Orly Friedman: Rethinking Staff and Grades

Welcome to the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast.  This is a weekly show for ruckus makers — What is a ruckus maker?  A leader who has found freedom from the status quo. A leader looking to escape the old routine. A leader who never, ever gives up.

In today’s episode, our guest Orly Friedman is one of our ruckus makers who will share her experience with you. She is the founder of a new K-8 school with a focus on developing a sense of agency in all students.

We hope you enjoy the podcast. All the highlights, resources, and next steps can be found below. Listen to the full episode here and learn more at betterleadersbetterschools.com

Key Talking Points

  • Introduction to Orly Friedman
  • The story of Orly
  • Building of efficient system for teachers
  • Red bridge vs traditional schools
  • Importance of grades
  • Training of staff with OKRs
  • Top three priorities
  • Advice for Ruckus makers

Key Milestones of the Episodes

[00:14] Introduction of Orly Friedman

[04:14] Orly’s Story

[05:29] Making of school 

[12:20] Utilizing staff in different ways

[15:51] How do grades put a stop to learning?

[20:47] Orly’s learning

[23:25] Example of a student or teacher’s goal

[26:10] Training staff with OKRs

[27:42] Top three priorities for building and school

[29:59] Advice from Orly

Key Quotes

  1. “Once you are like the coach Mentor role the way that their day is scheduled is one-on-one meetings students.”
  2. “In traditional schools all of the structures and systems are really designed to reward compliance.”
  3. “We know what motivates the adults and the same thing is true for kids, so you can give students mastery, autonomy, purpose and meaningful relationship.  They are going to love coming to school and that’s true for students and teachers.”

About Our Guest

Orly Friedman is the founder of Red bridge, a new K-8 school marching in San Francisco in September 2020. The focus of the school is developing a sense of agency in all students previously or they spent five years teaching Elementary School in Washington DC. She moved to California to get her MBA at Stanford after which she joined the founding team of Khan Lab School and work there for 4 years as head of lower school.

Resources 

Twitter

Website

One World School House

Measure What Matters

Blog post on OKRs

Show Some Love

LEVEL UP ?

Website :: Twitter :: LinkedIn

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  • Is an integral component for ensuring Least Restrictive Environments (LRE)

You can learn more and improve your student’s success at https://organizedbinder.com/

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