This week on Restart Recharge, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of "Building and Sustaining Communities and Teacher Groups." Andrea Carovillano joins us to share her practical advice on creating supportive environments where teachers work together effectively.
We'll talk about how to make teacher groups work for everyone, celebrate small wins, and build connections that matter. Andrea will also cover dealing with challenges and keeping things moving in a positive direction, all with a focus on what works in real classrooms and schools.
Tune in for straightforward tips and stories from the field. This episode is for teachers, coaches, and anyone interested in making schools a better place for collaboration.
Follow Andrea on X/Twitter
@MrsCarvEDU
Podcast Team
Hosts- Katie Ritter & Matthäus Huelse
Editing Team- Michael Roush, Alyssa Faubion, Matthäus Huelse
Social Media/ Promo Team- Alyssa Faubion
Producer- Matthäus Huelse
Coaches Camp
Professional development designed specifically for instructional coaches, like you!
Join us in Cincinnati - July 29th - 30th
or Virtually - July 22nd - 24th
Edge•U Badges
Edge•U is an anytime, anywhere professional learning platform made for teachers by teachers!
This week on Restart Recharge, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of "Building and Sustaining Communities and Teacher Groups." Andrea Carovillano joins us to share her practical advice on creating supportive environments where teachers work together effectively.
We'll talk about how to make teacher groups work for everyone, celebrate small wins, and build connections that matter. Andrea will also cover dealing with challenges and keeping things moving in a positive direction, all with a focus on what works in real classrooms and schools.
Tune in for straightforward tips and stories from the field. This episode is for teachers, coaches, and anyone interested in making schools a better place for collaboration.
Follow Andrea on X/Twitter
@MrsCarvEDU
Podcast Team
Hosts- Katie Ritter & Matthäus Huelse
Editing Team- Michael Roush, Alyssa Faubion, Matthäus Huelse
Social Media/ Promo Team- Alyssa Faubion
Producer- Matthäus Huelse
Coaches Camp
Professional development designed specifically for instructional coaches, like you!
Join us in Cincinnati - July 29th - 30th
or Virtually - July 22nd - 24th
Edge•U Badges
Edge•U is an anytime, anywhere professional learning platform made for teachers by teachers!
Hello and welcome fellow coaches, teachers, and education leaders. On today's agenda, the art of community building within our schools and districts. How do we knit that close knit fabric amongst teachers, staff, and students? We're breaking down strategies for fostering collaboration, trust, and the sense of belonging, both in person and online. Gear up for an episode that's all about bringing people together.
Katie:I am so excited to introduce a previous podcast guest that we had on uh, early in season two, I believe talking about the coach admin relationship. Uh, today we are joined by Andrea Carvalhano, a seasoned educator with 15 years under her belt, spanning first to eighth grades for the past five years. She's been the driving force as the instructional technology coach for her district, Menlo. Monroe local schools. I get tongue tied every time I say it. I'm calling it the ultimate professional growth experience outside of the classroom. Andrea's life is rich with family joys, celebrating 16 years of marriage, congratulations, and raising three beautiful children, not just academically inclined. She has also recently earned her blue belt in Brazilian jujitsu. Watch out people showcasing her dedication to personal growth. Andrea, we are so excited to have you back on the podcast. We were talking earlier, you mentioned how last time we were all just sitting around a conference table. Now we're in a little mini podcast studio. So we're happy to have you along with us for the, the growth of the pod here, but. Because we are kind of a long time you are an early guest on the podcast. We have a little insight to your work that you've done in community building, which is why I think you will be a really great guest for our listeners to learn from this week. But before we dive into kind of that background from, from your opinion or your standpoint, what role do you think. An instructional coach, whether they're a technology coach, like the role you serve, or maybe general instruction or content. What role does a coach play in nurturing an environment of lifelong learning and growth mindset with the staff within their school community?
