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Todd Bloomer says assessment is a flashlight, not a hammer.
71 Plays30 days ago
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-bloomer-2bb167168/
Website: https://www.toddmbloomer.com/
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
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Transcript
Introduction & Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast where we empower and inspire ownership of learning. Sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Starr Saxton and Crystal Frommert.
00:00:14
Speaker
In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. The Learner-Centered Spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better podcast network.
00:00:40
Speaker
Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Todd Bloomer's Background
00:00:46
Speaker
We are so excited to have Todd Bloomer on the show today. He is a principal and formerly he was an AP, an athletic coach and a teacher. We asked him one sentence about his purpose and or passion. And he says, he's a family man that believes in the power of public education. He was born in New York and he is now living in San Antonio, Texas.
00:01:10
Speaker
We are so glad to have Todd on the show today. Thank you, ladies. Appreciate being here. It's quite the honor. Thank you. So I mean, as a native New Yorker, I'm very curious about your shift from New York to Texas. um I'm sure Crystal could talk about the opposite shift from Texas to New York. Before we get into our defining moment, can you can you share a little bit? How has that shift been? Yeah, it's it's it's nuts. And I'll tell you the story. ah At 22, I graduated from college and living in my parents' basement. New York had kind of been in a hiring freeze. They were kind of buying out teachers, and it just wasn't a good time to be in education, late 1990s, and had a cousin that lived in Rochester, and she gave me this pamphlet of job fairs all over the, basically, America. And like any great young man that's 22 years old, I applied for jobs in every city that had an NBA, an NFL, and a Major League Baseball team.
00:02:09
Speaker
And somehow I ended up in Houston, Texas. And I remember I interviewed over the telephone. They called me, uh, was, was dead asleep, woke up, did an interview, probably did terrible. Uh, they offered me a job. I accepted it. This is before zoom. So, and I couldn't look it up on a computer. I had no idea where it was. I went upstairs and told my parents, I said, Hey mom and dad, I got a job.
00:02:32
Speaker
And they're like, what? And I said, I got a job. And they're like, where? And I said, Houston. I'm like, Houston? And I said, yes, Texas. And I'm supposed to be there in two weeks. And two weeks later, my mom and I flew to Houston. I rented an apartment, saw my school for the first time, met the principal for the first time, figured out what I was going to be teaching, which is classic because I was teaching Texas history, which you know I had no idea about anything that occurred in Texas history besides the LMO. Went back to New York, packed up my car, drove to Houston, Texas. um Didn't know a soul, didn't know one person. Survived my first year somehow.
00:03:08
Speaker
And, you know, thought, I'll stay one more year. Met my wife, ended up staying in in Texas, getting married, having a family and staying there. So it's a journey that I tell kids and I tell students that I work with all the time. Like, this is such a big country. Go out and explore it.
00:03:22
Speaker
You can always come back home, which I always thought I did. I never ended up coming back home. I made San Antonio my home, Houston to San Antonio, but it was the best adventure I ever went on because I had to figure out you know how to survive, how to survive on my own, how to live in ah in ah in a city that I've never been to before.
00:03:39
Speaker
um Basically, it's hot and humid and in in Houston, Texas, you know, nine months out of the year. I don't tan well. You know, I was used to having six months a year of being cold, and then all of a sudden here I am in Texas. And now I'm a red-blooded Texan. I've been here longer, and I've been in New York. um I love the food. I love the culture. San Antonio is a beautiful city. We've been here for 25 years. ah My mom and dad have now relocated from New York. They're snowbirds. They live down the street from me.
00:04:06
Speaker
just like everybody loves Raymond. They're basically down the street from me. ah My brother lives just north of of San Antonio. We've all kind of relocated here. And so it's been great. I love it. Today it was 82 degrees in San Antonio. And so, you know, it's November 19th and it's 82 degrees. It's like an upstate New York summer is what we're experiencing right now. So it's just awesome. It's been a great, no regrets, happier in heck, you know, glad I'm here.
