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Season 3, Episode 26 - Jeff Granger, Part 2
114 Plays1 year ago
Jeff Granger is back! Transfer season is upon us and both him and Robert are looking to find new additions to the building. Listen in as they discuss interviews, questions, and then it moves into MAP data and micromanagement. Check out the latest podcast and enjoy insight into this time of year from their perspectives.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
you
Introduction of Jeff Granger, recurring guest
00:00:18
Speaker
Good afternoon and welcome back to another episode of Your Favorite Podcast, or at least my favorite podcast. Well, that might not be true because I love Mike Rowe's podcast. But the second favorite podcast, anyways.
Learning through mistakes and non-examples
00:00:31
Speaker
And the guest today is a man who has been here before, and he actually asked me to come on here a lot. So today is his day. Jeff Granger, how's it going?
00:00:42
Speaker
Hey, hey, it is another beautiful, bright, sunshiny day here in the neighborhood, as I like to say every morning on the announcements. It's great. I'm glad to be back with easily one of my favorite principal coworkers that I get a chance to talk to every day. You just say that because you like to be on the podcast. Yeah, well, hey, there's a different stream, imitating and emulating. You look it up, copyright laws.
00:01:10
Speaker
But see, my job, I tell Sean or people at school, my job is to show you what not to do. I've learned more over the years from non-examples than from examples.
Navigating gray areas in education
00:01:21
Speaker
That's the way it goes. You just learn and go.
00:01:26
Speaker
I'm like, I'll try that again. Or you see other people doing it, especially coming up the ranks as a teacher, a strategist, an AP, you look and just be like, okay, when I get, you always with the eyes forward, if and when I get my chance, here's something for the toolbox or something to not have or not do. Well, I mean, but then I think some people haven't had a meeting
00:01:53
Speaker
I was at a meeting the other day for HMH, learning all the good parts of that. And I sat at a table with a bunch of colleagues who I've known forever. And they were talking about following the rules or something. I'm like, you guys know that I'm sitting at this table, right? We're living in the gray area today. And they know me well enough to know, I mean it, gray area is the gray area. Required is not equal recommended.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I've sat in those HMH meetings and we got more coming up with them.
The role of teacher-student relationships
00:02:27
Speaker
And in the end, what I tell my staff is it's a tool to help you teach the standard. It has this great parts. It has this stuff that needs more to be desired. But in the end, we are to teach and assess to the rigor of the standard. But number one, love the kids.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, yeah, because it's relationships over everything. Absolutely. You have to have relationships before the kids are going. Do you want to learn from anybody that you don't like? No. No. So why would a bunch of kids? They're kids.
Creative classroom themes for engagement
00:03:09
Speaker
And you gotta make learning fun, you gotta make it engaging, and they can tell when we're just following the checklist, they can tell if you're gonna be creative, you have the fun days. One of the things I love about your school is like,
00:03:21
Speaker
like, you know, do room transformations, you just do themes. Like I was talking to you, I was talking to my two APs and then our lead team also about kind of rock your school day. Cause we just do it. You just dress up as a rock star. You, you go full on, it's connected with everything you're learning. It's a full on theme transformation day. And I don't think I can get the, the Willy Wonka. I can't come out. I'm not good.
00:03:48
Speaker
I'm not going to stand in an elevated position dressed as kiss or anything like that. But I think having those days where we just connect some fun themes to what we're learning, it gets the kids excited. They don't even realize that they're doing standards. They just want to be there and it keeps driving them to come more and more often. And it also makes the teachers happy. They get out of the Monday. You can get boring just reading from a manual.
00:04:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, but I think with Rock Your School Day, it's just blown up. And when we were the national model for Rock Your School Day, that really required us to ramp it up. But now it's expected. You can do it. We just played our strengths with Willy Wonka or when I was Elvis or Kiss on the Roof. You just got to find your theme and run with it.
Encouraging creativity in teaching
00:04:41
Speaker
See, I wasn't going to bring up the roof. That's why I said, elevated position. I knew where you were. Yeah, the roof, the ocean did not like that.
