EVEN MORE practical tools and tips to connect with your staff, …

John Schembari's BACK for part TWO! John's got even MORE fantastic tools for you. ICYMI on our last episode- John has been in education leadership for nearly two decades. He's worked as an education management consultant with organizations like CUNY, Fordham University, Center for Educational Innovation, NJPSA, and SCCI... and lots more. In THIS episode, we talked coaching staff through meaningful relationship, the difference between leading a lack of skill vs. a lack of will, resource management techniques, and how to start this school year off with a BANG!

You can connect with John on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnaschembari

The Wallace Foundation's How Principals Affect Students and Schools A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research Wallace Foundation Report 2021

National School Reform Faculty Protocols https://nsrfharmony.org/protocols/

Paul Bambrick-Santoyo's book Leverage Leadership https://www.amazon.com/Leverage-Leadership-Practical-Building-Exceptional/dp/1118138600

Carnegie Foundation's Teacher Feedback resources https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/strategies-enhancing-impact-post-observation-feedback-teachers/

Kim Marshall's "The Marshall Memo" Resource Round Up https://marshallmemo.com/

Johanna David-Tramantano's podcast episode with John: https://www.podpage.com/literacy-landscapes-1/sn-1-ep-20-a-conversation-with-dr-john-schembari/

Johanna's website:

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0:05 Hey y'all welcome back to love, sweat and tears ingredients for transformative Canvas leadership. We are back with John shoebury. Again today oh my gosh, girl, I thought this would be a 20 minute little part two bonus add on because I didn't get to all the questions that I had. And it turned into a whole full length episode because we just got to talk. And we talked specifically like some resource management techniques and options. We talked like how to coach teachers that are having a lack of skill issue versus a lack of will issue and specifically how to have those conversations specifically, what questions to ask me and John's just got some great knowledge that comes from years of experience. And it's just good, I cannot wait. Let's let's dive in, y'all, let's do it. You're gonna like this one. And our last episode, we had been talking a lot about the Wallace Foundation findings about different things that we know that make principals successful and leave a big impact on their campuses, we were talking a lot about data management, and PLCs, and school culture and kind of the human team building culture side of things. Another thing that I have specifically heard from a couple of principles that they wish they had more training on was resource management. And so I'd really like to talk about some of that. Ask some questions about just how to learn that where you learned that is that sounds like a cool place to kind of dive in? 1:55 I'm totally fine with talking about resources, because really, ultimately, Beth, it comes down to what are your students need? And how are you vesting your people and making those decisions? So do you have school based budgeting, where your team, you know, presents you with, these are the things we need, and this is why we need it, you know, to make sure that what you're purchasing, whether that's curriculum or attack or whatever is aligned to the particular needs of your kids. So it all still goes back to data analysis, in terms of where are those academic needs that your kids have? And then how do you prioritize your resources towards that? So very quickly, if one if a school has a strategic plan in place? You know, a lot of times with those plans, we talk about goal setting, having SMART goals, figuring out who's going to do what part of what initiative around those two or three goals, when is that deliverable to, but what people can and should put on those strategic plans are also the resources that they're going to use to help meet that goal. 3:06 How did you go about doing that? Figuring out where you're going to get the resources for your goals? As I 3:13 was saying before that, you know, first you have to know what the need is, before you even go to what what resources am I going to purchase? What's the need, and that comes from looking at your student scholarship data. And then having your team of teachers such as in a PLC, analyzing that data. And then in working with school leadership to determine what are the two top the top two or three goals that we have this academic year. And if you don't want to even want to go set for a full year because things happen in between? How do you then maybe do short term strategic goal setting say every 90 days, but at the core, you need to know what it is you want your students to know and be able to do. And you also need to know if your students know it and can do it. And if they can't do it, and that is a priority goal. That's what first should direct where you look for resources. Right? So then the way you are the way I would figure out whether or not a resource was a good, good resource or not, once again, involving my people involving the teachers, right. Let's look at curriculum as an example. So curriculum is a resource if it's not being produced in house so there are many schools that really just need a good vetted, quality, college ready curriculum that they can plug and play, particularly if it's a school that has had some challenges. that area where students are not seeing the academic growth that we would like them to see that they need