Andrea:Well first I wanna say thanks for having me back. It's great to be here. I think the most important role that a, a tech coach or just an instructional coach in general can have to kind of nurture and especially thinking that growth mindset is really just celebrating the wins of our staff. So a lot of times, especially if you have some people who are a little bit more. Apprehensive to try out new things. Celebrating the wins, the successes of the people who are maybe taking a, a risk in, in their opinion or, you know, just trying something new and just giving them a shout out through email or, you know, a little postcard or a post-it note or something in their room can kind of help them and encourage them in making sure that they feel that their work has been, well, one celebrated and two also noticed. So I think that's part of building that community is making sure that people understand that they're a part of that bigger school, that bigger district or whatever it is, and that those things that they're doing in their classroom matter. So celebrating those wins, I think is a big thing. I also think that it's important that we kind of meet people where they're at. So a lot of times when I'm working with either an individual teacher or a group, you know, grade level or something like that, I'm trying to kind of ascertain exactly what it is that they are looking for to kind of do, kind of almost make a, a, a for the greater good, I guess. So I have some teachers, for example, who. When they work with me personally, they'll try and put together some sort of, you know, professional goal and. A lot of times that professional goal is, well, what's gonna help my team? What's gonna help our, our building move forward in, in whatever this particular thing is? So they try and figure out what's, you know, what's maybe frustrating, what's maybe a problem for them, but also, hey, what can I do that's also gonna help others with this same issue? So it's kind of nice to be able to see that community growth as well.
Katie:That's awesome. So in, in like the ideal world, that we're all striving to achieve, how would you, like Brene Brown always says paint done right? How would you paint done for this like, ideal school community working relationship between coaches and teachers and everybody kind of supporting each other in their, their growth and learning? What would that look like for you?
Matthaeus:Sounds like utopia, doesn't it?
Katie:I know. Yeah. Well, gotta put it out there if we wanna make any progress toward it, right?
Andrea:Absolutely. I think done looks like just teachers almost working in harmony. I know it sounds weird or it sounds kind of like. It's a cliche, I guess, I don't know. But to have staff who wanna work together to help balance their workload, because everybody has things to take home and that's not necessarily how you wanna spend your home time and things like that. So when you can work together to plan, to make copies, even to use your own personal time to also help that, that team, I think that's kind of what, what an ideal community looks like because you are like, you know, it takes a village. I guess it's that whole thing. You want people working together, having that professional discourse, but also having fun together. I think a lot of our grade level teams, for example, they always eat lunch together and I love like being able to be there with them when they're eating lunch because they're not talking about school, they're talking about, you know, you know, having fun. They're talking about the things they do in their personal lives, and it's not just always about school, which is nice 'cause everyone, you know, you need that break every once in a while. But they have those relationships that they've built. Sorry, can
Katie:Yeah. Great little relationship building nugget. Andrea: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you don't wanna necessarily start with the, the teacher, you know what I mean? You kind of wanna start with the person who's the person behind the teacher, get to know those people. And then I think making those, having those relationships, at the forefront and at the start, I think really helped that community as well. Because it's not just, I'm gonna walk into the room and I'm gonna demand these, these, this, this and that. You know, I'm gonna talk to the person, I'm gonna tell them what I need. I'm gonna tell them what you know, what we could do to work together. And I think having that relationship first is the basis for that. That's great.
Matthaeus:I, I think that's a really good point, right. Because you have to build that relationship first in order to have the credibility from those teachers and to then make any changes. We wanna give our listeners options to see strategies and things that have been put in place. We've heard so many things about you and putting teacher groups together as one way to build a community.'cause as a, as a coach, you are taking the, the bigger view right from up top and you're trying to build a community up top. So can you tell us a little bit more about teacher groups that you've set, set up.
Andrea:Yeah, so normally it's grade level teams or departmental teams and things like that in those upper grade levels. Again, it's, and a lot of it's. Stems from those teachers themselves. They already kind of have that mentality of like, if I'm gonna be working on this, let's let others, you know, benefit from that work and let's share the different resources and materials that we've made. For example our first grade team is great with that. They'll have one person who makes copies for everybody, somebody who does planning and shares, and somebody who does different resources. And right now actually two of the teachers that I'm working with in my ed tech cohorts or my coaching cycles they're actually kind of redeveloping their math and their writing units because this year have started using our clever touch panels. And so we're kind of still rolling, not really rolling those out. The primary has, and they've been using them, but they're still kind of learning how can I use these better? And so those teachers are kind of taking on work with me to help their entire grade level with those more interactive ways of using the panels and things like that. So I have a lot of teachers that kind of already have that mindset, which is great. And if you don't have necessarily everybody on board in that same mentality, I think it's great to start with those people and then just, you know, through word of mouth, start talking about ways that, you know, everyone can kind of, I guess, get on board.
Katie:That's interesting, Andrea, would you say, because I see like that sounds amazing. I have been in buildings where there is no way that that would be the mindset of other people, right?
Matthaeus:Yeah.
