Just Schools

Catalyzing Culture in One of America's Best Schools: Abby Andrietsch

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Abby Andrietsch, CEO of St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, in Milwaukee. They discuss the school's rapid growth since its founding in 2017 and its mission to serve a diverse student body with excellence. Andrietsch shares insights into how Aug Prep has become one of the top-rated schools in the state and the transformative impact it has had on the surrounding community, including a 43% reduction in crime.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon:
So today we have Abby with us. She is one of my favorite school leaders from one of my favorite schools in the country, St. Augustine Prep in Milwaukee. And so I want to start, before we jump into how you came to this, just tell the audience about Aug Prep, how it started and where it's at right now.
Abby:
Awesome. Thanks, Jon. So Aug Prep is not necessarily the typical story. We actually just started, we launched in 2017. So in a lot of ways we are a baby as an organization, but we have grown a lot since we launched. We serve today 2200 students on Milwaukee's South Side. We have the privilege of serving about 86% of our students would be considered low income, more than 95% students of color. And they just have all the potential in the world, same potential as my own kids who are actually also students here.
But we started in 2017 with a vision of being part of bigger, something bigger in Milwaukee to serve students with excellence. Milwaukee does have a voucher program, which created a lot of opportunity for us and we chose, our founders chose as we launched to start as a Christian school very intentionally knowing we'd get about a thousand dollars less per people. But that Jesus being at the core of everything we do was really essential.
And we started with four pillars, faith, family, excellence in academics, and athletics and arts. And I think a lot of schools do one or two of those really well, some even three. But it's rare that you see the four pieces coming together with excellence. And for us, I would say that's really the critical part of the fabric of who we are is serving our students with excellence, but serving the whole child with excellence.
Jon:
No, and I get to visit there and Erik Ellefsen, our Director of Networks and Improvement Communities has been talking about Aug Prep for years. I finally got to visit this past summer and it is a truly remarkable place. If I remember correctly, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, when your school started in the neighborhood that you were in, there was a dramatic reduction in crime in the neighborhood, literally transformed the neighborhood. In my mind it's like 42%. What's the actual number? Do you remember the actual number Abby?
Abby:
I do. It's 43, so you're really close We opened our doors, crime in our neighborhoods gone down by about 43%.
Jon:
Yeah, that's amazing. And that's what we want. We don't want just schools that are isolated things. We want schools that really serve their communities well and the communities that serve the school well. And so love that statistical evidence that this really has made a difference.
Now you just purchased a college campus on the North Side of Milwaukee. So talk about that and where you're headed because again, that's a big play to make right now, especially with some of the buildings that I know may not even be usable. I don't even know all the details, but where are you at in that process, Abby?
Abby:
So I have a business background, we'll get to that later, but we weren't planning this. The candor is it was an opportunity that God created that we kind of jumped in fully for. On the North Side of Milwaukee, there is a college, it was Cardinal Stritch that closed about three months before our founders were there for an event. It was the first time they had been there and they walked around thinking this place was meant to be a school.
And really long story short, the school was purchased. We are launching a second campus on Milwaukee's North Side. What I'm most excited about is actually the school is located in a place that bridges a lot of communities in Milwaukee from more affluent, whiter suburbs to some of the toughest zip codes in Milwaukee. And it's a really unique location. And actually the college that was there before, their history includes a deep history of faith and a deep history of diversity. And our vision for this campus is to create a campus that reflects the world we live in, where our kids are part of our diverse socioeconomic, cultural, racial student body, all grounded and unified and being in Christ, but seeing and valuing the differences in each other and learning and growing with each other through that.
Jon:
Love that vision, love the opportunity that wasn't even being sought out. I mean, it's so much of what Aug Prep's story is that you've just had your work multiplied in so many ways, which has been really meaningful. And now just another thing that stuck in my head. You're one of the, if not the top-rated school in Milwaukee. In what measure? How is that determined, Abby?
Abby:
So I mentioned earlier we're part of a voucher system in the state as such, and I'm a big believer in parent choice. And as we get public funds, being accountable to serving kids well. So I lead with the and academic excellence and serving the whole child Jesus, intertwined and grounding every piece of that. We are per the state's report card in the top 2% of growth of any schools in the state. We are the number one K to 12 school in Milwaukee, the number two in the state. We've gone back and forth between one and two. And that for me is a number. But numbers matter. I look at those numbers as necessary but not sufficient measures of, "Are we serving our students and our families well?"
Jon:
Love that example of excellence. And anytime you can measure growth and not just status proficiency, which can be based on the demographics of your school or the location and the educational attainment of parents, you actually are saying, "Here's where they come in and here's where they grow." And I love the point that it's necessary but not sufficient. And so in this conversation about choice and what that looks like, certainly in Texas, that's a really polarizing conversation right now.
At the center, we want to serve leaders who are doing great work to serve each kid wherever they're called to serve. And so that's how we came across you. So tell us how you got into this role of CEO of this startup school that now was purchased a college campus. How do you get into that? You have a fairly non-traditional journey. So would you mind sharing that?
Abby:
I do have a non-traditional journey. My training and education is a lot more on the business side. It was actually when I was in graduate school that I stepped from a room full of business leaders talking about what I thought I wanted to go into totally disheartened because I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do and I stepped into a room with people with business backgrounds working in education, and it was a light moment for me, a light bulb moment.
That in and of itself led me down working with some different national foundations. Gone back and forth in the corporate world a little bit, but I had the chance in Milwaukee almost 15 years ago to co-found an organization that worked with leaders from our local public schools, charter schools, and also private schools. And Aug Prep didn't exist at that point in time. And it was a group of leaders that came together around kids and quality and not politics of the adults really in the city.
And I spent about eight years getting to work with that organization, helping great schools grow, schools that wanted to get better, get better. We had a whole team of coaches that walked and worked with school leaders. I actually personally stepped away from that after eight years, wanting a little bit more time with my kids and to be the mom that I wanted to be. I just realized that the balance, it was a stage in life where I needed to step back. And about a year later I found myself in the interim role at Aug Prep, vehemently planning to be interim. And five and a half years later, I couldn't be happier to be here. Both of my kids are here. That was actually part of the decision to go from interim to full-time was my family made a decision to move closer to the school and to have our kids here. And it has just been God's, I think, biggest blessing for us in the last five and a half years through it all.
Jon:
Well, great example of the fact that I don't really think work-life balance exists. I think it's something that we always strive to attain. I've yet to meet anyone who's achieved it. And so I think there's work-life rhythm. So knowing when your family needs more of you. And then if you can get healthy work-life integration, which I think is what you've done, that's a win. That's a win.
Abby:
I think of it as harmony. So I like your rhythm, but I don't believe in work-life balance. But I do think there's a harmony that comes together and it looks different at different times.
Jon:
Well, and to be clear, so I give attribution, I think it's Adam Grant's work-life rhythm he talks about. I really like that. I think that's useful. So when you think about the challenges ahead for Aug Prep specifically, you're in a particular context. I mean Milwaukee is a gigantic voucher experiment that's been going on for decades. So it's in a different kind of context than a lot of people.
But what do you see as the biggest challenges to really being what you aspire to be at Aug Prep? That's one of the things I was impressed by this summer, you might be the number one or number two school in the state of Wisconsin for growth, but there definitely wasn't a sense that you had it all figured out. It felt like you all knew that there's places where you could get better and we're striving to do that. And that was what our work was together and how we do that joyfully. But in that joy there are challenges. And that joy doesn't mean it's the freedom from struggle. Joy is actually the fuel to struggle well, so when we lay these challenges out, that's not to depress the audience, but it's to be honest about, "Here are the challenges you see." So if you were to identify one, two, or three challenges ahead for Aug Prep, especially as you expand, what would you identify?
Abby:
Yeah. Well we've been a mixed expansion really since we started. In some ways we've added the equivalent of an additional school almost every year since we've opened. If I go big picture, I think the biggest challenge that we have as a community, but I would say this as a country as well, I just see it much more intensely as a community would be a lack of belief and a lack of hope.
So for our kids, especially in certain parts of Milwaukee, we have far too many kids that are 12, 13, 14 years old that are being told that they're never going to live to be 18, 19, 20. So just do what you want. Our kids need to be believed in and they need a sense of hope. And what I love about what I get to do is that hope gets to be Jesus grounded every day. In my last role, I didn't get to. Who I was as a leader, was deeply grounded in faith, but it wasn't an overt part of my job.
But as we think about the work we do that hope is eternal and earthly, but I think we have generations that have been failed, especially in our cities by our education system. And so how do we create a sense of hope where they don't see it from their past? And that's a big part. But along with that is a sense of belief in what's possible.
And I would argue that any of the kids that walk through our doors here at Aug Prep are just as capable as my own kids. They're just as capable as kids from our suburbs. And there are far too many adults that see the challenges, which are real, that they step in and through our doors with and don't believe that they can succeed at high levels. And I think the difference in what we do here is we do believe in what's possible. We set the bar high for them, equip them with tools to fly. But that lack of hope is I think one of our biggest challenges because it's mindset change, not just for our kids but for our community.
If I get tactical, we've been growing a lot and so we've always got to think about how do we hire great people? We're very intentional. We have a super rigorous process that people don't love going through, but when they're on the team, they love what it creates. Thinking about the growth that we've had in the last two years, we've hired more than 75 new staff each of the last two years. We've had more than 600 new students each of the last two years. That's a big deal. Both hiring enough great people, I would argue even more important is creating, keeping, and protecting the culture that we've worked so hard to build.
And so being really intentional about finding, developing, onboarding really great team members and even more, how do we be really intentional as new kids, as new staff come onboard? Having that culture that isn't created by lack of intention, but instead is there from the get-go. And actually it's gotten stronger each of the last couple of years as a result.
Jon:
Well, two things on that. You certainly will be a case study in the next book that I'm working on, which is Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools. Because I think you're doing this in this powerful way where that optimism you have is grounded in the experience of what you've seen since 2017. You've seen kids become more of who they're created to be, and that becomes this virtuous cycle of improvement where you're not basing it on naive optimism where it's like, "I hope they'll be better or I think they could be better." You know they can be more of who they're created to be because you've seen it over and over again and then that becomes part of the culture.
The second part of that I wanted to ask is could you just briefly run through what your interview process is because that scale of hiring is remarkable in schools and trying to maintain culture and even improve culture doing that, that's a tremendous feat. So can you just describe what your interview process is?
Abby:
Yeah, that could be its own podcast.
Jon:
I'm sure. Yeah.
Abby:
And you can ask more. A couple of key pieces are part of it. A few years ago as a senior team, we took time to step back and say, "What are the most important characteristics of any team member at Aug Prep?" Could be a teacher, it could be administrator, could be one of our facilities, team members, security guard. And we identified three key pieces.
And for us, the first and foremost is an active and living faith walk with Jesus. The second is growth mindset and coachability. If you're an educator that's been in the work for 30 years, you don't think you have anything to grow and you want to coast, we're not the place to come. There are great places for educators that are there to go, but it's just not the right culture for us. And the third is actually belief and belief in our kids and our community and what's possible.
Those three things are built into every step of the process. From phone interview to essays, we ask people to write as part of the process to in-person. In addition to the core capabilities of any role, it's how are we really intentional? And we have a really diverse staff. I mean just even racially and ethnically, about 45% of our staff is diverse and we're working to make sure that that's throughout our organization and everybody is unified in certain places, Jesus being first and foremost and a desire to grow and learn. And so that in and of itself creates a place that staff members want to be and stay. So our goal is every year to have at least 90% of our staff stay. We've been between 85 and 90% for the last several years, 85 and 95% for the last several years. Our best source of new staff is our current team.
And so when people want to tell, we just had a team member whose sister and brother-in-law moved across the country from California. They were looking at Ohio and at Aug Prep. And when you have team members that love what they do and where they work every day, it's the best way for us to recruit new staff. And it's been a really big part of how we do what we do.
At the end of the day, we try to make sure every decision we make is around kids first. We are not a place that makes adult first decisions, and we recognize that in order to best serve our kids, we have to have a strong and healthy team. So there's a tension and balance that goes there, but I also think it means that we recruit team members with a really high bar for themselves with belief for kids, and that want to be in a place that strives to serve kids well. And that in and of itself creates that culture I talked about.
Jon:
I've been able to see that. Again, I need to be at Aug Prep when there are kids there because that's when it's fun.
Abby:
Yeah, you do.
Jon:
But in the team that you have, we have four of them that are in our master's program at Baylor. So Aug Prep has becomes some kind of a strange pipeline for Milwaukee to Waco Texas. But I see that in your team, they are building other leaders all the time. We always say leaders are always building leaders. And so they're encouraging the next group of people from Aug Prep. And I hope that we always have a nice conduit work. With your growth, you're going to need to continue growing leadership hopefully indefinitely, and you need partners to do that. We want to be that kind of catalytic partner for you where we can connect Aug Prep leaders with other schools because so many times, especially in the Christian school world, there's a lot of navel-gazing about, "These are our problems and nobody else's and nobody understands our context and nobody understands these challenges."
And what I've loved about the leaders that you've sent to us at Baylor is they're always looking to get more information and understand other contexts and figure out what they can take back to Aug Prep and then share out what is and isn't working at Aug Prep. And so that is a way to not only build culture, but actually accelerate that culture development. So really encouraged there. So we talked about the challenges, but you already kind of jumped into the opportunities you see, but what would be the thing you're most excited about for the year ahead for Aug Prep? And then we'll jump into a lightning round, but what are you most excited about for the year ahead and the opportunities you see?
Abby:
I'm most excited about, so this year ahead, we graduate our first group of college graduates. So I'm starting to see, I'll have finished my sixth year at the end of this school year. I'm just getting to see the ripple effects and I already see them. One of our graduates from just this last year is at Marquette. He's going on a service trip over Christmas this fall. He's talking about coming back and talking to our young men and women in chapel. And so just seeing the ripple effect of the leadership that's leaving. And he's actually a young man that would self-identify as lucky he didn't get kicked out in middle school, got in a lot of trouble. We do a lot around restorative practices. I know one of our fellows is doing a lot within the Baylor program around that. And it's so cool to watch our kids go from really struggling with themselves as much as it is with others and often with faith underneath to really flourishing and shining as young adults. And I can't wait to see what happens in the community.
So big picture, I'm probably most excited about watching some of our first class of graduates stepping into that next step of the journey. I think sometimes, and Jon, we've got four fellows at Baylor. You didn't ask me to do this, but we're a learning organization. There's a lot of things we're doing well. There's a lot of things we're still learning how to do. We want to share what we're doing, but how do we learn from others? And our fellows are down at Baylor because they're in a place that seeks to do that too. I've watched you and I've watched the Baylor school leadership, the Center for School leadership. It's not about faith or academic excellence, faith or serving the whole child. You all lead with that and that I talked about being really important and you create space for our leaders to learn.
And I think I often run into folks that say, "Well, you all are different. We can't do what Aug Prep is doing." I don't actually think we've done anything that's remarkably special or different. What we've done is pulled best practices from a lot of places and continued every year to think about how we get better, who do we need to learn from or what do we need to do differently? And we've been able to get bigger and better at the same time. We haven't arrived. I hope we never do because I think part of the culture of who we are is actually that constant mindset of what do we need to keep doing better to serve our kids and community?
Jon:
Love that attitude. Thank you. Thank you for that encouragement. And we just want to find more partners like you because they're out there. How do we connect other Aug Preps to this Aug Prep? People with a similar kind of mission and view and where can we learn together? And that's, I think as a Christian R1 University, that's our call is to help connect those pieces. So I'm grateful for the hard work you do or the work that the Lord does through you in the community because that's the evidence that it actually matters. Because we can talk about these things in platitudes all the time and sit down here at a university and say, "Hey, here's what we think people should do." What we need to see is what people are doing and where that's making a difference for kids.
So let's jump to the lightning round. So I know you have pulled from a lot of great ideas, so I'm curious if in the last year there's a really good book you might recommend to me and to us that you're like, "This was a super helpful book", whether it's in education or not, just a good book that you've read the last year. Or listened to. It's fine. Audible counts too.
Abby:
I do listen to a lot of books. I love to read, but I often find myself falling asleep when I sit down or lie down to read a little bit. You know what? I am a big believer in reading a lot of different things and pulling the pieces that apply most to your circumstances. So you talked about Adam Grant. I love reading his books. Anything Patrick Lencioni, I've read multiple times. We've pulled pieces from Jim Collins, Good to Great and Built to Last. And so I would say any of those pieces.
We read as a leadership group last year, Fierce Conversations, there's several takes of that, Radical Candor being one of them. But my probably biggest encouragement is be a reader. And for me it's been, those are all more leadership organizational books. When I'm really wrestling with a topic, I try to read the full spectrum of perspectives on it to then figure out where I'm at and finding those books. Just Teaching is one that I did just pick up in the last year, so I hadn't had a chance to see it before then, but it was one that I picked up and I'm not a teacher and so that's not my skill set, but there are pieces to learn and to then share with other people.
Jon:
Yeah, I love that. And it's really common, Abby, I hope you know that I am typically mentioned Lencioni, Adam Grant, Jim Collins, Jon Eckert. That's kind of the normal group that I'm mentioned. So that's comforting to know that.
Abby:
You know what actually what ties all of those people together, Jon, is you don't just think in theory. So when you write, you're not just thinking in theory. And I will own that that can be my struggle with higher ed is sometimes just being caught up in the theory. It's all of those leaders who are also authors think about how you take the theory and apply it in practice and how do you break it down in a way that is easy to digest. And so Lencioni writes in fables, Adam Grant tells his stuff in a lot of stories as well. And so that's, at least for me, usually I capture lessons learned by seeing things either I'm struggling with or trying to figure out how to put words into in stories that other people are talking about.
Jon:
Yeah. Well, and I love all those same authors for the same reason. And then is this Fierce Conversation because this the one by Susan Scott, is that who you?
Abby:
Yeah.
Jon:
So I have not read that one. It looks like another one I should read. So thank you for that. So let's start with this. Worst piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Worst piece of advice?
Jon:
It could be a leadership piece.
Abby:
I had somebody tell me that I was taking somebody else's spot in business school because I wasn't sure if at some point I'd want some time to stop and be a mom. And so that was probably the worst piece of advice and my encouragement for anyone listening is that I think there's different phases of life. I also think that any education we get can be applied to lots of aspects of what we do.
Jon:
Yeah, no, that's good. I'm assuming that was because that was your degree at Stanford when you were getting question on that, right? I can't imagine.
Abby:
Right. And that was an awesome degree, but I actually had a whole conversation. It was someone in a generation that fought so that people like I can make the decisions that are best for me. But I think they fought for the choice, not for the decision themselves. And I appreciate being able to make it myself.
Jon:
That's well said. That's another podcast that we could do on how those choices get made. And so really grateful for that background you have because I think your curiosity and your ability to synthesize theory and apply it, I mean that comes great degree programs will do that. And obviously Stanford knows something about educating people, so that's good. Then best piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Not to seek perfection, but always to strive to keep getting better. I think we get caught up in trying to be perfect and miss the opportunity to keep getting better.
Jon:
That's our favorite quote we use with our improvement communities. That your plan is possibly wrong and is definitely incomplete. So that should be empowering. There's places to grow. Then if you could in a word or a phrase, describe what Aug Prep will be in the next year, what would it be? So word or phrase for Aug Prep that would describe it in the next year?
Abby:
My hope is that it is a light on the hill. How do we be a light for the community, not just the kids in our building, but the whole community outside our building as well?
Jon:
Love that, beautiful sentiment. Well, Abby, thank you for being with us. Thanks for the work you do at Aug Prep. It's great to have partners like you because you make us all better.
Abby:
Thanks, Jon. Appreciate it.
 

