Dr. Tiffany T. Spicer only wears heels when she’s going to a formal meeting. The rest of the time, it’s comfortable tennis shoes to cover the ground between the 23 campuses of the Waco Independent School District, for which she’s served as superintendent since October 2024. Her ever-present smile is as contagious as her abundant energy, and it’s not a stretch at all to see her as the marathon runner that she is.
In July, Waco ISD announced that Superintendent Spicer has been elected to a three-year term on the Lone Star Investment Pool Board of Trustees. The district’s Board of Trustees approved her appointment by formal resolution, recognizing her leadership and financial stewardship. The Lone Star Investment Pool manages public funds for school districts and local governments across Texas. In this volunteer role, Spicer will help guide the pool’s governance and fiscal strategy while representing the interests of member districts.
WACOAN writer Susan Bean Aycock sat down with her recently to talk about the district’s trajectory and her vision for it — and about seeing every glass as half full.
Can you give me some statistics on the Waco ISD — number of schools, ethnic breakdown?
We have 23 campuses, plus one school within a school — the P-Tech program, called the Future Educators Academy. We have a little over 2,000 faculty and staff and about 13,000 students from elementary school to middle school to high school. Our district’s ethnicity is 62% Hispanic, 27% Black, 8% white and 3% two or more races.
Tell me about where you grew up and your family of origin.
I was born in Texas — the Bryan-College Station area — but my dad was in the Air Force for 20 years and then did 20 years of civil service. I grew up on military bases all around the country: First in California, then in Austin at Bergstrom Air Force Base [closed in 1993], then in Hampton, Virginia. I graduated high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we were stationed last. My parents were and continue to be my foundation. Whenever we moved, I was always sad but I knew we were good because I had that family unit — mom, dad, my brother and me. My parents have been together since ninth grade, so they continue to inspire me. My big little brother Dettrell at 6-foot-1 is nearly a foot taller than me (I’m 5-foot-2), but I’m still the bossy big sister.
What about your post-secondary education?
I did my undergrad at UT Austin and changed my major like 50,000 times but ended up in a program called Communities In Schools in the School of Social Work. While I was at UT, I got the opportunity as an intern to serve pregnant and at-risk teens through Communities In Schools, and I loved that. My mother told me I should get my alternative [teaching] certification while I was at UT, but I didn’t listen at the time. It wasn’t until after I graduated, got married, had a family, stayed at home and raised my daughters that I got my alternative certification because…Mom was right. She knew I would be an educator.
After I started teaching, I earned my master’s degree about 10 years after my bachelor’s and received my Ph.D. eight years after that. I got my master’s degree in educational leadership from Texas State University San Marcos, and Ph.D. at Texas A&M University. I was a special education and reading teacher for three years in Round Rock before becoming an assistant high school principal there in 2007, and I’ve been in administration since then.
How did you make the jump from teaching to administration?
I knew I wanted to be an administrator even when I was a teacher, because I wanted to impact the whole system. I believe the higher you go, the more impact you can make. My original goal was to be a high school principal, because I felt like high school students needed somebody who still believed in them.
What mentors or role models have you had along the way?
Even though I went to schools in different places because of my dad’s military career, I’ve always had special people who poured into my life and spoke to me. Three of those were women of color who took me under their wing — they saw me. I also had a white male mentor in Round Rock, Dr. Danny Presley, who was high school principal when I was associate principal. He told me, ‘You need to be a superintendent, because you have a gift to reach students and staff; I see it in you.’
You’re very candid about your priorities in life. Can you elaborate?
When I interviewed for this position, I said up front that my priorities are my faith followed by family, health and career. It’s not that my career isn’t important, but if those other things aren’t in order, I can’t do my job. My faith is everything to me. And I’m the proud mother of two adult daughters: Imani, an elementary school teacher, and Nia, a business consultant who’s a recent graduate of Texas State University.
How do you see your role as superintendent?
I lead the same way as superintendent as I did as a principal: Knowing my students, staff and community. When you have a relationship with people, they’ll move mountains for you. It’s all about relationships, trust and setting a standard of excellence in everything that I do, modeling that and setting that as an expectation as well. As a teacher, I knew I could influence my classroom, but then as a high school principal, I saw I could change the lives of my students and my staff. My lens as a superintendent hasn’t changed; it’s just gotten broader. Waco ISD is at the heart of Waco, so I think the opportunity to lead in this capacity has an impact on the whole city. It’s about bringing people together, and that’s how I lead.
Your first superintendent position was in a much smaller city. How have you transitioned to the larger city and school system of Waco?