00:04:52
Speaker
But we got through it. So once again, a non-example. But then I saw a principal who was on the news because he was on the roof. And I was like, hey, I know you're not supposed to do that. But you could do it. You just got to find your
Recruiting innovative teachers
00:05:09
Speaker
theme. The thing I found was the first year we did Rock Your School at Smith in my last school,
00:05:14
Speaker
A lot of people didn't really buy into it until the kids showed up. And then the kids are like, whoa, this is amazing. And then they buy into it. I had to, for room transformations the first year, we had to basically force people to do room transformations. And what I said was, OK, pick the most difficult standard in ELA and the most difficult standard in math and do two transformations a year.
00:05:42
Speaker
And what they found was by doing them, the kids learned and then it wasn't the most difficult standard to teach. So now like at Thompson, I mean, I'll walk through any given week and someone's done a transformation without telling me. And it's just great. It's amazing. But you'll get to that point. You just got to, you just got like with rocker school, you guys dress up, but you got to take it to another level. And then people will be like, whoa, check this out.
00:06:08
Speaker
Well, on my version of dressing up, I just do like, you know, the grunge flannel. I mean, you can only dress as Nirvana so long, or any band from Seattle, Pearl Jam. I mean, you can only do that.
00:06:24
Speaker
I learned though, like, so I was, you have to listen to your people in the trenches. I used to be under the belief that rocker school meant it must be like rock and roll because you want to show your school rocks. And the people at Thompson pushed back and they're like, it just has to be an amazing experience for kids. It doesn't necessarily have to be rock and roll related. And that's why we went Willy Wonka this year, even though that has music to it. But some hallways have like
00:06:53
Speaker
Disney theme and some had, you know, like safari theme. In the end, your school rocks. It's awesome. And that's all you want to show with it. So.
00:07:02
Speaker
Oh, I think I can get them on board with that. But also, it's just the moment you have a core, if you've got a core group of teachers, I just buy into it. Most others over time, they'll follow suit. They'll get in there. Yeah, well, I mean, and you're kind of going to somewhere to talk about today, which is transfer season. So you're like me, I've been recruiting people since basically November. Actually, that's not true. Basically, since last year when I couldn't fit them in.
00:07:25
Speaker
and you know like we don't wait we're not going to wait like if there's someone that's interested that's great we're grabbing them we're going to interview them before the jobs come out i don't know how many people do that but you know like it goes back to where
Evaluating teacher candidates
00:07:40
Speaker
at Thompson at least, I know at Barbara you have expectations, you need to know what you're getting into. So I tell people like check out social media for Thompson, talk to people, find out because it's not normal. We say, you know, Tyrone Thompson isn't a school, it's an experience.
00:07:59
Speaker
And people don't you got to know what you're getting self into. Otherwise, you're going to be you're going to be miserable for a year till you can get out of there. Because it's a lot, you know, and you have you have things that you expect also like your RTI process or walk to read or whatever, you know, whatever you want to make clear to them. So I guess like when you look for people transferring in, what are you looking for personally? I'm looking for innovation.
00:08:27
Speaker
outside the box, risk takers. I want people that are willing to take a risk and not just, I hate to say it, I've said it, I think a lot of times today and then the last time I was on there, not just somebody that just wants to follow a checklist and just kind of
00:08:43
Speaker
go one thing after the other. My two favorite questions I love to ask, I ask them, and they say there's no right answer. But there is a right answer, in my opinion, to this question. I say, what are the two, what in your opinion, are the two most important aspects of a successful classroom? So Robert Hagecliffe, what do you believe are the two most important aspects of a successful classroom? Put me on the spot there, sir. I am.
00:09:11
Speaker
I think the two, well I think it's the biggest one is relationships. You have got to have relationships with kids. You have to get to know them. Now relationships just encompasses so many things because it starts there, I think. So my next thing would be engagement. Well, without relationships, it's hard to engage kids.
00:09:32
Speaker
So, okay, well, I'll say data. Well, without relationships, your data might suffer. So overarching for me is relationships, relationships over everything. So I said three right there. Yeah, I said three right there that I would, I would break out. But if you need someone that says, you know, someone says, well, I need, I need a progressive discipline plan. And I need, you know, I don't know.