Enhanced Engagement Through Phone Freedom: Matt Northrop

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Matt Northrop, the Associate Head of School at Oaks Christian School in Southern California. They discuss the school's decision to eliminate cell phone use during the school day and the positive effects this has had on student engagement and community building. Northrop shares insights into the implementation process and how students and parents have responded. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcription:
Jon:
Today, we're here with Matt Northrop, amazing leader in Southern California at Oaks Christian School. This conversation really started through a text exchange where I was asking how the year was going, and I got this great response from Matt. First of all, give us a little bit of a window into how the year started at Oaks and what you're doing is a little bit different than what you've done in the past.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Jon, have the utmost respect for you and the show and all the things that you all are doing, but yeah, this year we, so a little bit about Oaks Christian. We are about 1,700 students, a little over 1,100 on the high school side. This year we made the jump in after reading Anxious Generation made the decision with leadership that we wanted to walk away from our students being able to use cell phones while on campus. We've had a number of different iterations with cell phones. We've used them in the classrooms, we've kind of jumped in on the tech side and really believing that that could be a tool. I think a lot of schools have gone that direction. We just really felt as we not only read it, but also as we saw a lot of the same conclusions that he was coming up with, we really felt like we needed to do something drastic on the phones.
We had pretty early on made sure that our teachers were involved in this decision and that they were aware of it and communicated at the beginning of the summer for all of our students and parents. What we've done is we've made it where you can't have a cell phone on or in your possession throughout the school day from, and we start our first classes at 8:30, so 8:30 until 3:15. What we have found, and this is what we were texting back and forth, is it has absolutely ... Not that our culture wasn't for us. I think the culture was always there. What the cell phone was doing was interrupting what the culture had the potential of being. As we took away cell phones in these first few weeks of school, the noise level in the hallways has multiplied probably two or three fold in good ways.
Kids are laughing, kids are playing games, they actually have board games in our spiritual life office that they're playing. Kids are in circles and they're having conversations. They're sharing stories where you might find the first few weeks when there were cell phones, and kids sitting on a couch or a chair somewhere just kind of minding their own business on the phone. I don't see kids by themselves anymore. Whether that's them having the courage of just wanting to go out and start talking with friends or meet new friends, or if that's people, kids on our campus who are seeing somebody who's all by themselves and sitting down and having that conversation. It has been a huge boost to our community, to the connection that takes place on campus. We've really look back at the teachers are saying, this is a game-changer for the school.
Jon:
It's powerful. We're hearing this, I mean, some states are banning phones, there are districts moving to this, they're public schools, independent schools. I'm curious to hear how your parents received this. You mentioned teachers starting to communicate this I think early in the summer. How did you go about communicating this shift and moved away from, this is something that I think sometimes kids feel like it's a punitive measure, like you're taking away something to, oh no, we're offering you something better. We've had an engaging culture in the past, we think this will be even better. How did you roll that out? Then what was the response that you got maybe initially versus where you're at right now?
Matt Northrop:
Sure. What was interesting is we communicated this via email to parents at the beginning of summer. We kept waiting, honestly, as administrators waiting for an angry mob to approach us. We did not receive a single email from a parent that was upset about this policy. In fact, at our new parent orientation a week before school started, it got a huge ovation, the fact that we were making this decision. This is one of those decisions for us that it has had the support of our parents from the get-go.
Part of that is I think parents are starting to see this, and then part of that was probably the way that we communicated this out as far as, again, we're not trying to make their kids miserable. We're not trying to keep them from connecting to their kids. What we are trying to do is have academic conversations, increase community, allow their kids to be able to see each other face-to-face and develop empathy and develop courage and develop curiosity and all of those things that can be difficult to do with a cell phone on their hand. What's interesting too, Jon, is I've had a few kids walk up and they look to their left and they look to their right, make sure no friends are listening and they say, "Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for taking the cell phones away. Even the kids, to some degree, not all of them are happy about this for sure, but to some degree I believe that they're starting to see the difference on campus to have that connection.
Jon:
Did you get resistance from students at the beginning that's now reduced or did you have any of that pushback from them?
Matt Northrop:
Nothing serious. Kind of the adolescent eye roll, probably collective eye roll, but again, even as reminders on campus, the reminder is not, we don't have big cell phones with a red circle and red lines through it. We have the reason why, so we're emphasizing community. We're emphasizing contribution, and we're emphasizing celebration. If your head's not up and your eyes aren't open, you can't do any of those things, and so be available. See those things that you can celebrate on campus, find ways in which you can contribute and then be a part of this community.
Jon:
Love that, love the three Cs there, and it's a positive, not a negative. I think that's remarkable. I think more schools can lean into that in ways that I think would be increasingly life-giving. I was going to say, your school. I've been able to be on your campus several times, and it's one of the more engaging campuses I've ever been on because you have these institutes that connect kids, and you're now fifth through 12th grade or have, you've gone down to fourth?
Matt Northrop:
Fourth through 12th.
Jon:
Fourth through 12th. Fourth through 12th grade, you have this deeply engaged campus where you're moving all over, it feels like a college campus, and kids are entering into these different spaces and doing the work of professionals and they're connected to professionals. You're obviously in a talent-rich environment that you tap into well, so talk a little bit about the way you all think about engagement anyway, even removed from the smartphone conversation. How do you think about that in meaningful ways?
Because I think, let me back that up with one other piece of context, because what you said earlier resonated from what Jonathan Haidt said about the students. He asks about the way technology interferes with their engagement. He asked them his classes, "Is anybody here upset that Netflix is a thing that they're streaming on Netflix?" Everybody's like, "Yeah," Netflix, they love Netflix. Netflix is a win. Then he's asked them, "Does anybody wish that we could go back from social media?" About half of them say they would like that to go away, which I think speaks to kind of the invasive nature of some of the technology where Netflix wants you to give it your attention because it wants you to be on, but it's not this constant clawing at you that I think we all feel even as adults.
When we talk about kids not being able to handle phones, and I would argue most adults can't handle their phones either because it's a multi-billion dollar industry to try to keep our attention. I think you all have acknowledged that, have seen that, but I think better than most schools, you have already built a culture of engagement that already was focused on community, contribution, celebration. Talk a little bit about where you've built that culture and then maybe how this has added to it.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. There's a couple things that come to mind as I think through community. One is we've, from the very get-go, been very Socratic, especially in our humanities. A normal thing is to walk to campus and you'll see the Socratic circles with a novel out, with scripture out, with a document that they're reading together, asking great questions. I think that has lended itself where the teacher is not the center of the classroom. The discussion is, or an idea is versus the teacher. The teacher typically will sit down with the students in a posture of learning together. I think from the very beginning, Oaks has been a place where scholarly conversation, it's a normal thing for kids who engage in that scholarly conversation.
Jon:
Let me interject there. I did get to see a conversation at your school where they were discussing the things they carry, and there were about 12 students gathered around with a teacher. It was really hard to tell where the teacher was and where the students were, but the conversation was one of my favorite conversations I've ever been able to listen into, so absolutely agree. That was now maybe four years ago?
Matt Northrop:
Five years ago, yeah.
Jon:
Yeah, four or five years. Amazing, so yeah, I can second that. That's a powerful thing that you all do at Oaks.
Matt Northrop:
A special part for sure. Then I think on the other side of things, we also genuinely believe that our students can be contributors to society, to culture now. They don't need to wait until they're 35. with these, we've started five institutes. These are institutes for students. We have about 25% of our kids that are part of one of these. It's for students who are thinking that they may want to be an engineer or they want to be a filmmaker. We have our Institute for Arts Innovation, Institute for Global Leadership, which is Finance and Law, Institute of Engineering, which has our idea lab. We just added Health Sciences Institute and a Bible and Discipleship Institute for kids who want to go deeper into those areas.
It really becomes a highly engaging elective set of offerings. I think one of the things that I love, so maybe just as a story that might help bring this out as far as the engagement is concerned, we had an assignment that was given probably three years ago now to students, and it was just an open-ended develop a, and this was in our engineering institute, develop a water filtration device for an area, geographic area in the world that doesn't have readily access to clean water.
That was the topic, and so they began to work on it, ended up putting together things that I don't completely understand as a history major, but ozone, sand filtration, heat, and there's one more element that they put together into one unit and then found out later that nobody had ever developed a filtration device like this. The next year, they wrote a journal article on it, they began to continue to test it. It was found to be 99.9% effective. That was the second year. Third year is they began to link arms with some of our other institutes of trying to find a way, how do we bring this now to an area of the world that would need this? We're sending a team in October to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we are bringing some of our global leadership students who are looking to come alongside young businesses that are happening there in ways that we can help and support that they're bringing the water device as well to be able to figure out what we can do there.
Then all of it is being collected for a documentary for social change designed to help bring awareness to both, both to schools as far as things that we can do to help engage our students beyond just book knowledge, but practical knowledge as well. Also, to be able to showcase what kids can do today that can benefit the world when they're 17 years old versus when they're 37 years old. Something to help inspire this generation to be difference makers. It's an example of probably an abnormal one on our campus, but a normal conversation that's happening on our campus on a regular basis.
Jon:
No, and two things that that made me think of from what I've seen on campus, your idea lab, your innovation lab is in a former dog food factory. You've converted into this amazing space where the first time I was there, Jet Propulsion Labs had just been there the day before because they partner with you. I think at the time you were the only high school in the country they would partner with. They typically only partner with universities. There was a conversation going on in that lab about getting water to different parts of the world that were not getting water. It wasn't a filtration thing, it was just how to do a water project. They were white boarding all these things and generating ideas and these really creative problem solving ways with a teacher there that was super animated in what he was doing.
It was also tied into, I think he was going over there some rocketry and telemetry things on one of the boards that I did not understand. Then we walked over to a machine that you have that you had a teacher and a student go get trained on it. It was like a four or five-day training, and he was going to Stanford, I think he was the head of your debate team, and he was trained on this. He talked us through, in detail, this unbelievably complex machine that you had invested time in him so that he could then invest time in students totally a transformational space on so many levels because of the human beings. It wasn't about the tools, it was the way the humans were using the tools. It was amazing. Then I think the next day they were filming a feature length film.
There was a fight scene that was about to happen on campus that the booms were ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:02].
Jon:
Yes, then it was all staged. It wasn't a real fight but ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:06].
Jon:
... It's just seeing all that come together in the documentary and the leadership pieces and in the lab and then taking it and using it globally. I mean, again, you don't want smartphones to get in the way and distract from that kind of deeper problem solving that changes students at your school as they seek to serve the world in ways that, I think, most high school students don't have a vision for what that could be because they don't necessarily have those same opportunities to think that way, because the institutes you've built bring in the kind of outside expertise that feeds Oaks and then Oaks can feed back out. Which, I mean, that's pretty powerful. I wish everybody had a chance to just walk around your campus and just see, because I was just there on random days, the times I've been there, it wasn't like anything special was going on that day, it was just, this is just what happens on campus, which was amazing.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. I do think one of the elements there too is, and you've alluded to it, but finding people in your area, whether it's parents or community members that can help take the kids to the next level in those areas as well. We have advisory councils around each one have been kind of that Wayne Gretzky quote, "You don't just want to skate to where the puck is, but where it's going," and so looking at engineering of where is engineering going? Where is computer science going? Where's leadership going and preparing our kids for that?
Jon:
I love that, and any community can do that. Obviously, you're in a fairly unique place with some of the resources you have in your community, but every community has those resources and it doesn't really have to cost the school anything extra. In fact, it can bring resources with it where people get invested and they see what these high school kids are doing and they're like, "Oh yeah, here's some." I'm sure you have many examples of that. As the community engages your school, both sides benefit.
A couple of questions. These are typically, I do like a lightning round or shorter answer questions, which I'm terrible at answering. I always like to see how well you can do this. Have there been any books that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Yeah, absolutely." Other educators, Anxious Generation, 100%, and you're like, "Yes, everybody needs to read that if you're a parent, educator." We had both of our two oldest children, we had them read it because we're like, "Hey, this is talking about you all," and it was super impactful for them. Any other books you've read that you would recommend to the people listening?
Matt Northrop:
I have loved, we've been walking through with one of our groups, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by Jon Mark Comer, The Importance of Solitude and Silence and Sabbath and Slowing Down. I think for all of us, that was challenging then one that I've always loved that we're reading as well as The Power of Moments by Dan or Chip and Dan Heath, that one's an eye-opener and so applicable to so many areas of school.
Jon:
Love both of those books. I also just read Jon Mark Comer's Practicing the Way this year. Super helpful. Good follow up to it. At least this one, he's not just taking Dallas Willard's quote and making it his book title, so that's a win. The Power Moments, the idea of the peak end rule, the idea that the promise of risk-taking is learning. It's not success. How do you do that? How do you build that into your system? Power Moments has been one of my favorite books since that came out in 2017, so hey, I would second both of those. As you look ahead at schools in general, what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids? You've removed smartphones, that's key. You've got these things going on, but what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids?
Matt Northrop:
That's a good question. I'd say one of the things that I am starting to see, and I guess it surrounds the AI conversation, and I think we're all trying to figure out as educators, where does AI fit? We've been taking a look at it as well. I think one of the things that we're trying to do is making sure that that is exaggerating the humanness of relationship and community where AI is. There was just that recent article of a UK school that is now teacherless and completely driven by AI.
We're certainly not a school that runs away from technology, but I think that has a profound impact on education, on making sure that we're engaging our students. I hope we're not walking away from humanness altogether. I think as we look at AI to remember the impact that a teacher has in a classroom of kids of that face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, wrestling with big ideas, having those conversations that are all unique to each class period and not getting to the point where we're letting AI teach our kids. I think that's a dangerous spot. Nor do I really think that that really engages young people either.
Jon:
Everything you've talked about so far on this podcast could be potentially aided by artificial intelligence, but it could not be done with artificial intelligence. I love that exaggerating the humanness of school. If you've read any of Cal Newport's stuff, he wrote Deep Work and then he just came out with a book, Slow Productivity, his claim, and he's a computer science MIT grad professor at Georgetown. He makes a living in the world of artificial intelligence and computers. He said, "What will become increasingly valuable in the decades ahead, wherever the world goes, is the more human our contribution is, because that's where our value is in our humanness. What are you uniquely capable of offering the world if you're able to articulate that and obsess over quality, doing less things at a natural pace?" Ruthless Elimination of Hurry ties in nicely there. That's the value you have. How do we help kids see what they've been created to be and what they contribute?
Obviously, tools can help with that, but they will not replace that because AI, I always say this, this is from Darren Speaksma, it's consensus. That's all it is. It's scraping large language models. It's consensus. It is not wisdom and it can't be wisdom. There are things like if you're writing a paper, there are things where AI is super helpful for checking and fixing, but if it's generating, I don't want to read something generated by AI. One of my worst nightmares is that AI-generated emails will begin to fill up my email box to the point where I feel like I need AI-generated responses and it's just AI talking to AI, and I'm just this third party looking on at this nightmare. To me, how do we keep, I totally agree on exaggerating the humanness of what we do because that's the joy in schools. All right, so then what do you see as your biggest hope for engaging students well? I mean, I think you all are doing a lot of this really well. What would you say your biggest hope is?
Matt Northrop:
I think my largest hope is in the things that I'm seeing, and I know you're seeing in different Christian schools and different schools around the world, I think that we're getting to a place, as I look around, there's just so much hope in so many schools with amazing educators and leaders that are doing phenomenal things. Both with the hand in who we have been and who we've been as teachers and mentors for centuries. Yet also ,a hand in where is the world going and how do we continue to prepare our kids for a future that we don't know? I think I'm hopeful for these types of conversations. I'm hopeful for us as schools to become less siloed, maybe less competitive at times, and to be able to learn from one another and those unique things that we all bring to a conversation. There's still yet a school to visit where I haven't learned something from that school that I can pretty much immediately take back to Oaks. I think that's where the hope is, I guess, collaboration with one another and learning from one another.
Jon:
That's the whole reason why the Baylor Center for School Leadership exists. We try to bring schools together to do this work of improvement because we can always get better and it's a lot more fun to get better with each other. If you get a chance to visit Oaks Christian, you have to do it. The good thing is we have nothing to be afraid of in the future because we serve a sovereign God and He's not worried about the future and that victory is already done. When your eternity is all set, what happens between now and when we get to heaven, that's all just an adventure that we get to enjoy and create powers of moments and ruthlessly eliminate hurry and practice following Christ in ways that make us more like Him. It's a pretty good work that we get to do. Matt, thanks for all you do. Thanks for being on today.
Matt Northrop:
Thanks, Jon.
 

