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Show Highlights
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Beyond the Institution: Redesigning School Spaces
Danny
Absolutely. So I want to start talking about intentional space design teaching, and being an administrator, being a student. And often schools were kind of dreary, very institutional, terrible lighting. It wasn't an exciting place that I wanted to be in. And I know that you're very passionate about designing school spaces that are not traditional or institutional. So can you talk about the design process at the district level?
07:12
Dr Vitale
Sure, I'd love to. First of all, I should begin with school superintendents and our training. Even in our doctoral level classes, we don't get any training on school construction. We might talk, and today there's a little more discussion surrounding learning spaces. But in my undergrad training, graduate training, and my doctoral level training, I never talked about that. And I always thought, I never want to be involved in construction because that's not really my forte. I want to be involved in instruction, not construction, but ministry. Absolutely. We're outgrowing our buildings, and they're old, and like many districts in, you know, haven't really saved to update buildings. And so we reached a point at Seneca Valley where we were growing again, and it was time for an older building to be so, you know, we began down this path knowing very little about school construction.
08:20
Dr Vitale
Most school leaders, school board members, know very little. You might have a board member who has some background in construction, and hopefully your director of buildings and grounds has a little bit of background. But the reality is, I can work with our business manager on funding. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at getting teachers what they need. I see myself as kind of like the resource queen sometimes. You got a good idea, I'll find a way to fund it. But what I wasn't prepared for was $100 million. That's bigger than I pride myself on. If I can find a million in a year to get an initiative off the ground for a teacher, that's huge, because, let's face it, if I knew how to make 3 million, I probably would be talking to you from a different scenery, nevertheless.
So it's just not an area that school superintendents are well versed in. So when we went down this path of looking at first feasibility studies, what do we do with the old buildings? Can they renovate? Or is it time you look at a car and you say, at what point? Do you just need a new car? So we had reached that point, we'd be researching around 1516 where to start first, because we have many old buildings. And so the board, after feasibility studies, after bringing in construction managers, construction experts, engineers, decided that it was time to replace our oldest building, which was designed to be a high school, and then morphed over the years into an elementary school. So that happens a lot in the United States. And so when I told my husband I was embarking on this journey of construction that I knew nothing about and he knows nothing about, he said, whatever you do, just don't build another institution. Now, I don't like to give him a lot of credit, so I'm hoping he doesn't listen to this podcast.
10:24
Danny
I won't send it to him because.
10:25
Dr Vitale
I'd like to take it. Okay. I take good ideas from everyone. And I thought about the institution. I was a little offended at first. We don't have institutions. What does he mean? And I got very defensive. And then one day, not long after that conversation, I was walking through our intermediate high school, which is a 910 building, and the walls were so drab. We must have had a discount on state paint that year, because I thought, okay, I need to look at this differently. This yellow, pale yellow paint. This is what he's talking about in this long hall that almost looks like a hospital, not a school. Shame on me. Have I become part of these institutions? And I don't see it. So from that point on, it was like an epiphany. That's it.
11:19
Dr Vitale
I said to my team, where can we find some of the newest schools that have been built in the United States? Where can we find schools outside of the United States? And we just began on this journey as a team, trying to find the coolest environment for a school that we could find. And really what we did was we set out to not build a school at all. And this new building that we just opened is called Irman Elementary Ermine Middle School. It opened in 2002. So we're about a year and a half into utilizing this building. Brand new building. It, to our surprise, was recognized by Times magazine as one of the best 200 inventions in 2022, which we never set out to do. Again, this is social media the Times magazine Time found us.
12:11
Dr Vitale
Again, we didn't set out to design an award winning building. We set out to design not an institution, not a school. But instead we settled on, let's design a school, especially an elementary, lower level, middle school, as kind of like a children's museum. I'm a big fan of museums. I love museums, especially children's museums. They're very hands on. So we hired a consultant from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and Fulham. She sat with us at design, and there's no doubt through all the design processes, all the pictures we looked at, all the things that she said would maybe work in a school. We went and visited the children's museum again. I had been there, but went again to Pittsburgh and took our whole leadership team and said, what do you love about this learning space?
13:05
Dr Vitale
And then we tried to replicate that in a school. So it's easy to build on the perimeter. That's easy. But I was not going to do that. Number one, to prove my husband wrong, but number two, I just wanted this to be an environment where as soon as kids saw the building from the outside, be excited, right. That they would be like, wait, is this a school? And then when they walked inside, was this still a school? It does not look like a school, which I love.
13:39
Danny
So can you paint a picture of what kids and staff experience as they enter this building? Just because this is an audio format. Right. And I bet right now people are getting excited. Okay, so you did build an institution. We get what a museum could be like, especially a kids museum. But what are some of the things that we might see or hear or experience?
14:02
Dr Vitale
I was really focused on and taken by all the museums I had visited. And I also had this amazing opportunity to visit the schools in Finland back in 2017. I think that was. And so that really impacted the way I think about schools and what they could be in America as well. So there's a little taste of the Finnish schools. There's a taste of our Pittsburgh children's museum. There are pieces that, all good ideas should be replicated, in my opinion. And you may not be able to do that necessarily in the business world with patents, but in schools and in education, we love to steal good ideas and give people credit. The Carnegie Science Museum here in Pittsburgh, I always loved when I was in that with my younger children, the big ramp, like, you didn't have to take the steps. Those are boring. You didn't have to take one of these circular ramps in the Helsinki library. It was a newer library when I had visited, and I thought, what a cool space like this is a learning space. So we have a circular ramp as soon as you open the foyer doors, and that is the first thing the kids see. That, too, is a learning space. And where we really landed through all of this brainstorming and meeting with stakeholders and involving a lot of people over many years, we landed. I kept pushing this notion that the building should be a teaching tool. It should be part of the learning, part of the teaching.
15:40
Dr Vitale
It shouldn't be just a space where we learn, but in every aspect of the building, there are little curious and curious questions that we pose throughout the outside of the building before you come into the building. So as soon as you park your car and look at the building, there are curious questions as soon as you come to the front of the building about why these pillars are angled? What are these measurements? This measures x amount of kips. What are kips? So we have metric, we have standard measurements, but we don't give the answers away. But the adults, too, are thinking about, what is the story here? What's going on here with these beams that are holding the canopy up? And in the.