to have to be college ready. Right. So there are a lot of different curriculum companies out there or curriculum providers out there. How do we as leaders, convener educators, as a professional learning community? Do we give them some sort of rubric or checklist to evaluate the quality of different curricula that is out there? And then how do we pilot its use? So rather than going full hog, if you will, into All right, we're going to buy it, we're going to immediately unroll unveil it and rollouts everyone, you know, you might feel the pressure to do that. But if we think strategically, and we plan out, when we're going to select or purchase certain resources, the more we could roll that out effectively. So with curriculum, a lot of very good schools will have a code, a curriculum review and adoption cycle. So a department might be in year one. So let's say last year, the math department went fully in on a curriculum, right, so you're in the math, you're fully implementing that curriculum. So their review cycle, in a sense has ended. But now they have to evaluate its use as the year progresses, right. And then in about two years, no more than three, start thinking about if that curriculum is going to continue to meet their needs, or if they need to update it, right. So that's, let's say, where the math department is, let's say, so they're on like year five of the curriculum review cycle. Now let's talk about the department that's in year one. So let's say the English department is in year one. In year one teacher should be sourcing, different curricular options, not adopting it, you know, not even piloting it, but year one should be less source, and get some exemplars. Year two should be alright, now that we have these exemplars. Let's start looking at the one two, let's say to no more than three, that we want to pilot. And then you pilot that curriculum in certain of your classes. Year three could be adoption. And then maybe not your four or five, but like your four would be fully implemented, you know, full implementation and review. And different schools paths have different cycles for that. But if you think about resource, purchasing and development, as strategically, as we think about the goals that we have for our schools, that's going to, I believe, help leaders to not only purchase better resources, but to make sure that those resources, again, are aligned to student growth and achievement. So I hope that makes sense. 8:33 Yeah, especially I really like the concept of including the teachers in all of those decisions so heavily, because then you're making sure that it's meeting their needs, rather than just blindly choosing something and trying to get everyone on board with your decision. 8:50 Exactly. And that and you bring up a good point, a lot of times, teachers might purchase this or sign up for that, and they done it. But it hasn't been a consistent systemic purchase, or sign up across the school. And so you bring up the idea, is there an opportunity, even if it's not formalized, let's say a meeting once a week, or an opportunity once a week for educators to come together and share new edtech that they found, and how they're using it in a class. And so, you know, resource development should be built into those professional learning community processes that we already have. So if a school for example, that has a data informed PLC, where they're looking at data, again, to determine where their students are, where their students strengths are and where there are opportunities, and then if they're looking at those opportunity areas and figuring out all right, we're going to focus on this opportunity area. because not only is it a baseline skill to develop understanding on further standards as students get older and go into upper grades. But this is a standard that is assessed on state tests on federal tests, we should really be focusing on helping our students meet proficiency in this standard, right. All right now, how are we going to do that? What are the some of the implementation strategies we're going to be using? It's at that point that people should be considering educators should be considering the resources that go into that as well. So again, resource allocation, resource purchasing, development allocation, it still needs to be an embedded part of your strategic academic improvement process, and align to where that need is. I know, I keep going back to that. But that's crucial. 11:02 Let's talk a little bit about funding. You were at a charter school, is that correct? Or a magnet school? 11:09 I was in several different school environments. So I have worked with charters. I've also worked in traditional public school districts as well. 11:18 Just tell me how you personally navigated all of the different funding that you were that you had access to? What did you do to help you understand and navigate all that and then use each different source of funding or each different federal grant to the most that you could possibly get out of it? 11:40 Good question. And a complicated one, right. 11:45 Especially like you're in New York, we're in Texas, I recognize that, like, there's a good chance that what's applicable to you isn't applicable to everyone. But I'd love to hear just what you did and what worked for you. And that might spark some other ideas. 