Hope in Challenging Times: Janet Gibson

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Janet Gibson, an experienced educator and leader at Baylor University. They discuss the importance of conflict resolution in education and how to equip leaders with the tools needed to navigate challenges effectively. Dr. Gibson shares insights from her extensive background in school administration and her current role in directing Baylor’s executive EdD program. The conversation also highlights the significance of maintaining a student-centered approach and the power of cultivating hope within school communities.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.
Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/
 
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dr. Janet Gibson, who is an amazing educator and is a great colleague here at Baylor. We've been able to work together full-time for the last year. I've learned a ton from Dr. Gibson, so I'm excited for her to be here today. So Dr. Gibson, when you decided to come to Baylor, you had a lot of experience that brought you to that point. So can you give us a quick, here's where I've been and this is why I'm now here at Baylor?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me. But yeah, so my background just started out as an educator in special education, and then quickly went into administration. And so I spent probably about, I would say 15 plus years in administration where I was a middle school assistant principal, elementary principal, high school principal, and then I went into central administration. And all of that experience was kind of in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in various sizes of school districts. And I was an assistant superintendent, not that exact title, but that was the role, in a very large district right outside of the Dallas area. Spent several years doing that. And then my last experience was in a suburban district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I was assistant superintendent.
And in those roles I had lots of experience covering curriculum instruction, supervising principals, and all of those experiences have led me to Baylor, led me to that opportunity. Obviously when you are a principal or you're an assistant superintendent, and even in one of the districts, I was an interim superintendent, that gave me lots of opportunities for... What word would I use here? Opportunities, I guess would just be the best word to describe it, to have different experiences, whether it's with students, whether it's with teachers, parents, other educators. Just different opportunities that I think right now in what we do here at Baylor just lends itself well to be that practitioner that is giving those types of things back to our students. So when I left public ed after 27 years in public ed, I spent a year working for Engaged to Learn.
Jon Eckert:
That's great.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And I coached educators around the United States, not just in Texas, so around the United States, and worked mainly with central office educators, in coaching them. And that experience, even just getting out of Texas really lends itself well to what we do here at Baylor and coaching those that are coming up in education, those that are going to be leading districts. And so that really just lends itself well to what we were doing here at Baylor. And what brought me to Baylor was just I think the Lord's blessing me in that because I never really thought I would have that opportunity to be at Baylor. And so I really just feel like it's just been a great blessing to be here and have those experiences from my past in the various different roles that have just really blessed me to be here at Baylor.
Jon Eckert:
Well, what I love about the role you're in now is the director of our executive EDD program is you started off as a special ed teacher, and I feel like those people are gold because you know how to see each student. Because that's what you're trained to do as a special ed teacher, and that never goes away. And so you then had all these other lenses to look at education from school level to district level, then coaching across the country and out here at Baylor, but you never lose sight of that individual student. And you do that for our doctoral students. I know they reach out to you when they have personal needs, they have other things because you see the whole human being. And so I think that's unbelievable preparation and the people listening won't know. But I was on three different search committees, I think in the year we eventually hired you, and I wanted to hire you for all three positions.
So I was like, "Which one of these is the best fit?" And I think the Lord knew the best fit. And so in our doctoral program, you teach a conflict resolution class, and you've now done that for a few years, because even before we'd hired you full-time you were doing that. And you've had obviously in 27 years in K through 12 and then coaching administrators all over the country, you have plenty of opportunities to engage in conflict. And there's a lot of growth that happens through conflict, but most of us want to avoid it. And I feel like I've gotten to sit in on some of your training when we've had educators in, and I've heard about your classes. But if you were to say, "Hey, here are two or three takeaways for those people listening, whether they're teachers or administrators, here are some things, always lean into this." What would you share with them?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Gosh, that's a great question. Well, conflict is inevitable. We can't get away from conflict. And so it's really just ensuring you have a tool kit available to you when you are dealing with conflict. And so throughout my class, I really try to give them different lenses to look at the conflict and different ways to handle that conflict. And so I bring in different guest speakers where they can hear how they have handled conflict throughout the years. And you mentioned my experiences with conflict. One of the districts that I was in dealt with a tremendous amount of conflict in that district.
And I bring some of those stories to my class not to expose, but to share and so that the students can learn from those experiences. And so the other thing is the Bible is the best learning tool. And so we really talk a lot about the different stories in the Bible where there was so much conflict, but yet this is where you can lean into the answers for how to solve conflict. And so I hope throughout what my answer here, that I gave you the three answers there is that it doesn't go away. It's inevitable. Have your toolkit available. And the best places to find those answers is the Bible. And so those are the things that I try to share with the students.
Jon Eckert:
So you just encapsulated to me the beauty of an executive EDD program at a place like Baylor. So you have the theory behind what it is. You certainly have read a lot. You can apply theoretical approaches, which you would get in a PhD program. You have the applied experience of here's what I've been through and here's, I'm sure, what you're going through. And it's not, here's what I did, now you should do this. It's grounded in biblical wisdom. That is this ancient understanding of how human beings work.
And being able to do that at a place like Baylor, that's the blessing of being at a research one university where you can be explicit about that. Because you and I spent most of our careers before higher ed, all of our careers in public schools where you could do all that implicitly, but you couldn't come out and say, "And here's why." And so that to me is the value of being in a place like Baylor because they get that experience, they get that theory, but then they also can get this explicit grounding in why we do what we do. And there's great hope in that.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
So that really gets to the next question. Talk a little bit about what we get to do at Baylor and the kinds of students that we get to serve, because that's why we're here. They're doing the hard work, we're coming alongside and trying to give them tools, questions, processes to do that work better. But talk a little bit about what you've found in this year doing this full-time now.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, so one of the best things we get to do is we get to recruit highly, highly qualified educators to come and be a part of our program. And so we get to do that and recruit a new cohort every year to come in. And then once they're here, we really get to... and the cohort model is the key, is that they move throughout our three-year program. And we try to have for us in the EDD and also for the master's program, it's a cohort model as well. But we move them through in that cohort model, through the program. And we have full-time professors and we have adjunct professors that are practitioners. So they've been in the seats that our students are in, but then also are the researchers as well.
And so they have the best, most highly qualified professors in front of them that are giving them, just like you described, the theory, all of those things, the practical things as well. But we have that biblical experience that we can talk to them about, but they get to engage in so many practical activities and lessons. They get to go on field trips and see different districts and how different districts are engaging in the different topics that we're discussing in our classes. And I believe just this cohort model and being in-person, and that's the other key to our program, is that it's in-person. I think that lends itself to being so important because they're engaged with each other, they're engaged with their professors. And I think that's what makes our program special. And because it's smaller numbers as well, we know our students, not just who they are as a student, but who they are as a person.
I mean, we know if they're going through trials at home, if they're going through trials at work, we know what is going on. And I think that's important where sometimes in larger cohorts or organizations and things like that, or even online, you don't know. You don't have as much of that personal touch. And I think we have that, and I think that's what makes our program special. So as our students move through, they get to engage in that. And then of course we have our clinical experience that I think is outstanding where our students get to go through a mentorship with myself as their clinical leader here at Baylor, but a mentor back at their home district where they can really engage in some very thoughtful, practical experiences that can benefit them as they increase their leadership experience.
Jon Eckert:
Well, in the last year that you've been here, I don't know how many coffees, breakfast, prayer times, crying times that you've engaged with our students, but it's been such a huge blessing to our students. They talk about it all the time, and so huge asset there. And I think the size of the cohort matters because if you get stretched too thin, you can't do it. And one of our former colleagues, Bradley Carpenter, would always recruit the 12. And so we would always shoot for 12 in our cohorts. And I was always like, "It sounds like we're picking disciples here." I was like, "No, we're not doing that. We're all following Christ, we're not trying to." But there is something about that. And now with the master's program and the EDD, our master's program, we bring in about 35 to 40 master's students a year.
Now, a third of this cohort eight in the EDD are from the master's program. And that's beautiful because we get 18 months to try to orient them to what improvement science looks like. And so we're going to ask them to do a lot of work in the EDD program. They're going to do a dissertation. But what I always say is, while it's a lot of work, it's better work, and it's all grounded in what they're doing in their schools anyway, so that when they finish the program and they finish that dissertation, it doesn't just go sit on a shelf. They use that in their next job interview. They use that to say, "Hey, here's the work that is different because of what the Lord's done through me in the lives of kids." And if they're doing that in public school, it's just like, "Hey, look how much growth has happened here among teachers, among administrators, among kids."
And that's the beautiful thing about the way the EDD is set up. It's not trying to fill a hole in the literature. It's not some really esoteric, narrow thing that allows you to go into academia and write papers that five people read. It actually makes a difference in the lives of kids. And we get to see that. And especially you get to see that in the clinical piece. So you go out and see our students there. What have been some of the more hopeful things that you seen out when you've been out doing clinical visits? Where have you seen like, "Oh wow, that's amazing. These are the students that we see." Can you think of anything off the top of your head? Anything specific or general?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I can. So in particular this year, one of our students worked with a smaller district near here, and she created a product through the clinical experience for this district. That without that mentorship, without that partnership and that clinical experience, the district would've never come out with that product. And it was an MTSS handbook.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
MTSS is a requirement for our students to have experiences with in the public schools and have exposure to. And that district just didn't have the capacity to create that. And she created that for them. And in her observation, the last observation that I was there for, that district had shared it with other surrounding districts that they are a part of because they're, again, a smaller district. And about six other districts are going to be modeling their handbook after that. And so that wasn't just the one little district, that spread out too. And so you think about the exponential touch that just that one product had for... That's going to be impacting students because MTSS is that tiered model, that leveled model of support for students. And it just started with one student and one superintendent in one district, and now it's impacting several other districts.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's the definition of a catalyst. An agent that provokes or speeds up change without being used up. So that work that she did, hard work, created this product that then made other people's work easier to better serve the needs of each kid. I was just out last week with Christina Flores, I didn't know this, she's known as C-Flow, so in Riesel. And she had done several days of professional development with all of her campus leaders, and I got to do kind of the wrap-up piece of it. But it was so amazing to see the work they were doing in a small district in central Texas, but really good work in her dissertation was going to be amazing work. I get to be her dissertation chair. So when we get to chair these dissertations, you walk alongside this person for a couple years and you get to see from the idea to the implementation to the evidence what difference it makes. And so it's pretty cool to see that. And then when you see it going beyond that one district to other districts, it makes what we do feel like it's worthwhile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
So that's good. So if you were to, in three or four sentences, describe what you see in Texas, in education, Texas or in the country, how would you describe what you're seeing as a leader in education going on in public schools, private schools, whatever you've seen?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I see right now a shift happening. As I exited public ed, there was a shift happening as well, but it was kind of a negative shift happening. There was a lot of political, just a lot of divisiveness happening in schools around the country, those kinds of things that were happening. And right now, I really honestly see this uptick, this positive shift happening, and it gives me a lot of hope. And what I'm seeing with our students, and I know you said three to four sentences and I'm saying a whole lot more.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's all right. I'm terrible at this as well. So that's just a try.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Okay, thanks. I see students that are wanting to be our next leaders that have so much passion in what they do and what they believe in in what is happening in our schools, that it just gives me so much hope in this shift of just this next generation of leaders. And so I do, I just see this uptick in this positivity of what's happening in public ed in particular.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. So in one sentence, the year ahead, what do you hope this year will look like? If you can put it can be a run-on sentence if you want it to be.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Good. Thank you.
Jon Eckert:
But go for it.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And so I'm going to focus on our students. I hope our students are able to let their passion shine in their schools because I think, and this is where my run-on is going to be, because I think they've tried to hide and been afraid because of that turmoil that had been happening, have been afraid to let that passion shine. And so my hope is that they let their lights shine this year and their passion shine.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Love that. I think I know what this might be, but if you had to use one word to describe the next year, what would be the word that you believe would best represent the next year?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Hopeful.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. And it sounds like given your answer, you see evidence of that. That's not a naive optimism that that hope's back. And that is one of the blessings of being in the position we're in. We get to see districts and schools and leaders all over the place. So when you're in your own district or in your own school or you're in your own classroom, sometimes you get myopic and you only see... and you see amazing things up close, but then you don't see the landscape. And I do think you're right. I think we have hit a transition point where there is more hope, now that's fragile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
We can crush it really quickly and we're going to have conflict.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
For sure.
Jon Eckert:
Again, hope doesn't mean freedom from conflict. We're going to have it. It's going to be there. So I'm really grateful for the work that you do and the work that we get to support together, because again, our jobs are only meaningful if the people we serve are doing meaningful work with real kids. So thanks for all you do, and thanks for being here.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Well, I'm blessed to be here. Thank you for having me.
 
 