16:48
Dr Vitale
Another question, I will tell you, I'd love for you to come see the building, but we'd love to have you in our canopy. I insisted that the lights portray the night sky in the month that we would open the building. And so they are placed in star constellations, what the September sky looked like in western Pennsylvania when we opened the building in the fall of 2022. But we don't give that away. We pose questions about, what do you think? What could these be that cost us? Nothing. So there are a lot of unique design components that are very cost efficient as well.
17:30
Danny
Yeah. Offline. We'll talk about a visit, because I feel like I have to see the place now. You're making me want to come.
17:38
Dr Vitale
It's a fun place. It's really a fun place for all learners of all ages.
17:42
Danny
And if we could backtrack a bit. I latched onto this idea because, big reason I didn't tell you this in the pre chat before we hit record, but this show was created because of the gaps that I found in my leadership. Right. The things that weren't taught at graduate school or within the district or whatever on how to be more effective as a leader. And I just knew. And so I figured if I talk to the Dr. Vitals of the world, learn from your stories of success and failure, and most importantly, implement one idea that you teach me, then I would grow, and I didn't know that it would change my life by doing this learning in public. But you've identified it. Sounds like a big gap for superintendents in terms of construction and designing learning spaces. Can you give an overview?
18:32
Danny
Because I don't think we'll have time to get into the nitty gritty details. You don't have to give a master class on this either, but just some sort of like, the big ideas of what a superintendent needs to sort of process when considering creating a new building that's not an institution. Right. Does that question make sense?
18:52
Dr Vitale
Yes, but it goes back even further that all of my ideas would not have put together a very good building. I'm one person, and I'm not the whole answer for a large community like Seneca Valley. And so we have 53,000 constituents. We have very diverse thinking, very different political parties on both sides of the aisle. And so how do you bring all these ideas of what people want in a building from all different ages? And therefore, I think even to go into a project like this, where I was lucky, where I had things in place that I didn't realize at the time when I was an assistant superintendent, I revamped the entire hiring process. That's really my expertise. Teacher selection. How do you find good teachers? How do you get them to the table? How do you recruit once they're there?
19:56
Dr Vitale
How do you grow them? How do you retain them? And that's a huge discussion right now in our country with the teacher shortages in schools, which is very different from the business world. And so I really focused on relationships. I focused on listening to people who had totally different ideas than me. And I might initially get defensive, like I did with my husband when he said, don't build another institution. But then being curious, saying, well, tell me what you mean by that. Let me think more deeply about that. And can I put my own ego, this person in front of me, whether they're an educator or not? And I think having a good team in place is what made this building so amazing. Good leaders, good teacher leaders, good administrators, good construction managers. It just was a whole conglomerate of people.
20:58
Dr Vitale
Because I might have had an idea of what the playground should have looked like based on a playground I saw in Helsinki. But what should that look like in the United States in our, I think those are the pieces that we sometimes miss the mark on with leadership in general, teachers or administrators. But the huge gap, even if I had a class in school construction, I'm not sure it would have helped me as much as getting the right experts to the table. And that is because of relationships. That is because of honoring diverse voices. That is because of setting aside your ego as a leader and saying, maybe I don't know everything, even after 28 years, and I don't involve stakeholders. But most importantly, we're not taught this as superintendents. I hope this is changing.
22:24
Danny
Solve this problem that we're facing. And the challenge is to not evaluate any idea as bad or dumb or wouldn't ever work. To get that judging mind out of the way, throw it all down. And what you'll find is some of those wild ideas are actually like really great solutions. I appreciate you sharing that and tapping into students. Actually, before we get to students, one more question. Obviously Helsinki, Finland. You were really inspired by spaces there. Pittsburgh and Children's Museum. I heard you say, were there any other spaces around the US? You might just tell the ruckus maker listening. Hey, check out what this school is doing in terms of how it's designed. It's a pretty cool thing to see and experience. We had a difficult time finding creative elementaries. Isn't that kind of sad?
23:19
Danny
It's very sad, actually.
23:21
Dr Vitale
If our most creative, craziest looking building should be elementaries, I'm now looking for high schools. And when I ask my colleagues, I get one or two, you know, maybe this school in California. I'm researching because of cost, that's one of the main driving forces, right? Because you have to be able to pay for it. And so that's another reason we build these square boxes, because it's cheaper. But we're at a time where kids won't sit in cubicles and square boxes and work anymore. So why are we doing this in schools? Why do we still have this factory model after all these years? And so I don't have a lot that I could prop up.
24:10
Dr Vitale
I did some neighboring newer schools who I was like, okay, I like the way they're using light, natural light, and Helsinki is known for that. All the Finnish schools are about getting kids outdoors. And when they're inside in the cold winter months, bringing the outdoors in through a lot of glass. And when I first started looking at it, I wanted a lot of glass, I wanted to bring the outside in. I want these spatial sight lines to be out in every room we're in. I started getting some and we built institutions. But I would argue if you are willing to be creative enough and listen to diverse voices, student voices, people of all ages, people in all different industries. You can still do it efficiently and cheaply, but it takes time. We were five years planning this out before we ever had design on paper.
25:13
Dr Vitale
A lot of research went into it before we hired the architects. Then the architects, of course, added to that. But before we brought architects in, we needed an idea of what we were looking for. And this building is shaped to explain from an audio perspective, like a Y. As you come in, that's the base of the Y. And then they branch out and it's two stories. On one side we have k to four, kindergarten to fourth grade, and on the other side, fifth and 6th. And they share specials. And the ramp leads you to our amazing kindergarten wing because you are curious. The proof is in the pudding. Like the ramp did. It cost us a lot of money, almost a million dollars. And people would say, I would have used that in classrooms. What to add to the box.
