Creating a Culture of Authenticity in Education

Creating a Culture of Authenticity in Education

Thanks for hitting and play. If you love exploring how to do school differently so you can make a legendary impact on your campus, then you’re in the right place. I’m Danny Bauer, and this is the better leaders, better Schools podcast, the original Ruckus Maker podcast for visionary leaders, innovators, and rebels in education. Thanks to Ruckus Makers just like you, this podcast ranks in the top 0.5% of over 3 million worldwide shows. In today’s conversation, I speak with Charles Hartney, who’s the head of upper school and the diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator at the Park School of Buffalo, a progressive independent school serving students from pre K and Montessori through grade twelve. Outside of school, Charlie’s a proud husband and father of two, an avid reader, and a lifelong Buffalo sports fan. Go bills.

We do a deep dive into my third book during this conversation, Build Leadership Momentum, how to create the perfect principal entry plan. And using this 90 day framework presented in the book, Charles has accomplished really some remarkable results on his campus. And that’s what we’re going to be discussing. One more important note before we get into the main conversation. This is about a 90 day entry plan, but if you think about it, you can create 490 day plans every single school year. You can really dial in what you want to create and the remarkable results. You want to see if you have the courage and time to do so. Once again, thanks for listening, and we’ll be right back after a quick message from our show sponsors. Hey Ruckus Maker. I’ll make this quick.

If you’re listening to this message right now, you’re missing out. When you subscribe to the Ruckus Maker newsletter on Substack, you get access to micro books focused on how to do school different tools and other resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school different stories and case studies of the world’s most legendary Ruckus Makers of all time. Access to my calendar to schedule coaching sessions, and you’ll also get bonus podcast content that won’t be released on the main podcast feed and podcast episodes without any advertisements. If you love this show, if it’s helped you grow and you want access to more tools and resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school different and become a paid subscriber at Ruckusmakers.substack.com. What do the most effective leaders all have in common?

After coaching and mentoring thousands of school leaders, I’ve identified seven key areas that make Ruckus Makers highly effective. When you download the school leadership scorecard, you will identify the highest leverage opportunities for you to grow in the next 90 days, and you can complete this tool in ten minutes or less. Get your FRee copy of the school leadership [email protected]/Scorecard IXL takes the guesswork out of lesson planning for teachers. IXL’s ready-made lesson plans are aligned to your textbooks and state standards so teachers can turn to IXL for the exact content they need to help their students get started [email protected]. Leaders that’s IxL.com leadership, an instructional coach in every teacher’s pocket. That’s what we’re creating at Teach FX, teachers record audio of a lesson and then they receive an AI powered report with instructional insights such as how much are my students talking? How much am I talking? How can I use wait time or questioning to create space for my students to learn out loud? Learn how Teach FX could help your teachers get students talking. Visit teachfx.com/ruckus.
Question would you serve your own kids the same food you serve your students in your cafeteria? Now quest food Management Services elevates the student dining experience, serving scratch made meals using high quality ingredients that are sourced locally and responsibly. Now that is food you can be proud to serve. Learn more about quest food management [email protected] or follow questfood on social media. That’s questfms.com. All right, welcome to the show, Charles.

05:15
Charles
Thank you so much, Danny. I’m a big fan of the show. I’m a big fan of your work. Really excited about today’s conversation.

05:21
Danny
Now we’re moving to the informal or more friendly Charlie and I’ll be Danny and I’m super excited for this. We talked about that in the pre-chat but were here to talk about entry plans, I think and some of the success that you have experienced after implementing ideas that you write about in building leadership momentum. People at the point of hearing this that they’ll hear the bio that you sent me, of course. But is there anything else that you want to add to that so people have a sense of who you are, there’s no right or wrong here, but just anything that you want to say about you?

06:04
Charles
I really think the bio captures sort of the important pieces of that. I have some background that I can share about the work that I’ve done at my school to this point, and sort of what led me to school leadership and also led me to a place where I was seeking out the kinds of resources that I found in the entry plan book.

06:28
Danny
That’s a great place to start then. What led you to school leadership and then how did you find the build leadership momentum and entry plan book?