Teaching as Relationships: Dr. Tami Dean

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Tami Dean. They discuss the importance of restorative practices in schools and how these practices can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for students and staff. Dr. Dean shares insights from her experience in implementing these practices and highlights the significance of building strong relationships within the school community. The conversation also touches on strategies for overcoming challenges when introducing restorative practices and emphasizes the impact of these approaches on school culture.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.
Be encouraged.
Books Mentioned:For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy) by Christopher EmdinThe Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg JaySupercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles DuhiggHow to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcription:
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dr. Tami Dean, who is a new friend to me, but she is friends with Dr. Gabrielle Wallace, who is one of Baylor's finest doctoral students and graduates. She was the connection here. So, anybody that Gabrielle recommends, we all should get to know. So, you run Dragonfly Rising LLC. So, I'm really curious about the name and why you started this organization.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, yeah, I know because Dragonfly Rising has nothing to do with equity, and that's exactly what Dragonfly Rising does. It support equity and education. How I came to do Dragonfly Rising? Well, that's a huge backstory, but essentially my entire educational career has been focused on social justice and equity and education. I hit a crossroads in my career, and I also lost my sister shortly before I started this company. So, it was just one of those things where the life just all happens and here it was born. So, I debated for a long time about the name, whether to go with this, and I had actually some divine intervention from an unknown party, and I actually feel like this is how God speaks to me all the time. He sends someone to say something to me. So, I was talking to someone, I was totally unexpected, and I had been playing with the word Dragonfly and Rising because they really speak to me, so hence the name.
So, Dragonfly actually connects with colon cancer. My sister was 42, she passed away from colon cancer, and the Dragonfly is a symbol of your loved one just being around and still with you, even though they've left, they're still here and they make their presence known. So, the Dragonfly is for her and honoring her because she would be very proud and super excited about this. Then Rising connects to my own personal, just life, overcome lots of challenges. "Still I rise," Maya Angelou, who's my mantra, if you want to call it that. So, hence the name Dragonfly Rising, coming together. So, even the colors, right? Yellow is my favorite, green's my sister's, and blue is the colon cancer. So, even our logo brings all of us together, and I really actually feel equities about relationships and getting to know people and what a better name? I can always explain it. It's a great story. I believe in the power of narrative, so...
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. So, what's the primary focus of your work at Dragonfly Rising? I love the name, by the way.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Thank you. Our primary role is to support educators, educational leaders with implementing social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, really looking, examining those systems, building in resources for how to support teachers. So, I do coaching, consulting, and speaking around those topics to just help support an equitable learning environment for all students.
Jon Eckert:
So, right now, in the current culture we're in, things get super polarized over things. Even a lot of the words that you just said, you said 'belonging' originally, and even that word I've heard people say, "Oh, well, 'belonging', what is this?" I went recently to a UNESCO conference on inclusive education because 250 million kids worldwide are school age and not in school. So, it's about literally trying to educate each kid, it's so that they have the access to education. When I told someone I was going to a UNESCO conference on inclusive education, somebody was like, "Well, that sounds pretty left to me." I was like, "No, it's trying to educate each kid." He's like, "Oh, okay. So, it's not that DEI, I in DEI." So, what boggles my mind is, as educators, our whole goal is to create a culture and climate of belonging for each student.
Why is that controversial? That's always been a little bit of a rub for me. So, how do you cut through some of that noise to get to the relational piece you mentioned that is at the heart of teaching, that it's seeing and knowing and helping a child become all that he or she was created to be in this powerful way, without getting hung up in all the politics of that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Wow, that's a huge question.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think one of the most important things you said was the relational piece, because really, inclusivity and belonging is about taking the time and the opportunity to really listen and understand and value each person as an individual. So, what that moves away from is stereotypes, implicit biases. So, even the idea of this idea like, "Oh, that's very leftist." You've already made a judgment around what this means. I agree, it's super polarized, it's super political, and it really shouldn't be because, to me, diversity, equity, and inclusion is about humanity and being a conscientious and thoughtful human to the other humans with which I'm engaging. None of us respond well when people make negative assumptions about us. So, I guess the way I break through the noise is by really listening to people and having an open dialogue and conversation. Versus it's not about chastising. It's not about, "You're wrong, I'm right."
It's really about how do we listen and come together as humans to value the individuality of each and every one of us. That includes our students and seeing them and recognizing that actually seeing people and listening to them for who they are is actually really essential and key and important.
Jon Eckert:
Right. So, it's an innate human desire to be seen, known, and loved, and we communicate love through seeing and knowing, and it's why teaching is infinitely interesting and also really hard because in a room of 30 learners, if you're the teacher in that room, the only thing for sure is no one in that room learns exactly the way you do. So, that makes it so that it's challenging, but also really, it never gets boring. We always have meaningful work to do as educators.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
So, that's the blessing and challenge of what we do. So, as you've done this work, or some of your previous work in schools, what's the most hopeful insight you've had as we move forward? We already highlighted some of the polarizing and the othering that goes on and not seeing other, and trying to separate ourselves, but what's the most hopeful insight you've had?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think what's most hopeful for me is I see that people want to do better. They want to know more. They want to engage differently. They're wanting to be reflective of their own self. So, I'm hopeful, because there are people, despite some of the challenges, still trying to find ways to move through and do this very important work and connect with students and build culturally responsive learning environments, and they're doing all these things and they're using their voices. Because there's power in the collective of us all saying, "This is what's great for students. This is what is great for teachers." If you're an administrator, you need to set up that environment for your educators too.
Jon Eckert:
Right. So, many administrators will say, "We need to see each student. We need to serve each student," but then we're not seeing and serving each educator. If you don't have flourishing adults in a building, you're not going to have a flourishing community of learners. So, how do you bring those things together? Again, that's the beauty of leadership is seeing and knowing and loving and encouraging and catalyzing the people in your organization. So, that includes educators and students. So, I think sometimes we can have blind spots where we see certain students or we see certain educators, we don't see others, or we see students and we don't see educators, or we see educators and we don't see students, when in fact we are called to see each person. Again, that's the beauty of the relational piece that you're talking about. So, as you think about that, that's the most hopeful insight you have. What's the biggest challenge you see to doing that? Because I think that's at the heart of what we do as educators. So, what's the biggest challenge to doing that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think the biggest challenge, honestly, is we have a whole bunch of people that aren't educators trying to tell educators how to educate.
Jon Eckert:
That is a nice succinct statement. So, I can say having been at the US department of Ed in two different administrations, that that was a frustration many times in the book that I just wrote last year starts off with this story about a leader in one of the administrations, which will not be named. I was in a Democratic and Republican administration. So, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here.
Dr. Tami Dean:
You're not throwing any shade?
Jon Eckert:
No, no. But she talked about how we needed to de-complexify things for educators, and that's not a word. I said, "Do you mean simplify?" She said, "Well, yeah." So, this federal bureaucrat, I tell this story all the time and I've told it on this podcast. She said, "Well, we just need to de-complexify these things." So, she had complicated the word for simplify in a condescending way for educators, and that's the thing that drives educators crazy. Now, certainly, we get very myopic. We see the classroom that we have, the kids that we have, we see those needs. We don't see the 30,000-foot view, but you can't get the 30,000-foot view if you don't also have that classroom view, if you don't see each kid. So, you don't want to miss the forest for the trees, but you also don't want to miss the trees for the forest.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
So, the way you do that is through relationship. So, how do we do a better job building relationships? This is a societal challenge right now, but how do we do a better job building relationships between educators, researchers, policy makers, community members, students, and educators working together? How do we do that better? Do you have, what's your best recommendation or two or three ideas, how we could do a better job of that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I just really wonder when are we really listening, and I'm going to come back to listening. When are we really listening to the different perspectives from all of those parties and bringing them together to talk about the nuance of what happens? Because we tend to work in silos and think we're doing great things. At one point, I was a professor working in academia, and the biggest people say, "Oh, you're in a silo and you're never in schools." But the research that's happening in higher ed institutions is really important and informs, or should inform what's happening in schools, but they can't happen in isolation. Then you listen to business owners and they're saying, "We need people that can be creative and think and find answers and solve problems." But then you have another layer saying, "We're going to have all these standardized tests that don't actually have people doing that," and then we have these tech prep.
So, there's not a vision for, what is it that makes a great education in the United States? So, if we come together and... We need a vision statement, we need a strategic plan really for education in a way that aligns and listens to all of these perspectives. Now, I don't think that's easy, but I do think that's what we need, because all of those perspectives are valid and bring in a different perspective to get us to a better whole picture, because what we're doing right now isn't working.
Jon Eckert:
Right, right. No, that's well said. I do think I've read two books in the last six months that were super helpful on listening, and I'm curious if you've come across them, but 'How to Know a Person' by David Brooks, and he says, the whole point of knowing someone is through conversation. You can have nonverbal communication and you can do things with people, but we really know someone by listening well. Then the second book, which is more on the neuroscience side of it, less on the relational soulful side, which is where David Brooks, there would be more of a metaphysical piece to it, as well is Charles Duhigg's book, 'The Super Communicators', and it's the people that do this well that are amazing at matching other people's conversational style, being able to elicit stories, share stories.
Christopher Emden writes about it 'For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... And the Rest of Y'all Too', where he talks about barbers who are so good at eliciting stories, and he has his pre-service teachers learn from barbers about how you elicit stories. So, I'm curious to know if you're seeing any research out there that really helps educators, because the three books, one of those was for educators, the other two is just for general population folks, thinking about how you just get to know people better, relationally. How do you think educators can listen better to each other and their students? Do you have any quick practical tips that you've seen work, other than just really be genuinely curious, which is hard to force someone to do, how do we do that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think number one, you need to check your assumption and your bias.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Because unintentionally, and I actually talk about this a lot, I think teachers come with the best intention, based on my historical knowledge as an educator in students that I've had and can make assumptions about a certain student's story and whether that student looks like me or not, or comes from a similar background than me. We make assumptions. So, checking that bias and coming with a clean slate of really paying attention, noticing and naming what the student's doing and listening to what he or she has to say and allowing them opportunities to have voice in your classroom. Because if you're the only one speaking, if you're the only one asking questions, then you're really not getting to the heart of being able to get to know the students in your room.
Jon Eckert:
No, it's so well said. I think the best teachers are the ones who are genuinely curious and really know that the classroom is not about them. It's about what their students are doing. So, I do think there are some inherent pieces that some people come to more naturally, but if you're not naturally curious about someone, you need to find things to become curious about. So, how can you not be curious about middle school kids and what's going on in their heads? How can you not?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, they're the best. I always think they get a bad rap. I taught middle school for a while, but if you don't know, take a tool, find a resource, do an identity web, what do they say about themselves? But I will say part of this is you have to be a little bit vulnerable and share a little bit of yourself, as well, because students know when you're being authentic or not just like any other person, I say this all the time, right? Students are just smaller humans. They're just younger. They enjoy and want the same things we do as adults. They're still figuring it out. I mean, shoot, adults are still figuring it out, to be honest, but...
Jon Eckert:
True.
Dr. Tami Dean:
A hundred percent right? But be a little bit vulnerable and share a little bit about yourself. Don't got to tell them your whole life story, but if you share a little bit, you're building trust.
Jon Eckert:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Tami Dean:
So, trust is an important piece of this equation because it builds an opportunity for honesty and bring your humanity. I always say, "Bring into your classroom and bring the joy," because no one wants to be in a boring environment.
Jon Eckert:
Brown really punches me in the gut every time I read that, "I want to trust someone and then be vulnerable." But she makes it very clear, vulnerability comes before trust. You don't know if you can trust until you've been there. It's a very biblical principle. If we know that we hold this treasure in jars of clay, that we are broken individuals, then there is an obvious vulnerability to everyone else. So, why do we try so hard to try to hide it? So, when we have that appropriate self-disclosure, that then elicits it back, because people learn more from us through our mistakes and our weaknesses than they do from us trying to present some put together. We've got it all figured out because we all know, I'm old enough to know that that's a foolish narrative. So, really, really helpful wisdom there. So, I always wrap up with a lightning round where I ask three or four questions that we try to answer in a word, phrase, or sentence. So, what is something you think every educator should know?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think every educator should know that students want to learn and parents want their students to learn.
Jon Eckert:
So, you've already mentioned the loss of your sister. You've mentioned some of the challenges you've been through, but is, if you were just to give us a nugget, what's a challenge that you personally have overcome or at least have made significant progress on, if not fully overcome?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think not taking people's responses to your authenticity, personally.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, that's impressive if you've gotten there, that's a tough one
Dr. Tami Dean:
That would be not all the time, I've just made some progress, but, yes.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. Okay. What are you most excited about in education right now?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think I'm most excited about... Just there's always opportunity. There's always opportunity for change, for growth. I am excited about what I'm seeing, coming out of teenagers and how they think and are engaging just with the world and using their voice.
Jon Eckert:
Well, on that note, and I'm not supposed to add tangents, but I have to because I was just listening to Meg Jay talk 'Who Wrote the Defining Decades'. She writes about people in their twenties, and so right now, Gen Z. It was Millennials, Gen Z gets bashed for being Gen Z. She said, "It's not about the group that they're associated with. It's about that time period in life. In our 20s, we are much more egocentric, because nothing is certain for us. Everything's in flux. Even though your 20s are great, there's a low point on this happiness curve where the J-curve goes down. It starts going down in middle school and high school and doesn't start going back up until the end of your 20s where you start to have some certainty."
I think that's a really helpful reminder that we need to give people grace and know that, "Hey, life is not easy, and it's not about being entitled or these other things. It's just being in your 20s is hard. Being in middle school is hard." I was always amazed at how kids showed up for me in middle school, because I remember middle school as a kid, and I hated it. For eight years, I avoided teaching it My last four of what I call real teaching were in middle school, and they were amazing, and we need to give them credit. So, I too am excited about where things are headed with some of the ways kids are thinking about things now.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Yeah, that was actually my first teaching job, was in middle school, and I didn't want it at all, but it turned out to be amazing. So, teach middle school, y'all.
Jon Eckert:
That's it. That's it. That's it. So, other than that, what's the best advice you would either... You have two options here, the best advice you would give to our listeners or the best advice you've ever received? Or maybe it's one and the same?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think the best advice I would give is to show up as your authentic self, because there is only one you in the world, and the perspective and experience you bring is valuable. So, when you show up and bring that, great things happen.
Jon Eckert:
Such a good reminder. I would add only to that, don't try to be cool. You will fail miserably with your middle school kids. They will see right through it. But they do appreciate the authentic quirky weirdness. I was like, "Find your quirky." What's quirky about you? Because they be quirky, too. By you making sure that's okay, then they too can bring that. Life gets a lot more interesting that way.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Oh, definitely. I've embraced my nerdiness for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Love it. Well, that's why I appreciate talking to people like you. So, thank you so much for your time, Tami. We appreciate all you do.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Thank you for having me.
 