26:02
Dr Vitale
I really pushed and fought our stakeholders to spend the money on the ramp. And the proof is in the pudding. The first day we opened, I'm at the building. I went to all the buildings on the first day, but I wanted to be there when those buses arrived. And we always have some criers, kindergartners, they're afraid to leave home. They have some school phobias. And this was the least amount of criers we ever had. And one young lady, her mom walked her to the door, she wouldn't get on the bus. And I got down at her eye level, grabbed her hand, and I said, I'm Dr. Vitel, can I walk you in? And she said. Shook her head, I'm not sure. And I said, have you been in this building? Did you see the ramp? And she said, ramp? And I said, let me show you the ramp. And the doors opened and she saw this circular ramp and she looked up at me and, with a big smile, didn't know where her mother was at this point, didn't care, and said, I love that ramp. That's all she cared about. I love that ramp. Proof is in the pudding, right? And the kids still love it. And the adults still love it. And talk about getting your exercise. This ramp, the kids walk more in the building than they do taking. There are steps that they can take and there are steps on the five, six sides, but you're trying to pique their curiosity. They're full of energy. We can do things differently. We need to do things differently.
27:34
Danny
100%. And in my first book, I talked about how Disney shouldn't be the most magical place on earth. It should be our schools, and they're not. And so, again, isn't that kind of sad? Because it's not that Disney does have an advantage with their budget. Of course. And their human resources and their team. But the reason Disney works is not the money where kids can imagine and be curious and learn and play and have fun. I think that's something that you believe, too. It's coming through in the design of your elementary school here. And I just want to commend you on the work you're doing. I'd like to shift a bit to sort of like students and teachers. And since we're talking about shifts, the traditional model is like lecturing.
28:32
Danny
Teaching, maybe even, God forbid, but there's still classrooms, right? Rows and all this kind of stuff. And I talk about how teachers should move from imparting or banking knowledge to co-creating wisdom with students. And you believe teachers should be coaches and facilitators. Would you like to riff on that perspective at all and how you maybe help teachers see themselves as coach and facilitator versus traditional lecturer?
29:02
Dr Vitale
What's interesting, just this morning I was having a text exchange with our three assistant superintendents about teacher talk versus student talk in the classroom. In traditional classrooms, the teachers do the majority of the talking. I'm guilty. I'm the former. I like to call myself a rehabilitated middle school english teacher and a senior high english teacher who would have been put out of business by now with Chat GPT. But that's a discussion, maybe for later. So how can we get teachers to reflect without it being so evaluative? Because if I say, hey, did you ever think maybe you talked too much and maybe we should let the kids talk more? It's about learning more than it is about when my husband said, don't build another institution, that's not how I want to be treated. That's not how I personally grow.
29:57
Dr Vitale
In order for me to grow, I need to be curious. We think adult learning theory is different from children's learning theory, but it's not right. We all want to have a say in our learning. I don't want to read a book that you make me read. If we learned anything through the pandemic, it should have been that people want choice. Adults and kids give me a choice in my learning. Let me have a say in my learning. Regardless of my age. I don't care if you're four or five or you are 60 or 70. Let me have a choice. And so I think we have to approach teachers, and we try to, at Seneca Valley, we are not perfect. We're trying to get better every day about choices.
30:45
Dr Vitale
And so the question would be, have you ever thought about teacher talk versus student talk? And what do you want your classroom to be, and what's the research out there? Because there's a lot of research on why kids should be talking more than teachers in the classroom. And I don't mean unorganized, chaotic talk, although chaos is okay sometimes as well. But we're even beyond that. Whole teachers should be on the side as the sage instead of being on the stage. We're beyond that. We need to be in a place, the Internet, information technology, AI, that has replaced kids and don't need me to deliver information anymore. They need me to help them organize and to assess the information and to evaluate the information. That's how my job should be changing as a teacher. And our best, our master teachers, they got that a long time ago. And when I walk into those classrooms, they just blend like they're not standing in the front. As a matter of fact, we let the teachers in this new building choose their furniture. They did not choose a stationary desk.
32:04
Danny
How about that?
32:04
Dr Vitale
There's a desk kind of built into some cabinets. They chose a technology podium, for lack of a better word, on wheels, that they can move around should they need it. But if you go into any of these elementary classrooms, and especially in the new building, the building kind of supports that whole notion of, hey, I'm moving around with the kids. I'm a learner in this classroom, and I might be facilitating some of this, but I'm not leading all the learning, but I'm guiding it.
32:38
Danny
Yeah. That's so good. Do you know the company TeachfX, by any chance?
32:43
Dr Vitale
I think that was one of the products we were looking at. Where is this the one where you record yourself as a teacher and it'll let you know how much you talked versus the kids? We're looking at that as one of the products and trying to. Again, we don't want to rule out a product that a teacher will fear. Who's going to listen to this? And will the superintendent be listening to it? And will my principal knock me down on my evaluation? That's not what it's about. It's about growth. And so a product like that, we would try to pilot with volunteer teachers who hold the data themselves for reflection.
33:21
Danny
I bring it into the conversation because they've sponsored the podcast for years and I know the schools that use it are obviously seeing positive results. And since you brought up teacher talk time versus student talk, I just wanted to make sure you knew about it or the ruckus maker listening knew about it as well. All right, great. I really enjoyed our conversation. I don't want it to end. Let me ask you one more question. And I've been asking this to all my superintendent guests, but basically with Einstein, he famously talked about if he had a problem to solve, he'd ask a question to ask and then spend 5 minutes to actually answer the question. Right. So I'm just curious as we end, you know, what's a question you would hope that more educators were asking right now?
34:23
Dr Vitale
What is AI? How will it impact teaching and learning? And I'm not as smart as Einstein, so I would spend my 55 minutes talking to kids about this.
34:38
Danny
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for being a guest.
34:42
Dr Vitale
Thank you for having me.
34:42
Danny
I appreciate you.