00:04:33
Speaker
That's amazing. And I think that there's so much in that story and how you've chosen like how you just chose to pick up and go. And i it clearly shaped the rest of your entire life in terms of you know your personal life, your work life. um And I guess since you never really worked in New York um as an educator, you couldn't really compare those two experiences. But what I- I always thought I'd come back
Learner-Centered Education Shift
00:04:59
Speaker
home. you know I always thought I'd come back home. and then Now this is home, so it's been great. And it also proved to me at an early age that anything that I wanted to anything that i wanted to accomplish, I could. like There was nothing that would stop me if I put my mind to it. So I thought that was um a neat little personal type of, I can do this type of moment.
00:05:18
Speaker
It's so true. like There's nothing like a move to force you to get outside your comfort zone because even to just get comfortable in the neighborhood, you need to go to places you've never been before. I i moved in the last year and I know Crystal's moved recently too.
00:05:35
Speaker
And um I live in Florida now, so it was also 80-something degrees. It's pretty much sunny and warm every single day. Every day. Yeah, every day. Our cold fronts are in the 60s. Yeah. You can't beat that, right?
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, I still have family in New York, so there's definitely a little homesickness for my son and my grandmother. My parents live in Arizona, so they also have hot weather all the time. So as we kind of shift away, I feel like there's going to be a through line coming through this whole conversation here about those taking risks.
Implementing 'Bell to Bell, No Cell' Policy
00:06:15
Speaker
um in As a principal in Texas, when you think about learner-centered spaces, as we like shift back into the conversation that we always start with here, what does that look like, feel like, sound like to you? you know and And I'll give you, when I was in school, you know I don't think anyone would have conceiv cared what Todd Bloomer thought about as a student, what a learner-centered environment would look like. And it's great to see that now we've shifted to the point where student voice is an integral part in not only lesson planning, but the designing of ah schools, the designing of a presentation of lessons. ah you know We now have flexible ah furniture. We now have um places that kids can ah go in libraries that are now looking like coffee shops.
00:07:02
Speaker
for what you have. And so so first thing I would say for you know a student centered is really the environment. And the environment needs to be one that is different from the 1950s of all rows and students just sitting in rows and getting information from students. And so I think environment is key. And I think a lot of educators have really taken some great making their their environment warm, comforting, caring, making a place that you want to be there ah to be able to go and and and be a part of. um I also think that voices so important in how students want to learn information. And 30 years ago, the teacher wouldn't have cared how they learned it was going to be lecture and it was going to be this is my way or the highway. Now, I think there's so many choices and so many different students in our class that we do have to take into consideration the way that students learn.
00:07:52
Speaker
You know, we have students that like to work in groups. We have students that like to be left alone. We have students that still want to ah get information from from the teacher. We have students that want to create content to show mastery. We have students that want to turn in work, you know, the old fashioned way. So we have such a blend of it. And so I really think student centered starts with the the conditions that you create in the classroom.
00:08:11
Speaker
And you don't have to have a ah classroom that has all been, you know, comfy furniture and sofas and stuff like that to create a warm environment in the classroom. And that includes caring about people, getting to know people, building a home in the classroom to make sure students feel welcome and make sure students feel, um you know, heard and seen in the classroom. And then I do think voice comes into, kind and i've I've worked with some great teachers that have said, how do you want to demonstrate mastery on this topic?
00:08:40
Speaker
Ultimately, we're all held accountable to an AP exam, a state assessment, something along those lines. But how can we also show mastery besides lecture, lecture, lecture quiz on Friday, lecture, lecture, lecture test.