From tornadoes to flourishing: Bobby Ott

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Bobby Ott, superintendent of Temple ISD and 2022 Texas Superintendent of the Year. They discuss integrating mental health services, special education needs, and innovative teaching practices.
Dr. Ott highlights the importance of developing a mental health services model in schools, addressing funding and expertise limitations. He also stresses retaining specialized teachers and improving preparatory models for special education and English language learner programsAdditionally, the conversation explores AI and technology's potential to transform education, advocating for proactive leadership to enhance personalized learning and prevent misuse.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.
Be encouraged.
Books Mentioned:Brave New Words by Sal Khan
1000 CEOs by Andrew Davidson
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcription:
Jon Eckert:
So today we're here with Bobby Ott, the superintendent of Temple ISD. He's the 2022 Superintendent of the Year for the state of Texas and a good friend of Baylor and our program. He always has a lot of wisdom to share. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that he sees facing students in Temple and Texas in general and maybe just across the country because many of these issues transcend different places. Certainly they're context-specific, but broader issues. And Bobby has a pretty good handle on what's going on in Texas and has a wide network. So we're grateful to have Bobby here today. So Bobby, thanks for all you do. Just tell us a little bit about what you've been dealing with the last month or so. We'll roll in with that first and then jump into those bigger questions. But can you just update us on your world over the last month?
Bobby Ott:
Well, the last couple weeks for sure has been a little bit of a whirlwind, and I guess that's both figuratively and literally. But as you may know, we had three tornadoes in Temple touch down within about a 30-mile radius. And so the community really looked apocalyptic when you drove through it. Some places you couldn't drive because of debris. And of course we still had a week and a half of school left, so that caused some challenges at the 11th hour. But having a great team and a great community, number one, we were truly blessed to not have a single fatality in a natural disaster of that magnitude. So that was first and foremost. And as I shared earlier with others, to me that is certainly a divine hand being involved in that. I have never heard of a situation that had that type of catastrophe and not have a fatality.
But I did send a video out, kind of a peek behind the curtain of the things we had to plan for, and we were able to make it through the last week. We were able to meet the bureaucratic requirements, which in my mind are secondary compared to the human elements of graduation, kids being in a safe environment, staff feeling safe, displaced staff having a place to be and so forth. And so now we were able to make it through that. The stress level has gone way down. And at this point, I'm just dealing with insurance adjusters and trying to figure out how to close out a budget year with deductible payments that I didn't expect to have.
But anyway, we're working through it. The community is slowly getting back to normal and just blessed to have the partnerships that we do in the community and just the great hands and hearts that work together and pull together to get everybody through.
Jon Eckert:
No, and the video you shared was powerful because as we prepare superintendents and principals at Baylor, we try to help them anticipate every eventuality. You've taught in that. We have a number of sitting superintendents that teach in that. But until you've been through something like that, it's really hard to know what that looks like. And so I thought the video was helpful just as you went over the board and what's there.
As we talk today, I want to focus in on student-centered issues that you see. Obviously, your point about the divine providence that comes in and keeps people safe in a natural disaster, that's real. There are day in, day out challenges that our kids face and resilience that they have to display and community support that they need to be successful. And so you're talking to us as we launch Cohort 8 of our EDD that's preparing superintendents. And so they're going to do three years of research on a problem of practice that they care deeply about that matters in the context they're in.
And so what I'm interested in is hearing from superintendents about two or three of the biggest issues you see that need attention in the research, in data collection, but really in the practical day in and day out of how do we make life better for students? How do we do that in a way that's life-giving, that leads to flourishing, and makes sure that we're moving forward in useful ways when you're not dealing with insurance adjusters and all the budget pieces, which are real. And those have to be dealt with, otherwise you can't serve kids well.
But if you were to say, "Hey, these are the two or three things that I see." That as people think about what they might research and dedicate three years of their lives to research-wise, what would come to mind as you think about that right now?
Bobby Ott:
And this certainly isn't in rank order, but one would be a true model of integrating. And when I say model, something that's repeatable that you could replicate in any district size, but a true model for integrating mental health services in a school district.
I got to be honest with you, every year when we're sitting down as a group of superintendents, whether it's countywide or regionwide, there's always this discussion about how to truly integrate mental health services in a school system. And several districts have tried different things. They've tried some co-op services. They've tried to hire on regular counselors and get them trained in certain things and then they peel off.
But there's two limitations that we find ourselves in a lot of times, and one is expertise. Rightly or wrongly, school counselors a lot of times do not have that level of expertise that we're talking about. They maybe have a general background in how to work those issues, in particular social, but the mental health pieces we find some real limitations and expertise. And then of course funding because truth be told, people that have that level of expertise make more money outside of public schools and the private sector is far more attractive and pays a lot better.
So what we find ourselves doing is trying to find retirees from the private sector, people that only want to work part-time, people that really like the schedule of public schools. But people that are experts in that field could stand to make more money than the principal of the campus for sure. And so it just becomes very, very difficult.
There are some very specialized skills that are required to do those kinds of things. And counselors that come out of the traditional school education track they're really equipped only to a certain line and our students are needing beyond the line. And when they try to seek outside support, a lot of times the students that have those needs do not have the resources to secure the outside support, whether it's monetary or accessibility with parents being able to get them where they need to go and so forth.
So I think one, so what does that look like in terms of research? When you told me about this, I try to think about it in two lenses. One, what would be the problem? And maybe what is a approach in terms of resource or research? And I would say researching models to embed specialized counseling services, trauma-informed care, restorative practices, cognitive therapy into credentialing for counselors in their traditional track programs. Maybe therapy-specific coursework, maybe there's a way.
I think we're trying to address the problem after people are certified, but I wonder if there are models that can be done between a traditional public education track in grad school in partnership with the college of psychology or behavioral sciences or something like that. And I don't know the answer to that. That's a little bit outside of my expertise. But I think there's some different directions for students there. Cohort 8 could look at maybe a preparatory model or you could look at a service model in the school system. So that would be the first one.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's a powerful one. And we're working in Mississippi right now with five districts because there's high levels of opioid use and abuse. And the mental health piece is such a huge part of it because you're dealing with communities that are struggling with some of that and then that is bleeding into the kids and some of the trauma that comes with that. And trying to figure out ways to put universal interventions in place that get kids making better choices that lead to thriving communities so you're less likely to make those choices is hard.
But then when they've already made the choices, you need really specific interventions by highly trained people. And one of the things we've been doing in schools over the last few years is a lot of trying to fill in the gaps for people without training. And it gets really dangerous when you start trying to identify and diagnose and you have educators who are desperate for help and feel these urgent needs, but then they don't have the training. And so sometimes they can exacerbate the problem without that expertise. So I think that's tremendously insightful and needed.
So what would be the next one that you have? If you were to say, "Hey, tackle this," and you said not in order, but what would be something else you would say we should be tackling?
Bobby Ott:
Well, the other thing that we're seeing, and this really points to special program services in particular, English language learners and special education, but those numbers are going up across the state. And there's a couple of reasons for it. I mean, I think one is generational. We're seeing that more and more in the younger generations. You're seeing more students in kinder and first with not just disabilities, but language delay and also high needs, and I'll get into that piece in a second.
But the numbers go up and the funding has gone down. And so the ratios are a big problem in that mix because there are required ratios for very, very specialized programs. And when funding is going down, even the IDEA federal grant has reduced, what funds typically special education services. But the other piece is your qualifiers have expanded too. So for example, adding dyslexia to special ed has totally increased that number in every single school district. And so when those things happen, you start to pull apart the service in the program. It really starts to dilute. And so that's where we're at on that end.
The other piece is RFs or residential facilities. We are really struggling because one, there's not enough residential facilities in said communities, but two, they are very liberal about denying even if they have enough beds in long and short-term placement. It literally is one of the hardest things you can possibly do to get students to qualify for a residential facility. And so what happens is those students a lot of times in schools end up becoming what I call in and outs. They're in, and then the next episode they're out. And so they never really improve educationally or anything else because we are not equipped within the school system to appropriately deliver the services those students need.
And so when they're denied those services from the outside, even through referral processes, and there's a lot of complications with that, could be resources at home, it could be insurance, could be a lot of things. It could be that sometimes parents don't like to get them qualified because they'll lose some of their financial assistance. And I've run into that quite a bit too. So that's a real problem. That is a population in total that is growing, funding is not growing commensurate with the program, and specialized services are very selective for which students can be accepted and not accepted.
So what's the research angle there? I mean, that's a good question. And this sounds a little bit like maybe the first one, but maybe there are different models of partnerships that we can work with students that are denied residential. I mean, there's a zone of students that we don't know how to take care of appropriately and what do we do with those students? Are there transitory programs? Are there effective practices and how we can train people to work with higher ratios or to handle students that are episodic? We are so ill-equipped in that area. And when the students don't have anywhere else to go, the default is us. And at that point, we're really not doing them a justice. We're just not. And it's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking.
But that's something that I think would be very encouraging if there were some type of transitory model or something that can be put together. That's on the RF side. I think the other side of it, just regular special education and English language learner piece. What I find is that those are harder and harder to hire even if you do get the stipends up. I think there is an exodus of people leaving that were serving special education students.
And what I hear, or what's reported to me rather through exit interviews, documented exit interviews is a lot of times it's the paperwork piece that comes with it. And this is what I don't know. It almost appears like it's a surprise. And I don't know if in prep programs there's a lot of attention given to the detail of the paperwork piece that comes with teaching in a special program because there seems to be an element of surprise when teachers are leaving and they're explaining, "Well, I didn't realize I had to do all this for RDs, I had to do all this for IEPs, I had to do all this and computer systems," and this, that and the other. And it is heavy. I mean, certainly it does carry a different weight with regard to that piece than say the regular education teacher.
So that is something that I wonder at times. I don't know if that's something that's strong on the research side. I mean, obviously higher ed doesn't have the authority to minimize the bureaucratic requirements. But the time they spend with advocates, the time they spend in meetings and they walk, a lot of times they walk.
And so maybe a way that we can figure out how to help school districts put together very specific teacher retention programs for special education. What does that look like? Retaining a special education and bilingual teacher that's not like retaining a general ed teacher. What does that really look like? And what are some ideas that school districts could do with helping specialized teachers with higher ratios if it comes to that? And then how can we work with students that should be in a residential facility are denied or maybe there isn't bed space or they're in for a month and they're sent back when they should have been in longer? What can we do there?
So that'd be the second one. And that's probably not as succinct as the first one, but maybe there's enough directions you can go out of that.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's powerful and overlaps nicely with the first one. Obviously, mental health is going to weave through all of that. And so the mental health of special education teachers is also part of it. And I think you can tell people and you can prepare people say, "Hey, this is a lot of paperwork. Here's the way you're going to have to do this. These are legal contracts you're creating. This is not going to be a light lift." I think though the reality doesn't hit you until you're actually in it. Because I think most people drawn to special ed really care deeply about kids and that's what gets them... And I think it's true for teaching in general, but I think especially special ed. And then when you're hit with and you're going to have a lot more paperwork. And so you can say it, and then you live the reality and it feels different.
So if you have one other challenge that you see that could use some research, some deeper thought, do you have one more in mind or anything that builds off of these two? Otherwise, we can jump to a couple other questions.
Bobby Ott:
I think the other one would be the general idea of pacing. There is, and this has happened probably for the last 10 years, but there seems to be this growing amount of what needs to be taught in terms of standards and the level of intricacy, which whether it's multi-step problems, high-rigor written responses, you name it. I certainly agree with testing and rigor and depth, but I disagree with the idea that the timing that teachers have to truly get students to understand things at that level and then we're adding more and more standards. To me that starts to dilute the whole entire system of public education. It becomes kind of this mile wide, inch deep versus the inverse.
And so it really... I feel like as a system that we are heading toward a system of testing and minimal completion over true learning and engagement. And this is greatly because of the influence of a lot of the special interests that we're always trying to include in standards, bureaucratic systems, standard setting. And the kids really suffer greatly. And I don't know if teachers really get a handle on that piece of it because it continues to grow.
So research angle, innovative teaching practices that know how to maximize time engagement, content with a group of students that are on different parts of the continuum. I know that we have things like that in prep programs, but I just think that that's something we need more and more. And I do think that we probably ought to start really considering the use of technology in a way to minimize some of the basic steps in education. And that kind of gets to the question of what opportunities do you see for educators? And I can expand on that now or wait until you comment on the third area.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. We want to jump into opportunities. Where do you see some optimistic next steps? So certainly jump right into that and then we can expand on that a little bit.
Bobby Ott:
I think technology use. I know AI can be received in many different ways because I've seen it firsthand. Some people turn and walk. Some people think it's a great thing. But I would love to see AI used in a way that allows the teacher to be set up in a classroom in a more intimate way with instruction and allows them to go into depth. I'm wondering if AI in tandem with a classroom teacher could create an environment where the larger nominal content can be delivered in a way in masses and the teacher can become more of, I don't want to say tutor, but someone that goes in and can either provide the enrichment or remediation in smaller groups in a classroom.
I'd love to see AI shrink the classroom. And I think there's ways that that can be done. Now, I'm an administrator, so I wouldn't dare try to come up with ways without teachers being involved, but I think we almost have to get to that level. And I can't think of anything else cost-effective. I mean, you can always add more teachers in a classroom, but at some point in time that becomes a budget buster. I just wonder if there's a way to handle this through technology.
So I think there are opportunities with the development of AI. I think the main thing about it is we have to lead that. It can't be something done organically because if it is students will grab a hold of that and trust me they will lead it in their own way and sometimes in an abusive way that shortchanges learning. And if that happens, then they're going to be ill prepared, number one. And number two, we're going to be spending our time as administrators doing damage control.
So I think it's something we have to get ahead of. I'll tell you, we're looking as a district to have an AI conference, not this summer, but next summer, and invite school districts. We're really trying to do some things to lead the way in that. This summer is kind of a standup summer in terms of educating our staff and making sure that our network is set appropriately so we minimize abuse as much as possible. So we're doing that, but I don't see enough models out there that are something that are make take, you can grab a hold of and implement in a district. So I think there's probably some opportunity for educators there.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I just listened to a podcast, I haven't read the book yet, but Brave New Words by Sal Khan. He obviously with Khan Academy has influenced the learning of millions of kids, but he's super optimistic about what AI can do and creating this personalized and shrinking the classroom. And he certainly doesn't minimize the role of teachers, but it's fascinating. So I definitely need to read that. We hear about AI all the time, and you're right, you have this broad range of responses. And the challenge is going to be that is moving so rapidly that it's really hard to keep out in front. And I agree we have to.
But in a world where we have been doing mile wide, inch deep for forever, William Schmidt, I think he was at Michigan State, he coined that phrase about US curriculum 30, 40 years ago. And so we've been doing this because that's what I think we do a little bit in democracies. If you can't all agree, then just put it all in. Don't narrow, just add. And so you have your special interest groups, you have all these different people that are like, "Hey, this is important." And it is important, but it can't all be important. You have to figure out ways to master things. And maybe AI can be helpful there.
And I think being thoughtful about that and digging in what that means to really engage students well because Sal Khan says it, kids that are already motivated will learn really well with AI. It's the kids who are not. It's the kids with mental health issues. It's the fact that teaching is a very human endeavor. How do we make it even more human using tools? Because AI is just the newest range of tools. So it certainly doesn't replace the human being because ultimately large language models are just scraping what's on the internet. So it's consensus, not wisdom.
So you certainly can learn, but if you really want to become all of who you're created to be, that requires wisdom. And so that's where the humans are there. The problem is, to your point earlier, teachers are stretched so thin and so many demands are being placed on them it's really hard to have that one-on-one interaction. It's hard to really be seen, known, and loved in a system that's not set up for that. And so if AI can help with that, I certainly am excited to see where that goes. So love that you're thinking that way.
If you maybe have one other opportunity you see ahead for Temple specifically or for educators in general, what gives you some hope right now? Where do you see hopeful direction in what we're doing here in Texas?
Bobby Ott:
I am seeing more and more leaders leading authentically and with feeling. And I'm probably saying that in a odd way, but I see large district leaders, superintendents, and principals striking at being as personable as your smaller school. Ones are really, you don't have a choice because you're everywhere. But I see more of that and I see more of this, and I try to do it as much as... Just this shameless, this mobilizing of people to shamelessly remind others why they do it. They love children, they love staff.
And as bad as the political rhetoric has been against public ed generally, I think it's mobilized educators, in particular leaders, teachers have done this night and day, leaders to say, "Hey, that doesn't characterize the entire profession. We are human. We do love our children. This is what we do. This is why we do it." And I see more of that. I really see more of that. I hear more of that when I go to conferences, when I network with superintendents.
Yeah, our conversations could largely be dominated by budget and bonds and the newest innovative program and so forth. But I hear more of things like, "You know, you could get that done in your community if your community truly knows that you love their children, if your staff feels appreciated." And I think there are a lot of reasons for this effort. I think retaining people in the profession is one. But you can only go so far with money. You can only go so far with things. But positive culture, that is number one. I've always said people don't leave a job. They leave a boss because they're going to get the same job somewhere else.
So this idea of how you treat people and how you demonstrate appreciation and care, I think for me, I am seeing more and more of that. I'm seeing more and more of that in the people we hire in administrative positions. I'm seeing things like that on social media. Several years ago I'd see, "Hey, we graduated 653, congratulation to the graduates." And now I'm seeing videos of a student hugging their superintendent and lifting them up off the ground and the superintendent commenting saying, "This is what it's all about." I'm just seeing more of that, whether it's small or big. And I think there's been a void of that.
And I see this idea of when I get into administration, business and logistics taking over my life, that there's a real attempt to say, "It may take over my tasks, but I'm still going to put out in front my community, my students, my teachers, my school nutrition workers, and hold them up." And so that is giving me a lot of hope right now.
Jon Eckert:
That's great. And so these last two questions can be as short or as long as you need them to be, but on a daily basis now, given everything that you're managing, and you just highlighted a little of this, where do you find joy in the work you're doing on a daily basis? What do you go back to to maintain the joy that you seem to have in the midst of a lot of different pressures and challenges? And then the second one is is there a book that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Hey, every leader, every educator, this is a great book. This was helpful"? It doesn't even have to be in the last year. If it's something from earlier, that's great. But I always like to know those things. So where do you find your joy? What's a great book? And then we can wrap up.
Bobby Ott:
I find my joy in the idea that good people are still good people and they exist in the masses. So I try to make sure to connect people as much as possible to those situations. We do Mission Mondays. My entire central office every Monday is on a campus opening doors for kids that are going to school, walking in classrooms, helping to serve breakfast, do those kinds of things. I think that those kinds of things bring me joy because I see it bring them joy.
I see kids get excited when there's more than the same caring adult around them, but there's others that maybe they don't even know their names right away but they know that they're in the same system that they are. It brings me joy when I see people that are normally away from kids in their job reminded of why they got into this whole profession because we put together possibilities where they are around kids. I see teachers with smile on their faces because they see a genuine care from people that aren't doing their jobs but are asking to support them. We always support people behind the scenes in our various roles, but to do it right next to someone while they're real time and to see what they're actually doing. So those kinds of things bring me joy. Just watching great educators no matter where they're at in the system making the difference in each other's lives, in students lives. So that brings me joy.
And then a book that comes to my mind. I don't read a lot of educator books. I'm sorry, but I don't. I read a lot of... I do read leadership books. But there's a book called 1000s CEOs and it's by Andrew Davidson. And it really takes top CEOs and puts them in containers like visionaries, strategists, motivators, innovators, organizers, what have you. And these CEOs talk about their strategies in which the container that they're, I guess labeled in as being most effective. And so there's a lot of really good strategies in there. There was one called, a group called Startup Titans. And when we were going to implement blended learning for the first time, I wanted to hear some of the strategies of deployment from CEOs that startup companies because it was so brand new in our district.
So that for me was a really, really good book. I'll warn you, if it says 1000 anything, that means it's going to be a thick book because there's a lot of pages in it. But it could be a resource. You could look at a table of contents like I did and said, "Hey, we're going to start blended learning in Temple ISD, which container would make the most sense?" Well, innovator container would make sense, a visionary one, and maybe startup titans. So I would go and read some of the CEOs strategies in those areas and then try to formulate my thoughts around deployment and so forth. So that's a book that I read and am happy to pass on.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's super helpful. And I think sometimes in education, we get too caught up in naval gazing, just looking at what we can learn from education. And there's a lot of fields out there that have a lot of wisdom that we can glean. And especially in the role of a superintendent where you're a politician, you're a community organizer, you're a bureaucrat, you're a manager. There's so many different hats you wear, and a human being that finds joy in the good people that you work with and the community that you serve. That's super helpful because the CEO wears many of those hats. And so I think that's great wisdom.
Well, hey, Dr. Ott, thank you so much for the time. Thanks for all you do for us at Baylor, for students and staff in Temple, and then for everybody across the state of Texas. We're grateful to have you so close and your willingness to serve educators in this way. So thank you.
Bobby Ott:
You bet. Thank you. And I wish all the best to Cohort 8. You're entering a great program. And the one thing I would say, I don't know if this is going to them or not, but the one thing I would tell them is a lot of times when you start things like a program, people will start to ponder this idea of journey versus destination kind of thing. Which one's more important? Is it getting the doctorate? Do I try to enjoy it along the way? It's heavy, whatever it may be. And what I would pass on to you is this, anytime you find yourself being asked that question or contemplating it, the answer is neither. It should always be the company. The company is the most important thing. It's not the journey or the destination, it's the company. And so enjoy your professors, enjoy your cohort, get to know the people around you, and that will be the most important thing. And if you do that, I will tell you the journey and the destination will take care of itself.
Jon Eckert:
Such great advice. And that's true for everybody, not just people starting a doctoral cohort. But appreciate how you live that out, and I'm grateful that you're on the journey with us and you're part of the company that we get to keep. So thanks again.
Bobby Ott:
You bet. Take care.
 