06:38
Charles
It’s a really good question. I have been at my current school for 14 years. The first eight years of that, I was a full time middle and upper school English teacher. After that, I was a dean of students who taught part time, and then I moved into some version of my current role four years ago.I’ve been at the school for a long time. It’s a great school with wonderful colleagues. I have a great support network here. But my experience at the school changed fundamentally when I moved from being a classroom teacher to being an administrator. And that happened right after the start of the pandemic. I entered this role after the school year, after the pandemic hit. We also had a lot of turnover in our teaching faculty during that time, in our administration at the same time. And so the school changed in a significant way, and my role within it changed in a significant way. And so that took some getting used to. I had been at the school for almost ten years and was the classroom teacher and built up really strong relationships with colleagues who knew me really well, knew me as a classroom teacher, who knew me as an advisor, as a colleague, as a collaborator. And then I became an administrator. And I didnt change fundamentally, but the work that I did changed. And there were a lot of new faces. And what I realized, sort of thinking through my leadership journey, was that the people who I had known for a long time knew one version of me, and the people who I had known for a shorter period of time, who only knew me as an administrator, knew a different version of me. And what I started to realize as I unearthed that a little bit, was that those people who I worked with only in recent years just knew less of me than the others did. And that was something that I wanted to address. It was something that I wanted to fix. Sort of moving forward. I wanted to show up not more authentically, because I think everything I did was authentic. I guess I wanted to show up more fully, authentically, show everybody the sort of fullest version of who I was.

09:05
Danny
Why is that important to you?

09:07
Charles
I mean, to some extent, I think it’s just a human need to be oneself in some ways. And I have, there were a couple of things that happened, a couple of stories, a couple of anecdotes that I can share from last year that really sort of crystallized this need for me to be more authentically myself. An old friend of mine started working at my school just last year, somebody I’ve known for 25 years. She became our head of middle school. She’s wonderful and one of my closest friends. She probably knows more about me than anyone. I’m not related to my blood or marriage in the world. We have a great time working together. Last year, we were preparing for a holiday party right before winter break, and she had sent out a google form to all our faculty asking them to share fun facts about themselves. And then she was putting together a multiple choice, sort of fun multiple choice quiz about people’s facts. But as all teachers know, The most difficult part about the multiple choice test is the reasonable wrong multiple choice answers. One of the things she was trying to think through, her fun fact is that when she graduated high school, her senior superlative had the best sense of humor. She was the right answer for this best sense of humor question. And she was trying to think of other people who would be good. Wrong answers. And she turned to me and she said, oh, I’ll use you. And then she turned back and she said, wait, do people know you’re funny? To which I laughed out loud really hard at that. Both because it was funny. And I know she’s trying to kneel me a little bit. But there was some truth in the question that maybe people didn’t know that about me. And then a few months later, we have an immersion program at our school. And that same friend was on a trip with high school students down to Alabama as part of a civil rights immersion. And they had a really heavy week. At the end of the week, they broke into affinity groups, the faculty and students. And my friend, who was white, was with the white students, and they were talking through equity work and how do we move forward and what do we do at the school? And my friend, knowing me for a lot of years, was talking to the students about how much she and I have learned from each other about equity work and sort of creating conditions under which the greatest number of kids where all kids can be successful. And one of them turned to her and said, mister Hartney, really? And so that was less funny to me. That was hard to hear. And so between those two stories, I knew that I wasn’t showing up at work as fully as I needed to because it was obvious that there were members of the community, whether those are faculty members and colleagues or students, who didn’t fully know what I sort of value and what matters to me. And it was important to me, yeah. To be more fully myself and more authentic in the work that I was doing.

12:40
Danny
Somewhere within those two stories you shared and the realizations that you had, is that where were those the catalysts for searching out different opportunities and how we got connected and that kind of thing. Is that true?

12:54
Charles
There were other things that happened, but those were two of the most significant moments last spring where I thought, I need to seek out some additional support and resources and find a network of people that can help me think through my own mindset when I come to work being as authentically myself as possible. And that’s where I discovered the podcast.
The resources that you share. It was also at a time that I was doing my role for long enough that I understood there were some things that I wanted to change, improvements that I wanted to make to our school culture and our community at the school. I was thinking about my mindset and my sort of authentic self coming to school. I was thinking about the culture and the community of the school and trying to be really intentional about those things specifically. When I found the podcast and I found the leadership moment book, it spoke to me immediately because they really, the things I was most concerned with, and the key teachings in that book really aligned.

14:24
Danny
And we’ll get to that. And why it aligned with you, but just taking one step back, I’m sure you were searching other places and that kind of thing. And I’m very grateful that we connected and that the book served you well. We’ve had a few conversations outside of that, too. I’m just curious why it was this podcast, why it was that book that worked for you versus I’m sure you looked at other things, too. And why didn’t those work?