00:08:52
Speaker
on Friday. And one of the things that maybe we can touch on at some point in here is this year at our high school of about 2400 students, we have gone bell to bell, no cell. So we don't allow cell phones during the instructional time, which has now brought back some really learner centered and teacher centered approaches of things that I never would have imagined when we went to this this, you know, initiative this year. And so maybe we can touch on that later in the conversation or something, because I really think that helps create a home in the classroom, because now I'm not glued to my phone. Now I am um able to, you know, get to know the people in my classroom, get to know their names, and I'm able to to do more activities in class. where We're talking to kids, versus being glued to Instagram or Snapchat or something along those lines. So create the room,
00:09:40
Speaker
whether it be comfortable so furniture or just ah an environment. And then really asking kids, how do you want to learn? Like how do you want to demonstrate mastery here?
00:09:51
Speaker
Okay, Todd. So you're going to have your opportunity now to go to a little, a little more deeply into this um cell phone situation. Our listeners are probably going to be as interested as we are. How did the decision get made? What, what does it actually look like? How did your staff respond? The kids, the parents tell us everything. Let's go. So this summer, um, probably like everybody, there was a ah wave of,
00:10:17
Speaker
I'll say Facebook articles for lack of better things of of schools that went to completely banning cell phones. Like a lot of state legislators are now looking at passing laws to ban cell phones in the classroom. And I'm firmly against that. I'm going to add that I am not in favor of a one size fits all approach to how we deal with cell phones in a classroom.
00:10:36
Speaker
And so I don't need this Austin, Texas, the legislators to tell me how to handle cell phones because we've worked on a policy that's worked in our campus. And I have student buy-in, parent buy-in and teacher buy-in. And I've even reached out to some elected officials to say, before you pass the law, please take a look at my school. I got 2,400 kids in my school. So it's ah it's ah it's a common size school in San Antonio, but I know it's a ah larger size school for some places around for what we have. So this summer we capitalized on the wave of people that said, hey, we need to look into this.
00:11:05
Speaker
we had We had conversations with parents and our PTA. Hey, what do you think if we were to go this route? We had conversations with our teachers. Hey, what do you think? Every teacher was in favor of it until we started to say, okay, it's gotta be enforced. Like, okay, so what does that look like? And then I started to send emails in July to my student body. Remember I'm at a high school, so we communicate a lot through email with with students. I send them email every Friday to my kids at 5.30.
00:11:31
Speaker
thinking what's on the principal's mind and getting across to them. So my kids are very comfortable in reading emails coming from me. And we solicited feedback. And from that, we decided that, you you know, before school, when you're waiting, you can be on your phone. But when you walk into first period class, the phone gets put up. It can be put in your backpack. It can be put in your pocket. If you can't control that, we can collect it and put it in a little teacher pocket to be held on during the period. When the bell rings and you go to second period,
00:11:59
Speaker
You can check your cell phone as you're walking from first period to second period, but when you walk into second period, same thing goes, bell to bell, no cell. You can use your cell phone at lunch, 45 minutes at lunch, you can check the text, you can check Snapchat, you can talk to mom or dad, you can do whatever you need to do on your phone, but then when you go to your next period of class, you got to put it away. So what we really listened to was a desire from teachers that
Impact of Cell Phone Policy
00:12:24
Speaker
cell phones were preventing the learning from incurring in class. And we all know if you walk into a classroom, you know kids got headphones on, kids will listen to music, kids are playing games, kids are, they're not paying attention. I listened to parents who said, yes, so I realize the importance of that, but I also, there are times where I need to communicate with my kid, so I don't want the school to pick the phone up and lock it up at eight o'clock and get it back at 4.30, which I was never in favor of. So, and then they also were like, you know what if something bad happens on the campus
00:12:52
Speaker
And I need to communicate with my kid. How are they going to be able to communicate with me? So we listened to that. We also listened to kids who kids said, you're right. Cell phones are a problem for our learning. We will support this if every teacher does the same thing. If every teacher enforces it, the kid said, if, you know, star, if you're enforcing it, but crystals not, then that, that week we're not going to, we're not buying in. And really without the kids buying the pro I wouldn't have been able to do it.