00:09:59
Speaker
Whatever you want. I get classroom management and high expectations. I'll give you high expectations. At my school, because I'm a tier one, title one school, and you and I both said poverty is not a learning disability. It is not. Because your school is not title one. My expectations of what I want out of the kids should be the exact same as Tyrone Thompson. It should be the same. We need to expect the best.
00:10:26
Speaker
and but you wanna get the best out of your people, what do you have to have? Relationships. Relationships. Like that and number one, if they don't say relationships, I'm hesitant to pull the trigger. I agree or they just, so I'll give people grace a little bit depending on what school they used to work at or they're working at now. Yes.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, because if you're micromanaged to death and you can do so, I don't know if they listen to this, but we've hired a few people. I mean, whatever.
00:10:59
Speaker
and all they're looking for is a little bit of grace with the ability to have fun. You have schools out there, and I'm sorry, but I'm just gonna say it is what it is. If you want every classroom to be on the same page in HMH every day and follow the script every day, I'm going to steal your best teachers. I'm just telling you that right now, or Jeff is, because they want some grace. They want to be able to add some flair to it.
00:11:27
Speaker
And you, if you are this person or these people, if you're micromanaging it to that degree, there's other people in CCSD that aren't, and you're going to lose your people. Yeah.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't take a relationship really to have a kid follow a script every day. No, it doesn't. But it does. It does take a relationship for them to want to give you their best for them to really want to show what they know and to take pride to for them. It takes a relationship for the kid to come in smiling every day to want to rush up and give you that fist bump, the high five, you know, give the little side hug, whatever it might be.
00:12:08
Speaker
you, you have to have to have to take an interest in their lives. And, but that's, I do find from some of the, um, we, we make our money off of other people's misery. I think that's something you've said. Uh, and you can just come in because hiring people who are not happy.
Building relationships within school community
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I'll ask every, we all ask it, Hey, we pick a standard and walk us through a grade level. If we were to come in and observe your lesson from start to finish, what would we see? And you can tell right away if they're a,
00:12:38
Speaker
checklist, I'm following a program person, or if there's somebody that can just adapt on the fly, as the buzzwords like to say, use those formative checks throughout your lesson to drive your instruction to see what the kids need. Oh, you can't do that when you're following a program with Fidelity.
00:12:57
Speaker
Do you have, so again, I think, I will bet you're more formal than I am. I'm just not formal with a lot of things, unless I have to be. But like for interviews for me, do you have your grade level sit in there with them? Cause I do. I mean, my philosophy is I can supervise anybody. You're the one that's got to work with them all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I do as much usually, not always, not always, you know, there's times when I'm just going to make a decision, but, um,
00:13:25
Speaker
So anyways, I don't know if you want to talk about, you know, like if someone's applying a barber, what they can expect. Okay, so well, the moment you put your name in there, I click on and I see I hopefully you added a resume. I just think that's good professional courtesy is you add it, you attach a resume onto there. If you don't, okay, I've kind of gotten past that a little bit.
00:13:47
Speaker
a little old school in that matter. I'm going to see your work history. It is a giant red flag. If you put no, do not contact my current supervisor. I don't understand why people do this, Robert. I don't. You're like, I'm still going to call them. Like you can't tell me I'm not allowed. Like what? So yeah, no, like that just tells me either. But at the same point, it doesn't disqualify them.
00:14:15
Speaker
It lets me know there's probably a relationship issue there with that supervisor. So, and then I see what school they're at and that might kind of give me an indicator as to, okay, why, as to why they don't want that person to know. Because unfortunately, there's some people out there that take it personally when people want to leave. And I don't agree with it. I think we support our teachers if they need to move. See, I'm a little different on that. It depends on why you want to leave.
00:14:43
Speaker
If you, so like at Thompson, it's closest to right, so I'll use right as an example. If a teacher leaves me to go to right, that is on me because that mile is not significant enough to make a difference in your world probably. Now, if you're leaving because you live 30 miles away,
00:15:05
Speaker
that that's understandable so i don't take that one personally but if you if you leave to teach the same grade level at a school a mile away that one's on me in my opinion yeah yeah i would agree with that
00:15:18
Speaker
What I also do is I call the principal or AP or other people that I may know at the school for a reference. We also background social media. We look at your Facebook, your X. Is that what Twitter now is called? I don't do social media whatsoever. I have practically zero social media footprint. I don't do that. Even you will search or find someone to search.