11:59 Sure. So I definitely had line item, budgets. So for example, what I mean by that is, you know, when I was a district curriculum director in a traditional district school, you know, we had title funding, right. And so that title funding was put into different line items. And as director of curriculum in charge of the curriculum department, obviously, much of the instructional budget, the teacher professional development budget, was housed in my office. And so there were priorities that our district had per its strategic plan, that I knew, even though that money was in that line item, I knew that money was really already encumbered, right, because of the initiatives that that I knew we had to fund. So I'll give you an example. At the time, New Jersey Department of Ed was requiring where it was working was requiring all school systems to have an empirically tested, research based teacher evaluation tool. So I knew a certain amount of that instructional line item budget would need was already spoken for. Because we needed to purchase that, right. So even if someone looks so if someone looked at just the numbers, you would say, Wow, you have a lot of money. Not necessarily so because again, there were those things that we strategically planned out for in advance, right? And right. And so, again, in monitoring my planning, I would sit back and go, Okay, we have this money next year, the following year, the third year, what are those priorities of things that are needed right now? What are those things that we're going to phase in and develop over time? Because just like, I'm suggesting that teachers and administrators, you know, tie whatever they're going to purchase to what they're doing in the PLC process. District Administrators also have to be thinking belonging and thinking the Align game, right. So it's not just for school leaders and teachers, but again, your curriculum directors and then beyond that, that I would do department based budgeting. So what that means is, when I was a principal, I asked each of my department heads to give me a list each year of desirable things they want. It didn't mean they were going to get it, but what they wanted and then depending on how much money there was They would get more or less of their dream list. Now, I would ask them, if we did have to cut some in some areas, I would ask them to be very strategic. Well, whether we had a cut or not, I would, I wanted them also to give me the rationale for why they wanted certain things, and how those things did align to our strategic plan. And, and so that's how I handled that on a school basis. As a director of curriculum, I would do something similar, but I would ask for the school budget from each of our school principals hoping that they were then in their buildings, doing department based budgeting, 15:46 what are some kind of maybe creative or interesting ways that you found to fund things that you didn't have a line item budget for things like maybe Teacher Appreciation, or maybe, you know, specific things for students or extra fun things that aren't, you know, mandated by the state, but you really wanted to provide for your campus? Do you have anything that, um, any specific grants that you've really went to, or things like that, that you really utilized as a campus leader? 16:20 Yeah. And I think there's a lot to unpack there, right, so. So I'm going to talk about some other experiences I've had. So I was also a founding principal of a magnet high school in Newark, New Jersey. And although this was a public school, and I did receive funding from the school district, particularly for salaries, because it was a new program, to your point, there, there was an opportunity to seek other funds for after school programming for clubs, because it was a new school, and we were just developing that school. The budget wasn't as robust as maybe it could have been. Now, I was very lucky, because this school was created as a magnet school in partnership with related public organizations. So we were aligned and supported by Rutgers University. We were supported by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American history, because the theme of the school was American history. So I was able to tap into a lot of the grants and funding they had to run programs in my school. So the reason I mentioned this is, if we start thinking to your point creatively about how we do school partnerships are key for that. Because, you know, we need to realize that, yes, we should be going out, finding our own grants, finding our own money sources. But if we partner, programmatically, with organizations, they as well have access to resources and funders that we might not right. So that's, that's the way I was able to do the extra curricular programming, the field trips that we were doing at this magnet school, because we were aligned with those other history based organizations. And then while I was there, Beth, I did also bring in the Newark Public Library, as well, as part of our partner organizations, and the Art Institute, which again, the Art Institute has had a lot of funding for school programs, able to tap into that. Now, you also mentioned grants. So that is definitely an area where schools could obtain additional sources of funding. So when I was with a private school network, that was Catholic base, but actually operated much more like a National Charter School, we received a lot of our funding from, say, the Walton Foundation, right to run our programs across all of our campuses across the United States. Just know that when you do have partners, whether their funding partners, programmatic partners, there is an accountability that comes with that, right? So you do need to be aware that you in addition to showing your families, how this is enriching a student's life, how they are growing in achieving, from having these resources, having these partnerships, you do need to also be accountable to those funders. So they