00:13:21
Speaker
And so, and so what we what we looked at was here's in this is how it became more learner centered. Okay, so this is what we what we found was without a cell phone, like the teachers now provided more in depth, more discussion, more information based on student working in groups, and students to be able to kind of work with each other, because teachers in my belief, realize that, hey, the last five or seven minutes of class, class is over, you can get on your cell phone, just sit there quietly on the bell rings, you can leave. So by going bell to bell, no cell, the classroom became more about we're at school to learn. And the classroom really became a learning activity, where teachers now had to say, okay, when it's over, let's go extension, let's dive a little bit deeper into this topic, or you know what, we didn't do so well.
00:14:09
Speaker
with what was going on, let me kind of explain a little bit more to what you have. And the feedback that I got from the students ah is is that they are asking, or they're telling me, I know more students in the classroom now than I did since elementary school. So now I look around and I know Star, I know Crystal and I know Todd.
00:14:27
Speaker
because I'm not on my phone. And I thought that was a wild, wild, wild deal. So one of the things that we found early on was teachers say, OK, well, what if we want to use Google Classroom or what if we want to be able to use our phones for instructional purposes? And we said, no, bellde bell to bell, no cell. We are almost a one to one campus.
00:14:48
Speaker
2,400 kids, almost a one-to-one campus, that there are Chromebooks that they can use in anything that we need. So in anything that we have, I had an answer, go back to the Chromebooks. The answer was no. And so the first day of school, I remember waking up Sunday night before Monday morning thinking, and what if every kid doesn't follow? What if they all say, nah, I'm good, Bloomer. I'm not going to do this. But we have had amazing, amazing support.
00:15:12
Speaker
um I can count on one hand the number of kids who have said I'm not going to comply and I can count on one finger the number of kids that we've had to give discipline to because of that. Now that doesn't mean teachers aren't having to remind kids when they come into class put your phones away and kind of go from there.
00:15:28
Speaker
They're not, but when we, when we, when we went bell to bell, no cell, we realized that teachers now had opportunities. The kids were looking at the teacher and the teacher now had opportunities to go in depth and do those more interesting things that they've always wanted to do, but might not have had time. And so that's where it became really learner centered. You'd go in there and there's an extension activity. or remediation activity that's going on. And you go into a classroom and 30 kids in a classroom and there's no cell phones out. It's it's beautiful. And so the bell to bell no cell has become, we had to get input and we still got to monitor. So we go around every week and we do a quick check of what we're going into classrooms to make sure that we're having teachers that are complying because you know what you what you expect is what what you have to inspect. And so that's been really good.
00:16:13
Speaker
But it's been amazing. I'll give you a fact, 28% less failures from the first nine weeks marking period, this from one year to another. We've gone down by 50 days of ISS placement. And our attendance went up 0.5%. So we really feel that ah we really feel that this has created an atmosphere on our campus where you're here to learn.
00:16:36
Speaker
And it's an atmosphere of of, you know what? We're not going to be distracted by the cell phones. I mean, I could go on for 30 minutes about this. This is something that I didn't think we could do. We're the only high school in San Antonio that's really 100% in. It's not perfect, but boy, is it good. And it's it's good for teachers and it's good for kids.
Todd's Book & Leadership Insights
00:16:52
Speaker
It's great.
00:16:54
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that, Todd. and I also work at a high school where our students do lock their phones up and um that's new this year. We've had wonderful buy-in from families and from students um and and obviously teachers love it.
00:17:11
Speaker
as well. um We are a school in the Upper East Side, really close to Harlem, and um we're we're out sometimes. We go on field trips. We take the train. We we go places. We go to museums often. um So I would say that that's a balance that we have struck, that while you're in school on campus, that phone is in this little locked pouch.
