources needed.

“We're going to be really thoughtful in every step that we take. We're not going to go too fast,” Brecht promised. “What do you need to make this continue to work? How can we refine, how can we adjust?”

He readily defers to the expertise of the outstanding educators around him.

“We have really talented, brilliant people,” Brecht said. “We can tackle really challenging goals that a lot of other districts can't take on…we just can because we have the people and we have the systems in place.”

As a non-educator, he serves an important role of being able to challenge the norms that sometimes can keep school districts from reaching the next level. 

“My job is to go in and be totally okay with asking the questions and being the guy in the room that doesn't know,” Brecht said. “I try to really push on some things that maybe we didn't want to push on previously or ask us why we can't do something that we just assume we can't do.”

“Here's the goal that we're trying to set,” he continued. “Why can't we hit that goal?”

Getting to Know Chris

Here are a few more details, so you can get to know our Director of Strategic Initiatives.

The Family Man
Chris is a proud dad of two adorable little girls, Annabelle (3) and Everlee (5), plus he and his wife, Katrina, are expecting a third child (a boy this time) in March.

“I'm in the thick of it," Chris said with a laugh. “People ask, ‘what do you do for fun? I'm like, well, just life. Life is fun.”

Chris naturally compares himself to his office neighbor, Academic Services Director Lynn Gershman, who he calls “The Most Interesting Woman in the World,” an homage to the Dos Equis commercials.

“I am boring in comparison,” Chris said. “There's always one (Most Interesting Person) in every building. I know who it was in my last job, and in this job, it's Lynn Gershman. It's not close.”

Understandably, in this stage of life, adventures are typically to the park or to the zoo and there isn’t much time to keep up on the latest shows or movies.

“During the holidays people would send me stuff and ask about this movie or that. I have to tell them that I haven’t seen anything other than a G-rated cartoon Christmas movie. The original Grinch is the hit in our house,” Chris said.

Sharing his love for the outdoors
That said, Chris loves the great outdoors and gets an opportunity to venture out into the forest semi-annually with his father.

“My dad and I are really tight and we go on fishing and hunting trips every year,” Chris said. “I'm not an expert. We go out to have a good time and to spend a couple of days out on the water.”

They enjoy going fishing in the Gunnison area or Crested Butte. 

“Taylor Reservoir [in the Gunnison National Forest] is one of our favorites,” Chris said. “Blue Mesa is also a great one to get out on a boat and catch some big fish.”

Chris has already started introducing the girls to the sport.

“They have their little Anna and Elsa, from Frozen, fishing poles and they're pretty good at it,” Chris said.

Orange and blue through and through
Anyone who gets to know Chris, also knows that he’s quite a sports fan, especially when it comes to football. 

“I’m a huge Bronco fan and I went to Colorado State University so I’m a Rams fan, no matter how painful it is,” Chris said. “We had season tickets for a while, but, you know, life got a little busy.” 

Every Sunday is Broncos Sunday at Chris’ house.

“We still have family over every Sunday. We're one of those families where everybody gets together to watch the Broncos,” Chris said.