continue to support your endeavors, right. So you really need to be Be open to using your school sites as professional learning communities in and of themselves, like as exemplars of how funding can really help build those community partnerships. So if you're going to reach out or seek out those grants, or those extra funds, be aware that organizations are going to want something back from you that they need something back from you. And you're going to need to be open to opening up your school, opening up your programs to outside validation and support. So it's not a grant the money and run situation, again, think strategically about the partnerships you want, and how they're going to support the work you're already doing. Because that funding comes with expectation, 20:56 right? Yeah, that's a good thing to keep in mind. When we were talking either in one of our, you know, calls outside of recording, or it might have been in our last recording, you mentioned, the different way that you approach teachers that have a lack of skill, versus a lack of will. And I really liked that because it was easy to remember. But I want to spend some time unpacking that specifically, as campus leaders, how we can address teachers that have a lack of skill and strengthen that skill. And then also how we can address teachers that have a lack of will. And then also how you kind of figure that out? Sometimes clearly, it's very obvious, but sometimes it might not be so can we spend some time unpacking that Skill versus Will thinking? 21:47 Definitely. So let's talk first about how to know what you're dealing with, whether it's skill, or will, leaders have to get into classrooms, they have to be observing instruction. I don't care if you have 15 reports to you have to figure out a way to get into classrooms. Now, when I say that, I don't mean you necessarily have to spend the full 45 minutes in the classroom. But figure out how in a typical day, you could do a hallway walk. A hallway walk is literally what that what I just said, where you're walking down the hallway, maybe five minutes, 10 minutes max, just listening into what you're hearing coming out of the classrooms. What do you see on the hallway walls, to students take pride in what's on the hallway walls, you can stop into a classroom, but in a hallway walk, I would be looking more at what's on the walls of the of the classroom, you know, really just get a get a very high level view of what's going on then. So that's the hallway walk. And all of this is from great experts out there like Paul van Burks in 2008, Kim Marsh, so highly recommend people go and look up their work. And then also to in addition to doing a hallway walk, are you going into a classroom to do a mini observation. So like a 15 minute observation. That's key. But we can't stop there. The other thing leaders have to do, they have to have ongoing systemic conversations with the people they're observing not only during the full 45 minute official formal evaluation process, but having an informal check in after you do your hallway walks after you do your mini observations. So you have an opportunity to share with that educator, what you saw that you thought went really well and where there's an opportunity, how you could share resources with that person end that get a commitment from that person, that in such and such amount of time, they're going to invite you back in to see that thing you're talking about. Right? So that's how I can tell if it's a will or a skill issue. So that's why having that conversation that informal conversation is so important. Because if they tell me, John, I'm a little busy this week, but I promise you I will implement that strategy in two weeks. Come back that great and then if I come back, and I see an attempt that successful, I see someone that has will and skill that then I can maybe partner with in getting other teachers on board who might not have the will but the skill. Let's say I go back into that classroom and the person In has tried the strategy, but it's still not effective. That tells me the person has the will, but not yet the skill. So I continue working with them on developing that strategy. If I go back and say two weeks, and nothing has changed, now I'm thinking there's a lack of will. But before I come to that conclusion, I still need to have those feedback conversations, to see if there's not something going on in the person's life. So not coming back in an accusatory way. But coming back to them and saying something like, Hey, you know, remember, I was going to come back in two weeks and take a look at such and such? I didn't really I didn't really see it. But you tell me was I did I come in at the wrong time? What, what walk me through that? Just just kind of walk me through that? And then if they say something like, Well, you know, there was this incident in my family. All right, I can understand that. I'll give you another shot. So when should I come back and see it the next time. If it's someone who's not really giving me a really good reason, then it's a conversation around, well, we really do need to do this, because this is going to help our students achieve a grow and achieve in such in such a way. So I am going to come back on this date, at this time, to see how that's going. So that way the person knows that I'm I'm very serious, in wanting to see this. And then if I come back, and it's not done again, then we need to have a different kind of conversation, right? Or maybe I come back again, and that life situation has been resolved. And they're doing it. So now that person has moved into the will camp. I would say in most