Starting last month, Steve Bollar began the process of filling the void left when longtime Hamilton Township School District administrator Michael Gilbert retired as assistant superintendent.
Bollar, 42, comes to Hamilton from Mount Laurel, where he was the principal at Hartford School for seven years. He started his career as an art teacher in Lawrence. As assistant superintendent, Bollar will supervise instruction and curriculum, working with standardized testing and teacher evaluations to improve the district. The director of elementary education and the director of secondary education, among others, will report to Bollar.
Upon starting the job in mid-August, Bollar had plenty of work ahead of him to prepare for the upcoming school year. His first task was to, in his words, “assemble the team,” filling two supervisor and several other vacant positions. After that, he plans on visiting schools to get a better feel of the district, see what principals need in their buildings and develop relationships with the staff and students. He wants to be out in the district as much as possible, he said.
In his spare time, Bollar doubles as a motivation speaker called “Stand Tall Steve,” a play off of his 6-foot-7 frame. A married father of three school-aged children, Bollar lives in Burlington Township, where he is the scoutmaster of the local Cub Scout troop.
Hamilton Post editor Rob Anthes sat down with Bollar in July to learn more about the administrator and his plans for his new school district. An abridged transcript follows:
HP: How did you first get interested in education?
SB: Wow, you’re going way back. I was an art teacher. In high school, I was always good with art, and I was always good with kids. I figured this was the best way to combine the two. I love visual arts. I also love performing arts. I’m a certified music teacher, although I never taught it. I’ve always loved it.
I went to Kutztown University, got my degree in education, and I was very lucky to get a job right out of school. Most schools have one art teacher, or they have an art teacher that travels around. I was able to get a job in Lawrence as an art teacher, full-time. That’s how I made my way into education.
HP: What have you learned as an art teacher and an administrator that you can apply to this job?
SB: The one thing about anyone in the arts is, they are very creative. If you know any artists or musicians, you can tell they are a little different; they like to think creatively. Administration isn’t that way. That was part of my reasoning for getting into administration because I didn’t see a lot of administrators being creative. I thought, ‘Why couldn’t I do this?’
One of the things I like to bring to the job is a little sense of creativity. Not so much creativity I have, but inspiring those around me to let them feel it’s OK to be creative. Some of that rubs off. I want that creativity to come out.
It’s amazing the strides you get, the results you get when people aren’t afraid to take a risk, to do a little bit more, to do something a little different and to learn to fail. Failing is a way of learning.
I feel I think a little differently about things. I still follow the formalities of what needs to be done, but I also enjoy that creativity.
HP: Do you have an example of how you’ve used or encouraged creativity during your career?
SB: When I was a building principal, one of the things I liked to do was use themes. Each year, I’d use a theme for that year. As soon as you walk into the building, you’d see a big banner hanging right there with the name of the theme. All the students and teachers know about the theme. It’s a motivational theme. Last year was “Anything is possible,” and we used that theme for the whole year. We find creative things to revolve around it. That motivates everyone to keep that mindset going throughout the rest of the year.
Working with those themes, you have something very artistic to use for the year. And when we have something like that, it’s not necessarily 100 percent my activity. The teachers grab it and feel OK to use it in their instruction.
HP: You also work as a motivational speaker. How did you become involved with that?
SB: I was at an educational conference in Minnesota, and the closing speaker was a man named Willie Jolley. He was very good. While I sat there listening to him, all I kept thinking was, ‘I could do that. I love to talk. I’m rather animated at times. And I have important things to share. I could do that.’
After it was over, I went to him and asked, ‘How do you do what you do? I want to try to do what you do.’ I had done some breakout sessions, trainings and stuff like that. He said, ‘Oh, keep working at it. Try hard.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. I really want to know. How do you do this?’
He gave me his email address, and said I need to go to the NSA national conference—the National Speakers Association. So, I said, ‘OK. When’s the conference?’ He goes, ‘It’s next weekend in Orlando.’
