Shortly after Tom Burton was hired as superintendent of Princeton City Schools in Ohio, the district hosted a business partnership breakfast. Only 38 people showed up, a number that left Burton embarrassed given the many opportunities for partnerships with businesses in the community.
“Literally mid-script I stopped and apologized and said, ‘Listen we’ve been doing this wrong for a long time,'” he recalls. “'We’ve been asking the businesses to support us and help, and give us things, instead of that, what do you need?’ So I changed the question and that changed everything.”