Katie:Like for, for whatever reason, that's just not the culture. So I'm just really interested, you know, you've been at Monroe for a long time. Has it, has it sort of just always been that way and that's been the culture? Or what are would you say are maybe like the biggest contributing things to that sort of like community? We're all in this together for the good of the group. Culture that it sounds like you all have there. Like if, if someone's listening and they don't have this culture, what is it you would tell them to start doing or little seeds that they could start planning to, to move to more of this kind of a culture?
Andrea:Mm-Hmm. First off, we are pretty lucky here at Monroe. Ev we've had a few different superintendents over. I've been here for eight years, I think we've had a few different ones, you know, retired and so forth. And so. They all come in and go, Monroe is like, is like a different. It's a, it's a horse of a different color, I guess in that regard. They always keep saying, and I always just thought, oh, they're, they're just biased. They're just kind of, you know, blowing smoke or whatever. But in reality, I think we are pretty lucky here because most of the staff is, is pretty well tightly knit and they're willing, willing to work with each other on things. But if you're not lucky enough to come into a district that's already in that capacity, that's already working in that capacity, I think the biggest thing where you would start. Is just by trying to foster and exude that I'm here to help. I'm here to like work with you. And then it kind of works piece by piece. You know what I mean? You start working with, you know, a teacher who's willing here, a teacher who's willing there, and then hopefully again through that word of mouth, it kind of snowballs. And if you celebrate those successes and start showing. You know the good that's coming from teachers trying something new, or teachers planning together and collaborating. You start showing those, it can maybe start snowballing a little bit. And really just making sure that the choices that you are making as a coach or the choices that you're helping teachers make for their own professional goals can also help benefit everybody help benefit others.
Katie:I am curious when you, when you say that in your coaching cycles, is there anything that you do as a part of and, and I don't know exactly how you walk through it. Our, our team typically walks through kind of like a brainstorming planning session, right? Where teachers think of like challenges that they're facing in their day, and then we kind of help them sort through. To guide them to choose something that like impacts the most people, right. Or like, might have the biggest impact on their team. Is that something that you do?
Andrea:Yeah, absolutely. So every, at the start of every cohort, I have a kickoff that everybody who volunteered or applied, I call it applied, but it's really just send out or like, fill out the form, let me know. You wanna, you wanna join? So anybody who fills out that form, we all meet. And then I do the gripe Jam. That actually forward Edge kind of first showed us, or showed me probably two or three years ago now at this point, at an admin retreat we had over
Katie:it's from the Google's Coaching curriculum. Yes.
Andrea:Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's from where basically we give the teachers some time to think about, you know, problems of practice and then we lead them through, or I lead them through. The organization of it. So of all of these different things that you're thinking about, these different issues or these different goals that you might have, you know, let's lay them out from what's least mo or like least frustrating to you, to most frustrating to you. So you can kind of get a, a spectrum of like, how much is this really affecting myself? And then you then further it by kind of going, moving those. Post-its we have, I have 'em Jot down on post-Its those different ideas and they move them up and down based upon how many people it actually affects. So is it highly frustrating and affecting a lot of people? Is it not really frustrating and only affects me? But you know, it still might be something I'm really interested in pursuing. It gives the staff a second to kind of reflect on that, the good that they can do for many people or perhaps even just their own set of students or something like that. But it gives them a chance to really hone in, I guess, on those goals and make a smart decision on how they wanna move forward and the coaching cycles. We usually try and end it. Maybe just. Picking like maybe two or three kind of ideas to move forward with. They, it's not something that, you know, hard and fast or anything like that. It's not anything that they have to specifically choose by the end of that 30 minute kickoff, but at least gives them an idea of where they wanna be begin. So that at our very first official meeting, when it's just that teacher and myself you know, meeting during their plan time, it's not just. It's not necessarily wasted, I wanna say that word. But it's not used up with us just brainstorming some ideas. And it's kind of fun to brainstorm with other people too in a big group and bounce ideas off of each other. Rather than just sitting there in, you know, a one-on-one session and just telling me all the different things that are going wrong in the
Katie:Yeah.
Andrea:or problems of practice or
Katie:I think it's interesting I think that's a clever way. Even just thinking about for our coaches who maybe aren't in a culture where people are just inclined to think about how can I help and, and sort of bear the burden this time, but where my colleagues will benefit. I think a coach could really drive some of those guiding questions and maybe rephrase how they're even walking someone through that brainstorming session. If it's formal coaching cycles or even just in other conversations, you know, Is there something we could tackle together that would personally benefit you, but also your colleagues might benefit from too.
