The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.
Be encouraged.
Mentioned:
Armadillos to Ziziphus: A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country by David Hillis
Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday
Baylor MA in School Leadership
EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership
Jon Eckert LinkedIn
X: @eckertjon
Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
All right. This week we have Chris Mihealsick, the 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year from Westwood High School. She is in Round Rock ISD, and so she's representing educators across the state of Texas and we're really excited to have her here today. So Chris, welcome in.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.
Jon Eckert:
And just give us a little background about how you got into teaching in the first place. I always love teacher origin stories, so how did you get to doing what you're doing now?
Chris Mihealsick:
Well, both of my parents were in education and for a really long time I thought, "Nope, nope, not for me, not for me." When I started college, I was a bio major. I worked in a lab. I thought maybe that would be my path. I kind of thought I was going to switch to environmental engineering, but my freshman year, I tutored some at-risk kids in biology and chemistry and I just loved it. I loved seeing them grow. I loved them going from really struggling in biology to being able to get Bs on their tests and be excited about science. And even as hard as I pushed against the family business, I just couldn't deny that that was where I was meant to be. I really liked working with teenagers and helping them learn and grow.
Jon Eckert:
The kids are always the draw. That's always the thing. And I feel like other professions that don't get to work with kids and see the way they become more of who they were meant to be, they miss out on that joy. And so that's cool that that's what pulled you in even though you were fighting the family business. So we're glad that you broke through that barrier. So tell us a little bit about... You have a platform this year as the 2025 teacher of the year. What are you most passionate about as an educator?
Chris Mihealsick:
I am incredibly passionate about students having access and being able to do higher level science. I teach AP Environmental Science, and I really say, "My course is a course for anybody." I work really, really hard to build students up that have never taken an AP class before. I also oftentimes will have some of the top students at our school, and I work very, very hard to make my class engaging for all levels. So I really believe that every kid deserves to have a higher level science experience before they leave high school. And that's kind of my mission as an educator.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, that's such a gift. As a former middle school science teacher, I always loved being able to pass my kids along to science educators like you because kids are naturally curious about the world. Environmental science, what a great place to try to explore where we fit in the world and how is this made to work and how can we be better stewards of this earth? That's something that a great teacher, I think, can hook any kid into. And so I love this idea that any kid can access those higher level courses because for so long we've been tracked in ways that some kids never get access to that class. Do you have any examples where you've seen a kid who maybe would've not gotten that opportunity in another school or with another teacher where you've seen some incredible growth that gives you belief that this is the right thing for each kid?
Chris Mihealsick:
Yeah. Every year I get students that this is their first time taking it. For example, I have two students this year. I have a student that has never taken another AP class and she started out getting 30s or 40s on most of the quizzes, and she's worked really hard. She stuck with it. I checked with her a semester, "What support do you need?" She just needed some extra help with some of the writing props because we do essays. Which is sort of a little bit unusual, I guess, in a science class, you don't tend to think of science classes doing essays, but our AP tests, they take a multiple choice part and they have to write three pretty large robust essays. So we do a lot of lab report writing, but we also practice that skill a lot because that's where the kids that have never taken an AP class before really tend to struggle.
They can answer the multiple choice questions, okay, they're great in lab, they're fantastic in class, but they really struggle with that writing component. So really working with her this year and helping build her writing up as well as helping build her confidence up. She wasn't quite sure she fit in the class when we started this year, and she absolutely belongs there, I think every kid that comes to my door that's willing to take that chance, and that's a risk for kids, right? They've never taken a higher level of science before. Maybe they had a bad science experience before and they're jumping into this advanced class. So I want to honor that courage that those kids show, that decide, "I'm going to try this, I'm going to take this."
So just giving them enough support. And I think also building that culture where the kids really work on helping each other. I try to build up really tight lab groups and then we switch them and they have to build up tight lab groups with a whole new group of kids. So really working with their peers quite a bit is a big cornerstone of my class as well.
Jon Eckert:
That's one of the things I love about AP is that it forces the writing, because writing is where you really see how kids are thinking, and that's the power in that. It's not rote memorization. You have to be able to think. And as an educator, it's the closest thing we get to getting inside a kid's head. And so I love that that's where you started. And people that listen to this podcast will know I'm always talking about joy through struggle. And it's so true that that student who struggles at the beginning and then gets to the point where she gets a three, four or five on that AP exam in her first attempt at an AP class, she's going to experience so much more joy than the kid who's taking their eighth AP class and they're getting their eighth or ninth four or five. That's great, that's success, but you don't experience the same level of joy if you haven't had that struggle.
