Administrator of the Year:
Dr. William Sprankles III
Assistant Superintendent of Innovative Teaching and Learning, Butler Tech
William Sprankles is Assistant Superintendent of Innovative Teaching and Learning at Butler Tech. Butler Tech has always been an organization that embraced innovation and educational change for the betterment of Career Tech and Public Education, but they have made significant shifts in the last five years thanks to William Sprankles and the Butler Tech leadership team.
William is an idea generator, strategizer, and implementer. All he needs is a whiteboard and some colleagues and within moments not only will there be high-level ideas but also a full plan for implementation. He has worked with the Ohio Department of Education to expand blended and remote designation for schools to expand opportunities such as FDE across the state. He empowers the leadership team to implement these innovations by setting clear and high expectations, intentionally gathering voices, and holding his team accountable in the name of student success and disrupting education. He pushes the envelope to find solutions for complex problems and take risks that have proven to be exponentially beneficial to not only Butler Tech but to new models of education. FDE is now being implemented at several other CTEs around the state. While implementing these innovations, William uses his expertise in partnerships and conducts research to validate the impact of these innovations (read more here: https://fde.butlertech.org/)
Student Showcases are another innovation that William brought to Butler Tech. Though the idea of student exhibitions and public presentations is not particularly novel, the scale in which Butler Tech has done that is beyond what has been done elsewhere; the current model of Students Showcases enables ALL students to be celebrated for publicly demonstrating their learning. Student showcases have given all students a voice for change and are another example of an innovation that William initiated at Butler Tech.
William has a drive to constantly add value to students’ experiences and advance CTE around the state and nation. He has a relentless focus on things that can be easily overlooked in a central office position. Most of the students on Butler Tech campuses know him by name and interact with him daily on a personal level. He talks about the joy he gets from getting to “chop it up” with kids. He looks for ways in which everyone can maintain the focus on instruction instead of getting caught up in the daily grind of emails and other management items.
Long before Inclusion, Access, Equity, and Diversity were buzz words in CTE and education, William was leading this work at Butler Tech and previous organizations he served. He has been leading this work at Butler Tech and beyond. From grassroots book studies locally to speaking and facilitating round tables at the national level with a variety of organizations including National ACTE, this is one of his core values. Just like the other areas of innovations and contributions, he doesn’t just talk about IAED, it is at the forefront of all planning. From hiring to the implementation of new policies, he pushes others to provide greater access and equity in CTE. He is a leader across the nation facilitating leadership development in this area and working to make it at the forefront in other districts. He is an advocate for the voiceless and students who may not even be aware of roadblocks to career technical education.
These examples are far from an exhausted list, they are simply a few high-level innovations and contributions that have shifted the culture of Butler Tech, CTE, and public education across the country. Disrupting the model of public education to provide greater opportunities for ALL students ultimately transforming ALL educational experiences to have the richness of CTE and students as the drivers of their own educational experiences is what makes William Sprankles an exceptional Administrator of the Year!