How Can I Support A Shift to PLCS
Does the one size fits all approach to education leave you feeling boxed in? Then listen up. I'm Danny Bauer, and you've turned into better leaders, better schools. The podcast breaks free from conventional educational thinking. Each week we explore cutting edge strategies to personalize learning, cultivate curiosity, and transform your schools into vibrant learning communities. In today's show, it's more of a coaching conversation, and Ryan is rejoining us. Ryan's a principal, and this is our second coaching conversation, which focuses on topics of scheduling and professional learning communities, intervention, enrichment, and how to properly support your team implementing this new kind of initiative. 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.Â
01:12
Danny
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. So 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. The truth is, most leaders weren't taught a robust way to set their goals.Â
02:11
Danny
Everyone knows how to choose a goal, write the to-do list, and pick a due date, and as a result, they're not optimizing their potential. When you download the Ruckus maker eight step goal setting tool, I'll send you the tool in a short eight minute coaching video that shows you how to work smarter, not harder, and create more value for your campus. Are you ready to accomplish more with less effort and in less time? Download the Ruckus Maker eight step goal setting tool by going to betterleadersbetterschools.com goals. If you could differentiate instruction in 20 minutes or less, would you do it for your students? Well, you can with IXL. Over 1 million teachers use IXL because it empowers them to use effective, data informed instruction. Get started [email protected]. Leaders.Â
03:04
Danny
That's ixl.com/leaders 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 Quest food on social media. That's questfms.com. Ryan, welcome back to the show, so to speak. And this is coaching call number two. So excited to serve you again. I remember the last time we talked about this pre chat, but time was something that came up a lot. I don't know if you had a chance to look at the communication policy thing as well, and that was something I sent your way. If not, hold that and revisit it on another call. But yeah, so that's what we're discussing. Does that still feel like it's most important to discuss or do you want to take it somewhere else?Â
04:20
Ryan
So I did read that article. That was definitely an interesting way to look at things. I'm still having to wrap my mind around it because it's always been an open door policy and retraining myself on that. My other lead administrator lasted a few years, too. I mean, that was, hey, we dropped everything. The parents that showed up, we just dropped everything. So, no, you made some good points in that, where I have to be able to get things done during the day and there are systems that I can do a much better job of putting in place for people. And I think I did. I just looked at some of my email loads that we talked about in the previous episode. I was Cc'd in a lot of different Google Docs that were going on, too. I had conversations with some of the different people in the building, just said, hey, like, I'm going to get off this. If it's an important thing, then you need to let me know. I want less in my inbox so I can focus more on what's important or bigger things that affect everybody.Â
05:23
Danny
Yeah. How do people respond to that message?Â
05:26
Ryan
They were fine with it because I made sure that they had somebody that they could go to and chat about it.Â
05:32
Danny
Got it. And you said you liked the article or whatever I sent your way. What seemed to resonate most with you?Â
05:40
Ryan
Just looking at the whole concept of not having an open door policy. I mean, stepping away from that and if there's a time and a place for an open door policy, but for sure, yeah. Just like teachers, when it's their time, I respect their time and do everything to protect that time. Occasionally, I'll bounce in and have a conversation with it, and the goal is to make sure that their time's protected, so. Same with my time, too, because I.Â
06:09
Danny
Gotta be able to have a life force outside of school 100%. . And that's the thing is, like, I'm not arguing that you go the other extreme and have a closed door all the time, right? It's just carving out some time during the day, each day where you can do some deep work that only you can do as a principal and move some things and projects forward so that you do have that time with family or at home. And I know we talked a little about fitness on the last call, so all these things are important. They just. They get squeezed out. They get squeezed out because for not being careful, just the work takes over everything.Â
06:46
Danny
You get home, it's late, eat, if you can, and spend time with the kids and that kind of thing, and rinse and repeat, do it all over again. So just trying to buy back some of that time. So what would serve you best today? What do you want to dig in?Â
07:01
Ryan
Well, just more. That whole, like I said, my goal finishing out this year is obviously finishing strong. Testing is coming up or we did our science assessment last week. Next week we have star or big statewide testing. SOL it's just finishing strong, but then more importantly, just pairing for next year, because I do. I want a nice system rolled out for everybody. And thenBell's schedule, we've been talking about the whole Bell schedule, and we talked about how having that wind time, that intervention time, intervention and enrichment time, and just making sure that is nice and set up in place or for staff next year.Â
07:48
Danny
Yeah, for sure. So do you have any questions or wonderings around those sorts of topics?Â
07:54
Ryan
We're having the debate about, it's a seven period day, so straight seven where you see all seven classes and then you've got. Or the rotating block where you might have some other classes or you might miss a class a week. So just that debates what we're talking about. Staff's leaning towards seeing everybody every day because. And I'm a big thing, too. I want to see math students and I want to see language arts kids every day. And then we do have kids that miss a lot of schools. So, If you miss one of those 70 minutes blocks of a day, you missed out on a significant amount of instruction there.Â
08:38
Danny
Yeah, that's a challenge. I think you're talking about if you move towards a block schedule, is that right? What's the advantage, though, if you go that route?Â
08:47
Ryan
Well, it's longer, so it'd be bookends. Monday, we do late start PlC's, and they start at eight, and then they get over at nine, and students get here at nine. So Monday and Friday are bookends. And then you'd have, like, a rotating blog schedule during the week where I think you would just miss one class. One class per week. It gives you longer class period times. I think the classes are like 70, 75 minutes. So that would be a jump, too, because I'd have to train staff in these 49 minute classes we're in right now, they're pretty quick. So now you've got a 75 minute class where you still want to go bell to bell and not have that wasted time.Â
09:35
Danny
I've had experience with both doing more of a traditional and with a block. And so I guess from my vantage point, I'm sort of a schedule agnostic. Like it. There's pros and cons to both, and I think something to keep in mind is what teachers would appreciate and be able to implement transitioning to a new schedule. If you go that way, there might be some training and professional development to provide. Because sort of a misconception, but traditional, to block, you have more time. It's not doing what you've always been doing and just adding 30 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever. There's a different way of thinking about leveraging that time, too. Otherwise you might see a decrease in achievement and all that kind of stuff, because without the proper training, in a different approach, with more time, you'll actually get worse results, if that makes sense.Â
10:28
Ryan
No, that makes total sense. It's the plug for this. Yes, absolutely. And probably, like, pick his brain a little bit, too.Â
10:37
Danny
I could connect you to Mitch. Ryan was just showing me for the listener because this is a podcast episode as well. The executive functions for every classroom book. Take a picture of that. I don't know if you heard that episode, but if you. If you tag me and him, if you're on Instagram.Â
10:53
Ryan
Well, I was hounding you for it. I just got back from the snow machine and tripped, and I was like, hey, Danny, like you said, this guy's podcast is going to be coming out on 19th and whatever.Â
11:03
Danny