15:02
Charles
A great question. I did look at other resources. I did listen to other podcasts and try to find the thing that I thought was most sort of authentic to who I was. And I think the reason that I gravitated to the podcast and to the build leadership momentum book was the emphasis on mindset. Being the best version of yourself at work and as a school leader. And in doing that you can make your school that much better. The name is better leaders, better schools. If we’re better, our school gets better outcomes and student success is more pronounced. So that was the number one thing I gravitated to. That was the first sort of compelling. The first compelling thing.
The first cause in some ways, and then everything else came from that.

16:00
Danny
So you’re enjoying the podcast. You pick up a copy of the leadership momentum, you crack it open for the first time, and you start reading it. Do you remember anything from the first few pages? This is not like a fact checker. This is like, do you remember what that experience was like, not what was in it. I don’t even know. I’d have to look it up myself. It’s all good.

16:22
Charles
The experience for me was sort of finding validation in the things that I was wrestling with as a school leader and seeing on the page. Somebody who had practical ways of tackling some of those concerns got it. I was thinking a lot about my mindset. I was thinking a lot about culture, And two of the pillars of the field leadership momentum book are about mindset and about culture. And sort of the idea and mindset of bringing your best version of yourself. The idea of sort of checking in and making sure you’re doing the fundamentals the right way. Eating, sleeping, moving, meditating, unplugging those, being conscious of sort of taking care of myself and by taking care of myself, making sure I was ready to take care of my school was really important. And then reading about how you build a positive and supportive and celebratory culture was really important. I think. Danny, one of the first things I told you in our first conversation is that I am not a cheerleader type. And I’ve always seen that as a challenge as a school leader, which isn’t to say that being a cheerleader is the only way to be a school reader, but it’s one. One of the ways to be a school leader, and that wasn’t me. And I’ve always wanted to create a celebratory culture. I don’t know if it’s more difficult to do it if you’re not a cheerleader type, but it felt challenging to me. And so the framework that’s provided by your work and by the book allowed me to lean into that a little bit and also to realize that it’s okay not to be a cheerleader 100%. That if you celebrate however you think, to celebrate however you want to celebrate however you’re capable of celebrating, that the celebration is the important thing.

18:40
Charles
It’s not necessarily the bells and the whistles around it. It’s not necessarily the cheery disposition, for sure. It’s about celebrating the things that your school values. The things that you share and believe in. That’s the important part.

18:56
Danny
And if you try to be that cheerleader type, I’m not saying it’s good or bad. What I am saying is, if you try to be that type and that’s not you, and connect some dots here where you want to fully show up at school, everyone’s going to be like, what the heck is Charlie doing? What a goofball. It’s not going to work because that’s not who you are. And that’s okay. We gotta lean into our strengths and show up fully. And I’m glad you’re bringing up the mindset stuff, too. I know the culture piece was important to you, but with pretty much every framework that I teach, it always starts with the individual, the human, the Ruckus Maker in front of me, because that’s all that matters, honestly. Then from there, it’s family and then it’s school. And people get that priority wrong all the time. And that’s why they’re running around all rampant and tired and burnt out and angry. You know what I mean? Well, you don’t have your priorities And a lot of times, too, somebody’s really just having a rough go at it. I’ll ask them about those fundamentals. Eating, sleeping, moving, meditating, unplugging. And they’re low in at least one, if not multiple areas. And with just a little turn of a dial there, if that’s why they’re the fundamentals, you take care of them, and everything else seems to flow from it. Thanks for sharing a little bit of what you searched out and the experience of opening it up. And let’s get to helpful lessons and takeaways. So you were in there and you’ve tried some things.

20:24
Danny
And actually, before we get to helpful lessons, I’ve actually never asked anybody on the podcast this question, and I want you to be candid. The last three books I wrote, including build Leadership momentum, are intentionally shorter. I hope that you experienced it like zero fluff. I wanted to get to the point, provide a result, give you the practical resources so they’re all around 100 pages or less. You could read it in 60 or 90 minutes and then get to work. Can you tell me about your reaction to that format? I don’t know if you were surprised. If you’re like, what is this? Why I thought about a book. This is a pamphlet. You know what I mean? I’m just curious, like, what your experience was.