Andrea:You know, just the idea of like once one person does something similar like that, like hey, I think maybe two years ago I worked with a science teacher and we kind of revamped some science curriculum for her entire grade level. And now other people are doing the exact same thing with math and with writing and all of that. So it's kind of like once one person starts it and they realize, hey this, this was very helpful to me, I'm gonna return the favor. And I think that also ha starts to build that
Katie:Pay it forward.
Andrea:Yeah, exactly.
Matthaeus:That also matches what you said earlier, like the, the coach is living the example of the community that you are trying to build. Right. Because you have to be kind of that person that says, I'm here to help. I am here to do these things with you. And if you're living that more people will probably give you the buy-in. I have did - have a question or,
Katie:well, I wanted to ask her specifically about pivoting a little bit from kind of this like, broader culture, community building, which is great for lifelong learning and, and coaches obviously value that. But I wanted to pivot a little bit and ask her specifically about like her technology, I forget the name of it, but I know you had formed like a technology leadership team kind of across the district to help. So I'd like to pivot and speak specifically to that team. So I'd, I'd like to think about community building in the sense of directly for our coaching audience, right? We have, you know, you serve multiple buildings, Andrea, we have some coaches that are serving literally like 90 square miles bigger than some states for a single, single district. Right. And there's only a couple of them, or you know, districts that have literally. Tens of hundreds of buildings within their single district. So I, so in that regard, building a community that's very specific to the work the coach is trying to engage in and essentially like building a community to help. Our coaches multiply themselves and duplicate their efforts. So I'd love if you could speak to some of that work that you did with your teams. And, and I know things change and it might not look exactly the same way today as it as I know it did. Previously, but the, the work you did, I was just so impressed with the teams you built, that that allowed you to essentially be in multiple places at once when you couldn't physically be in multiple places at once. You had other people kind of helping you carry out the work, and if you could just kind of speak to that and what that looked like and the process to get there and maybe some of the highs and potentially some of the challenges too.
Andrea:Sure. So our district always had building technology committees kind of in place, our BTCs but. Prior to me and my role, they were, they were kind of like official, but yet not, they didn't really meet very often. Some of the things that, you know, that the district envisioned overall was not getting down into the building level, I guess, if that sense. So one of my big things when I first started in my tech coach role was to really try and get those building technology committees back on track. So. In each building we have a lead, a teacher who is our lead technology committee person, and essentially their job is to I guess, direct what that district vision is down into their buildings. So if we have, let's say, a district vision, that building technology lead person is going to, you know, make an agenda and make sure that what we are. What the district is seeing feeds down into the building, and then my job is to kind of help make sure that happens. So I attend all the district technology committee meetings, even though I don't lead them. And if they need help, obviously, like I'll, I'll help steer conversation and things like that and help, you know, adjust or help make the agendas if necessary. But for the most part, those lead teachers are the ones who are driving the conversation and driving the information that's being handed out at those meetings. So, for example, our primary right now we are focusing on they have their clever touches as you know, and since this is the first year for that, their main focus is how are we going to use these clever touches to really improve teaching to supplement to. Make things become interactive, engaging for students and things like that. So we focused on making a plan. For example, what can we do this year that's going to help our teachers in this aspect? Elementary is kind of along the same route. I. We have a lead there who's always putting together obviously the agenda for us and we're looking at all the different things., they're currently piloting clever touches, so a lot of our conversations this year are focused on that. So we actually have a set of like nine I think that we bought and each grade level gets 'em for a month and they're basically seeing like, Hey, is this something that we actually want to, like. Fully invest in, get, you know, ones for every building, how will it change, things like that. I actually have a lunch and learn this afternoon with sixth grade because they're our last grade level to get them. So they're, they're learning 'em yesterday and today and then they get 'em next week for a month and I just get to go in and help out. But mostly it's the buildings who are kind of in charge of, okay, well if this is the vision we have for our building. does it represent, you know, what our district is going for and how are we gonna implement that in our own district or in our own Building.
Katie:That's awesome. And did they
Andrea:Um,
Katie:support with, like leading professional development on PD days?