 

Unlearning: Allison Posey

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Allison Posey. The discussion covers the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the role of neuroscience in education. Allison emphasizes the need for a shift from a deficit mindset to one that recognizes the variability and potential in all learners.
Additionally, the conversation explores the challenges educators face, such as time constraints and the need for professional development that supports flexible and inclusive teaching practices.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.
Be encouraged.
Books Mentioned:Unlearning by Allison Posey & Katie Novak
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcription:
Jon Eckert:
We're excited to have Allison Posey in today. She is an amazing educator that, I just have to say this, I met in Paris just a week or so ago, and it was a great privilege to meet her at a UNESCO conference on inclusive education, how do we educate more kids around the world, which was a fascinating conference to be at. And so really excited to meet her and for you to meet her as well. So Allison, great to have you on today.
Allison Posey:
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Jon Eckert:
Can you just give us a little bit of your journey that brought you to CAST and Universal Design for Learning, which we'll get into what that is in a little bit, but what got you to the position that you're in now?
Allison Posey:
Well, I started to jump back one step and then I went two steps back. So I was teaching at a really cool program called, actually I don't like the title of it, the Center for Talented Youth because what youth is not talented, but there is a certain measure that was used to assess students on a kind of talent, one kind of talent. And they would come to Johns Hopkins for the summer and study one thing really intensely. So I got to teach neuroscience for six weeks in the summer to really interested students. And when I say interested, we had to take the books away from them after seven hours of being in the classroom, so they would have to go socialize and do kind of the camp thing. So a lot of neuroscience, a lot of learning, gifted and talented. Right.
Allison Posey:
And I had a student one year who we were having these incredible conversations about learning in the brain. He basically had read the college level textbook in a week, and this was a high school student. And yeah, at first I was like, I don't know about that. But the more we started talking, I thought, wow, he really is making sense of all. It took me six years to get through this textbook. He's really making sense of it all. And when I went to score his first assessment, it was completely blank and he didn't complete any of his assignments.
Allison Posey:
And I found out from his parent at the meetings at the end with the families that he was failing four out of his five high school courses and was severely depressed and at risk of dropping out. And I was so upset by this one, because I didn't know it as his teacher. I'd been working with him for these six weeks and I didn't realize it was at that level. And two, I realized I didn't know how to teach. So ironically, here I am teaching about the brain and I didn't feel like I knew how to reach the humans who had the brains with all the stuff that I was teaching. So I went to graduate school. I will get to the answer to your question.
Jon Eckert:
No, I love this path. I did not know where you were going with this. But again, you first, you start off with every teacher's dream, kids you have to take the books away from after seven hours. And then that realization that I don't really know what I'm doing when it's not actually working or the way that curriculum's being implemented, at least in those four of those five classes, it's not working. What do I do? So love that start.
Allison Posey:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Keep going.
Allison Posey:
And I was 10 years into my teaching about. So I'd been doing this for a while, just this feeling of I actually don't know what I'm doing. So Harvard had this amazing program called Mind, Brain & Education, and I thought, well, I know about the brain and I've been an educator. Let me check it out. And I was so fortunate to have as an advisor, David Rose, who is the founder of CAST and Universal Design for Learning. He was my advisor. It was just such a gift. So I learned about this framework. Well, actually let me take a little tiptoe back. The first article we read in this program was that the connection between neuroscience research and classroom practice is a bridge too far, that what we're learning in neuroscience labs that are isolated, maybe one individual at a time doing one task in very controlled environments are completely different from what we would do in a classroom with dozens of students and fire alarms and all this stuff.
Allison Posey:
And I don't know how you felt when you heard me say that, but I was angry. I absolutely was like these two fields need to be talking to each other. And I have really literally made it my profession to try to bridge the gap. And there are a lot of times when I'm having conversations with educators that I've noticed, I'm like, well, the gap may be a little too far between neuroscience and the bridge between neuroscience and education, but we need to keep having the conversations. So Universal Design for Learning is a framework that really is trying to make connections between the neuroscience of learning and the best high leverage practices that there are in order to reach each and every individual. So I think I finally got to the answer to your question.
Jon Eckert:
But what a great journey to it. You got there because of a need you observed as a teacher. And to me, that's the whole benefit of why we go back to grad school. So I always tell people that are looking at a Master's or an EDD or a PhD, wait until you've taught a few years because you'll have plenty of questions that you're trying to figure out. I thought this, but when I worked with kids, I realized this or I worked with other adults, I realized this. And so what a brilliant reason to go to UDL and CAST. So I guess let's do this.
Allison Posey:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Tell us a little bit about Universal Design for Learning in case people don't know what that is. I will say at the UNESCO conference, everybody there from around the world seemed to know what UDL was. So it may be very few of you don't know what it is, but talk about that as a way to connect neuroscience in the classroom because we get this all the time. If you want to sell a book, it feels like in education, throw neuroscience in there and it's like, oh, there's neuroscience in there. It must mean something. But talk about how UDL is that practical bridge to make sure each kid's needs are met and the talents that they have can flourish in a classroom.
Allison Posey:
It was actually very exciting to see. UDL talked about a lot at UNESCO without CAST, the originators of UDL needing to say anything about it. I mean, I wasn't the one presenting on it. So it was amazing to get to learn from folks how this framework is helping. It is a teaching and learning framework. So if your school or district doesn't have a common framework for teaching, this is a great framework because it gives a common language for learning that is grounded in the brain. So I don't have to label students as having disabilities. I don't have to take a deficit mindset. I can use UDL to proactively plan an environment that anticipates the variability of learning that we know will have in our classroom. And there are nine different dimensions that UDL explores through our UDL guidelines. And then under each of those dimensions of learning, there are a bunch of our tried and true strategies.
Allison Posey:
So I don't have, UDL is not, I always, I'll say to educators, I wish I had a magic wand and it was like the tool that engaged each learner in the learning. I don't have that tool, but I have a framework that can help you think about the design and how it's meeting or not meeting the needs of all the students. And it is liberating to not have to feel like I need to label each and every student with a deficit of what they can't do. Instead, I just look to make a creative, flexible learning space. And that space might include the methods that you're using, the materials that are there, the goals and the assessments. Even the assessments. As much as we love our standardized tests here in the US, really thinking deeply about how the assessments are universally designed and flexible to make sure you're able to get at the constructs that you're wanting to measure in the assessments as well. So we look at UDL across those four dimensions of curricula.
Jon Eckert:
Well, what I love about that as a 12-year teaching veteran of what I call real teaching, I've been in higher ed now 15 years, and I feel like that's fake teaching. You get some of those kids that you have to take the books away from, which as a middle school science teacher, it's like, yeah, that wasn't really a problem for most of the kids I was teaching, but I had a few. What I love about it is when you think about the RTI or MTSS, Multi-Tiered System of Support, UDL is a tier one support for each kid. So you do that so that you don't have to start labeling and elevating kids and you're trying to meet each kid's needs through materials that make them really interesting to teach. Teaching's infinitely interesting, but it becomes overwhelming when we don't have the tools in place to help us do it.
Jon Eckert:
The same thing I wanted to say about UDL. I first became aware of it when I was writing test items. I wrote test items for seven different states for Houghton Mifflin's testing company Riverside. And one of the things we always had to do is we had to use UDL principles in all the items that we wrote or they wouldn't be accepted. So you got paid per item that made it through the screeners, so you paid really close attention to those pieces. And if it didn't hit the UDL standards. Now I don't know that I always achieved exactly what CAST would say would be a UDL standard because you're still doing multiple choice tests with an open response. It's challenging sometimes to do this. They also wanted us writing the top levels of Bloom's taxonomy with multiple choice items, which I still argue is impossible, but I would do my best.
Jon Eckert:
But I love that about UDL because it couples the instruction with the assessment and I, however, we're assessing, I get frustrated in the US and people say, Hey, we don't want to teach to the test. Then what are you teaching to? The key is, is the test a good test? We're always teaching to an assessment. If we're not teaching to an assessment, then we're just performing. And so UDL says, here's the way we're going to deliver instruction, and here's also how we're going to assess. Because any good teacher wants to teach to an assessment. It's just we don't want to teach the bad assessments. And that's where I appreciate the critique that, hey, if it's not a good assessment, then what am I doing? But if I'm not assessing what the student's doing, then how do I know I taught anything?
Jon Eckert:
And so it goes back to that great quote. I don't know if you got exposed to the seven step lesson plan from Madeline Hunter. It was how I got taught to teach and it was not UDL, but there were elements of UDL in it before UDL existed. But she said this, "To say you've taught when no one has learned is to say you have sold when no one bought." And so to me, UDL can be that nice through line between instruction and assessment. Am I overstating anything? Is there anything you'd push back on there or anything you'd want to add?
Allison Posey:
The thing I would push back on is the goal of UDL isn't to be able to achieve an assessment, but the goal is to be able to develop expertise around learning about whatever it is you want to learn about. So we call it expert learning. Now, I think I would say a lot of the language at UNESCO was around even student agency, being able to know what you need to know to do your best learning, and whether that's to take a test so that you can now learn how to drive and that's your goal, or whether it's to become a scientist, or a musician, or whatever it is that you're wanting to do, and be, and the joy you find in life that you're pursuing, that you know how to be strategic to get what you need. You know how to build your background and importantly, you know how to sustain effort and persistence so that you can engage in a way that's meaningful.
Allison Posey:
And in that sentence, I just used the three UDL principles. So those three principles really do align with what we know about learning and the brain and you have be engaged in order to even pay attention and build the background you need to be able to do what you need to do. So those three principles really are broadly aligned to this model and this way of thinking. So yes to the assessments, but yes to pushing on assessments to really be meaningful and what we need to do in the communities and in the society so that they're connected a little bit tighter. And the other thing you said that I really appreciate is that you're never done. It's never like, there is one thing where I'm like, wow, we did it. Check UDL off the list. There are always more ways of thinking about those assessment questions, your resources, your materials to make sure that they're accessible and that folks can engage and take action strategically with them.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I really appreciate that corrective because I came to UDL through the assessment and that was the filter. And I thought it was sometimes a little artificial, but the idea that you're building student agency, you're building cognitive endurance so that they can do meaningful things, that's what we want. And so I like to think of assessment much more broadly as saying, hey, how do we know that you have that agency? What are the markers that show that? And I think that's a much broader perspective than what I came to it with. And so I appreciate that and it gives that, feeds that you're never done. And that's why we're always learning, as educators we're always learning, and our students are always learning and they're growing, but they have to have a passion for what they're doing. So you have to be able to know them, see them, do that, to tap into that cognitive endurance so it doesn't become a compliance culture.
Jon Eckert:
And I think we've done that in a lot of schools, and I think UDL pushes back on that. I'll give you one example that is a compliance culture for teachers. I still walk in classrooms. I'm like, oh, there's the learning target dutifully written on the board. Well, that's fine, but that doesn't mean anything meaningful is happening for kids. And it becomes a checklist thing to the point you made. And if UDL becomes, oh, we're using UDL check, it's like, no, that's not the point. And so I feel like there's that culture sometimes in US schools where we want to make sure it's being done. So that becomes a checklist. And it's like, well, if you have a really bad teacher, it's better to have a learning target on the board. It's better to use UDL than not, but that doesn't actually mean meaningful learnings happening. And so I think there needs to be a better onboarding of educators, a real time, here's what this looks like, feedback for them as they use UDL. How does CAST, if at all, how do you engage in that kind of training and support for educators?
Allison Posey:
Oh, you are talking to the right person. I have been thinking about this for years.
Jon Eckert:
Good, good.
Allison Posey:
There is no easy answer, but I was actually on the team that worked to really try to develop credentials around UDL. How do you look for and measure what's largely a mindset? Because I do use all the same tools. As I was saying, it's not like all of a sudden you have UDL and there's a magic tool that's different and the classroom looks differently. What's different is my mindset in my mindset of the high expectations for all learners. And if there's a barrier, the barrier is framed in the design of the environment and reduced because I've co-constructed that with my students, with my learners. That is really hard to get a video of, to take a picture of, to gather data around. And so our credential process has tried to identify a minimum. So we have a mindset credential, we have an analysis credential, and then we have an application credential because we realize you don't just all of a sudden shift your mindset and start doing everything differently.
Allison Posey:
You actually, and I've written again, told you, I think about this a lot. I wrote a whole book on unlearning, how you actually have to unlearn a lot of your tried and true practices that you went through school doing, you went through teacher prep maybe even doing in order to trade up for this really different mindset. I would argue, at least in my experience in the US schools and the little bit that I've been internationally, we still are largely a deficit-based approach where we have kind of a pre-made lasagna lesson that I like to call it. And if a student doesn't do it in more or less the same way, at more or less the same time, we think there's something wrong and we have to fix the student as opposed to saying, wait a minute, it's probably this pre-made lasagna lesson that assumes incorrectly that there is going to be an average student.
Allison Posey:
And one thing we know from brain science, mathematicians don't like me to say this, one thing we know from brain science is there is no average learner. When you look at brain scans across hundreds of individuals and you look at their average, it matches no one. It's an amazing thing. So in education, we might say, oh, well we have the high group, as I was telling you that that's who they thought they had. They were so much variability in those learners across. And I ended up using UDL to think about nine different dimensions of that variability to really kind of get at the complexity of what educators are tasked to do. And that's to educate each and every student. I mean, it's such an underappreciated profession because it is so hard to do.
Jon Eckert:
Right. Well, and I just pulled up your book, Unlearning, which is a great title for the book. And what we have to do that. The thing that I worry about, two things. We will take this and turn it into a scripted curriculum, which is taking at least elementary schools by storm in the United States because we have de-professionalized education to where we don't have highly trained people in the classroom where it's like, well, let's give them a script and if a student responds this way, you respond this way. Or we're putting in front of a screen which can be adaptive and can do some of those things. I have that concern. And the second concern I have is that we make teaching seem so complex that very conscientious, hardworking, intelligent educators will say, I just can't do this. This is too much. How does UDL get you focused on the right things without making it so it's a script, but it simplifies it in a way that it feels doable because that's what I hear about UDL. How do you see that playing out, if at all, or are my concerns valid?
Allison Posey:
No, you say it so well. I think one, we need UDL for educators as well. They are learners and they have brains and they are interacting in these school systems and often do not have the tools and resources and flexibility they need to be able to do their jobs well and they are not paid enough. I would love, love for teachers to actually make what they deserve in wages and to find the difference that that might make. Okay. So UDL for educators as well.
Jon Eckert:
Get on your soapbox. Okay.
Allison Posey:
See, I got so into that. I forgot my second point that I was going to make. Oh, descriptiveness of UDL. Here's the secret to UDL. We can provide options. Right. A grocery store has options. It has lots of options. And if I just walk into the grocery store and I'm like, I have options. I don't know what I'm buying, I get frustrated, I'm confused, there all these things you can do. That's like education. We have all these tools, all these things. Often what we're lacking is a very clear goal. You mentioned goals earlier and goals are different from standards, but it's really breaking down, like for this moment in time, here's what I really want my learners to know, do, or care about. And when you have such a clear vision of that, like I know that I'm going to go grocery shopping for the hockey team dinner, I'm going to be so strategic in a different way than I'm shopping for the UNESCO picnic that we're going to have. Right.
Jon Eckert:
Right.
Allison Posey:
So depending on the goal, you make such different choices. And so those goals are often in my work with educators, and I've been in the UDL world for 12 years, so it's been a while now. We really end up returning to what's the goal? And very often we hear, here's the activity, or we hear, what's this chapter of the book? And it's like, no, but what's the goal? And once you identify the goal, then you can better identify how to be flexible within that. So it takes more work on the front end. It does. People don't always like to hear. It takes more work on the front end, but it saves you work on the back end. And more learners are able to get to that goal because it's clear, we've reduced some of the hidden biases that are in our like, well, don't you already know how to do that? And why don't you have that private tutor? And it just makes the process so much more transparent.
Allison Posey:
But it's again, largely not what we're doing in our schools and classrooms now. So you actively have to unlearn. And that takes energy and is hard. So do it small, start small, have teams and people working together with you to build that culture where the flexibility is valued because you recognize that learner variability.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
Allison Posey:
And the number of times, yeah, go ahead.
Jon Eckert:
No, I was going to say that's the life-giving part of teaching, when you see kids doing things that they didn't think they could do. And so that's where it keeps you coming back and it makes it worth the effort. And so it's way more fun to put the effort on the front end where kids can be successful and trying to give them feedback on ways that you're like, I clearly did not set this up. We did not have a clear target, we didn't have success criteria. We didn't... And so totally 100% agree. The effort on the front ends, way more rewarding than trying to clean up a bad assignment on the back end. So yeah.
Allison Posey:
Yeah, just like a bad dinner party. It's so much to say. Everyone didn't like my one lasagna I gave them. What?
Jon Eckert:
Good example. So let me wrap us up with our lightning round. So given all your experience with UDL and some of the misapplication of some of the research and the neuroscience that you know, what's the worst piece of advice you've ever heard? It doesn't have to be related to UDL, but it could be. But worst piece of advice you've gotten as an educator.
Allison Posey:
Oh, one of them was don't smile the first half of the year.
Jon Eckert:
I need to go back. We've done about 40 of these podcasts and I think in about 30 of them when I've asked it, that's the worst piece of advice that comes up every time.
Allison Posey:
No kidding. Yes. Right.
Jon Eckert:
It's horrible advice because it dehumanizes teaching.
Allison Posey:
It's all about the relationships and the community. So why would you not have that from the beginning?
Jon Eckert:
Right. I do not know. I hope that advice is not, I hope it's just because I'm old, that that feels like advice,-
Allison Posey:
Oh, I have a different one maybe. Maybe here's another one. Check your emotions at the door.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, similar, right? Ridiculous. And you've also written a book on emotions, right?
Allison Posey:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Yes.
Allison Posey:
Yes. You are never without those emotions. In fact, if you check them at the door, there's a problem.
Jon Eckert:
Right. And part of decision making includes emotions. I think emotions have kind of gotten a little bit, they've gotten a bad rap and now there's kind of a corrective coming. So super helpful. All right. Best piece of advice you've ever received?
Allison Posey:
Oh, this will be for my mentor David Rose. Oh, she just came to mind, but I'll stick to one. Anything worth doing will probably not be achieved in your lifetime.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow. That's, okay. And then give me the second one too because you said you had two.
Allison Posey:
Teaching's emotional work.
Jon Eckert:
Ah. All right. No. Hey, that's a good reminder. And I just read the Same as Ever by Morgan Housel. And he had this thing, he came out in November of 2023. He said, "We don't celebrate incremental improvement enough." So if you look at heart disease and the way it's been managed since the 1950s, we've made a one and a half percent improvement every year since the 1950s. And you're never going to get a headline, hey, we made a one and a half percent improvement in heart disease treatment.
Allison Posey:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
But over time, that compounding interest is huge. And I think as educators, we need to remember it's not, and I've quit talking about solutions and I focus on improvement because I think solutions indicate that we think that there's some place that we arrive at, which we talked about earlier. We don't. We just keep improving. And so that's where... Super helpful piece there. Okay. What's the biggest challenge you see for educators? We can go worldwide or in the US. You pick your audience. What's the biggest challenge you see?
Allison Posey:
I mean, the biggest challenge I hear over and over is time. We just don't have time to do the curriculum adaptation that we need to do, to have the conversations, to do the one-on-one. So we do hear repeatedly that time is a barrier. But I will say from my perspective, it's the mindset. It's really, the deficit mindset is still so pervasive and we pass that on to students. So they think they're not science students or they're just not good at math. I mean, they have these raw generalizations that, again, from a neuroscience perspective, we know is not true, so.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
Allison Posey:
Yeah, I think that deficit mindset's our biggest challenge right now.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and John Hattie's work on mind frames reinforces that as well. I mean, very similar kinds of framing. And I do think, well, and Ronald Heifetz work on adaptive challenges. He's a Harvard guy. Your degrees from Harvard. The idea that technical challenges are real, but adaptive challenges require a change in mindset because the problem and solution are unclear. And so many of the issues that we deal with in education are adaptive and not technical. As we keep slapping more technical band aids on adaptive challenges, teachers get cynical as they should.
Allison Posey:
They should. Yes.
Jon Eckert:
As they should.
Allison Posey:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. So what's your best hope for educators as you look ahead?
Allison Posey:
I just hope they see the impact. It's such an important profession and we need the best people in it. I thank teachers all the time for doing the work they do, because one student at a time makes a difference and it has such opportunity to promote change and to make that difference. It's our future, it's our collective future. So it's such an important profession.
Jon Eckert:
It's a good word Allison. Good word to end on. Well, hey, thank you for the work you do.
Allison Posey:
It's more than one word.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
Allison Posey:
I'm rarely down to one word.
Jon Eckert:
Hey, that's all right. That's all right. You did better than I would've done. But thanks for what you do and thanks you for the time that you gave us today.
Allison Posey:
I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