21:04
Charles
I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but I, for as long as I’ve been in education, one of the things that I had heard from colleagues, from co workers about professional development is they want something actionable and they want something they can use today, tomorrow or tomorrow. If they have class in an hour, they want something that they can use in that class in an hour. And I think the format of the book, I knew what I was getting, and I think it delivered on exactly what it promised and what I was looking for, which was a book with practical strategies, with guidelines and frameworks you could put to use immediately. In your description of the book, you can read it in an hour and then you can spend a couple of hours doing the work that the book sets you up to do. And that’s exactly what I did.

22:04
Danny
Brilliant.

22:04
Charles
And so that because of the short format of the book, that had no fluff, that got right to down to brass tacks. I was able to read the book to take in what it had to teach me and then use it immediately to build an entry plan for the school year. And I will say I have never felt better prepared in this role, in an administrative role, to start the school year than I did this year as a result of the work that I did through the dope leadership momentum book.

22:40
Danny
Brian got it. And was that just to drill down into it? Was that because of the practical nature of the work, and then you gotta work and you saw that it was working for you? I guess. Is that true? Did I miss anything?

22:54
Charles
No, I think that it was both because I had. It was both because I had a framework. And to go back to your earlier point about, if I suddenly decided to be a cheerleader, it would seem deeply inauthentic, and people would wonder what I was doing. I’d love to see one of. I know. I think some of my colleagues would agree with you. So earlier, when you were talking about the problem, if I suddenly became a cheerleader or tried to be a cheerleader, how inauthentic that would seem, It was really important to me in working with this book, as somebody who, until this past year, didn’t seek out a whole lot of help. As somebody who didn’t seek out a whole lot of help, who tried to solve whatever problems I was having work by myself.

23:46
Charles
It was really important to me as I found what worked for me, as I found the podcast, and as I found the built leadership momentum book, it was important to me that it felt authentic. And that the lessons that I learned from the books that I put into practice felt like things I would do and didn’t feel like a mask I was putting on to be a different person.

24:09
Danny
Interesting.

24:10
Charles
I think what the book gave me was a framework and a little bit of support, And saying that I’m trying to do the right thing, and by providing that framework, it opened up. It opened up for me the opportunity to be more fully myself and authentic in the job. And as I said, it was really important that it not feel put on, because, as you said, people can see through that immediately. And it’s never felt like that. It just felt like it’s opened. It’s given me permission to be the kind of leader that I want to be.

24:52
Danny
You said something really interesting that I’m wondering if a Ruckus Maker listening would really appreciate us diving into this idea. You said you weren’t really seeking out a lot of help prior to this, and then you were. And I’m just curious was there a system thing? Was it like, hey, well you’re the head, so you should have it all figured out? I don’t. I’m not sure, but do you have any insight into that?

25:18
Charles
I do. I think it wasn’t a system thing from the point of view of the school. I think my school has always been really supportive of any attempts that administrators and teachers make to get better. I think the challenge for me is the same as the challenge you talk about all the time for school leaders, which is there’s often only one of us who does our job close by. And so we sometimes work in these silos and we work so independently that even if we work in great teams, we don’t have somebody else who does exactly the same thing that we do, who we can go to for support. And at independent schools, maybe as much as any other school. Everybody is wearing a whole bunch of hats and fulfilling a whole lot of roles and it’s hard to get time with people. I think sometimes I felt like seeking out help would be too burdensome to other people. I think to the point you just made, As the division head, I should have everything figured out. I’m supposed to be the one who’s bringing vision and strategy to the role. And I think maybe it’s just always been a part of who I am personally. I think I can solve and work through and troubleshoot most problems on my own. And so that, I think, is when I approach problems at first. And it wasn’t until I realized, hey, I’m not showing up as authentically as I would like. I’m not being fully myself. I was doing the job and I think I was doing the job well, but I knew that I could do the job better. So it wasn’t a crisis point I really reached. I think the work of Adam Grant, who wrote think again. I think I got to a rethinking point. I needed to unlearn some of the things I had been doing, sort of rethink what school leadership would look like for me.

27:21
Danny
I love the idea of unlearning and I need to write about that more. I’m glad you mentioned that because I think we should be critical thinkers about maybe what we have been taught, what school’s been like up until this point. And there is the Ruckus Maker part of it is unlearning a lot of things that we’ve observed over the years and now just sort of accept as fact about education and leadership, and it’s not necessarily true. So great job highlighting that, Charlie. I want to pause here just for a second to get in some messages from our sponsors, and when we return, we’ll get into more of the content of the book. So, like the helpful lessons that you found and like maybe the first big win that you experienced and so on.