schools where I work as a coach, and when I was a leader, I would say in any population. And I know this is just my anecdotal 20 25% of the people will just try anything you say? They're your eager beavers, right? They're going to, they're going to build that dam. If you tell them use this twig, they're going to use it right? So you just suggest something, oh, I love that idea. I'm going to run with it. I would say only about 25% of those people, I would say 25% of the people are going to do really much of anything you recommend unless they are compelled to do it by some external force or some I don't want to use the word punitive force but directive approach. Most folks Beth are in the middle that 50% In the middle, where it's a mix of both will and skill where maybe I as a teacher would be more willing to do this. If I wasn't as afraid or as concerned or not clear on what it is exactly I need to be doing because most most resistance comes from fear not willful insubordination, right? Then it's that 50% That I'm also showing research to, it's not coming from my head. But let's look at some of the research out there that shows how what we're talking about can lead to student growth and achievement that helps. And that is where for those 50% Where coaching helps, whether it's you're the coach is the instructional leader assigned in that school, or whether or not urine outside coach, right. That's where coaching helps coaching is really meant for those 50%. So at the end of the day, most leaders should be able to get about 75% of their people on board. Being positive, being helpful, sharing resources, making sure they're getting in and coaching folks, I can't come back to that point enough. Right. And then for that last 25%, like I was saying before, one might have to have more directive conversations around. This is what is expected. This is by when it is expected. Here are the resources to help you do that. But I'm definitely coming into evaluate this. And this will be part of your evaluation. 29:46 I have a couple of questions. One is a balance. How do you kind of have you mentioned you have another conversation with those teachers that are just resistant to change either? They've been in the game a long time and just are comfortable doing what they're doing. Or there's there's some fear or whatever the thing is, how do you have those conversations as a coach as a mentor? Like, what? What do you do in that in that situation? 30:14 Great question. Great question. You listen to see if you can figure out where the fear and the resistance is coming from. And you ask some specific questions. In your conversations with folks, you ask, what resonated here with what were taught for you? And what we're talking about here? What do you think is going to be easy to implement? And what do you think's going to be hard to implement? Why do you think such and such is going to be hard to implement? What fears do you have? What do you think could go wrong? In implementing this, right? So you need to both listen to see if you can pick up where the fear is? Because I agree, most times, a lack of engagement in terms of teachers adopting certain strategies is either fear, or you have not sold them on its efficacy in helping student growth. Yeah, so surfacing that fear. And then if if you are not the way they want to hear it, or see it, you know, like, let's say you have someone that's a little bit more independent, recommending resources that they can go to, to show why such a such is a good thing. I mentioned before Beth, figuring out who your eager beavers are, if those eager beavers are valued at the school, because you have schools where those very efficacious folks are the leaders. And then let's be honest, you have schools where the you know, the nonconforming are the leaders, right? So you have to know who the who has the voice, or who has the ear, I should say, of the other teachers. So if you're in a situation where those very efficacious teachers are highly valued, and respected, how do you have someone who were whom, for whom your coaching is not resonating, but maybe they really value and appreciate one of those eager beavers, right? How do you also develop your instructional lead team. So for example, I'm working in a school right now, where the principal does do and the APS do the formal observations and evaluations, but they have a lead team of instructional coaches who were doing the actual coaching work, which is great, because then the roles are very clearly defined and differentiated. And I can tell you, because these instructional coaches are respected and valued in this school, this school is like number two, or number three, in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City for their student growth and achievement. Now, I can't say that's all because of their coaching, and their coaching model. But I guarantee you, that's a factor. 