I had just spend all this money to go to Minnesota. So, my wife was with me at this conference, and we get back to the room, and she says, ‘OK, we’ve got to get you there.’ We worked it all out, and I wound up going to the conference. When I was there, I saw some amazing speakers, and I learned about the world of public speaking. People don’t realize that’s a profession; that’s something that’s out there. I figured this would be a good hobby, and that’s what it is: a hobby. I like to talk, it lets me fine-tune my skills in presenting, and it works well with what I do as an educator.
I started getting people to call me to speak, a little bit more and more. The one thing you can’t miss is that I’m 6-foot-7. It’s obvious. So, I did a play-on-words, and called myself Stand Tall Steve. It caught on. It grew a lot faster than I anticipated.
The one thing I tell everyone who calls me to speak is that I’m an educator first, a speaker second. My main focus is my job. If I’m able to, I’ll go out and speak. I turn down 15 to 20 speeches a year, easily. I have to focus on what I do here.
One of the concerns the district had was, how are you going to do both? Well, for starters, for someone who knows how to speak well, it’s not hard. Secondly, it’s not something that consumes me. My wife says I look like a professional, but it’s just a part-time thing. It’s like someone who does canoeing on the weekends. This is my hobby.
Yes, I bring it to my job. I’m very motivational. I’m empowering. I try to walk the walk with the things I talk about.
HP: What are the subjects you speak about?
SB: My main focus is relationships, how to maximize relationships with others. When speaking to schools, I talk a lot about relationships and developing a positive culture and climate in schools. That’s my speciality area, culture and climate in schools and how they affect instruction. I speak mostly in the youth market, either youth or people who work with youth.
HP: Will you try to bring those philosophies to Hamilton?
SB: In time. It’s everything that I am. When I speak, it’s not just a show. This is really what I do. That’s how I live my life. You’re going to see that, and hopefully, you’ll see it resonate very positively.
HP: One of the criticisms of the Hamilton school district in the past was that the atmosphere was not very positive. So, do you think people are going to embrace you coming in here with a focus on a positive culture?
SB: I hope so. Climate and culture in schools can eat test scores for lunch.
Instruction is very important. Curriculum is super important; that’s the focus of the position I’m in now. That’s No. 1. But if you don’t have a culture that fosters that in a very positive way and that allows people to feel like it’s OK to be who they are, you’re not going to get as far as you need to go. That extends not only to the [school] buildings, but that extends out into the community.
The image of the district is very important because if people have a positive perception of the district then ultimately they’re going to feel more comfortable to step up and do more with the district and partnering with the district. If you’re not comfortable with it, the partnering is not going to happen. You don’t want it to be adversarial. I hope, through our actions, we can make that happen.
HP: How familiar are you with Hamilton? Why did you apply for this job?
SB: When I saw the vacancy in Hamilton, I thought it would be nice to get back to Mercer County. I know a little bit about Hamilton. It’s a working-class community. The people care about the community. It’s big. I like big. My previous school, an upper elementary school, was about 1,000 students in two grades, fifth and sixth only. I like big.
So, I like the size of it. I heard there were going to be a lot of changes upper-administrative-wise. So, I said, ‘Let me throw my hat into the ring, and see how this fits for me.’
I’m someone who embraces positive change. Some people don’t like change. But this change sounded very positive. That’s why I came here, I thought I was a good fit. And I hope to stay here for awhile.
HP: Anything else?
SB: I’m looking forward to all the changes happening in education. I’m not afraid of it. I know a lot of people are against Common Core. Whether you’re for it or against it, we have to work with it. I’m looking forward to working with it.
I’m also looking forward to getting a good look at the climate and culture around here, and making it even better than what it already is. When I come into the administration building here, people are happy. People are smiling. Let’s make it even better. I’m hoping the community embraces me.
Bollar,