00:15:46
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Leanna does that and
Humor and creativity in interviews
00:15:50
Speaker
Scott, they're both good at that searching social media, Snapchat. I'm looking for anything that are red flags that are gonna be some conflicts. Like if you, if we look you up on social media and you have all your photos and you have everything privacy set as to private friends only, that's a good thing for my book. That's good. I agree. Like you shouldn't, your world, your life should not be public.
00:16:17
Speaker
This is a, hey, this is no joke. One time I had a teacher apply and of course, you know, you're looking them up on social media. Cause I don't, I got enough drama. I don't need no more. There's legitimately pictures of her in a swimsuit standing on the I-15. Like, I don't need that. I just don't need it. Or, or, you know, you'll get them like in college, like doing shots off of people. You might want to think about that a little bit.
00:16:46
Speaker
I had one that was posted conspiracy theories, like really just weird conspiracy theories. And I'm like, no, I don't need that. But in a way, I'm kind of glad that they don't have it private, because if they had it private, you'd never know those things. And then you might get like, hey, especially in today's world. Hey, have you found that in today's world,
00:17:10
Speaker
In today's world, there's no applicants or limited applicants. So do you feel like your standards have dropped? I feel they are dropping. Yeah, because we just we need availability. Like usually if I'd get a reference from a principal would be like, oh, they're good. They're not great. But they're good. They're worth an interview. I'm like,
00:17:34
Speaker
Guess this is what I got. But I can't stand mediocrity. And unfortunately, with having so many vacancies, so few applicants, especially from outside, or coming in brand new teachers from CSN, UNLV, wherever it may be, we kind of have to be OK with good enough, and hopefully we can train you up. So that's good. Yeah, I agree. I think I have gotten to where
00:18:04
Speaker
Um, I'm, I think this is just maturation. I feel like with the people that we have there, I need, I'm looking for a good human and I can work on the other parts. So I think, you know, to catch one too, I can hire teachers who are great teachers, but bad humans
Authenticity in the informal interview process
00:18:21
Speaker
all day long. Yeah. But nobody wants to work with those people. So those of you listening, be a good human. I think that's, that's very important, but well, yeah, of course.
00:18:32
Speaker
I don't, again, for me, when people come in, I just try to have like a normal discussion with people. I don't like the whole formal like piece of paper. I used to do that stuff. But now I just need to know if you'll laugh at my jokes. And if you can like, just have a conversation with me. Yeah, my teachers, my teachers have given me a hard time on some of the humor that I tried to do. Like we interviewed somebody, we interviewed a teacher, we ended up hiring her for a third grade position that we're going to have open that's going to be posting here soon.
00:19:02
Speaker
So it's already hired, already done. And she, you know, brought, but I just asked the question, I said, hey, if the staff's having a potluck for the Super Bowl, which we were coming up, the Super Bowl, what are you bringing? And she answered it. I got that because she said she loves to cook. She does all this other stuff. But okay, what are you bringing? And also we kind of gauge their sense of humor. Like there, we like, like I have, I have a,
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't know, kind of a weird sense of humor, I guess, what it is, but I'm very sarcastic. Like I have a picture in my office that says leadership. Leadership is all about lifting people up, never putting them down. And it's Darth Vader lifting the guy up, choking him. So I think that's hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.
00:19:49
Speaker
Someone's offended by that someone. Oh, absolutely. I'm sure someone wants to. Yeah, he wants to choke his employees. Yeah, I'll hang in a spot when I'll be when we have our camera on for the trainings and someone will be able to see that in the back Darth Vader. Choking. Yeah, I guess I in my office says this says the deadline for complaints was yesterday. Yeah, right. So kind of kind of lost where you're at. But you go. Yeah. And I
00:20:18
Speaker
I do have questions written down because I have to write stuff down so I can recall it later.
