How to ensure your vision comes alive for kids

Your goals for student success may be ambitious and innovative, but they will flounder if they’re not shared by your leadership team and wider school community, Superintendent Carmen Balgobin says.

“A vision without alignment lacks coherence,” Balgobin, leader of Florida’s Volusia County Schools, tells host Amy Dujon on the latest episode of District Administration’s “A Good Lesson” podcast. “It’s important to have strong intentionality with your priorities.”

Balgobin, who was named DA’s 2026 Woman of the Year, led Volusia County Schools to its first “A” grade in 16 years and has overseen a major expansion of the district’s CTE programs, among other achievements. She says superintendents must translate their vision into a “living, breathing” strategic plan to measure progress and adjust strategy swiftly if performance is lagging.

“That’s the level of alignment that needs to happen at every level, all the time,” Balgobin notes.

She urges superintendents to see their budget as a “numerical representation” of the strategic plan and then determine what initiatives to manage themselves and what programs will be led by other departments.

“That brings buy-in, commitment and ownership of the work,” she attests. “When we have a vision, and there are owners around that vision, then the probability of that vision becoming reality is exponentially higher.”

Balgobin follows the “Plan, Do, Check, Act” leadership framework to ensure leadership teams are collecting the most relevant data and interpreting it correctly, and that every action is aligned to a priority.

“We know what we exist for reason, and this is to engage all learners in high levels of learning every day,” Balgobin concludes. “That’s the service we’re there to deliver, that’s our main product, and that is why that main product is the only goal listed on our strategic plan.”

Balgobin is also a featured speaker at the Leadhership Network for Women conference in September in New Orleans. The event is part of the District Administration Leadership Institute.

To hear the entire “A Good Lesson” podcast, listen to the episode below.

You can also listen on Apple and Spotify.