33:24 That's fascinating. That's interesting. I'd like to talk a little bit about the fear about I loved the specific questions that you gave, like, those are so good. When you're getting those answers from your teachers, and we're starting to understand where the fear is, what do you do to address that? How do you deal with the fear? Or even maybe just the if it's not fear? The no risk that's involved in trying something new putting more energy and more effort into something new that you haven't done before? That you don't know what's gonna work for you and your kids? Like? How do you deal with with that once once you know where the fear is, where it's coming from? How do you kind of help your teachers through that? 34:19 I think there are many different strategies one can play. So I talked about instructional leaders going in and observing having feedback conversations. instructional leaders also need to make themselves vulnerable, and actually put their money where their mouth is. So can you as the leader model what it is you want folks to do? So if they actually see you coming into their classroom, and trying something alongside them, that could help with the fear because then they see you as being with them, and working through something with them, rather than them but just being told I have to do something. And honestly, when I've done that bet, sometimes it's worked like a charm. And sometimes it hasn't. And I'm like, oh, that didn't go the way I thought it was gonna go. So let's you and I talk about, I see what you're saying about blah, blah, blah, let's figure out our next goal with the passive this with this, right. So that's one way to deal with the fear, making yourself as the leader of vulnerable and leading and doing and providing a model for what you want others to do. So that's one way to do it. The other way to deal with the fear is to show them the great impact that can be had in teaching and learning when it works well. So are you having teachers visit other classrooms, other schools that are doing whatever you're asking them to do? If are they doing it really, really well. So I'll give a very quick example, I worked in one school where they were really interested in getting students involved in reclamation and public speaking. So the assistant principals took several of the department heads to another school in the city, where that is their thing. And, and I was able to be a part of that visit. And just seeing how excited the department heads got, looking at how well declination was being done in this other school, and how vested students were in the learning at that school. It they caught the disease, and it's a good disease to catch, right. So that kids deal with that can help one deal with the fear, to be able to see if we can get over these hurdles, just what teaching and learning can and convict, right. So, you know, taking a cue from Ted Ditcher. Smith and what schools convey, right? So seeing models of best practice, then that helps with fear, and then doing things in small chunks, having easy wins, right? So if the goal is more student engagement in the classroom, I'm not going to start off with that teacher by suggesting student led conferencing and portfolio assessment. I'm not going to start there, because that's going to blow their mind. I'm going to start with how you cold call students. So instead of just having students volunteered or respond to an answer, how are you going to randomly pick and choose students? And now let's talk about the fear you have of that. And I guarantee that teachers are going to come back and say, Well, I'm afraid to teach a student's going to get too nervous and not be able to respond, and I'm going to be putting them on the spot. I know, I'm going to hear that, because I've heard it a billion times. I'm like, You're exactly right. So this is how you handle that. You say do you want to phone a friend to a quick turn and talk with your neighbor to get your answer all sorted out? And then I'll call on you, you know, or if it's a particularly shy student, not in the moment, but at another moment, pull that kid aside and say, you know, tomorrow, I'm going to ask you a couple questions. So we're going to do a few turning talks first, and you're going to have a phone a friend option, but just be aware this is going to happen. So if I can even get the teacher to change their practice up in that way, and it works well, then I'll move on to suggesting more complex ways to engage students in learning. So dealing with fear is also chunking. The learning and chunking the learning for your teachers. Right? 38:53 Right. Yeah, that's great. That's so good. And that's a practice that we see, you know, in the classroom all the time. But I love the idea of trying to take your teachers from zero to 60. Like, yeah, well, that's true. We should see our classroom. Yeah, that's, that's good. Um, okay. I have what kind of one last question for you. Or this episode will be coming out towards the end of August, maybe early September. So right kind of at the beginning of the school year. And so I'd love to kind of just chat about some things that you have done or seen that have worked really well to kind of start the year off with a bang, whether that's ways to engage families or students as they come back, whether that's kind of managing the chaos of implementing all of the new systems and getting kids back into the school and what are some of your favorite ways to kind of start the year solid? 39:57 I love that question. And it relates to so some training that I have recently been doing so. So I recently came back from Georgia where I was doing some training on differentiation because those schools, those students are already going back to school, probably much like your students there in Texas. Yes. And while much of this training focused on differentiating learning for students at different academic readiness levels, meaning those students who weren't quite meeting benchmarks that you were going to teach or had already met those benchmarks how to extend the learning, it obviously led into a conversation around other ways to differentiate for students. And so after differentiating for students based on their instructional readiness level, the next best thing to do, particularly at the beginning of the year, is to survey your students about their interests, their attributes, the