28:08
Danny
Teachers love the support that IXL provides in the classroom, and Ruckus Makers love it as well because IXL also gives school leaders meaningful insights into every level. Put your finger on the pulse of student performance via the IXL dashboard or drill down to see progress and growth for individual students. You can even customize reports to hone in on the information that matters most to you. IXL helps Ruckus Makers make data informed decisions that will benefit their student growth goals. Get started [email protected]/ leaders. What do you see in your classrooms and how did you see it? As a principal, you can’t be everywhere at once, so how can you help support every teacher in the building? With Teach FX, teachers can gather their own feedback without relying on classroom observations.

29:07
Danny
The Teach FX instructional coaching app is like giving every teacher their own instructional coach whenever they want it. Ruckus Makers can pilot Teach FX with their teachers. Visit teachfx.com/betterleaders to learn how. Here’s a few reasons I love Quest food Management Services Quest provides high quality scratch made food in k twelve schools and universities across the country. Quest provides solutions for school cafeterias of every size, including multi station dining halls, cafes and coffee shops, marketplace grab and go catering and events, satellite programming and more. The Quest food philosophy is to prioritize the health and wellness of students by cultivating chef crafted recipes containing high quality ingredients and using scratch made cooking techniques and responsible product sourcing. Learn more about Quest food Management [email protected] or follow questfood on social media.
30:19
Danny
We’re back with Charles Hartney, the head of upper School and the diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator at the Park School of Buffalo.As I mentioned I would love just to hear what was maybe the first big win that you got after implementing ideas from build leadership momentum.

30:40
Charles
The biggest sort of early win for me is, and this came out of the culture section of the book, One of the things that you talk about in that section of the book is sort of creating a system by which you get to know your colleagues and coworkers better, And send out a sort of get to know you survey to those teachers, which I did during the summer and got a whole lot of information back, both like personal and professional, from my colleagues, from our teachers and our faculty. And one of the things that we’ve implemented as part of the changes that I’ve made to our upper school this year are community gatherings of the entire upper school once every cycle. So we run on a six day cycle. We have a community gathering every six days and.

31:34
Danny
Wow, that’s great.

31:36
Charles
Yeah, it’s really been a really wonderful change for us and an ability, I think to come together and talk about the school’s mission and our shared values and just have clear messaging about that and our expectations for kids and who we want them to be and who we want them to start to become. So we have that meeting every six days and parks, maps. That is the pioneer. And for a long time, pioneers of the month have been a part of our school culture, in our lower school and in our middle school, but never in our upper school. We instituted pioneers of the month this year in the upper school, celebrating both students and a faculty or staff member every month.

And so the first month that we did pioneers of the month and highlighted students who exhibited our core values, which include respect, responsibility, honesty, kindness, and scholarship or academic excellence, that was a huge win, because though I’m not a cheerleader, I was able to lead a celebration of our great work that we do every day at the school and highlight some students and a faculty and staff member who really contribute to the overall culture of the school. So that was a huge one.

32:58
Danny
I love it. And every six days is what I heard, too, in the cycle. So these are relatively frequent connections. And when we’re talking about, we know that culture is so important to you, but to the culture piece, to building a highly effective and exciting organization, it’s these things like putting it in the structure right of the day and stuff to make it happen. Otherwise it’s just kind of like a wish I want my staff to be connected to. I want them to understand how meaningful their work is, but you have to build it in and I don’t think I prescribe that, but within the framework of the book, you said, okay, this is what I want to do in this effort to build culture, and you’re doing it. Well done, Charlie. That’s super cool. Any other helpful lessons or takeaways that you found?

33:54
Charles
I think for us, one of the really important things was to include students in the process. So park is a school that’s brooded and the progressive education philosophy of John Dewey. And our students are seen more as collaborators and colleagues than they are an empty vessel that needs to be filled with knowledge. And I note that schools across the country, public, private, charter, are all being thoughtful about how to sort of bring student experience and student voice and student agency into their work more and more often now than ever before. And a huge win, I think, was adding students to our processes and to our structures. So we put together a culture team in the upper school that consists of me, four upper school teachers who are in various departments and also have various levels of experience at the school. A couple of people have been here for a long time, a couple people who have been here for a short time. And we also added a student representative from each of our upper school grades. So grade nine through twelve have at least one representative on the culture team. And they are part of deciding some of those pioneers of the month. They are part of planning some of our community gatherings and sort of highlighting the diverse and inclusive school community that we’re trying to build. Involving students has been hugely important in the history of our school, but it’s really not important for some of the changes that we’ve made this year.