Self-promotion in teacher interviews
00:20:25
Speaker
Okay. I can't like remember stuff. I gotta, I gotta write stuff down. So you'll see, we'll have all that stuff. I also want the teachers to take notes and kind of see, especially we got multiple candidates, but, um, I go, I have a script, but I go off of it many times and I try as much, I try as I might to write down the questions so I can, if I'm interviewing multiple, I can give them the same questions.
00:20:48
Speaker
I'm not good at that. But I also end with just like I ended the interview today for a first grade position we have. I said I had, you know, just today I had six people put their name in for the position. Why you? Like why you? Like sell me you. And you can tell if somebody gives the cookie cutter answer somebody's passionate about it.
00:21:14
Speaker
So that's why I love that. It's also something that teachers for the most part, they're not used to talking about themselves. They're not used to, that was the biggest change I had to make when I was interviewing for APs and also principals. Like you have to really promote yourself. This is me. This is why me, because for principal, like back in the APs, back in the day, you'd have a hundred and so applicants for one job. Not so much any more. No, not even close.
00:21:42
Speaker
But man, they probably picked through the scrap heat pretty good too.
Importance of team dynamics in hiring
00:21:47
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Back in the day, man, there were, I remember going for the Dean of Woodbury, there were over a hundred people that applied. And I got it. And the only reason I got is because I had a successful interview, but didn't get it at the school previous. I was the number two. Okay. Yeah. So like I have, uh, like we hired a fifth grade teacher last week. I mean, it hasn't flown yet, but hey, yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
Again, don't wait, people. Don't wait. Grab them when they're good, man. But anyway, I have to have her, I had to have her sit down with the fifth grade team because teams are different depending on grade level sometimes and the way you've built them.
00:22:29
Speaker
And the fifth grade team at Thompson, they are great. They worked their butts off, but they are loud and they have fun and they are crazy. If that's not your vibe, that's not your, that's not your group. So, you know, you have to, I think like they need to sit down with the people they're going to work with to see, holy cow, like these people are, these people are unique.
Commitment to school mission versus interest
00:22:52
Speaker
Or, you know, like, can I handle this group? And I think that's important. Like you never know.
00:22:58
Speaker
what you're walking into. So you get people that apply for Thompson or whatever, and they think, oh, I want to go teach fifth grade Thompson. Well, you need to sit down with the fifth grade group because they work hard, but they play hard. And if that's not your vibe, man, this is not the place for you.
00:23:16
Speaker
So again, I do this thing on presentations where, you know, are you interested? This could be a good question somehow, I have to frame it, but there's a difference between being committed and being interested. Thompson's interesting on social media. Ooh, that's cool. Look at what they do. You know, you're interested.
00:23:37
Speaker
But are you committed? Because there's a big difference between those two. So a question might be like, OK, are you committed to all of this? I used to send a video of Ron Clark talking about runners, walkers, joggers, and riders. And then I would ask him in an interview, and I'd say, tell me how you're a runner. Man, if they haven't watched the video, they're toast. Yeah, they're toast. You might have to take that one.
00:24:07
Speaker
Might have to take that one. Dude, you should. I mean, it's, it's so, uh, it's, it's so easy because he's just talking about people, runners, like they'll do anything for your, you know, for your school. And then you almost have to like take things off their plate and then they put more on. And then you got the joggers who are doing like really, really good. But then you got the walkers and the riders and the riders are the ones who are just the dead weight.
Utilizing MAP scores in hiring decisions
00:24:30
Speaker
And so then you ask them, okay, well, how are you a rider?
00:24:34
Speaker
Oh, that's good. That's just their reflection. Like, look, we're not all perfect. I'm sure we have our stuff in terms of what we like our schools or district initiatives where we run and their stuff. I'm sure we just ride. I have I've adapted Ron's message and I say we're all sprinters. You and I sprint and data.
00:24:59
Speaker
I, you know, and other things I personally sprint in like innovation, like I want I don't want cookie cutter, no status quo. But I ride on paperwork, man, I, I am anti paperwork, anti videos. And so I'll just ride the bus on that stuff. So we're sprinters, I sprint my area. Yeah, I'm with you on the on the paperwork. And if I have to, I kick the can down the road as long as I can.