No, the team. We missed the deadline and released it a couple of days late. But what I was saying, I think on that episode, we had a contest and it's still going. And if you do the book selfie or whatever, and Mitch, if you get picked, I think there's some cool stuff that he's thrown in, which includes a call with him and I think the executive functions class online modules for your teachers. But anyways, I'll make a note to connect you guys because.Â
11:32
Ryan
Yeah, make a big note, man. Come on, Mitch, take care of me here. And go digital, right, Mitch? Like, I'm all about paper, pencil, but.Â
11:44
Danny
Good luck with that. I'll let you two have that discussion.Â
11:46
Ryan
So, binders for everybody.Â
11:49
Danny
What I was going to say for sure, but the training piece, I think what I'm trying to say is beginning the class in a common way amongst the staff, ending it, creating these predictable learning routines. What's it look like to create a class agenda and that kind of stuff? If you could get them sold on that idea that he presents in that book, whether it's block or your traditional schedule, you're going to see the time used much more effectively and the student agency and achievement will increase as well. I'll get you two connected on that for sure. What one does your gut tell you're leaning towards in terms of the traditional or the block?Â
12:34
Ryan
So I had a staff member, one of my leadership team members came in this morning, and so we didn't tell anyone. It's 29 minutes right now, which is a waste of time. Wait times are 29 minutes. That's not long enough. I'd like to get that up to 40 minutes. So then we talked about, well, we have five minute passing periods. Hey, we could add six minutes to this wind time. If I cut 1 minute off the passage and go back to four minutes, I'm going to tell kids they can have backpacks. You can take backpacks from class to class. Did it for a couple years. It does congest the classroom, but it gets kids to class faster. So that would give me an additional six minutes, which puts me at 35 minutes. And then now, like I said, one of the leadership team members came in and they said, well we have 49 minutes of classes right now. What if we just went to 48 minutes recording the mitch which is 1 minute out of the day? That's 3 hours every year. But if we're taking that out the well, I don't think it'd be more time, more valuable time into that wind. Would you give me around 41 minutes? So you would have that wind to them where you would be able to kind of. Everybody kind of takes a deep breath because it is. I mean, the seven period straight day is. It's fast paced, so you'd have a little bit of time to take a deep breath, check in with everybody, then do a nice targeted mini lesson or whatever needs to be done during that time, and then you could have a nice little lesson. Nice transition out of it.Â
14:15
Danny
Got it. And so the wind time, just. Sorry. For me, it's a newer concept, but that's more of an intervention. You said what I need. So, yes. Does that mean, like, if you have 30 students, there could be 30 different things that they needed during that time?Â
14:30
Ryan
Maybe this is what we can focus on with these colonels here, too. Bottom line is. Or this building, we are. The majority of our kids are two or more years behind math wise. And so it seems like for the last few years, that group has been growing instead of shrinking. So I'm like, but this weekend I thought this is the definition of insanity. We keep doing the same thing over and over again, and then we're expecting these kids to grow. It doesn't make any sense. We have to be more intentional with many lessons and just how we structure. How we structure the day.Â
15:12
Danny
Yeah, for sure.Â
15:13
Ryan
With that wind time, it would be an intervention and enrichment and just working on having some sort of flex scheduler with it. We have a current black scheduler, but it's wonky and students don't always know where to go and you can't do it for multiple days. But the idea would be for teachers to. For those math teachers to pull those groups of kids in that they didn't do well on an assessment and give them mini lessons to help them fill those holes. And then in the conversation two ways, just more globally, there's no reason if it's a good, structured mini lesson. The majority of my teachers in this building can't give a middle school mini lesson on math to the students.Â
15:58
Danny
Got it. So what have you done in the past? Because you were talking about the definition of insanity. What have you done in the past to address, I guess, the gap that exists with some of these kids in math?Â
16:11
Ryan
So we districts have gone to more inclusion, so everybody has access to the general curriculum. And it's beenI was a big believer in tier one, tier two, tier three. If you're a tier three student, it's just going to be incredibly frustrating. You're in a general curriculum, or if you're in the general ed class and you don't understand any of it, can you? I was always leery of that. And then if you're a couple years, three years behind curriculum wise, too it's tough to get caught up. You need it at your level. I've had a change in all that now that we've gone more towards inclusion, and we just had a big Plc conference in November. Mike Mattis.Â
17:00
Ryan
Their big thing is everybody has access to the general led curriculum, because we're going to be testing kids on stuff that they've never even seen. So at least give them a taste, let them see what it looks like, and then build that intervention time. End at a different time during your day. So that is the big push. Everybody has access to the general curriculum now. Social studies and science came on board this year, too. We have. We're having some co teaching going on. Team teaching. We call it teaching. Teaching where it's. Oh, my gosh, I'm drawing a blank on it right now on what. What we're calling those classes that kind of have the tier two and tier three kids in it.Â
17:45
Danny
No problem. I guess I'm interested, too. So, Mike Mattis,That's a solution tree and, how do they see PlC's and that kind of thing? So, tier three. I mean, that's like, that's down the road. But a lot of interventions should be happening at tier one right before even tier two, tier three. And what I'm curious about are your teachers giving common formative assessments, and then are they adjusting their instruction after that with intervention and enrichment already?Â
18:17
Ryan
So that is the difference. That's why that focus is on getting that wind time up, because we do have common assessments now. We do have the PLC time. They are going through those four questions and then the wind time, that should be addressing, what are we doing? Students aren't getting it. So then they can bring those kids into their classes and just give them mini lessons to fill the holes that they missed on the previous assessment. You know, got it.Â
18:50
Danny
So don't. Definitely don't want to throw a wrench into all your plans, but just observation. I've run some successful schools with PLC's, and I've seen this talk about wind time. It's a newer concept that I see on social media, and I'm not saying it's wrong or anything like that. What I am saying is that I've seen faculties able to offer the intervention and enrichment without a wind time class. You know what I mean? So is there any challenge or pushback or maybe, again, just a need for professional development and training? Are the teachers not doing the intervention enrichment within just the regular class? Does that make sense?Â
19:31
Ryan
Yeah, that makes sense. No, they're doing the intervention and enrichment in the class, too. One of the big focuses for math, but student talk, math talk. And I think that one of the best interventions with that is just having kids talk. Setting up specific greeks where you have high, low, mid, and they're able to have math conversations saying, which other through the math problems. And then we have math ready. So you have that personalized patent math parent that meets your high end kid. He's getting instruction at his grade level there, or it is ability. And then the kid at the lower level, too, they're getting instruction work where they need to have those holes filled.Â
20:21
Danny
Gotcha. So I'm hearing that they are offering some form of intervention enrichment in class. So are you seeing the kids then progress and just the gap still remains the two years or. Because I guess if the intervention is effective, we should see those gaps closing. Â
20:39
Ryan
Well, this is the first year we.Â
20:42
Danny
Put in PLC's and stuff.Â
20:44
Ryan
Yeah, last year we started. Last year. I think we started halfway through the year. Oh, wow. Yeah. That wasn't ideal, but I. Yeah. Do we start? I can't remember. Last year was rough. This year is going much better. And you know, this whole inclusion model, everybody having access to the core curriculum. I think that's making a difference. In the past, we've had, like I said, those tier one, you're a tier one, you're tier two, you're getting core plus more. And the plus more wasn't always targeted the best. I mean, it always felt like it was. We had good intentions with it, but it didn't narrow that achievement.