Andrea:They do occasionally. We haven't had a ton of like. District whole building professional development this year. Last year we did that. We were talking, our, our big focus last year was SAMR and the year before that actually we had wanted staff members to really start understanding that, you know, when you're talking about technology, it's not just using it for tech's sake to just, 'cause I have podcast mics and I can do a podcast, doesn't mean I have to or that I should. It's more like. Is this going to benefit your students in some way? And is the technology going to help? You know, you get whatever it is, whatever learning objective you want your students to meet, is the technology gonna help you achieve that? And so. In those two years of SAMR, we had the Building Technology Committee. Members, they were all in charge of some sort of aspect of helping with that large scale professional development where they are running small groups or doing activities and kind of being front loaded with all that information so they could pass it on. So we kind of worked like top down almost. We have a district technology committee as well. So that's where again, all those top level decisions are kind of made or discussed. And each of the building tech committee leads are a part of that committee, of the district committee as well. So they're always there in that conversation. They kind of know what's happening and then they can again trickle that down into their building. And then the members in that building are usually a part of the training . The training that happens, you know, either during those larger professional development days or you know, with smaller things, they are there for somebody to reach out and, you know, ask a quick question. If they need help with something they're great with, you know, being the first ones to kind of jump in. If I'm not available, they'll be the first ones to jump in and say like, Hey, try out this tool, or let's share this. I'm gonna send out this email and. Give a shout out to this person 'cause I saw them doing something great. So that committee, those, those leads and those members really do a great job at, just making sure that it's not just me, you know, in, in my, you know, lone wolf over here. I don't have a huge district. We only have four buildings, you know, but it's still only me K 12. So the district technology committee members really try and pick up where I'm not able to help
Katie:out. I love that. Thank you for speaking to that.
Matthaeus:This is,
Katie:it sounds like a great, like symbiotic relationship from district down into buildings Yes, takes to move change and it sounds. Like, you guys have a really working system.
Matthaeus:Before we make any more people even more jealous of your, your school district and, and the place that you're working at. Let's do a quick break. Let's jump into some ads and then we'll be right back. Welcome back everyone. We're here with Andrea Carovillano and we are talking about building communities. Andrea, I've, I've, we've, you've given us so many cool things and so many interesting perspectives. I have a, I have a rather like abstract question a little bit. A lot of what we've talked about so far, I think it, it exists on some of the spectrum, right? There's a lot of what do we do as a group and how do I grow this by letting people make their own choices and have input and. And, you know, build this on their own versus on the other side, especially if it's not the perfect community telling and having to tell people what to do next in order to build that community, that's a, that's a big, strong difference between those two. Can you give us a little bit of advice on how to maybe handle the other part? How do we strike that balance between telling and, and building and supporting that way?
Andrea:I think it's important to handle those types of challenges by meeting people where they're at. You know, for example, not every grade level or every department is gonna be on board in the same way. So you might have some, like our first grade team that I mentioned earlier, who is. You know, they're a fantastically collaborative team. They work together, they help each other out. And then you also might have departments that aren't as. Cohesive. So I think by meeting people and meeting teams where they're at and not forcing, you know what I mean, and saying this is the direction you're going to go. And being, you know, strict about that. It's kind of making sure that there's, there's a happy medium. Like, okay, we, we need to. Push a little bit, you know, but at the same time, I need to respect the apprehension or respect the ideas that that teacher has for their classroom. I'm not an expert, let's say in, you know, high school social studies or something like that. Social studies, not at all. But you know, you get the idea that these are the te these teachers. You have to have the idea that these teachers are the experts in their classroom. So why I might be, you know, quote the expert on the tech side of things and how we can incorporate into the classroom. They're gonna know their students better than I will. They're going to know their curriculum better than I do. And it's important to kind of meet them and, and have that conversation where, okay, let's try this, but maybe tweak it a little bit. Let's push a little bit, but not too much, that kind of thing. Well, one example I have, going back to our technology committees is we actually, and sometimes it's not even just, you know, the, teacher apprehension that you have, that you have as a challenge. Sometimes it's, it's the union contract, right? So we had some teachers who were concerned about, you know, the extra effort that they were putting in and how that worked with the contract. Was there gonna be payment, was there going to be, you know, those hours things? So that contract, that union or the, what we had. Played a specific role in changing how one of our BTCs actually works. So rather than having, you know, monthly meetings where we're all face or yeah. Monthly meetings where we're face-to-face, we dropped, we scaled it back to quarterly and sometimes we meet over Zoom, if that works better for everybody. Sometimes we meet in person if that works better. And we really tried to control that time, that time that was going to be. Required of those teachers in that particular situation just because there was that, you know, that union contract type question. So some of the challenges can, I think they just have to be met with flexibility and the understanding that not everything's gonna be exactly how I envision it, but it's gonna be what's best for the, that that particular building, that particular person or the situation at hand.
