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Tuesday Talks!
Join me for weekly discussions about ALL things education...from preschool through high school! As a mom, Speech Language Pathologist, and educator, I share my personal experiences related to each week's topic in relatable and informative ways.
My message about education is powerful: Reflecting on what is and making waves to cause change!
Tuesday Talks!
Becoming the Leaders Students Deserve: A Conversation with Dr. Jamila Singleton
Send us your thoughts about this week's episode!
What if we stopped choosing sides and chose students instead? We sit down with Dr. Jamila Singleton, executive director of Rooted School Vancouver, to trace the real work of educational change: expanding agency, centering family partnership, and building cultures where student voice moves adult practice. From her early days feeling unseen in school to leading a high school where seniors aim to graduate with both a college acceptance and a job offer, Jamila shares how courageous leadership becomes tangible through structures, not slogans.
We dig into the hard parts leaders often avoid: identity-triggered feedback, bias, and the defensiveness that can cloud our decisions. Jamila explains why veteran educators’ wisdom and community memory are indispensable—and why grief over changing systems needs space and support. We map practical incentives that actually shift behavior—belonging, meaningful teacher leadership, recognition, and authentic student and family voice—so change doesn’t feel like a top-down mandate. Along the way, we unpack the managing complex change framework and how misalignments around vision, skills, incentives, resources, or action plans derail momentum.
You’ll hear how Rooted’s “team kid” stance transcends charter vs public battles through purposeful collaboration with districts, family governance, and student-directed learning blocks tied to industry credentials. We also explore student-led conferences as a culture, not a project: when students practice agency and see adults close the feedback loop, classrooms become training grounds for civic voice. Jamila leaves us with a compass-setting question: who do we need to become so students can fully become themselves?
If this conversation sparked ideas for your campus or district, follow, share with a colleague, and leave a review. Tell us: where will you bring student and family voice into the center this week?
Connect with Dr. Jamila Singleton: Rooted School Vancouver & LinkedIn
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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.
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Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome everybody to another Tuesday Talks. Please go ahead and share this video, this stream, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify with a friend, a family, a colleague, because we are going to dive deep, like we always do every week, into the heart of education. And today we are talking about educational leadership, innovation, equity, and transformation. And I am so delighted to have a special guest today who is a phenomenal educator and leader whose journey really embodies possibility, courage, and real change. Our special guest today is Dr. Jamila Singleton. And before she joins us, I just want to brag a little bit and share some of her background with you in education. Dr. Singleton is currently the executive director of Rooted School of Vancouver with two decades of experience spanning teaching, principalship, teacher preparation, equity leadership, and network executive roles. Her work centers on transformational leadership, culturally responsive practices, and building equitable pathways for students and educators. Dr. Singleton previously served as director of student equity and family engagement for Evergreen Public Schools, Senior Managing Director for Teach for America, and building leader and founding teacher at two KIP schools in the Houston area and in LA. She is passionate about supporting educators, co-creating with families, and advancing community-driven change. So get comfortable, maybe grab a notebook, again, share with a friend or colleague, and prepare to be inspired. And please join me in welcoming Dr. Jamila Singleton. Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds good. It sounds good. It's been a great journey.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, so much experience. And I want to dive right in because you've held roles as teacher, principal, teacher preparation leader, equity director, charter leader, network executive. You've hit all of the points in education. So looking back, what thread kind of connects all of these roles for you? And what has remained a constant as you've grown?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So when I came into the profession in the early 2000s, um, I had grown up in a community here in the Pacific Northwest, whereas a black girl, I just didn't always feel fully seen. I didn't always feel like I had agency. And I had organizations, mentors, folks that worked with me that empowered my voice. And so I would say that that has been the common thread throughout my career is that I'm trying to continue to increase my agency to redesign systems that work better for kids who look like me or kids who come from families that have been historically marginalized in our education system. And so every role from being a teacher, I was trying to increase my influence to shift systems to becoming a principal to becoming a teacher prep leader. I've just always tried to um level up, I guess I would say, and in the way that I had an influence over the way that we're more culturally responsive with our students. And I think all of that is rooted in my own personal self, my own experience, my positionality. Um and I've learned over the past two decades, two and a half decades, that there are so many kids and families who need leaders that think like that, that think about what it takes to um center us, center black voices, center black families, um, uh, center our families who um are multilingual, our immigrant families, and think about that in the way that we're designing our classrooms and schools. And so I've been really honored um to have had the opportunities that I've had, and um, and I think that I've made some really intentional choices too. I went back to get my doctorate um in in 2018. Thank you. You know, okay, for those of you who have gone through the process, sometimes you get a little, you know, it was like in the middle of COVID. I was just starting my research. It was it was wild, but we got it done. Right. But I felt like I just needed to increase my understanding of what community-driven change needed to look like. And I ran for school board in Portland when I came home. I had lived in other cities for several years, and I came home to Portland, ran for school board, and um, and I lost. And a lot of the feedback at the time was that I wasn't community-centered, I was a charter leader looking to come in and take over public schools, and um, and that's really the opposite of who I see myself as. But at the same time, I felt like with humility, I had some learning to do and I needed to, you know, dig into the research around what community-driven change could look like and what, and I've learned a lot since then. We can talk more about that, but um, but I just do think that when we can lead courageously. Um, my tagline at one of my teacher prep institutes was uh teach courageously, build together. But it's just like, how do you both show up with courage in community with other people? Um, and that's driven everything that I've done since day one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so you like a challenge. That's what I'm kind of getting at. Because you didn't just say, you know, I wanted to, you know, impact my classroom as a teacher. You're like, I want to level up an impact from the administrative level for the