And so what I also love, the last thing you said really sticks with me, I've been pushing this for a while, that schools obviously have to be safe and psychological safety and physical safety all matter, but what you're celebrating and respecting is that struggle that kids do with others. And so it's not about being safe because those kids don't feel safe when they sign up for that first AP class. That feels like a risk. And so if kids feel like, "Feeling safe is not taking risks," that's a problem. And so what you've created is an environment in your classes where kids know, "Hey, this is a place where I can take risks," and then it's going to be celebrated and respected. And so I love that you're moving kids into that in tangible ways. What have been the benefits to other students in the class? Not the kids who are taking their first AP class, but to other AP students that are seeing a wider range of students in your class than, say, they might in another AP class. Have you seen any benefits to the classroom culture from that?
Chris Mihealsick:
I think students seeing anybody at our school attempting an AP class and being successful and being part of our group is really important. I think sometimes the highest flying kids at the school tend to think like, "I'm here and everybody else is not as academically robust as me." So really seeing, "Nope. You know what? A lot of people can succeed in a lot of different ways." Sometimes I have some of the kids that are the super high-flyer academic students that struggle with some of our lab work, and then other students are able to step in and be like, "Oh, nope, I got this. I can handle this procedure," or whatnot. And it just shows that there's huge value in everybody working together. There's huge value in everybody having access to these classes. And I think it opens everybody's eyes a little bit in terms of working with all kinds of different kids.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and again, going back to middle school science. In the lab, I felt like the lab was the grade equalizer because you had some high-flying students that never want to be wrong because that's identity threat to them. And so they don't want to take risks in labs because they don't want to look like they don't know what they're doing. And you can't fake your way through a lab very easily. And so I felt like getting kids partnered up of different abilities was gold because sometimes the kid that you thought would be leading in the lab is not. It's the kid who's like, "Oh, I'm willing to jump in and try this and we don't know what's going to happen and we're going to do this and we're going to track the procedure and we're going to do it safely." But I think that's a great point that I think science has some nice advantages when you have those labs because it's a vulnerable thing, especially for those high-flying kids that never want to be wrong.
And that's really problematic for learning if you're not willing to acknowledge, "Hey, I don't know how to do this." That's the whole reason why you're in class. So it's good. So love that you came up with that. I also like... We've talked earlier about how you see building the profession. So we've talked about students, but where are your passions for the profession? Because you don't get to be teacher of the year in a state like Texas if you're only focused on kids. I mean, that's always our primary focus, but what's your hope for other educators in Texas and beyond?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I really, really care about good teacher leadership. I want every teacher to work in a department or a learning team that has a really competent, caring teacher leader. I want everybody to have a department chair that's a competent, caring department chair. I want people to be able to be mentored. I've been mentored five different times in my career and I'm getting mentored right now by the 2024 Texas Teacher of the Year for my next role. And just that ability for somebody that's there with you in the trenches. We're still in the classroom. I'm still teaching full-time. Teacher leaders are still there. They know the struggle, but they also can help guide you in really great ways that help you grow. I would not be where I am right now without mentorship I got when I first started teaching AP I didn't know what I was doing, Holy cats. And I had two AP teachers that kind of took me under their wing.
They weren't even AP environmental science teachers at my school and really helped me learn what it was to help kids learn how to write for AP and how to do the more advanced lab skills. So I think teacher leadership is so important, especially right now when we're talking about, "How do we keep good teachers in the classroom?" Well, it's having people that support them that can help you grow to the next level. Really helping set that culture of your department is so important as well, that support system that... I am very, very fortunate I work for an amazing principal and I'm so grateful to have her support, but at the end of the day, there's one principal, right?
But there's 200 of us in our building, and having those teacher leaders in the departments or in the learning communities is just really, really important in smoothing over the day to day, when you have questions about different strategies for working with a kid or how do I teach this in a more engaging way? Those teacher leaders can grow the staff and there's a lot more job satisfaction and working with people that are invested in you staying.
Jon Eckert:
And I think what you're saying is more important now than ever that the session that I met you in, they had put up a slide... This is from Raise Your Hand Texas, that 56% of new teachers in 2024 were uncertified. So this need for mentoring has never been greater because you have... And there's some great people who have come into the profession without certification, but the only way they're going to succeed is with great coaching and mentoring from people that have done this before because those uncertified people, for the most part, will not have gone through a teacher training program, they won't have done student teaching, they won't have had all those pieces, and now they're in your building. And over half of new teachers in Texas, that's their story. Have you seen an increased need for mentoring, or is this just kind of more of the same?