My first superintendent job was in Buna [33 miles northeast of Beaumont; population 2,100; school district three campuses, 273 employees and 1,474 students]. But I had already been in administrative positions in Round Rock and Leander [just north of Austin]. So, my career was big, smaller, smaller, back to big. I think what people don’t realize is that replicating systems across any school district is the same process, whether it’s small, midsize or large. If you have elementary, middle and high schools, how do you make sure that they’re vertically and horizontally aligned? Vertically speaking, what’s the experience from a pre-K student all the way to 12th grade? If you have multiple middle schools, you want to make sure kids have the same experience regardless of which middle school they go to, and so that’s the horizontal part.
What do you mean by ‘replicating systems?’
It’s creating a standard — whether it’s through culture, curriculum or processes. Build the standard and duplicate it so there’s consistency and reduced variability. We want our students, parents, staff and community to have the same opportunities and access in whatever classroom or campus you enter.
One of the things we’ve done is to establish a guaranteed viable curriculum. From pre-K to 12, this is your experience for English; this is your experience for math. We have two new curricula implemented last year. We also have Pathways, which are programs of study. If you want to pursue engineering or welding or business, we have those concrete pathways created. Pathways aren’t new, but we’re tightening them up and now including middle school to get students further along the pathway. We have a partnership with MCC, and last year had 37 students enrolled in both high school and community college classes that we pay for. I had a student tell me, ‘Dr. Spicer, if y’all had not paid for this and I hadn’t had this experience, I wouldn’t be going to college now.’
You have a stated passion for ‘equity and access’ for all students — can you elaborate?
You want to make sure that a zip code doesn’t define a child’s experience, right? You want to make sure that they have every opportunity and option open, so when they leave us, they can pursue whatever they choose. I’ve had students who lived out of their cars to students who drove a Mercedes. I think as educators, our job is to ask, ‘What barriers can I remove?’ And if you already have access to all these things, what do I need to do to elevate you even more? My job as an educator is to make sure that all students get the same access and opportunity to both curriculum and experiences.
How do you get high schoolers to look at the long game of education and their careers?
I’ve talked with many students who think they need to stop their schooling to work and help support their families. I tell them, ‘I get that now, but I’m going to challenge you to think further, because if you go to college and come back, think how much you can truly support your family.’ But yes, getting them to look long-term and long-game right now is sometimes hard.
What kind of person and leader are you?
Some people are like, ‘Why does she smile all the time?’ I’m like, ‘That’s just my disposition.’ I mean, I’m just a glass-half-full kind of person. Even when something bad happens, I can still find the good. That’s just how I see life and I think my job is to give hope, inspire and encourage. When I ask for feedback, I want people to know that number one, I heard you. Number two, we’re going to accomplish great things. Number three, it may be uncomfortable, but this is what I heard and this is what we have to do to get where we want to go.
You were the first Black principal in the Leander school system’s history. Did that role bring any specific weight with it?
Not necessarily external but internal. When you’re the first of anything, you set a standard. I think I was the third female high school principal ever in Leander. Right after I was hired but before I started work — and I can’t make this up — I was in the beauty shop getting my hair done. Some ladies congratulated me on becoming the first Black principal in the district. I said, no, that couldn’t be true. But the next day I called the superintendent and said, ‘Hey, I heard that I’m the first administrator of color in the whole district.’ He told me it was the truth; it just hadn’t come up in my interview.
By internal weight, I knew that I couldn’t mess up, because for anybody coming after me who was Black or brown, I would have to be successful so they would at least get a chance to be interviewed and considered for future positions. I did feel like I was representing for all people of color, and especially women.
How do you make the goal of academic excellence into an action item?
We started by creating our Strategic Plan 2025-2030 to ensure we were all focused and aligned on the same priorities, bringing together internal and external stakeholders from all parts of Waco. This has helped us keep our focus as we work to ensure academic excellence, support human capital, strengthen community partnerships and maintain fiscal responsibility.
We’ve changed to new math and new English curricula as the foundation. And we’re investing in our human capital, if you will. We’ve hired new positions to provide coaches for our teachers and also for our principals. Those are full-time jobs, and we’ve hired people specific to content for our teachers. Every campus will get two starting in the ’26-27 school year: English and math, and then our secondaries will get three: English, math and a split science-social studies. We also have principal coaches that we’ve outsourced with organizations outside of the district.
To retain staff and attract quality educators, Waco ISD trustees have approved a $4.8 million compensation plan that includes two percent raises for teachers and administrators and four percent raises for paraprofessionals and auxiliary staff, along with bonuses and retention incentives.