00:25:27
Speaker
and then I just have to take a day and just, I think I told you this, I'd block out my calendar. I think Gershon saw it one time, my calendar just said BS paperwork on it. It's like, what are you doing here, Jeff? I said, all the stuff that you required me to do. Hey, shout out to Gershon. We know he loves you. Yeah, we love you, buddy. Love you, man. But yeah, hey, if you can do anything about that paperwork, that'd be great. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great.
00:25:55
Speaker
Do you, uh, do you, so I asked for map, do you ask for map scores from applicants? Uh, no, but I, I found that they do it. Like I'll ask the, when I do a reference, I'll ask the principals. Okay. See, I just ask, uh, I'll email people and I'll say, I need a copy of your last eval and I need your quadrant report for the winter map.
00:26:20
Speaker
And they'll send it real quickly. I'll know if I'm interested or if I was committed to. Yeah. And they got to know too, like if I'm looking at math, a lot of people don't
Ensuring consistency in standards and assessments
00:26:30
Speaker
like it. I think the district's done a good job of actually making it relevant. I'll give them credit for that. But a lot of people don't like it, especially kindergarten. You get kindergarten teachers who want to say, oh, they can't use the computer. Well, neither can all the other kindergartners in the district taking it either. So.
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah. And that, and you're only worried about it at the fall at the benchmark one, which is a benchmark. You give it to them. You say, do your best where you score your score. Okay. It's where do you go from there? How do we move? Why don't we move the needle? Uh, but it's the best, uh, assessment we have to judge your long growth, consistent growth for teachers, for kids, for schools. It's the best we got.
00:27:16
Speaker
And it's a great way to have critical conversations with teachers that are, you know, because one of the things we say, like, at Barber, you know, we don't expect not every classroom is going to look the same, but, you know, what should be the same is all of our graded assessments should be the same.
00:27:38
Speaker
You know, we need to be in the same ballpark with in terms of our standards and stuff like that. You got to be within a few days. We understand absences or whatever. But a B in one classroom should be a B in the same classroom. We have to have consistency of assessments and expectations. So when you get the quadrant report and you see one teacher is getting all those kinds of growth and others that.
00:28:03
Speaker
It can give some good feedback and reflective questions within your teams. I'm not a fan of posting. I think that kills morale to post the teacher's data in a public place for other teachers to see. Those are conversations you have with your grade level teams, with the people involved in the classroom, and that helps you develop relationships.
Maintaining growth while avoiding complacency
00:28:29
Speaker
I used to have it to where, again,
00:28:32
Speaker
I think leadership, you have to you have to change the times and grow and reflect. I used to have it to where the grade levels could see each other's data. And then because we have we have an Excel sheet where everybody has to put this stuff in. And then this year, I basically carry it down to where it's just yours. And if you want to show your colleagues, that's great. But it is deflating when so on the map, I have this thing where I can see
00:29:02
Speaker
If you are if the country is catching you or if you are catching the country or beating the country by more so I can figure that out. And it's deflating when your colleagues are blowing it away and you are basically losing or falling behind the country in terms of growth.
00:29:20
Speaker
So if you want to share that, I've changed it to where if you want to share that, that's on you. But I think that's a huge, I think that's one of the best things about map is I can tell is the country and your colleagues doing better than you or are you doing better than the country and your colleagues? Yeah. Because as I always say, second sucks and it's the first loser. So do you want to be second or do you want to, you know, do you want to shoot for the top? I don't, you know, if you ain't first, you're last.
00:29:48
Speaker
I chapped my fourth grade reading of just my fourth grade team. I challenged them because last year they were at ELA. They were top five in both fall to spring last year. I said, yeah, we want to grow. Well, fourth grade reading fall to spring was number one in the district.
00:30:06
Speaker
and for growth and achievement, so I can't really go to him and say, hey, get better. You can't really beat first place. So let's keep going. I'm hands out. You guys are rocking to let's go. Same with my math. I'm so proud of my school. And it's not just fourth grade. It's K-5, man.
00:30:26
Speaker
are we knocked out of park number, we six overall and combined ELA and math for elementary schools and CCSD. They're the best. And I got a dedicated group of people that just embraced the idea of
00:30:42
Speaker
Growth, the number one thing, relationships and growth. Yeah. Get it. It's not. It's not rocket science, guys. No, man, it's not. But so now, like I was just thinking when you said that, like your school is doing great. Anyway, you know, you know it and you you should you should shout it out. You know, you're not I mean, your title one school, you got some challenges like all of us.