Leading with Faith and Excellence: Joel Satterly

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Joel Satterly, head of school at Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The discussion covers Joel's diverse career journey, from teaching in an inner-city middle school in Lexington, Kentucky, to leading various Christian schools across the United States. Joel emphasizes the importance of integrating academic rigor with faith formation, highlighting Westminster Academy's commitment to this philosophy since its founding.Additionally, the conversation explores the unique cultural diversity of Fort Lauderdale and how Westminster Academy reflects and benefits from this diversity. Joel notes the school's commitment to maintaining a size that allows for individualized attention and the significance of understanding and supporting each student as an individual.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work. Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Leadership by Henry KissingerConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
 
 
Transcript:
Jon:
Welcome back to Just Schools. Today we're here with Joel Satterly, head of school at Westminster Academy in Florida. Joel, great to have you with us.
Joel Satterly:
Thanks, Jon. Great to be here.
Jon:
Now, you've had quite an interesting career, so if you could just give us a quick travel through your career that got you to Westminster, that'd be a great place for us to start.
Joel Satterly:
Sure. Maybe I'm a little unique in there's some guys and women in this industry that have military background, which I do, but also have an MBA. Which is kind of interesting, and a theological doctorate of ministry. That from an educational side, it's kind of an interesting mix.
My professional journey, I started like a lot of people teaching in a public school. I was in an inner city middle school in my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. My job was to convince seventh graders who were poverty-stricken, that ancient world history mattered to their life, which was a great learning lab and I learned a ton. And through a whole series of events, wound up leaving that position and going to a growing Christian school, Lexington Christian Academy, where I taught and then moved into administration both at the junior high and high school level.
And in 1999, I took my first head of school position in Rock Hill, South Carolina. I journeyed from Rock Hill to rural central Florida, a little place called Crystal River where the manatees live-
Jon:
Wow, nice.
Joel Satterly:
...at a PCA church school there. A short stint outside Atlanta for a couple of years in another PCA church setting, and then up to Chicago where actually I think we met, Jon.
Jon:
That's right.
Joel Satterly:
When you were up there at Chicago Christian, a very old CSI Christian reform school system. And we have some mutual friends that are connected through that place. And then back down to Florida here, finishing my eighth year at Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale.
Jon:
Hey, well, you're definitely winning on the winters there.
Joel Satterly:
No doubt. Losing on the pizza though.
Jon:
Oh you are, but your body is grateful for that. I always say leaving Chicago was sad for me from what we get to eat, but it's probably added four or five years to life because everything I loved in Chicago was probably killing me. But the Chicago pizza is top on that list.
So love the journey you have and I think the shaping of your military background, the MBA, teaching in public school and leading in so many different contexts in independent schools, that certainly enriches you. But I want to talk a little bit about Westminster Academy because I was able to be there a few months ago and meet a lot of your team and do some work there. But I'm really curious about the thread that you see going through Westminster Academy since its founding to where you are now and what makes it distinctive in the climate that you're in, there in Florida right now?
Joel Satterly:
Fort Lauderdale, I think, was made famous by the movie Where The Boys Are, which captured the whole idea of Florida spring break.
Jon:
Yeah, that's a thing.
Joel Satterly:
And for a long time, Fort Lauderdale was the place and then it moved I think other places. So people have an image of Fort Lauderdale through that in a lot of ways. And it's not too far from being wrong. It tends to be a very secular place, a place of some international flavor. It's a very mixed, culturally diverse part of the United States. It can be very affluent, but they're wide ranges of affluence and poverty in this area. Very transient. So it's kind of interesting.
Westminster Academy was founded in 1971, birthed out of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which was one of the largest and first founders in the PCA. But one of the first very famous for the Coral Ridge hour back in the eighties that people might recall. And so Westminster was formed out of that. I like to joke, sometimes I say there are several great ironies that are true here. One is a Calvinist started evangelism explosion. D. James Kennedy, founding pastor at Coral Ridge started Evangelism explosion, which has had a huge influence in the world.
One of the other great ironies is the school that he helped get started, and I think in those days they were pretty fundamentalist and pretty conservative, started at a horse track because there weren't permanent space anywhere. So it used to be a place where you don't dance because it could lead to card playing and awful things like that. Yet the school starts in a horse track. So God has a sense of humor about that, I think.
But through all of that, I think there are a couple of things about Westminster that have been through puts for it that have guided it. One is a commitment to recognizing that academic rigor and faith formation are one in the same. And Christians should not settle for anything less than that. And a commitment to being excellent in how it goes about that. The other it would follow. And that was working to legitimize the Evangelical Christian Day School. Because I think Westminster, its founding was distinct from some of the other foundings of similar schools in the South in that it was founded away from desegregation and some of those other issues that may have fueled some of that.
South Florida was kind of a different time in a different place, a different set of variables. So it's been a place that's cared about being legitimate, it's cared about advancing the kingdom and been very committed to putting deep roots in the community.
Jon:
Now you mentioned the diversity and the international flavor Lauderdale and the amazing group of community resources you have there. How do you see Westminster reflecting and benefiting from that? I think earlier you talked about it being kind of an organic process. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Joel Satterly:
Yeah, so this part of the country's interesting. There's an organic diversity that... I believe I recently read where Broward County is the most diverse county in the state of Florida now, which would make it one of the more diverse counties in areas in the United States. But it's a happy diversity. One that is complimentary. So it is not to say that there aren't some tensions from time to time, but generally speaking it's transient nature helps with that as well. But you just have, the entire world is here. You go to the beach and you can hear multiple languages being spoken on any given day, for example.
So it means our student body is fairly diverse, particularly by Christian Day school standards, mainly because we admit the families that live in our local area. And even on the geographical part of Fort Lauderdale, all of it is diverse. So we don't have to work very hard at it. The challenge for us though is, like a lot of other people, is on the faculty and staff side. Figuring that part of the equation out. One of the other things that's kind of funny when people come to visit, when we talk about cultural diversity too, it's very localized. So we kind of joke that Spanish speaking folks, that's not diverse here.
Jon:
Right. Yeah, I totally understand that. I was just in South Carolina and I was in schools that were 95% African American. And we would call those diverse schools, but you're not seeing a ton of diversity in the same way you're saying for Spanish speakers in Florida, that's probably not going to be outside the norm.
Joel Satterly:
Right. It is interesting though. I haven't been here long enough yet to differentiate among the Caribbean Islands, but there are people that can. And so I don't want to downplay the cultural distinction because I do think that there are some deeply held... Like anywhere else human beings are what we are. So there are some deeply held pressures, but generally speaking, it's really a cool place to do this work because of that.
Jon:
Well, and that's where I think the diversity conversation sometimes gets derailed because we get into group and identity politics. And really each individual I described, I just mentioned the South Carolina schools that were 95% African-American. Within that, there are so many differences ethnically within those groups.
Joel Satterly:
Right.
Jon:
And the food, I always love the food culture. So I love going to places like Fort Lauderdale and I love Chicago for that and I love a lot of other cities because you can find so many variations on things. And I think we really lose out on the richness of what we do in education when we lose the trees for the forest.
Joel Satterly:
That's right.
Jon:
Even if I have three or four groups at my school, we're missing all the individuals there. So how do we make sure we see the tree that's inside that forest because there's so much richness there. So when we reduce diversity to groups, we're just missing the fact that you're not seeing the individual. And if we believe that our job as educators is to walk alongside kids to help them to become more of who they were created to be, you don't do that as a group.
Joel Satterly:
Right.
Jon:
You do that individually within a group and all of that is part of a relationship that you build, but it is with individuals. So I appreciate you saying that. What do you think Westminster does well in that regard to see, know and love each student? I mean, how many students do you have first of all? And then how do you ensure that each kid is seen, known and loved well, in a way that honors the calling that the school has?
Joel Satterly:
So we're a little over a thousand students, preschool through 12th grade. And one of the things that we're committed to is a size culture. Westminster really sees itself as between 1100 and 1200 student school maximum, complete maximum capacity, if every single kid fit exactly in the right grade that we needed them. You know how that works.
Jon:
Right.
Joel Satterly:
But we're about where we want to be size-wise, because at a certain size it's very difficult for students to be known and loved. There are realities of size. So that's a commitment that the school has had more recently. I think when it's founded, it was on a growth curve like everybody else. But I mean, I think over time it's learned that the value in having a very distinctive size culture. So that would be one. I wonder too, if COVID taught us something. I was just thinking when you're talking about being individual focused for a minute, for us at least, that COVID experience gave us a chance to figure out what is it we're supposed to be doing.
And one of the takeaways we came out with is education is fundamentally a life on life endeavor. And because it is, that means there's certain things that we need to be in the same space with each other to accomplish. At least most effectively. So there's a commitment to that. There's a commitment to seeing students that way. A lot of schools talk about differentiating instruction and that sort of thing, and we take our hand at that. I think one of the reasons we had you come here and help us, talk to us, and Lynn Swanner and some others, is we want to get better at that and recognize that.
But I think it's more of a posture of our faculty that they just do kids. They just get into their lives. And I was with a family last night, we were talking about taking a leadership role, a voluntary leadership role in our school. A very high level executive in South Florida. And the dad just got teary talking about what the different people in the school had meant for their family. And he started asking, tell me about that. And it's really just the gift of time. It's just really being intentional and saying, your child matters and we're going to figure it out.
Jon:
One of the things I liked about what you said earlier was that formation and excellence go hand in hand. So many times Christian schools have been maligned or fundamentalist schools of being anti-learning when in the end, at the end of the day, we're called to maximize the gifts we're given.
Joel Satterly:
Right.
Jon:
In studying the world, our place in the world, how things work, we're actually getting a better glimpse of God and how the world was put in this created order. So I really appreciate that perspective that you bring. And when you then couple that with seeing the individual and making sure that the goal is to not just get bigger, but it's to go deeper with each student so that he or she can go deeper in their formation and the excellence, and maximizing the gifts that they've been given. Not for self-actualization or a humanistic reason, but because they're created beings who we get the privilege of walking and helping them become more of that. That's the true blessing. And when you see that, that's what makes parents like the one you described tear up, because what a gift that is to families.
Joel Satterly:
And I think another part of that, with that, you're talking about the individual image bearer, is our commitment to worldview, jon. I mean, I think it bears out of our theological grounding and founding. But this idea of in worldview is such a trite word today, I realize and hate to even use it. But it is really significant in this particularly becoming more and more critical.
So we actually talked with our students and our faculty about that topic around three questions that we try to frame. Who is God? What is the nature of man? And what do you do with freedom? And you can talk about what is the nature of man? You can talk around, well, what is the student like? What is the teacher? How do we deal with dignity? What do we do with the fallenness? And how do we figure all that out? And the issue of freedom might be the most pressing issue facing our high school age kids today. And helping them understand freedom in the context of how they were created and made is the ultimate freedom. And that's what gives us this fuel to have an of individual focus.
Jon:
Yeah. No, I appreciate that. We always wrap up with the lightning round. So I'm going to go through three or four questions here. And I'm curious about this first one. So these are always a word, phrase, or sentence. The first question is, what's the best book or one of the most memorable books you've read this past year?
Joel Satterly:
I think I would say Kissinger's book on leadership.
Jon:
Interesting.
Joel Satterly:
Simply it's a bunch of chapters around individual world leaders in the mid to late 20th century that some of them are a bit more obscure than others. Just fascinating.
Jon:
Love it. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing education currently in the US?
Joel Satterly:
How we define success. How do we think through, what does all that look like?
Jon:
So if that's the biggest challenge, what's your best piece of advice to school leaders as they think about defining success?
Joel Satterly:
Everybody can't get a trophy.
Jon:
Okay. Very good. All right. We don't celebrate mediocrity.
Joel Satterly:
Right.
Jon:
It's one of my favorite parts of the Incredibles when they lay into that. So, all right, good. And as you look ahead, what's your best hope for education in the US as you look ahead in the year ahead?
Joel Satterly:
It feels to me like we're on the precipice of some sort of spiritual revival in certain places. And so at least I see a renewed... And one of the things, I think that the culture swinging in certain directions for different times helps the people of God refocus and it just smells that way to me. I could be wrong, but it feels like there's a movement happening. I realize Aslan never sleeps, right? But it just feels different to me than it did say five or six years ago.
Jon:
Well, I hope you're right. And again, as we get to lead for joy through truth and love, that's the kind of movement that we want to see-
Joel Satterly:
Right.
Jon:
... as we hopefully become more of who we're created to be so that we can be better conduits of that and not get in the way of what the Lord wants to do through us. So Joel, I appreciate your time and the work you do at Westminster. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
Joel Satterly:
My pleasure, jon. Thanks so much.
 