Talk to me about motivating students to reach their potential. What does that look like?
I think sometimes people forget that schools aren’t just about academics; they’re about producing well-rounded future adults. When we educate our students we educate the whole child, and we make sure they have experiences and exposure to round out their academics. Colleges and employers don’t want people who can just read. Critical thinking is important — you can’t survive without it. It’s not just about ‘Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic,’ but providing soft skills in how to navigate the real world. We want to build students’ leadership capacity, involve them in different activities and experiences, and then let them go out and conquer the world.
How do you keep perspective on such a complex job with so many moving parts?
Before you can do innovative things in the classroom, you have to first have relational capacity and step outside of the box to look at the whole picture. I do that a lot. I call it the dance floor and the balcony. Sometimes I’m on the dance floor and up to my neck in the work, but other times I get on the balcony and look down to see what the district or system is doing. I react on how I can take this all in and make sense of it; I have to see both the trees and the forest as a whole.
You talk about transparency, cooperation and mutual trust. What does that mean concretely?
I meet with a lot of people, not just inside of Waco ISD but throughout the community. I form relationships with really everybody in community roles in Waco. If you’ve reached out to me, I make time to spend time with you and form partnerships. With those partnerships we work together to get results for students. I’m on several different boards and in several different organizations where I get to tell our story, but also listen to their stories and see how we can come together to make Waco its best. Concrete effort means taking the time to invest in people. I’m open and honest; in turn people invest time with me and trust is built.
Those group meetings and focus groups you initiated in the beginning of your tenure: Did they accomplish what you hoped and will they continue?
Yes. They gave me insight into the people, stories and the heart of the district and city. From those experiences I’ve continued to host internal groups to keep a pulse on our heartbeat. We currently have student and teacher advisory committees, and in the future, we’re going to have a parent advisory committee. We’re working on another advisory committee for special education parents that will be starting this year. Anytime there’s an opportunity to bring stakeholders in and hear their voices, we do. We did that with our attendance boundaries. We did that when we built our strategic plan and brought in parents and community members. Our strategic plan goes
from 2025 to 2030, so we just
finished year one.
What challenges or surprises have you faced?
Well, I didn’t expect to be redrawing the districts’ attendance boundaries. When I got here, the bonds were finishing and that part wasn’t done, and guess what — tag, that was me. But it went off smoothly and we brought everybody in. A major challenge is perception. People who are not in our system sometimes have a misperception of the school district or Waco in general because of our racial and economic makeup. But we’re a phenomenal district with phenomenal people and phenomenal students.
What do you do for fun?
I like to read, and when I go on vacation I like to experience my surroundings and eat all of the amazing food that I can. I love learning when I’m in a new surrounding as well. I also like spending time with the Spice Girls. And sleep — I love to get it when I can. But what I really do for fun is work out and participate in competitions. I’ve run two marathons with a third one planned in February 2027, and I’m participating in IRONMAN 70.3 here in Waco October 4; my first IRONMAN competition.
What’s your biggest challenge for the IRONMAN competition coming up?
It’s not the swimming necessarily, it’s the location in the Brazos River — if it were in a pool, it’d be different! I’m officially one of the five Team Waco 2026 team members through the Greater Waco Sports Commission. They pick five community members and sponsor and coach us. An IRONMAN is 70.3 miles total: 1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking and a 13.1-mile half-marathon running. Y’all say a prayer for me and the team!
Do you have an exercise and eating regimen for training?
I run four times a week when I’m training for a marathon, but I’ve cut down on running recently because I have to do swimming and biking as well. I have a home gym, but I also go to the Y — at 5 a.m.! I try to eat really clean, but I’ve been having to add more carbs to my diet because I don’t eat enough according to my nutritionist. Sweets — desserts and not candy — are my downfall — especially peach cobbler!
What are three words that you would use to describe yourself?
Fun, though my daughters might disagree. Inspiring. And grateful. I started a gratitude journal this past January. Every day I journal about one good thing that happened that day. It helps remind me to find joy even on those days where I struggle to see it.
Does anything keep you up at night?
Student safety. I have 13,000 students that I worry about keeping physically and emotionally safe. There’s just so much out there to keep them safe from in this day and age.
What makes Waco ISD special?
The people. We have amazing people who are passionate about the district and the city. We have generational families coming through, meaning many of our students’ parents and even grandparents went to school here. It’s a family. I love the people that I work with and work for, and I get the opportunity to serve with them. I want to make sure I do right by them.