35:41
Charles
To all the listeners, I would say if you get students involved, you’re going to get really wonderful ideas, you’re going to have more buy in, and you’re also going to have the rest of your students feel like the school is more authentically invested in the work that they’re doing because students are a part of it.

36:03
Danny
I love that you included them in those key positions, but also even the way you view them as collaborators. And colleagues versus, I think you said empty vessels but that’s a really powerful way to see a young person even in upper school. So kudos to you on that. When it came to the framework, was there any part of it that was, like, hard to implement? Or just a challenge? And if so, what was that?

36:33
Charles
But nothing sticks out and is particularly hard to implement. I think the challenge. With schools, as always, is with time. So as you said earlier. In order for these things to become sort of fundamental parts of what we do in schools, we have to build it into the structure of the day. There’s a saying in finance, show me your budget and I’ll show you what you care about, but also show me your schedule and I’ll show you what you care about.

37:03
Danny
Absolutely.

37:03
Charles
If you don’t schedule time for it, the likelihood that it happens or that it laughs or that it becomes a priority for the school and not just a priority for this handful of kids for these few years is pretty small. You have to build in time in order to really commit to making lasting and substantial change. And so I think that’s always the pressure of trying to fit in so many good ideas. And when the schedule of a school and the school day is a closed system, We have eight to 3 September through June, we can add things we can take things away, but essentially our time is closed. We have to make choices about what we prioritize. And so that, I think, is the biggest challenge. But instituting our community gatherings and making sure that we have more scheduled, structured, intentional time for celebration or mission talk for conversations about our shared values, that has been, at least in sort of initial returns, that’s been pretty transformative for our school culture and community this year.

38:27
Danny
Yeah, great. I’m curious, how’s life in leadership different now?

38:32
Charles
That’s a great question. I think I’m just bringing back to our conversation about mindset, I think I’m bringing a different version of myself to school every day. We’re out of the thick of the pandemic. We are sort of moving more intentionally toward the kind of school and upper school that we want to be. And I think that has given me some reassurance that we’re taking steps in the right direction. And when I have a conversation with a colleague who says, I didn’t love the idea of community gatherings, I wish we had used that time for something else. But you’ve made a convert out of me because of what I’ve seen in those periods. Yeah, that speaks volumes about the direction that we’re headed in.

39:16
Danny
Amazing. That’s the best kind of feedback. I often talk about flipping critics to cheerleaders and enemies to evangelists, and that’s what you did there. So excellent work. Now that you’ve had this success with the entry plan stuff and the culture and showing up more fully as yourself, including students and everything that you’ve been talking about, what are you excited about next?

39:39
Charles
I think I’m excited about primarily involving more and more of our students in our work. In some ways, this has been functioning sort of as a pilot program this year to see how it unfolds and how it works. The culture team that we put together in the upper school, I’m excited for that to continue. One of the things that I alluded to earlier, and that has always seemed unsatisfying to me about schools, and maybe our school in particular, because of the amount of student voice and agency that we allow our students to have, is that sometimes things fall by the wayside. After a passionate group of kids build something, they graduate and nobody picks it up.

I think one of the things I’m looking most forward to is that these sort of intentional changes that we’ve made at the school level that involve students means we’re going to be able to continue this tradition. This will become just a part of what we do, not something that we changed for a year or two years. And I’m excited to see what the multiplied result looks like from that because we have 9th graders who are with us in the Oprah school for the first time who are having the same experience as our seniors. They’re experiencing this for the first time, but our 9th graders are going to see this next year and they’re going to see it the year after and they’ll see it the year after that. And my hope, right, is that those lessons build on each other and the culture of our school and our community are that much stronger as a result.

41:25
Danny
I hope I don’t mess this question up. There’s a lot swirling around in my mind. But I remember in preparing for this conversation, you mentioned how you’re pretty good at frameworks and then improving on them. I’m partly interested in if you made any improvements to the framework, Because that’s great. I get to learn. I have been learning from you, but I’ll get to learn some more. And so will the Ruckus Maker. Listening. And then the second part, this is where I’m worried. I’m messing up the question. Do you have any advice for the Ruckus Maker listening in terms of implementing? Because my greatest fear is like, hey, it’s easy to plan for a day, maybe even a week. This is actually a 90 day plan. Any improvements and any advice for implementing, I don’t know if it’s so.

