Dr. Tiffany Anderson on the Leadership Proximity Gap—and What It's Costing Districts

Dr. Tiffany Anderson, Superintendent of Topeka Public Schools, teaches middle school. Not as a one-time PR stunt, but as a regular part of her role. And she's not the only one. In Topeka's central office, curriculum staff teach half-day in classrooms. The finance team mentors high school students. The communications director spent a year as both a principal and communications lead. Even principals double as district-level leaders—the principal at Topeka High also serves as the lead secondary principal overseeing athletics and strategy.

This isn't about adding to already impossible workloads. It's about fundamentally rethinking how district leadership operates—and building systems that outlive any single leader.

Why Proximity Matters More Than Policy

"The closer you are to students, the more you know what you're talking about," Dr. Anderson says plainly. When central office staff are embedded in schools, three things shift immediately:

Teachers listen differently. A principal-led PD session carries more weight than directives from someone who hasn't been in a classroom in a decade. Credibility isn't assumed—it's earned through proximity.

Decisions get better. When the people writing curriculum are also teaching it, they catch what's impractical before it rolls out. When finance directors see students daily, budget priorities shift from transactional to transformational.

Trust accelerates. Teachers work for leaders they trust. And trust is built when leaders show up in their world, not the other way around.

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Programs Fade. Systems Endure.

Dr. Anderson is blunt about the program trap: "Programs come and go with the leader, with the budget. That creates the problem of achievement gaps that never close."

Instead, she builds systems—structural changes that persist regardless of who's in charge:

• Washers and dryers in schools where parents exchange one load of laundry for one hour of volunteerism (result: 50 parents volunteering daily)
• 20% of staff are district parents, hired intentionally to build economic stability and community investment
• "Sign Now, Teach Later" contracts given to high school juniors who want to teach—100% return rate to the district

These aren't programs you can sunset. They're infrastructural shifts that reshape how a district operates.

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Start Here

If you're ready to move from programs to systems, ask yourself:

1. What percentage of my central office time is spent in classrooms this month? If it's under 25%, that's your starting point.
2. Which central office roles could be restructured to include direct student or teacher contact? Curriculum, HR, and operations teams are often the easiest entry points.
3. What would change if the people making decisions had to implement them firsthand? Use that question to redesign roles, not just responsibilities.

The full conversation with Dr. Anderson goes deeper into how Topeka restructured central office without adding costs, why she prioritizes "sneakers on the ground" over boardroom leadership, and how systems thinking transformed graduation rates from 60% to over 90%. Listen to the full episode of The Best of Us to hear the strategies that make this work sustainable—and replicable.

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