Chris Mihealsick:
No, we've seen a huge increase in the need for mentoring. There's a huge difference in getting a pre-service teacher that's gone through student teaching and has had some courses and knows the lingo, right? 504, IEP, all the acronyms. And somebody that has a good heart for kids and knows the content, but knows none of the management skills. So mentoring has been hugely critical. I've noticed a huge uptick in the mentoring that we've done on our campus in the last two to three years, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and it feels kind of crazy that we will turn kids over to someone who has no certification to teach when... My favorite statistic on this, I think this is right. In Ohio, to become a barber, you need 1500 hours of supervision. And I'm grateful. I don't want somebody coming in and hacking my hair up. But if you're requiring 1500 hours to cut somebody's hair and then nothing to be responsible, to be the teacher of record for children who are only going to get one shot at environmental science, who are only going to get one shot in third grade to increase their reading or to become a better human in first grade, to be... No certification. In some states it's even worse than in Texas where we're now... In some states, we're not even requiring a bachelor's degree. It's like we're having college students come in and be teacher of record because we're hurting in the profession so much.
So my question for you... Obviously, when we have those teachers in our building, we're going to do everything we can to serve those teachers, but I do not want to burn out teachers like you who feel this burden not only for their students, but then for teachers who are coming in who are underprepared and who might be good in two or three years, but in those first couple of years, that's a lot of intensive work for you. What do we do to make sure we don't add more to plates that are already overflowing so that those teacher leaders don't burn out and leave?
Chris Mihealsick:
That is a really, really important question because I've seen that happen at our school where we've had good teachers leave because they've had two uncertified teachers they've needed to work with. And it's just overwhelming because you have all of your regular day-to-day responsibilities. You're maybe the team lead, so you're also working with your team, plus you also have to support the people that are working on training and getting into teaching. So it's really, really, really challenging. Our school tries to be really judicious about who we assign as mentors. So somebody isn't mentoring... Like for example, we had a biology teacher last year mentoring a brand brand new teacher, and this year we took her off mentoring. She's the team lead for our bio team, but we're like, "Nope, we're not going to have her mentor anybody else this year," because it was a lot last year. It was a lot. And you don't want to burn people that you know are effective and are doing good things for kids and really helping them grow. You don't want them leaving either.
Jon Eckert:
That's right. Well, I love that rotation idea, and that just means you have to develop a wide, wide range of teacher leaders because you have all different disciplines, especially in a comprehensive high school like you're in. You have all different disciplines. You have department chairs, but you just can't keep putting more on department chairs. Administrators, if they don't have background... If you've never been a science teacher, it's very difficult to give very specific feedback for how to get better if you've never run a lab. You can give general classroom management practices and think about student engagement, but you've got to have people with a lot of different kinds of expertise to give the mentoring just in time for people that are really needing that kind of feedback.
So as you look around Texas, are there any real bright spots you see where you're really encouraged by some of the things that you've come across, maybe through the teacher of the year process or just people that you've worked with? I'm sure you're in networks of educators, but is there anything that has been really encouraging to you as you step into this role as teacher of the year?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I was really fortunate to do two different kind of talks. I did one in late February at Weatherford College with the Jack Harvey Awardee teachers. And first of all, I love, love, love hearing the good work that teachers are doing across the state because it just fills my bucket to hear how much teachers around the state truly care about the kids that they're in charge of. And Weatherford College is a two-year college, but they have some four year degrees and they have a teaching program, and their teaching program is growing. So that was really exciting. They're in North Texas. And I am a University of Texas grad. I will always be proud that I'm a UTeach teaching program graduates. They are doing some really, really... They've done historically since 1998... '99 I think is when they started. And they do some really great work at teacher prep.
We consistently try to hire their graduates if we can because we know their graduates have the content knowledge, but also they've had a lot of field experience so they really know how to work with kids. So I think there's some really good stuff still happening all over the state in our teacher prep work. And that's something... Obviously, I want more people to join those programs. Lower enrollment is an issue that both of the schools have talked to me about, but I think that there's some really good work preparing some of our university students. And that's for sure. Besides all the great work from the teachers that I've just kind of talked to anecdotally as I've been kind of tootling about with my work is good.
Jon Eckert:
And I think why I love talking to educators like you is we have to stop cannibalizing our profession. So we have administrators making administration look so miserable that no teacher wants to step into it. And we have teachers making teaching sound so miserable that students don't want to step into it. And teachers told my own children, I've heard it said multiple times to their children, "Don't go into teaching right now." And what they don't understand is they're looking out for that person. They're saying it in love, but what they're doing is, is they're cannibalizing the profession. And if we don't have a strong teaching profession, we don't have other professions. And so that is really troubling to me. So I really respect what University of Texas does. Good to hear about Weatherford. When I came to Baylor six years ago and saw the program that they run for... I don't get to work in the pre-service teacher program, but they've done six different placements in a full year student teaching internship.