42:10
Charles
Much an improvement, but one of the things that we’ve done as part of our work and the culture team that has involved students, there are actually sort of two things that I’m thinking about. One is that our students are responsible for and part of the conversation with me when it comes to choosing our faculty and staff pioneer of the month, and we sort of flipped that for the student pioneers of the month. So the faculty members of the group and I talk about and decide who the students of the month are going to be. And the students and I talk about the faculty and staff members giving them some control over that choice. The ability to sort of look through nominations and reasoning and sort of be thoughtful about what we want to highlight and what we want to celebrate has been, I think, really powerful. And we’ve been able to highlight the work of our faculty and staff members who just make a huge impact for kids every day. And so that’s been great. I don’t know if that’s an improvement, but it’s a tweak. It’s a layer, and that’s been really great. Tell me again what the second part of the question was. Jeff.

43:17
Danny
Yeah, that was my fear. I do that to people. Anyways, the second part, which should just be a separate question. Any advice in terms of implementing, because of my fear. You did the day, you did the week, but not the 90 day plan, or you created the whole plan and abandoned it after a week. So how did you stick with it is really what I’m looking for.

43:38
Charles
I am a detailed guy to some extent. I like to be pretty organized and sort of lay out my day. I work in, like, a moleskine project portfolio that essentially has, Cornell notes, style layout to the page. And every day I have my schedule for the demo. In this sort of narrow column, I have my to do list. And in the broad column, that’s where I take my notes. And every day for the entire year on my to do lists is touch base with my 90 day plan. And touch base with the next 90 day plan and the next 90 day plan. Because as you make clear in the book, this isn’t just for the first three months. You could do 90 day plans for the entire forward time. You could do a 90 day plan. Four times and cover the entire year.

44:30
Danny
Charlie, I just got goosebumps. I didn’t want to ask you, did you do that? 90 day 90. Cause I don’t think I checked in on the intro call. I want to hear more about that. That sounds exciting to me.

44:43
Charles
And it’s been a really good accountability measure, and I’d be lying to say that I chew it every single day. As our jobs sort of take us places we don’t expect on certain days and certain weeks. But having that as an accountability measure has been really helpful in terms of implementing the plans, because I know every day, if I don’t get to it, if I don’t check in with that, I’m one day closer to abandoning the plan. And so by having that accountability reminder, it meant that I didn’t get far away from the plan for any significant length of time.

45:24
Danny
What does checking in with the plan look like? If I was a fly on the wall, what would I see?

45:30
I actually have taken and sort of typed out, The 90 day plan that I have for each quarter of the school year. And what that means is going through that particular page, whatever phase I’m in of the plan and sort of going through my sort of bullet point for that particular section of a plan. And so if. And one of the ways that I wrote out the plan was in the form of Jim. Have you checked in on this? Have you communicated grading needs to your faculty? Have you and the culture team poured over student climate survey data this month and those reminders? By checking in with the plan, I can then in my moleskine portfolio presentation book, I can also make notes about the things that I know I need to attend to that I haven’t. So it’s a really good way to think through the work I know I need to get done and check that against the work that I’ve already completed and then figure out what my next steps are.

46:43
Danny
How would you describe the content found in build leadership momentum in one word or one sentence?

46:50
Charles
Now, Danny, I am a former English teacher, so one word in one sentence doesn’t always do it for me. But I haven’t.

46:57
Danny-Channel your Hemingway, Charlie. Channel your Hemingway.

47:00
Charles-I’m going to do it, in a word, actionable.

47:03
Danny-I’m a former English teacher as well.

47:06
Charles
So I know that about you. I know that about you. I would say actionable because, again, to our earlier point about strategies you can use tomorrow, that’s what the book ultimately provided for me was a framework that I could put into practice the next day to create positive outcomes for my school.

47:27
Danny
Is there anything else in closing here, is there anything else you’d like to share? I don’t know if I missed anything that you wanted to cover or another insight that you’d like to leave the Ruckus Maker listening with.