21:25
Danny
Got it.Â
21:25
Ryan
And then the tier three kids, they just kind of. It was a struggle because they're in with a totally different curriculum. Weren't even seeing grade level curriculum and didn't see grade level standards. They were just working on stuff two and three years behind where they were at.Â
21:40
Danny
Well, it sounds like you're newer to PlC's, too, so one thing, just as an encouragement, it takes time. And so if you're getting Mike Mattis and others to come in and train the folks, if you're providing the PLC timing, you got the late start day on Mondays, and additionally, like, the wind time type stuff, it sounds like, from a system point of view, you're providing the space and the resources to get the job done. One thing we haven't talked about, is there an opportunity for making common forms of assessment and sort of like, data analysis easier? Maybe. Back in the day, this was, like, almost a decade ago, but we worked with a company called Mastery Connect. I don't even know if they're still around. I would think they are, but I could be wrong. But the thing that I think I liked, and I saw the faculty like, so it doesn't matter. The app, it's about the usefulness. But you and I are teaching math, since that's what we're talking about. We give the common formative assessments. We could scan in the results, and it would boom, like that. Show us the kids that were meeting and exceeding and the kids that needed the intervention, and then we could separate them out and provide that intervention and enrichment, give another assessment and see if there was growth in those two targeted groups of kids. I don't know if that's an area of opportunity in terms of technology to make the PLC process a bit easier, but giving it some time and. Yeah, go ahead.Â
23:09
Ryan
Yeah. Funny you mentioned that. I mean, that's what common assessments focus district wide. So we had our plc this morning were departments, grade level departments, zooming with other teachers in other buildings, and they were going over essential standards. And then, yes, it will be going towards common assessments across the board for math, language, or social studies and science. I mean, everybody.Â
23:36
Danny
Interesting.Â
23:37
Ryan
I don't remember. Edge elastic. What is the word?Â
23:41
Danny
Yeah, it doesn't matter to me. It is just as long as it makes it easier for the teacher. You know, that's my point. And that they could see the data, like, almost instantly and be able to differentiate instruction and separate the kids based on their needs. Where their strengths and weaknesses are.Â
23:59
Ryan
It's so important that they see it right away, and then. Students get that feedback right away, too, to see where they're in.Â
24:07
Danny
Yeah, for sure. Cause I waited too long, and it's like, I don't even remember what you taught weeks ago. That kind of thing.Â
24:14
Ryan
Right, right. You'd never want that thing happening, for sure.Â
24:19
Danny
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25:26
Danny
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 quest food on social media. That's questfms.com. I'm curious about the system. Like, usually all the standards they want you to cover are impossible. Research shows us that. Is there a pressure from the district to like, still get it all done? Because I think before in the Solution Tree, people used to talk about need to know versus nice to know and gotta haves. And has the school sort of identified, like, here's the smaller, like 80 20, right. These are the most foundational pillar sorts of concepts in math that everybody needs to master before they leave the school. And we hope we get to the other stuff. But that's more like, that's the enrichment curriculum, actually. And you know what I mean? And the kids that are two years behind, they're going to master this pillar content. And I'm telling I'm the principal. I'm telling you, teacher, it's okay that our students who have this deficit, that they don't cover the quote unquote regular curriculum until they mastered the foundational skills. Like, we're not putting pressure on you. To cover everything with them. They've got to get caught up. And here's, as professionals, what we believe will catch them up knowing these foundations that they're missing.Â
27:29
Ryan
Solution Trees are the essential standards. And that's why we have our co-teaching classes that target the group of kids. It's a different pace, and it is just strictly focusing on those essential standards. So, like, we have a science essentials class where they're given access to that general science curriculum, but it is only the gotta have standards emphasized in the class.Â
27:56
Danny
Okay. So it sounds like you've done the work to identify those and have segmented some kids to receive that. And again, it sounds like the system is providing the resources, the time to do the work, and now it's given the teachers and the students time to learn the process. And it's like the coach. Nick Saban or whoever, telling you to trust the process. This works for schools. Once they've implemented it, they've resourced it. And then you gotta make sure, though, that the teachers are actually doing it. On the zoom training meetings or whatever, like, they have to be talking about data and intervention and acceleration.Â
28:33
Danny
And so the other aha for you and for the ruckus maker, listening, it's something to think about. How do you bring those into the conversations when you have observations, when you have feedback and coaching and evaluation? But how do you keep bringing it back? Keep bringing back this idea that we're a PLC. We do common formative assessments. We do intervention and enrichment. And this is really important, too. And you're not a bad teacher if x percentage of kids don't get it the first time. Cause guess what? That's just life. That happens for everybody, even master teachers. Now, what separates a master teacher from a novice or average amateur teacher is that the master teacher then doesn't let those kids stay there through intervention and enrichment, and the amateur just continues to move on, or they don't really implement intervention and enrichment.Â
29:30
Danny
Every teacher wants to know two things. Am I competent? Am I doing a good job? And do I belong here? Do people like me respect me? That kind of thing? And when you look at common formative assessments and you're sharing this, kind of in public, even if it's just a small Plc, it could feel vulnerable, right? And, oh, man, 40% of my kids didn't get it, you know what I mean? And whatever the percentage is. And that could be hard to admit. So do you guys have conversations around that piece?Â
30:03
Ryan
We're still working out those essential standards. I think those are going to be more conversations for next year. When they're actually in the mud going through all this.Â
30:13
Danny