Matthaeus:That's, that's great. Let me, let me ask you this. You, you, unfortunately, you hypothetically leave your current district. You come to a brand new school, a brand new building. With all your experiences, with everything that you've done so far, , how would you start in a brand new building?
Andrea:I would try and be visible. That would probably be my very first thing because, I've been told I'm fairly friendly. So when I, you know, I try and make sure that I establish those relationships first. You know, like. Talking to somebody if they got recently married. Congratulations. How was your wedding? You know, those types of things and not being so businesslike. And while that business side of me is definitely more of, in my personal opinion, that's kind of how I operate, but I kind of have to shift my personality a little bit. When it comes to, you know. Working with new people. So whether it's just a new staff member to a current, you know, my current district or if I were going into a brand new district, I would try and be visible. I would try and, you know, start building those relationships first. And then that also helps kind of build that, Hey, this, this new lady's not so bad kind of thing, you know, exude, I'm here to help. And, and just start from there. Just kind of start from the relationship part of it, and then just help out where you can.
Katie:What's What's maybe some quick advice for thinking, again, specifically back to those teams, that community that you built to help you do your work as a coach. You had mentioned how. Those groups had already existed, they may have sort of lost their purpose. So what, whether another coach is in that, that position where there's kind of this thing that exists but they don't really have a purpose, or maybe they don't even have teacher teams to help them carry out kind of their goals that, that they've been tasked with as a coach, what might you suggest to somebody to help get something started or, or re-get those like teacher teams in small communities back on track?
Andrea:I think it probably in that type of situation, it might require starting perhaps with admin, you know, talking and building a relationship with the administration and letting them see how structure could advance you know, their building's goals. For example, like I always I try to meet with our every principal at the end of the year and then also at the beginning of the year just to say like, Hey, what are your goals? How can I help you meet them? And if their goals for their building. Inc. You know, include a, some sort of way to kind of build that community. Or you can obviously introduce that as well to the admin and say like, I think this could help you guys move forward. Then you can start that conversation as well. Why don't we, you know, let's invite some teachers who you think would be great at moving this forward. Who you think would be, you know, great to have an on the conversation, or you know, an idea generator or whatever it is, or whatever you think that person would be good at. Let's invite them in to have a conversation. Do we think this is a group that we'd like to have moving forward? Are you interested in joining? And then you can develop and, and decide the, the specifics behind that, that group or that committee later on. Like how often do we meet, what times do we meet? Those types of things. What are my job responsibilities? But I think it's gonna start with that conversation that's like, this type of group could help us. I mean even from everything from a tech committee to, we have sunshine committees here in our district that just like, they plan, you know. Thirsty Thursdays or whatever, you know, they plan out different things for the staff members just to get together and have a good time. We had a chili Cookoff not long ago that they set up. We have super party at lunch, so we're all gonna bring in soup and snacks and stuff like that. And. I think it depends on, on like what the, what the vision is of that principal. You know, like how do you see your district If you're in there every day, I haven't been in here yet. I'm new to the district. You're out there every day. You know your staff, you know your teachers. What way do you wanna drive positive growth? Okay, well, can we get a group of teachers, a core group, a select group, whatever it be to help drive that change and, you know, add to the
Katie:I love that. Great advice.
Matthaeus:I, I have another question. I don't know if we're gonna keep this one in. I just thought of it. Maybe, maybe we're gonna make, have to cut it, but here's a really genuine question. I. For you, right? We're building communities. You're, you're working with humans. I mean, whenever you're working with teachers, whenever you work with groups of people, there's gonna be drama. What do we do about that?