Lead Learner: Dr. Ann Marie Taylor

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Ann Marie Taylor. The discussion covers various aspects of educational leadership and the unique approaches taken at Horse Creek Academy. Ann Marie emphasizes the importance of celebrating and honoring teachers to prevent the profession from declining and shares innovative practices at her school, such as on-site daycare and providing amenities like a coffee bar for staff.Additionally, the conversation explores the distinctions between joy and happiness, drawing on insights from books such as "The Book of Joy" by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, and "Dare to Lead" by Brené Brown. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton AbramsDare to Lead by Brene Brown
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
Today we're here with Dr. Anne Marie Taylor. She is the lead learner, love that title, at Horse Creek Academy in South Carolina. I love the work that she does and the fact that she teaches a criminology course on top of being what most people would call a principal.
So Ann Marie, thanks for being with us today, and thanks for what you do at Horse Creek.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah, it's the best gig ever.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, I love that. I love the energy you bring. We got to be together just a couple of weeks ago as we talked to the Collective Leadership Initiative in South Carolina. We've been working on that for eight years. You've been a part of it with your school for five years. Talk to us a little bit about how your school approaches collective leadership and how it's part of what you talk about nicely, about the norms, that you have created at Horse Creek Academy. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah. First of all, I was fangirling a little bit when we saw each other a couple of weeks ago, so I just need to admit that just in case anyone's listening. But ...
Jon Eckert:
That's the first time that's ever happened, Ann Marie.
Ann Marie Taylor:
No, it's not. Okay, it's the nerd version. It's the nerd version of fangirl
Jon Eckert:
Okay. I'll accept nerd version
Ann Marie Taylor:
Okay, so I had never been a school leader previous to coming to Horse Creek Academy. I guess no one else interviewed that had any experience at all, so they picked me, which was a win. But the school had some amazing people and had so much potential. I remember walking in excited to see what I could do, but mostly realizing that in my previous leadership experience when I left, the work stopped and I was so ... Gosh, I was stuck by that a little bit. I was determined to not go into this new phase of leadership in my career with that same mindset.
We dove right in. It's a charter school. It's been in existence 20 years in South Carolina. I went back to the original charter and the staff and I picked out a couple words that really stuck in the 10, 15 years that had been in existence that really stuck and those three words kind of guided us. But what I knew is it was such a big job, I couldn't do it by myself. I also knew that I had spent 16, 17 years in the profession at that point and felt like I never really fit in a traditional system. I was always too big or moving too fast or making too much change, and kind of was put in the corner. I think about that Dirty Dancing movie about Baby in the corner. But anyway-
Jon Eckert:
You let baby be put in the corner. Ann Marie, no.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yes, so I was determined to think through how to do leadership different. Number one, selfishly, because I knew that there was a lot to offer and there was a lot of change ahead, and I knew it was going to be a ton of work. But mostly because I knew that the only thing I knew how to do maybe was build a team. I used that to my advantage and really found the best people around me that could help.
We had visited a school in South Carolina that was a part of this initiative already, and I fell in love with the idea that anyone could lead, and how I desperately wanted that as a teacher and I never could get it. We started by diving into norms and expectations and saying something that I've repeated millions of times, "Hey, I can almost guarantee I'll disappoint you, but I'll disappoint you a lot less if we set up norms and expectations."
When I talk about norms and expectations, I think about when I was a classroom teacher, most of my years have been in special education, and most of those years were in self-contained classrooms. I remember because of students with behavior disorders that I would work with, that they needed ownership and they wanted to say. If I could give them a choice, even if it was a forced choice, they would typically take me up on my offer. What I realized is adults are the same way, right? They just want to be heard. I wanted a voice and I wanted a choice, and so I bet other people felt that way too. To begin with, I used the same strategies I used with my students with behavior disorders, and honestly, that's where I started, norms and expectations and voice and choice. It's a crazy way to start, but it worked perfectly.
Jon Eckert:
Well, it's not crazy.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
You went in knowing that you couldn't do it on your own and that you came from a position where you had wanted to have more leadership and not just voice or buy-in, but you wanted ownership.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
You stepped in and said, "Hey, that's what we're going to give." And what I love is use DC and Ryan's work that Daniel Pink popularized in Drive where you said, "Hey, people want choices."
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
With increased competence comes the desire for more autonomy, but it has to be autonomy within the parameters of, "What's the mission of the school?" You mentioned there were three words that you chose at the school. What were those three words? I didn't hear you say them, did I? Did you share them?
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah. Yeah, so the three words that we kind of navigated through and found in the original charter were flexibility, service, and connection. We actually voted on those words as a new staff, and we voted then to create norms and expectations for each other.
I can't remember all five my first year, but I remember one was see a need, fill a need. Our norms we've created now five years in a row, and we have staff norms that we work on together on our first day back to school where we vote, make tallies. We do a whole lesson on norms and expectations. Then the expectation is that in every meeting, in every sit-down, in every coffee bar chat, we're going to talk about norms and expectations, including with our parents, with our students. It's become just, well, for a better word, a norm in our system where we just always start with expectations. I think that really started us and grounded us, maybe focusing on the work. Flexibility, service, connection, every decision we make runs through those three words, and obviously that goes so well with the work of collective leadership. It was a win for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Well, what I love there, you just described Bill Coon, who is principal at Meadow Glen, I don't know if-
Ann Marie Taylor:
Oh my God, by the way, I'm a fangirl for Dr. Coon as well.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. He talks about the three buckets, and if it doesn't fit in those three buckets, they don't do it. We need more of those three bucket principles.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Flexibility, service, connection. I also love that you saw that you had the see a need, fill a need because that follows that tenet of collective leadership, that leadership's not about the position or the person, it's about the work.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
If you see that need and you fill that need and you do that with others, and others are following you and you're walking alongside, then you're leading.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Right, right.
Jon Eckert:
Why are we hung up on who's the official leader, who's not? See a need, fill a need. That's what leaders do, and that changes the culture of the school or builds the culture, in your case, because you all were starting from that place.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That creates a very different dynamic where people aren't sitting around waiting for you as the lead learner to be telling them how they should be learning and what they should be leading. It's "We're doing this together." I think that's pretty powerful.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Well, and what's ironic about it is now they don't need me really. Sometimes I walk around and think, "God, the school board could fire me today and these guys would be just fine." But I guess that's what I've been trying to build, so I'm thankful that they don't necessarily need me in the same ways. Because their coaching skills have gotten so good over the years, I find myself a lot of times trying to copy them because they're just smarter than me now. I'm so thankful for that part.
Jon Eckert:
What you described, in my mind, is the ideal leader in a learning organization.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
You want them to not be dependent on you. You want to add value, but you want to have created these networks and webs that function regardless if you're there or not. Today you're home with a kid who needs you, and I'm sure Horse Creek Academy ran smoothly.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That's powerful.
Ann Marie Taylor:
That's really a huge win. Honestly, that's what I'd worked towards because I knew what that looked like.
The other thing I think that's interesting is that we've kind of taken the work of CLI to a level that maybe even others haven't yet. Let me give you an example. We have three paraprofessionals on our leadership team that make just as many decisions as I do every day. These are people that don't necessarily have advanced degrees, but immediately when we got to know them, saw intense leadership capacity. It was like, "Let me get out of your way and figure out how you can do this." It's been so beautiful to watch folks that had always been, for example, a traditional teaching assistant in a special ed classroom, and would never move out of that pay grade or leadership level, to take on positions that are critical to the organization. Because of that, I can take a back burner with a lot of different things and spend an hour and a half of my day teaching students and reminding myself how hard it is and how intense it is and how important the relationship is.
When I have conversations with teachers, I can say, "Yeah, I totally get it," because I have 47 of them and they're pretty tough and most days I don't win. Some days I think I'm winning an Emmy and they're looking at me like they're not interested. That has been critical. It's not like I come into sub, it's like I have a credit-bearing course every single day that I show up to. What's even more ironic is that I teach it in an open area in our commons, so I get traffic throughout. I didn't cap the class. Most of our classes are 19 or less and I have 47, so I have to be on because I'm in front of everyone and they are watching me. It forces me to be a better version of myself as a teacher.
I learned that through the South Carolina Teacher of the Year program back in the day when people watched what we were doing, I innately got better. As a special ed teacher with no one ever watching you, you can really take a downward spiral in a lot of different ways. But because everybody was watching me because I was Teacher of the Year, I had to be on, and yeah, magically, it really made me a great teacher. That's how I feel now. Even when I want to be down and not really engaged and don't want to give it my all, I have to. That was on purpose too, so that's another strategy, but ...
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, the wisdom that comes, and I appreciate the humility in your description of why you do what you do, but having been Teacher of the Year and having had that recognition, clearly you know how to engage students and the best leaders that I know either really miss the classroom or they never leave it.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
You haven't left it and that's one of my favorite stories I've ever heard. 90 minutes a day in an open area with 47 students.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah, 9th through 12th, by the way.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. That's going to challenge any educator and to put yourself out there for others to see it, it not only allows you to remember what it is to be in the classroom, it builds so much credibility that, "Our leader or one of our leaders is doing this work alongside of us and in a way that anybody can see it." I think that goes a long way to building culture.
One of the things you mentioned before we jumped on about is your idea about moving too fast. Sometimes you feel like maybe you move too fast, but then you question, well, maybe that's just part of the kind of innovating and iterating that you're doing. What do you mean you might've moved too fast?
Ann Marie Taylor:
Well, I think the first few years of this work, we lost some people along the way. They had to jump off because we were moving too fast. They had to take a break because change was happening too frequently or they just weren't a fit. I think there was this, as an educator, we have this weird guilt and shame over almost every decision we make. I don't know if that's typical, but for me it was like, "God, people are leaving. I'm not the favorite. This isn't the best." Those kinds of things.
We had significant growth. To give you perspective, we had like 467 students when I got there, and this year we're at 1400.
Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Ann Marie Taylor:
We had insane growth, right overshadowing what happened with COVID or happening at the same time. I was building buildings, adding a high school, adding a career center. It was like drinking from the water hose, just 90 miles an hour. We lost people along the way and so I had some guilt and shame about moving too fast. But then I look back and think, "My God, if I wasn't risk-taking or being innovative or forcing people to move, number one, people might've stayed that shouldn't have." That's a harsh, honest reality. And it was clear where we were going, and sometimes we had to paddle and hold our heads just right above water because it wasn't perfect the whole way because we were making so much change and growing so fast.
For six months I had all of our high school and middle schoolers, when our building wasn't finished, at a church in a sanctuary and in a common space where we were all teaching. I thought, "This is crazy. I don't know why we've moved this fast. We're six months and we don't have our building, blah, blah, blah." But it built so much culture and climate collectiveness, and we were weaved in a way that we hadn't been before. That's really a lot of where we got to know each other, in that sanctuary and in that main space.
Even though you look along the way and think, "Wow, it's been a wild ride," you can look back and think, "Well, that's what innovation looks like a little bit." If you want to be a risk-taker and be innovative, sometimes you have to feel like you're drowning just for a little bit.
Good news is it wasn't just me. I had a team of 30 people on a leadership team. At least we could hold each other while we were drowning instead of me being by myself, and so really don't know if we'd survive without collective leadership.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I think that's right. I have one phrase in the Leading Together book, "It's not that many hands make light work, it's many hands make the work possible."
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
When you're going that fast, you can't go that fast on your own. You're going to lose some people on the way and while you're losing people, which is sad to lose people, maybe they were not the right people to be on the bus, as Jim Collins talks about in Good to Great. It may be that fast-moving, we have a lot of kids who need what we're providing and we're providing it in these awkward spaces, but we're going to do it, that makes you really appreciative when you get into a space that's not everybody in a sanctuary or in the-
Ann Marie Taylor:
Oh, gosh.
Jon Eckert:
... common space. I think that builds culture. You don't do it in order to build culture, but because of the work you did that created a very different dynamic for the people that were there at Horse Creek, that then feeds the people who come in because you know what you're coming into. This isn't a place to just sit back and relax.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Well, what's funny is now when I interview people, I've gotten to be blatantly honest. "Here's what it looks like." I'm like, "Hey, you'll probably never have a title that you're looking for and you might not even have an office. I know for sure we'll give you a desk and chair to sit somewhere at some point, but that's kind of how we roll." We have to be super-flexible because of the growth and so a lot of us don't have classrooms and share spaces and all those kinds of things. But I wouldn't have it any other way because when you walk in, there's an energy and a beauty and almost like it feels like a miracle to me just because I've been in so many schools and so many classrooms, and I know that it feels that way to other people because they tell me. I forget along the way until I visit somewhere else and come back. But it is very ... There's lots of movement, there's lots of energy, there's lots of relationship. Most nights I go to bed and pray that this will last just a little longer because I know it's not typical. Then the other side of me is like, "Oh my gosh, we have to announce this to the world because we are single-handedly going to save the profession. "
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Go with that to latter impulse there. I do think we need to trumpet these things because there are places like Horse Creek around that are doing these things, and the world has a great need for it.
I think I mentioned this when I was with you all. I was at a UNESCO conference where I was speaking and it was trying to address the fact that there are 250 million school age kids who do not have a school to go to. A place like Horse Creek is truly a blessing and so you need to lean into that and love the fact that that's what you've built. I think what I'd like to move to now is just our lightning round to see how well you can do this.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Uh-oh.
Jon Eckert:
Word, sentence, or phrase, we'll go with four or five questions here.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Okay.
Jon Eckert:
First one, what is the worst piece of advice you've either given or received?
Ann Marie Taylor:
Worst piece of advice I was ever given is, "Start the year in August like you hate them and then discipline will be in check by December."
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, no. Yeah.
Ann Marie Taylor:
That's not me. If I'm going to do the opposite of what they tell me, I'm going to make sure I'm good at it. The opposite of that, of course, would be, "Man, build relationships from the moment you get them so that they will eat from your hands," so to speak. That was definitely the worst advice I've ever been given. But man, old, veteran teachers always want to tell you that when you first start.
Jon Eckert:
I know. 80% of the people that come on our podcast, that's the piece of advice that they're given that's bad and it's so sad. I love in your bio that you have is the "Lead learner, Horse Creek Academy. Ann Marie is a hot mess, in a fabulous way of course." That's welcoming because we're all kind of a hot mess when we're honest and that welcomes people in and makes them feel that.
What's the best piece of advice you've either given or received?
Ann Marie Taylor:
My very first year going to get, so I have an undergraduate in criminal justice, and I have a master's in arts of teaching students with learning disabilities. I'm getting this master's degree. I've been to Catholic school my whole life, never been in a public school before. They don't have a classroom with kids with learning disabilities, but they have this little classroom in Florence, South Carolina with kids with severe and profound disabilities that I was going to do my student teaching in.
I walked in to ... I can pick on her because she knows I pick on her, but she would wear, Kathy, my mentor, long dresses, angry special ed teacher, been doing this forever, doesn't really make eye contact. I was scared to death. It's the advice I've lived with, she said, "My job as your teacher is to make you better than I was ever as a teacher." I think about Kathy all the time and think about the people I work with and just making them better. That was advice that I think, God, has been used in every facet of my life.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. That's a beautiful image for a teacher.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah, she's amazing.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. What's one of your favorite books you've read in the last year? It could be education-related, it could be anything.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Oh, probably either a book called Joy.
Jon Eckert:
Mm.
Ann Marie Taylor:
It was the Dalai Lama, and I'm not remembering the other author, so forgive me, but I was doing some research because second semester I teach Psychology of Happiness. I was doing some research on joy, and that was pretty powerful. But a book that I just reread that is my all-time favorite book ever, at least right now, is Dare to Lead by Brene Brown.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, yeah. It's hard to beat that.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah, those two have been important. I've been reading a lot on happiness because here I am, I'm going to teach this class, and I really don't know anything other than what I heard on a happiness podcast by Dr. Laurie Santos. I had to read a whole bunch of happiness books to try to get my material together.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, that's great. I always differentiate joy and happiness, that happiness is circumstantial, but joy is something that can be deep and profound and abiding. Yes, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yes, there you go.
Jon Eckert:
They wrote the Book of Joy. Yeah, it has to be fascinating to get that take.
The next thing, I guess two last questions. What's the biggest challenge you see ahead for educators? We've been in CLI, you've been in for five years, I've been studying you for eight years. I see your data every year because the one who writes it up and reports on it. There's a lot of great things going on at Horse Creek, but what do you see as the biggest challenge facing educators right now?
Ann Marie Taylor:
If we don't figure out a way to celebrate and honor our teachers, I have a fear that the profession is going to dwindle down to a room or a school full of substitutes. I feel so lucky that I have no positions for next year. I feel so lucky that we've already hired and done all that, but the only reason we're in that position is because we do things different. We have onsite daycare for our staff, babies and toddlers, which is such a huge win. No faculty meetings, podcasting. I spend $4,000 a month on our coffee bar to make sure that we have creamer and coffee and snacks at every building. Full-length pictures. I could go on and on with the little things, but I feel like if people don't do something drastically different, we are not going to be winning and I just think that there are way too many great educators out there to not be winning at this.
I don't mean winning just with test scores.
Jon Eckert:
No.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Test scores are important and we have been making gains, but to say that I'm not an excellent school, it's funny to me. Yeah, our report card's not excellent yet in South Carolina, and it will be at some point. But for me, if we don't as school leaders and school leadership teams and even districts start measuring other things, I think we're going to lose what we have. I think there's more to measure. I love to talk about our efficacy data. I love to talk about our student retention and our teacher retention rates. I love to talk about case studies and scenarios of kids and teachers and relationships and how things are different. I think there's so much more than the state-driven report card, and I think it's time to start talking about it because I don't think we're going to be around if we don't.
Jon Eckert:
Well, yeah, and your efficacy data is off the charts, and we know that's the single biggest factor John Hattie's team found for impacting those student learning outcomes, so totally agree. I definitely feel that challenge as well. I think that's real. But what's your greatest hope right now for education as you look at it through the lens of Horse Creek and your experience as South Carolina Teacher of the Year, all the different hats you've worn? What gives you the most hope?
Ann Marie Taylor:
The relationships that we have with our students and that they have with one another. I can think about our graduating class this year or our 400 high school students, and I think about their ability to work together and be creative and be innovative. There's great hope in that, that there's going to be a handful of people that really do expect voice and choice, and they're not going to stand for it otherwise. In my generation, teachers will stand for a whole lot that they shouldn't. We accept lack of autonomy, and we accept moving in a snail's pace sometimes and these kids won't. For that, amen. I feel like there could be some real innovation and change because they're not going to stand for it. They have boundaries set and good for them because I never did that.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Love that, that's a great place to wrap up. I love that we focus on relationships and kids, and there's a lot of great stuff going on. We just need to highlight that and get off our negativity bias.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Dr. Ann Marie Taylor, thank you for being with us today. Thanks for all you do.
Ann Marie Taylor:
Well, just lean in to the fact that you're a nerd fangirl situation here, and I'm so thankful for people that spend their time doing research to help us navigate what this looks like and to navigate it well, because your research and what you've done matters. I just am so thankful and I know everybody at Horse Creek is thankful as well.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, well, hey, thank you. It's great to highlight your work.