Okay. But I'm not so much, like, talking about the central standards. I'm talking about the emotional side of the work that a good portion of my kids don't make when I give a common formative assessment. And now I feel lousy as a teacher. I feel like I'm a bad teacher or I want to sort of hide or something because I'm worried that I'm not doing a good job or that I'm gonna get a bad evaluation or that my peers will think I'm an idiot. Like, do you talk about that piece?Â
30:40
Ryan
Yes, yes. And the analogy we use over here, nobody bats a thousand. Looking at those common assessments, because Matt does have some of those now. I mean, you can look and you could see, whoa. Wellyou had 70% of your kids passing that. I had 50. What did you do differently?Â
30:59
Danny
Yeah, exactly.Â
31:00
Ryan
And then just creating that culture of, hey, man, I want to go in and out and see what Danny did in his class to engage those kids or go over that concept. And, oh, man, maybe when we do the intervention piece, maybe Danny takes that group of kids because he really nailed that ratio assessment. It's all about the collaboration piece. And, hey, failure's perfect. Fine, man. As long as you're growing and learning and have that mindset of, I want to get better.Â
31:32
Danny
Yeah. And the PLC piece provides that, because when you're doing the intervention acceleration, you can make progress because you're actually not just steaming forward, you're reteaching. So a couple opportunities for you to think about. Since you're newer to the process, what can you do to, like, really have this hyper celebratory culture? So when common formative assessments are given, intervention enrichment is done, another assessment's given, and now we can quantitatively show progress. How are you going to celebrate that on a consistent basis? So that's something, certainly, to explore and talk to your leaders about and that kind of thing. And then you're in middle school, if I remember correctly. Is that right?Â
32:18
Ryan
Oh, yeah, we're the best. We love Middlesex.Â
32:21
Danny
Yeah. Awesome. And so, like, the team leads are those grade level leads then, instead of departments? Or how does it work?Â
32:28
Ryan
l'm going to kind of restructure that for next year. But I have a foundations team, the leadership team, and its department heads and then a couple other people that want to volunteer for it.Â
32:39
Danny
All right. Can I share one story from what worked for me, too?Â
32:42
Ryan
As long as it's a good one, Danny.Â
32:44
Danny
Well, I hope it is. I think it is. So our school was just like you, newer to the PLC process, and we got them the time, we got them the training, we got the technology right, everything to support them to do the job. So then the next level, and we started implementing and saw some growth. What really took the growth and made it exponential was within our leadership team meetings. We started making our leadership team meetings. PlC's right, in the sense that this is a high school, okay? And the department chairs would bring in their common informative assessment data, even though the department chairs were not teaching similar classes or the same course or the same grade level. But we wanted to create a culture of psychological safety and trust and that we're a learning organization and that it's okay to fail.Â
33:38
Danny
It's like part of the process. And we get better. We learn as new data comes in. So the department chairs started presenting their results, other common formative assessments. They would share their lesson plans and unit plans. We did understanding by design back in the day, and then they would talk about how the kids got to where they were, what the results were, and what their plan was for intervention and acceleration. And then eventually, after giving that second common assessment, how did it work? Did the intervention enrichment work or not? We got the department chairs comfortable in that process, and then it was, okay, now go do it with your departments, or in your case, now go do it in your grade levels. Â
34:20
Danny
So by having the leaders sort of show the behind the scenes of what was happening in their classes, because those leaders are usually some of your higher performing teachers. It helped the rest of the staff say, oh, it's okay. Katie, who's this really great history teacher, all of her kids don't get it the first time around, and she had to do intervention and enrichment, and at times it was hard, too, but more kids got it. And that's the whole point. More kids get it the next time and the next. So that might be a structure. If you don't have that set up yet, that helps it take root within the culture.Â
34:59
Ryan
Yeah, that makes total sense. You're remodeling it, and then they just.Â
35:03
Danny
Spread it out to the departments 100% what do you think? What would be, if you like that idea, what would be the easiest part of implementing it? And what do you think the biggest challenge would be?Â
35:14
Ryan
Yeah, I just think right now with my foundations team, I've got a lot of fries piling all over the plate, and some are tall enough and just wanting to throw the ones off I don't need and just be able to focus on the ones that are on the plate. I guess we'll just be prioritizing this over some of the other things, which is value in prioritizing this 100%.Â
35:40
Danny
Yeah. I mean, what would be more important?Â
35:43
Ryan
Say. I would say this because you're going to get to. We're going to be there with competent assessments pretty soon. And so just having that process so that when you're in your plc, you know what process to follow. And just having the culture of, hey, it's okay to fail. We celebrate successes and failures. We figure out ways to make those successes.Â
36:07
Danny
Yeah, that's good. I like the analogy of the fries that you mentioned. One, they're delicious, but two.l
36:13
Ryan
I love a good fry.Â
36:15
Danny
Too many. It's dangerous. Right? Yeah. I lived in Belgium for a while. I don't know if you knew that. Their fries are legendary. Seriously. No, they say, like, it's not the French who invented them, it's the Belgians, and they take their fries to a whole nother level. I think the secret is that they fry them twice in the oil. Cause I was watching them make it. They'd throw it in, fry it, take it out, dry them kind of a bit, and they would go back in for another dip that's extra healthy. But the double unhealthy, man, I'm telling you, so good. And I lived. I lived at a place. Last part of this story lived right above a frit shop in Aldi. So we could come out, do some grocery shopping, get our fries.Â
They did the mail over there, too, right? The mayo. You could get ketchup if you wanted to, but they knew you're American if you got the ketchup.Â
37:06
Ryan
Oh, I'd have to get ketchup.Â
37:08
Danny
You can do both. I snuck out with both, and I started a ranch.Â
37:11
Ryan