Andrea:Absolutely. So I will say that in, in a, in a former district of mine, I kind of had that, I saw that a little bit more often. And I think every district is gonna have it to some in, in some regard. You know, some grade levels get along better than others. Some work together better than others. Me personally, I try and stay. Out of the drama, you know, as, as the coach, I'm supposed to be K 12, I'm supposed to be here to support you. So no matter what, I think personally of the drama happening or whatever it is, if I'm even aware of it, usually I'm kind of blind to those things. I try and stay pretty positive on my side of, of the world, but I. If I am aware of those things, I obviously, I don't, like, I don't engage, you know, I'm not going to sit there and nitpick and complain or, you know, we have we do our factor here at Monroe, you know, b, c, d, blame, complain, defend, you don't do those things, right? And so we, I try, I guess, and live by some of those things, but if. That type of information or that type of drama comes my way. Then what I do is I just try and steer it in a positive direction and say, okay, well if that's how you're viewing this, then let's, you know, fix it on your side of things. Right? What can you do to make it a positive thing rather than, you know, kind of harping back on, you know, the issues at hand or whatever. So.
Katie:I like that.
Matthaeus:Thank you. I don't know if we're gonna keep that question. I dunno if you're gonna let me keep that question, but I just wanted to ask.
Andrea:Yeah. It, it really is. I mean, there are definitely a lot of teams that don't get together. I mean, I personally, back again in my old district, I had a teacher. And she's part of the reason why like I kind of a, a approach things the way I did now because back then I was very business. I'd walk into a classroom and be like, did you do this yet? Or did I like, can I borrow this copy of something? You know what I mean? And she was always like, why can't you say hi first? And I was like, okay. So. So I've kind of taken that, that advice from her, essentially, even though it was not necessarily advice, it was more like headbutting at the time. I decided, I was like, well, if I'm gonna be the role that I'm in, I can't just always be asking things of people or getting right down into the business and avoiding or ignoring the person behind the teacher. Right? So I really, it, it's not necessarily, like I said, I'm more like, personally, I feel like I'm more. Naturally on the business side of things, and I've had to make it my own personal growth to really remember that, hey, let's have a, a, you know, a two minute conversation about what they did this weekend. Or, Hey, love your clothes. Where did you find That kind of thing. Whatever, whatever it it is to try and build a connection in some way. I have to try and focus on that
Katie:That's awesome. Well, Andrea, this has been really great information. As you know, from your first time around on the pod, we end all of our episodes with top three tips. So what are. Top three tips for our listeners who are looking to you know, improve sort of a growth mindset, just kind of school-wide community, or even bring more of a focused teacher leader group to help them carry out your work. What would your top three tips be for building community?
Andrea:So I think, like I was just talking about, I think the relationships are gonna come first. So greeting that person first rather than the teacher and like, Hey, let's get right to it, or whatever. Let you know, try it and establish that trust, establish that relationship so that word of mouth spreads or any of those types of things, because you want people on your side as well as you're trying to be on their side, right? In order to really drive change, you have to make sure that you are gonna be somebody that. You know, can get along with others even if you don't necessarily would normally like hang out with them on a weekend or something like that. You still need to be able to get along and, and, you know, establishing that relationship first I think is, is is an important thing. I also think meeting people where they're at, you know, like I said, not everybody's gonna have the same vision that I do for the district or for even a specific unit. But understanding that they're the expert in their fields. I might be the expert in mine and what we can do, we can work together and we can figure out a way forward with keeping both of those things in mind. And then finally, I. One of the biggest things for me, and especially that's a challenge that's I've been running into this past year, actually the last year and a half or so, is that building is not the same thing as sustaining. So I think it's important to really keep at it. So when you've run into challenges or when thi something that you think you've set up, doesn't necessarily continue operating in that same way, you're able to be flexible and that you learn kind of how to keep it going despite those challenges.
Katie:That's huge. I love that building isn't the same thing as sustaining. No, it is not.
Matthaeus:No, I'm sure, I'm sure we could have a whole nother episode. Unsu sustaining. Andrea, are you done, are you done for another episode? episode
Andrea:It sounds good. I'm, I'm here for it
Katie:I love it. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us. Again. I'm really excited for people to get to learn from you in a whole new way on this episode, and it's just always a joy getting to talk to you and, and have you on the pod.
Andrea:Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been a great time.
Matthaeus:Yeah. And listeners, if you wanna learn more from Andrea or if you want to reach out to us, go to our social media, go to the episode description, see all of the important links that you will need from this episode. And don't forget to follow, subscribe, and to rate our episodes. It helps a bunch if you leave us a nice review or a bad review. Anything. Honestly, if you have feelings, we wanna know, we are honest. Let us know what you think. All right. Thank you very much everyone. All right. Okay. Awesome. Good. There we go. Yeah. Andrea, thank you very much. We really appreciate your time.
Andrea:You are. Yeah. Absolutely. That was a good one. I, I'll, I'll say