Resources versus curriculum debate
00:31:10
Speaker
Here's my question.
00:31:14
Speaker
Should a school that has excellent growth be micromanaged? Okay. Well, I mean, the short answer is no, but you should monitor against complacency.
00:31:33
Speaker
So I've told my staff, this complacency is one of my biggest fears. Like we're growing, we're moving in the right direction, but we can't just sit and stop and go, Hey, we got it all figured out. Let's just keep doing what we're doing and we'll be fine. Um, I think what makes a school gap consistent growth is a shared sense of urgency. Like every year the kids are new, especially a school like mine or high transiency or anything like that.
00:32:03
Speaker
every school year is new. So those kids that did well on the map or pass the S back, we don't know what percentage of them we're actually going to get back. So we can't just say, well, we got the same kids and we're moving forward. You have to have that drive, that sense of urgency that wherever they're at,
00:32:21
Speaker
we're going to go forward. If what worked last year doesn't necessarily work, we have to change, we have to adapt. So, micromanage, no, but not left alone. Even though I'm wanting to say, I'm one of many principals that said, leave me alone. I want to be like, no, I know that's not reasonable, but I think manage against, you have to monitor against complacency.
00:32:47
Speaker
And that, that I think falls on the building principle to make sure complacency doesn't fit in. Um, but the higher ups have to record, like I would love for our schools that are showing outstanding growth. And instead of like, um, Gosh, how can I say this the right way? That's the struggle sometimes. Um,
00:33:12
Speaker
Instead of coming in and saying, we need to do the A, B, and C because that's what everybody else is doing because we all have to get to growth and achievement. Okay. Come in and say, Hey, you got this. What worked for you? Why do you feel this was successful? What were things you did with materials, things you did with instruction or student engagement that led to this?
00:33:41
Speaker
take that route and then how can we help some maybe the, maybe some schools that might need some new ideas versus do this? I don't know. This is where it gets back to is not everybody can lead a school like you do or I do or Huzick or Jen Black because we're all leaders in our own way. So if I was to say, well, Jeff,
00:34:10
Speaker
What do you do? You're going to go to your RTI, to your structure of what you do.
Teaching to standards and student engagement
00:34:18
Speaker
I'm going to say, well, I run it this way. So maybe by implementing programs, that's something that is a control, so to speak. It's something that levels the playing field. Not everybody has charisma or Riz, as they say these days.
00:34:40
Speaker
you know, or anything like that. But you know what, everybody does have the ability to manage a program that we see fit. So that could play into it as well. Yeah, and there's we've talked about this. There's nothing against programs. Absolutely nothing against against materials. There are resources. There are resources.
00:35:01
Speaker
And that, it drives me nuts when they say we have to follow the curriculum. Like here's the curriculum for you. No, the curriculum has been there. The curriculum is the standard and I will die on this hill. I will die on this mountain. The curriculum is the standard. The program is the material to teach, help you on your way through that. One of my struggles, I feel like we should, we should have started with engagement strategies first.
00:35:30
Speaker
Because I can give Ben Stein 98 resources. I cannot give him engagement strategies or personality. So I think that's a lot of the struggle. To be fair, I think CCSD is backing off a little bit with fidelity.
00:35:50
Speaker
they're now calling it, you know, use it with integrity or at least that's what it was in mind. Yeah. They're using it with integrity, but much like the, much like, uh, from the princess bride, I'm not sure the word inconceivable. I'm not sure you really know what that means. Well, but it goes back to, again, I don't, so the district would say, and rightfully so, which you just pointed out, we have so much transiency.
00:36:16
Speaker
that we need consistency amongst fourth grade at Thompson or fourth grade at Barber? Yep. Okay. Well, if a student knows how to simplify fractions, then there's consistency there. Yes, agreed. Does it matter how the kid learned to simplify fractions? No. So why do we
00:36:44
Speaker
Why do we care? That's my, that's my thing. I don't, uh, I think that's just a philosophical, it's a philosophical question, but it's also, it's like, these are big district problems. Like we're huge. Uh, it's not like, it's not like the tie grew up in a small town. There were two elementary schools. Yeah. So like two elementary schools, one, we had a junior
Open teaching positions and application encouragement
00:37:10
Speaker
high and a high school. That was it.