00:17:35
Speaker
And when we're out on the streets, if you're taking the train, if you're at the museum, then you can have your phone out because the phone is really necessary obviously to ah get get around to know where places are and maybe take photos. um So I think we have a really nice balance of when the phone is appropriate and when it's not appropriate.
00:17:54
Speaker
for our um high school students. So thank you for sharing that. um And I know you have a book called Blueprint. And do you get into this and and other do you want to share other strategies you might also share in the book? Yeah, you know, the the book is is a neat story, as we talked about, you know, journeys of of, you know, vulnerability. I'll just say the blueprint is my story. It's a seven year book in the writings. It is my story of leading two different schools, a middle school and a high school.
00:18:23
Speaker
um It jumps into, you know, successes, everyone's first year, you're probably not the best at what you do. And I was, I failed miserably my first year. Luckily I got better my second year. I did to i kind of described that. And then I also go into, you know, stuff, structure systems. advice, a lot of practical solutions that people can ah implement right away into their classrooms. It's received some advanced praise because I am still a practitioner. And I think that is something that is sometimes lost when you read books the other you know in the education circle. Sometimes you know we write books, we get out of the profession, and then we talk about the profession and what we would do. And sometimes that comes off disingenuous to people.
00:19:04
Speaker
um you know, I haven't been a teacher since 07. And so I have to be very careful when I go into classrooms and say, this is what I would do as a teacher, because I haven't been a classroom teacher since 2007. And so as an author, when I'm talking about being a principal, I still can say, well, this is what I do every single day, because this is what I do every single day. So it's received some praise from people to say, hey, it's authentic, it's real. It talks about the stressors that we have of the good days, the bad days, the poor home life balance that I've had, the mistakes I made. And really, I'll end it by saying this, my like chapter six is my favorite chapter of the book. And you could just skip ahead to chapter six, because it's basically what I would do differently as a principal. And it all comes back to what I would do differently with my family, what I do differently with my own mental health, with my own physical health, my own spiritual health, what I would do differently. And I think everybody could relate to that.
00:19:56
Speaker
because we pour so much into our job. Sometimes we come home and don't have anything left to give to our family. And that's not fair. And so chapter six, if you just wanted to jump ahead, everybody in chapter six, you'd underline highlight. I mean, I'm i'm talking about every principle across the United States in chapter six, because I live that. and Luckily, I had a good, so I have a good spouse and great children that have put up with me and allowed me to be a principal. But I, there were times where I missed birthday parties and missed family engagements because I felt I needed to be at school for things that I probably didn't need to be at school about. So it's a great book, the blueprints available on Amazon. It's on my website. Um, you know, it is, it is something that I, um, you know, I'm very proud of and just like moving from Rochester, New York to Houston. Like I, I didn't think I could ever do this. Like I was going to Amazon self publish and then shout out to Darren Pepper, to you know, road to awesome. He came along and we became, you know, mentors and became my mentor and he's now my friend and he published my book and.
00:20:54
Speaker
It's just a truly humbling experience to see people. I'll share this, the coolest thing, and you know this out of high school. I'm walking down the hallway and I hear somebody yell, bloomer, bloomer. And I pop out and he it's a young man named Pierce. Yes, Pierce, how can I help you? Will you autograph my book?
00:21:09
Speaker
And here's a boy in 10th grade that bought my book with his own money. And I autographed the book for him. And right there, I was like, I don't need to sell any more books. I'd love to sell more books, but I don't need to sell any more books because this was one of the coolest moments of a student coming up to me and asking for an autograph of my book. And so I thought that was pretty cool.
Influential Mentors
00:21:27
Speaker
That is very cool. Yeah.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure any of my former students ever read, maybe they have, but i I don't think they're picking up books about grading. ah Maybe in a future career, right?