They do ranch, too?Â
37:13
Danny
No, no. There. A couple of shops had, like, specialty sauces, and they would have it, but it was pretty much mostly just mayo or ketchup. But back to the analogy, like, are there any fries on that plate that just seem. Yeah, it's important. The district says it's important. It's kind of, we've always done it. But like you, the business of school is this teaching and learning business. Right. And supporting teachers in their own professional growth and supporting kids and their achievement and PlC's and intervention enrichment. Like that is the way. And then partnering that with like how Mitch sets up his class with executive functions. That's a powerful approach. But what else? What are the other fries?Â
37:54
Danny
I don't know if we have time to get into it, but are there any that you could just like immediately knock off and handle for them or somehow address in another space?Â
38:05
Ryan
Well, I think that once we get this bell schedule knocked out. That's a lot of the fries and I feel like we're close on that one. And then it is, it's going to be this executive functioning coming down the pipeline, too. But I think that that falls right in line with PlC too, for sure I know I could make more time once the build schedule is built.Â
38:29
Danny
Yeah, that would be a huge lift and space cleared for sure.Â
38:33
Ryan
And then just structuring out that wind time. And what exactly do you want that to look like, which should be modeled., I mean, that's where you come in, look at the common assessments and say, hey, what kiddos didn't get it? What are we going to do about it? What interventions are you going to be doing with it?Â
38:49
Danny
I think intervention, again, I just want to over communicate. I think that could be happening quite a bit within the regular class, too. Like not just because if it gets delegated just to this wind time, it's going to be seen as a thing that's a kind of an add on and not the ethos of how we decide teaching and learning looks like within our school. And it's something, it is a shift because it wasn't natural. I had to learn this. Our teaching staff had to learn this when I went to college to train to be a teacher. Back in the day, we didn't talk about intervention and enrichment. It's like how do kids learn? And a bunch of theory and stuff like that, and then you get into the real deal.And you think it's just like, hey, I'm going to design this awesome lesson. Kids are going to love learning from me and they're just going to get it and that's everybody's going to be true.Â
39:38
Ryan
No, yeah, I'm seeing.Â
39:39
Danny
So there is a big, big learning curve there. But once you make that shift, like the kids, it's going to be so good for you. I'm quite excited for your campus because you're so new into this process. And in a year, two years, the results you're going to see, you're going to be thrilled. You really are.Â
39:56
Ryan
No, and it's time. I would result now, but everything works like that, especially education.Â
40:03
Danny
Not at all. There's no magic. If there was everybody taking the magic pill. So it's just a bunch of baloney.Â
40:09
Ryan
Oh, absolutely, actually.Â
40:10
Danny
So before I ask you, like, what was most helpful from today, the last thing I'll say is one thing and maybe you've thought of it, maybe already offered it. But I'm assuming your school year is sort of the traditional school year and there's a break during the summer, too, so that that might be an opportunity as well to do some really targeted intervention with some students that need to catch up. How can you frame it in a way that's exciting and fun and an advantage for that student and for the families and a win for them versus a punishment because you don't want it to feel like, well, you have to come back because you're not getting it and you're so far behind, blah, blah. But something to think about.Â
40:49
Ryan
We don't. Unless you are. I don't know, instances where, well, I guess they do offer summers, but that's like, for low, low tier three kids, so it's rare that we offer that.Â
41:02
Danny
If there's teachers willing in a budget to support the efforts that might. That's sort of low hanging fruit, you know what I mean?Â
41:12
Ryan
I can remember one of my schools, we used to do that, but I mean, my title budgets just got by $50,000, so.Â
41:18
Danny
Yeah, big cut. I got you.Â
41:21
Ryan
That's a very big cut, man.Â
41:23
Danny
Yeah. You gotta do what you can do. All right, I think there's a lot of good things to be working on. What was most helpful from today's call for you?Â
41:31
Ryan
I think the most helpful is just going to be this. So if you could.Â
41:36
Danny
I'll write the email now, while you're talking to.Â
41:39
Ryan
I'd like to pick Mitch's brains on some things and see how I. And you guys kind of shot me down a little bit during the podcast when you said that implementing some of these things we put them in these advisory sessions is always the best use of our time. And I'm like, well, that's my win time. But ours are going to be good uses of time. I think some of these skills will be able to really emphasize in there, too.Â
42:06
Danny
Okay, well, you could definitely dig into that with him. He's the expert there. But I think it's. I think it's a bit. I wonder if he'd agree. He's not here, obviously. But what we talked about when you put it in this special little area, then it's just, it doesn't become a part of who we are as a community. And Ryan had this idea. He brought it in. If I just wait a couple more years, he'll be gone. And then this thinking class I don't want to do or this reteaching that's super important, I won't have to do it anymore. So if I just wait it out, right. Versus if it's integrated into, like, how I operate as a teacher every day. So. Cool. Well, thank you for your time.Â
42:49
Danny
I really appreciate our calls and appreciate you signing up for this. Thanks for listening to the Better Leaders Better Schools 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.Â
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Quest Food Management Services
Quest Food Management Services provides high-quality, scratch-made food in K-12 schools and universities across the country, prioritizing the health and wellness of students and elevating the cafeteria dining experience. Quest offers a full-service approach to their school partners, bringing 40 years of expertise through every stage of program development and nurturing a true sense of community through interactive events such as student food committees. For more information about Quest Food Management Services, www.questfms.com
IXL
IXL is the most widely used online learning and teaching platform for K to 12. Over 1 million teachers use IXL in their classrooms every day for one reason: They love it. Visit IXL.com/Leaders to lead your school towards data-driven excellence today.