Now in many districts, it's a paid internship if they're in high need districts. That is amazing. That is blowing away what we were doing in Illinois with our teacher preparation program where they had a 12-week student teaching placement and they had four practicum placements. That experience is gold when you're in with good teachers like you, and they can see, "Here's how I set this lab up and here's what it looks like at the beginning of the year, and here's what it looks like at the end of the year. That is powerful. And I am not a big fan of bureaucratic requirements that are unnecessary, but I certainly want good preparation for my kids' teachers, which means I want it for every kid in the state of Texas. And so really grateful for the way you're representing education. So let's shift into our lightning round here. I usually have three or four kind of common questions that I go across, and these are just pretty brief answers, if you have them. So best and worst advice you've ever given or received, you can start with either best or worst, but let's start with those two.
Chris Mihealsick:
Okay. Worst advice for sure was, "Don't smile till Christmas." Who thinks that's a good idea? You don't build relationships with your students by being a jerk. So worst advice for sure. Best advice was from my mentor who helped me when I was first teaching AP, Joy [inaudible 00:20:00]. She said, "You only have so much life energy, so decide what you're really passionate about and what you feel really skilled at, and just work to be really, really great at that." And I thought that was amazing because you get asked to do so many things as an educator, I am not great at facilities. I probably shouldn't sit on the facilities committee. So focus on what you're really good at and use your energy and your passion to get better at that, to make a bigger difference.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's really, really helpful advice. So follow up on that, what is the most life-giving part of your job and what is the most soul sucking part of your job?
Chris Mihealsick:
For sure, working with the students. Even with all of amazing things I've gotten to do as Texas Teacher of the Year so far. And I love working with teachers. When I'm back in my classroom, which is most of the time, and just working with the teenagers and seeing them grow. I could teach for another 15, 20 years probably. We'll see how that all works out. But... Because I'm 23 years into my career, but for sure life-giving is just... I love working with the teenagers. Every single day is a little different. They'll say something funny or unique or they'll make a new discovery. Soul sucking, I would say probably paperwork. Not a fan. I'll do it because it's all the laws and all the things and I like my job. I'll do all the paperwork, but not my fave.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, there's always some component of the job that is the reason why you need to get paid for the job. And I say paperwork for most of us is there because that's always going to be part of it. But all right. Best book that you've read in the last year. This could be education-related or just a fun read. Anything that jumps out at you as a good book you've read. I'm always looking for recommendations.
Chris Mihealsick:
So I read a mix of science and historical fiction and kind of leadership books. So my favorite that I've read lately is Armadillo's to Ziziphus by David Hillis. He is a professor at UT in biology. He actually discovered the Barton Springs Salamander. And it's just a whole bunch of short essays about natural history in Central Texas. And I am currently in the middle of reading Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. I like his work too. He's a stoic, so he kind of talks about when things happen in life, we can't control that, but we can always control how we react to things. And I think his book right now has a whole bunch of little anecdotes about historical figures and their courage in different things. And I think it's just really relevant right now. I think being a teacher takes courage always, but I think especially right now, it's good to hear about other people's struggles and things they've overcome to make the world a better place.
Jon Eckert:
No, it's beautiful. I love those two. I have not read either of them, so I've got them written down. So thank you for that. Last two questions. What do you think is the greatest obstacle facing teachers right now? And then the second, the follow-up is what gives you the most hope? As you look around the state of Texas, what gives you most hope about what's happening in education?
Chris Mihealsick:
So challenging... I'm just going to be honest. I think the budget situation is really challenging right now. I'm hoping that changes for us because I'd like to see smaller class sizes for all of my colleagues and me so that we could give students the more individual attention that they deserve. But what gives me hope is two things. First of all, the students that I work with... I just... Every single year, I think, "You guys are going to change the world. You're going to go out, you're going to do something amazing for Texas and it's going to be phenomenal." So just seeing the potential and the energy that... I love working with juniors and seniors, they're my jam.
Seeing them kind of grow and change and get ready to go off and then go off into the world and... That energy and that passion. Texas is in good hands with the teenagers that are continuing to graduate from our public schools. Yeah. Also hope the teachers that I've been meeting across the state... As a teacher in Central Texas, I'm a little bit insular and this is my world, but being able to get to travel a little bit and talk to people in other parts of the state has been really phenomenal. And I have a lot of hope for the kids of Texas because of the people I've been meeting. And I hope to meet a whole bunch more. So my hope for the next year is just to get to meet some more folks and to be able to start highlighting some of their good work as part of what I do.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. Well, Chris, thank you for what you do. And Round Rock, thank you for what you're going to do for the state of Texas. Thanks for your heart, for students and for educators. So grateful to be able to highlight your good work, and hope this year is amazing and we'll have to catch up with you at the end of your year. So thank you for joining us.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much for having me. This has been delightful.
More Episodes
All Episodes>>Get this podcast on your phone, Free