00:37:12
Speaker
I, my, my, my elementary school is larger than my high school. So it is, it is. So, all right. Well, going forward. All right. So what do you, what do you have open? Just in case any teachers are listening, what do you have out there in relationships?
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, come to Bart. Look, trust me, you'll love it. It'll be a great time. You'll work hard. You'll work hard. I can't, but it's our number one thing as kids and relationships with the kids and our families. And I can tell you, you got support with myself, Aliana and Scott for what do you need and how can we help? That's our number one thing. We don't leave people high in drive. We got a tough parent or a tough kid.
00:38:07
Speaker
We don't do that. But we got first grade opening. We're going to have a second grade opening coming up, a third grade opening coming up, and we currently have a fifth grade opening as well as possible for an intermediate SLD. I got that. Possibly intermediate autism, depending on there, there's some, you know, I got, you know, I got a teacher that might be moving across the country. Those things, life happens. Life comes at you.
00:38:35
Speaker
You got to do what you got to do. But those are positions. Email me, send me your resume, whatever it might be. That's the first thing I do when I get on and if HCM is down and I can't see who's logged in at six o'clock in the morning, I start losing my mind. Much like I did this morning. I think I got my text at like 6.30.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah. I can't get on ACM. I will try a different computer. No, no. I called the help desk. I tried Microsoft Edge. I tried Firefox. It wasn't going. Then all of a sudden it just worked. I'm like, okay. There we go. I was just destined to wait till 7.15, which I've been at work for an hour. Like, come on. Sometimes patience is virtue. Oh, patience. Patience is tough. It's tough.
Reflection and future podcast plans
00:39:33
Speaker
I don't want to wait. I agree. All right. Well, as always, appreciate you being on here. It took up an hour of your time. It's dinner time. You know, one of these days you're going to get me, you're going to be able, we're going to have enough time to ask the question that I got mad that you asked it to Leanna. And I was like, man, I wanted you to ask me that question about what's one thing you would change in education, but we'd be here for another hour at least. Okay. So yeah.
00:40:01
Speaker
We'd be here for another hour. You know what? Let's, let's put this on the books at the end of the year, man. All right. We'll just do a, we'll do a, we'll basically do a reflection and we'll talk about what we're changing at our schools and what we would change in education. And, uh, we'll make that happen. That'll be, that'll be a good one to end, uh, end the year on, because I think, I think we could definitely.
00:40:30
Speaker
Talk a lot about that. We could, we could. Cool, man. Well, hey, as you know, sir, I think you even have a copy of the book. Hey, by the way, have you finished building dynamic teamwork
Conclusion with humor and commitment discussion
00:40:45
Speaker
yet? I'm on principle 11.
00:40:49
Speaker
You know, I read a ton and it was good there and then, you know, work. I'm on principle 11, but I already know our next conversation, principles one and two are going to be a main kind of little change, especially committees. You and I have a similar thing on committees. I'm trying to think of a way to get rid of them, but do them the right way.
00:41:07
Speaker
Oh yeah. We have similar perspectives. Awesome. Well, hey, that could be one of the things we can change is the committees. Because I think I say in the book, or at least I say it is all about perspective. I said, some of the least committed people are on committees. Yeah. Well, I have to sign up for a committee and another committee. And then I got to have an A committee and a B committee. I got to be on SGF, but I really don't care about that. But you know what, I got to jump through that hoop. But
00:41:36
Speaker
I hate committees. I just hate them. People are not committed to committees. I'm on the garden committee, but I don't know anything about planting or growing anything. Or you're just going to have a garden. No, yeah, yeah. All right, well, appreciate the feedback as always, and I'm sure that
00:42:01
Speaker
that our conversation in May will be robust with all kinds of things that don't make sense. But as you know, no matter where you stand on the issues, in the end, it's all about perspective. Thank you. Appreciate your time, man.