00:21:44
Speaker
Maybe. I do have a bunch of students who have become teachers, so that's really gratifying. Absolutely. um So to that end, Todd, you you did shout out um Darren Pepper already. Are there other folks you'd love to shout out that have helped you in your career on your journey that you'd like to make others aware of? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's there's a gazillion of them, and I'll leave a couple of them out, just not by Just you know there's too many of them. But I got three buddies that I got a group text with. um State of Texas has a really neat organization called Razor Hand Texas. And it's funded through a local grocery store owner. And he sends educators to Harvard each year. And I've been blessed to go twice. And you go for a week, you stay at Harvard, you get trained on the campus, all about leadership development. It's unreal.
00:22:30
Speaker
And really what's best is the the the cohort of people that you come off with and you continue to be with. So in 2015, I went to Harvard for the first time with three other principles that I became truly, truly great friends with. Lance Gropel, who is now in Tyler ISD, and Lance is now working in central office. ah Levi Moses, who's in the Waco area.
00:22:52
Speaker
of Texas working in central office and Dr. Bobby Martinez, who's outside of Houston doing kind of the same thing in the Elvin ISD. And those three guys are are my my go-to. um Every morning we talk, anytime I need a question, I reach out to them. Just, you know, great guys. ah Patrick Hinson up in Marble Falls, Texas, great guy. And then everybody here in San Antonio that that I reach out to the high school principals that I'm with. Really, you know, I mean, Nick Saban said it best, you know, sit with winners in the conversations dinner.
00:23:22
Speaker
ah conversations better. And so I've always tried to sit with people that have, you know, done my job at a high level and that I want to kind of emulate. And so all these people that I just kind of brought up now are people that I really look up to, that I value their opinion, that I want them to see me as a peer that they would reach out to. But those are really good guys. And then last, I shot at them out, but Darren peppered. I texted them the other day and I said, I think we got a streak going of saying hi on, you know, talking on text each day. So I'm just continuing the streak.
00:23:52
Speaker
You know, Darren, you know, he's in Nebraska. I'm in Texas. I've only met him one time this summer, but we talk every single day and he gives me good advice. It's just, you know, good people that are out there. So I'd say any of those people are really awesome people to follow. They're all on X and LinkedIn and just good people to know and pick their brain. And I could speak for him to say, if anybody had any questions about stuff, they would freely respond to that. Those are good people.
Cultural Experiences & Conclusion
00:24:20
Speaker
Well, I also have to second um Darren Pepper. What an amazing man. And um he's he's helped a lot of educators get their books out and sharing some really good knowledge and so many years of experience um that all of these educator authors have. And I think that so many books with Road to Awesome are worth reading. So I'm going to put another shout out for that one.
00:24:42
Speaker
one And I'm also back to the beginning, we're looping right back to the beginning of the episode. I have to say, you know, being a lifelong Texan and moving to New York, I just can't find good food like I could find down in Texas. So wait, what? No, no, no, you have not.
00:25:01
Speaker
but um ah I'm about to, at the time of recording, I'm about to um go back to Austin and my family has a long list of things from HEB that they want me to put but in the backpack. HEB Las Palapas, I mean, you name some of these places that are, you know, Texas institutes when it comes to food, but I will have to say,
00:25:25
Speaker
I would, I would die for a good slice of white pizza, uh, a slice of grandma's pizza, you know, some kind of pizzas, some good chicken wings. Uh, you know what I mean? Yes. I mean, that is that, but like I said, enchiladas, fajitas, uh, some good barbecue. I had some brisket and sausage today for lunch. Oh, you know,
00:25:46
Speaker
Good places, good stuff. Good places, good stuff. Well, we we definitely appreciate you being on the show and um I'm going to put all of your links so our followers can find you and find your book. um So they can find you on X, they can find you um on your website. So I'm gonna put all of those links in the show notes. And um thank you so much, Todd, for being on the show. And ah we really appreciate your time and on all of your expertise um and and strategies for for being a leader of a high school. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio dot.com. You can follow us on X at Mastery For All and LinkedIn in our Mastery Portfolio page. We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest in the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please fill out the survey found in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.