character traits that they feel they either have, or want to develop. And at the same time, send out a letter to your families and go, Hey, can you just write down in a short essay, what do you want me to know about your student, and then keep those, keep those survey responses, keep those parent letters. And even if a student isn't quite what they think they are. So let's say a student says, I'm really cooperative, and collaborative, and they're in a group activity, and it's not going so well remind them of this, because there's a good chance the student really wants to be, but maybe doesn't necessarily know how or is struggling. So bring back what they aspire to be, remind them what they aspire to be, show them their parent letters. You know, we talk a lot about external motivation, meaning motivating students through power play, prizes, proceeds, or other people. I'm not saying that should go away. Because sometimes to motivate, you got to start with the low hanging fruit. And that's external motivation, call it bribery, whatever you want to call it, right? Sometimes you have to start there. But by doing the survey, the inventorying of that we're doing an inventory of your students, interest, desires, attributes, that's what's going to really get to the meat of motivation. That's what's really going to get to internal motivation. But we have to use our time at the beginning of the year. To do that, before we get into things full force. Lots of schools do two diagnostic testing at the beginning of the year, which they should to see where students are in meeting benchmarks. But while schools are in addition, I should say, to schools doing the academic benchmarking, how do we get more teachers in schools, doing that inventory check with students really learning who our students are as individuals? Because that is a goldmine of information, information that you could tap into throughout the year? 43:17 Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love that idea. What do you like to do with your team, with your teachers, with your parents with your custodians to kind of start the year off? Remind everyone why we're here? What are some things that you'd like to do with your staff at the beginning of the year, 43:35 at the beginning of the year, I think when you bring everyone together, helping people remember the why why we chose to go into education, whether that's at a training using a quote, and asking them to reflect upon what's there, why, but it all comes back to the why, what's your why for what you're doing? And another great guests you should have online at some point, is a woman whose podcast I was on called Joanna tramontano. And she would be great because she often talks about what's the why, like, why are we doing what we're doing? In everything we present to students, right? So I'm going to take a cue from her and extrapolate that further and going, what's the why why do we teach? Or as the leader, What's your why and what you give and present to your educators. So why are you having that Opening communication or teacher, you know, professional development session? Why are we doing this? How is this going to impact their their desire to be teaching their performances, teachers, and how's that going to translate into student growth and achievement? 44:53 I love it. All right. That's finally all of my questions that I had for you. Mmm took us a while to get there. But I Oh, man, I just I have loved these conversations. I love how specific and precise you get with your answers. I love how demonstrative everything has been. It has been a joy having these conversations with you, John, is there anything else that you would kind of like to leave our audience with before we go today? 45:19 Yeah, I'm just really happy to be with you. If people want to get a hold of me. They can find me on LinkedIn at John shoebury Edd, they could find me my articles on the work at daily career platform. But I am pretty accessible on LinkedIn. So anyone could reach out to me there if they have any further questions or want to share ideas on how to do things. Yeah. Teaching leading and learning and I'll be there. 45:46 Perfect. Okay, John, thank you so much for all of this. Till next time, have a have a great rest of your day. 45:53 Thanks both for your time. I really appreciate it. 45:55 Thanks. And that was two for two with John shum. Berry. Oh my gosh, I told y'all he's just got so much experience and expertise and knowledge. And it shows just you know, I asked him these all of these questions are not questions that he was like prepped for, uh, he told me at the beginning is like, I don't I don't not bring in anything like I guess you're just gonna guide the conversation is like, it's alright. I got some questions. Um, and he's, he's got a lot of great tips and tools and yeah, stories. I love it. If you are interested in working with him, you can find him on LinkedIn. Like he said, I'll have links to that in the show notes as long as all of those books and some of the other resources that he mentioned. I hope y'all enjoyed that as much as I did. Thank you guys so much for being here. As always, all of our production is done by the amazing Erwin fullback, love that guy. The music is also his he made that just for us. Our design and logo work is from Alana Kanoya steel consulting. And as always, this whole thing is a sweet labor of love from the folks at responsive learning. Till next time, see y'all Transcribed by https://otter.ai

July 06, 2023 • 00:49:50

This episode I sit down with Kish Russell. She is a proven grant writing expert based in San Antonio, Texas. Kish has worked in...