47:38
Charles
I guess one of the one things that I remember very vividly from one of your podcast episodes was the idea that servant leadership potentially leading to barterdom stuck with me. I think for a few years, I thought about my work as being primarily about service, and servant leadership is a wonderful approach to serving your school community. And this is not to cast aspersions on servant leadership. But for me, in my mindset, it was more helpful to think about leadership not as service, but as opportunity. I’m working. I have this incredible opportunity to help lead a school that’s over 100 years old. I have this incredible opportunity to continue the work of John Dewey and help steward the school through its next hundred years. And I think I was selling the work short by taking up it primarily as service. And so thinking about the opportunity that I’m provided to be a leader and making the most of that has been a really helpful shift for me in terms of my mindset and the burden of need that I bring to school each and every day.

48:59
Danny
Charlie, thanks for all the candor about the book and that kind of stuff. And you taught me a lot. I know the Ruckus Maker listing got a ton of value from what you shared as well. And so let’s end with the three questions I usually ask all my guests. And we’ll start with the billboard or the marquee question. So if you could put one message on all school marquees around the world for a single day, what would your message be?

49:23
Charles
My school marquee would probably change right from year to year. But given some of the work that we’ve been doing this year, I’m thinking about a marquee that flashes one word and then flashes another word and then combines. So the first word is welcome. The idea that everybody is welcome. And one of the ways that I talk about this with students and what families is when I think about a place being welcoming, I think of it having a culture of belonging where kids and families don’t feel like they have to leave part of themselves at the door when they come to campus, and that people are welcome as their full and authentic selves. So that’s the welcome part of the marquee and also the word opportunity, Because that’s what education is and can provide. It’s an incredible opportunity to be a school leader, and I think it’s an incredible opportunity for students to be in a place of education every day. And then when you put those together, The idea of welcoming opportunity into your life, I think is really important. Sometimes I think we see opportunities as annoyances or obligations. It’s just another thing we have to add to the schedule and spend time on. We should see opportunities as the chance to get curious, to get better, to discover new things, to experience awe, to explore what we’re interested in and passionate about. I think we need to welcome opportunity into our lives and into our experience in schools as much as possible. So a welcome opportunity.

51:05
Danny
Love it. How about building your dream school? No restrictions in terms of resources. Your only constraint is your ability to imagine what would be the three guiding principles of your dream school.

51:16
Charles
So the first, I think, would be curiosity. Curiosity is the foundation for learning, for inquiry, for engagement, for growth. It’s through curiosity that we discover what we don’t know. That’s how we discover what we love. It’s how we discover what brings us joy and what brings us purpose. It’s the first cause of everything incredible about education. I think we have to start with curiosity. The second thing would be compassion, which to me doesn’t just mean sort of sympathizing with others perspectives or trying to understand where they come from, but to validate their experiences, to be open to learning more, to show grace and forgiveness, and to be as passionate about others dignity as we are about our own. Compassion is the second thing, and then the last is community. The belief that we need to work together and for one another, that we’re all connected in a meaningful way and that we belong to something bigger than ourselves. When I think of community, I think about our schools, of course, but I think about our neighborhoods and our regions, think about our nation, right, our world as a whole. And I think our success and our happiness and our purpose are more connected and shared than we know. And so I think community would be the third of those three guiding principles.

52:37
Danny
Covered a lot of ground today, Charlie. So everything we discussed, what’s the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember?

52:43
Charles
What I want people to remember is that you don’t have to be in a moment of crisis to seek help, to get unstuck or to think again about the work that you do. If anybody out there is like me and has been resistant to help in the past, or feels like they might be burdening other people by asking for help, or just feels like they should have all the answers, I would encourage you to find ways to get yourself unstuck, to seek out that help. Because once you have the support that you need, the work you’re going to be able to do for your schools and for your faculty and for your families and for your students is going to be immeasurable. You can do incredible things. And if you need to seek out help first to do that, don’t ever be afraid to do so.

53:41
Danny
Thanks for listening to the better leaders better school podcast Ruckus Maker. How would you like to lead with confidence, swap exhaustion for energy, turn your critics into cheerleaders and so much more? The Ruckus Maker Mastermind is a world class leadership program designed for growth minded school leaders just like you. Go to betterleadersbetterschools.com mastermind, learn more about our program and fill out the application. We’ll be in touch within 48 hours to talk about how we can help you be even more effective. And by the way, we have cohorts that are diverse and mixed up. We also have cohorts just for women in leadership and a BIPOC only cohort as well. When you’re ready to level up, go to betterleadersbetterschools.com mastermind and fill out the application. Thanks again for listening to the show. Bye for now and go make a ruckus.