school, and then from there, you want to impact the district level from being, you know, in in that position, and then to run for school board like that to me is like swimming with the sharks. That is politics, and we all know politics is ingrained into every decision that's made in education. Let's just be real. But like to put that on your plate is something that you want to go after, that takes a lot of courage and real like connection to your passion, to what your beliefs are and your values are, because you are really exposing yourself and opening yourself up to all types of input and feedback. And I love that you took, you know, you lost the rate that that position, that the race for that position, but you took the feedback and didn't let it, you know, make you feel suppressed or you know, take your voice away, but you used that and internalized it to say, okay, how can I show that this, what their assumptions were were wrong, yeah, and that this is who I actually am. And you spoke a little bit about some of the feedback being connected to your background as a part of charter schools. And I know if you're it's like you're either team charter or you're team public, and there's this this fierce competition between the two. And so I wanted to know what prompted you really to move from district public schooling into charter sector, and what were some of those internal and external signals that told you it was time for a transition?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I want to address something that you said and and about feedback. And there's this amazing book that I came across at some point in my career called Thanks for the Feedback. And in the feed in that book, it talks about that we can there are feedback triggers, and those triggers are relational. Um, so maybe there's the trust not there between you and the person giving you the feedback, maybe it's um situational, right? Like maybe just the context and in the moment, it you're not able to. And but the one that really stuck to me was the identity trigger. And the identity trigger is that the thing that the person is saying to you doesn't align with who you see yourself as. And I think that one of the realities for me as a black educator and as a black girl, black woman through my whole life growing up in predominantly white communities and going to school in predominantly white institutions, is that I've had to hear a lot of feedback about myself from the time I was an elementary school student. And what I know now is that bias is related to a lot of that. There were stereotypes about if I asked a question in class, I was seen as defiant and disruptive, whereas my white peers did not receive the same amount of attention. I received punishment at a at a at a increasingly amount, right, disproportionate amount. And so um, so feedback and the and the receiving of feedback is something in my career that I had to do learning on. Because I, as a black educator, anytime I got feedback, I got I got defensive. And so, whether it was from my students or from parents, and that I would say particularly as a principal, that was one of the hardest parts of my job when I was a young principal. I was a principal at 29 years old. So we've, you know, we all know what we were doing in our 20s. Um leading a school, while I might have had the skills and capabilities around the academics and the curriculum and some of the teacher coaching because I had done some of that work in my early 20s with Teach for America. I was not prepared for how I would feel when parents were dissatisfied with my actions, um, when they felt like there were things in the building that they didn't agree with. And so having that book, it taught me and reflecting on that, it taught me that um there is some truth in all feedback, right? There's some truth, but it's not necessarily the truth that you have to hold on to. And so um, so when I had that feedback about me being a charter leader, and you said like you're either team charter or you're team public, I'm team family. Okay, I'm team kid, and every role that I've been in and every situation that I put myself in, it's been so I could build schools, and now I know what I really believe in is I want to build schools, not just with not just for families, but with families. So every role I've taken has brought me closer to building schools with families, and so charter has a lot more opportunity for family involvement, family engagement, family collaboration. Um, I have I have two parents on my board right now who I have academic excellence committee meetings with them, and I have the opportunity for them to hear and give me feedback about how we're running the school. And so, for example, we have family conferences last month, and in a charter environment, it's a smaller environment, so we can kind of structure it how we want. It's a high school, but there's less students per teacher. And so, you know, the parents gave me feedback in the committee and they said, I don't see this, I don't see this, we don't know, understand this. And so I was immediately able to pivot and say, okay, we're gonna talk about that. Let's create a presentation in our family conferences so our students under our parents and students understand their SBAC progress, what the math assessment is. Um, we recorded it. So it's like that feedback loop in a charter environment is is much more direct. And and they have governing authority over me, right? Like as two parents who sit on my board, um, as all parents should have that level of influence over schools, but um, but I'm really accountable to them. And so I think for me, whether it's the structure of a traditional public school that's governed by an elected school board or a charter school that's governed by um more of a nonprofit kind of structure where you have a board that is is chosen. Um it's it's about how do we create better schools for kids and for families. And I'm I'm with making the changes to do that because I feel like we only have one life to live. And so I will say too, like, I think you asked me about why I made the pivot. When I worked in Evergreen for four years, I was um, it was an equity director role. So it was deeply challenging. Most equity roles have a lot of role ambiguity. Most equity directors who are in school districts kind of um, it's not uh a role that's been around for quite, you know, a time. So there's a lot of defining what the role is, defining the authority in the role. And so I spent a lot of time building trust with people, structuring teams, structuring collaboration, defining work, redefining work, reinvesting people in the work. I had three superintendents over the course of my tenure of four years. I had two deputy superintendents, I had an executive director, and then they read, and then when the director, executive director retired, they um eliminated her role. So I had all of these like structural changes and I was sustaining myself in it because I was like, there are 20,000 students here, one in five students is multilingual. I had kids that I was working with who were student leaders who were telling me the things that they want to teach shift. So I didn't want to walk away from it. But there did come a point this fall where I decided that it was time for me to move closer where I could make change and be more approximate to the change and have more direct uh authority over the change that happened. And as a result, like I wear lots of hats. I'm a school district of one, I should say a school district of two. I have a director of operations who works in the building with me. Um, but there's a principal. Um, and so we are an LEA, right? We're a local education agency. We provide all services. We have to provide the full continuum of services for special education. We have to provide all of the supports um around title and um transitioning bilingual programs. So everything that a school district provides, we provide just at a smaller scale. So I'm busy, but I'm really happy. I'm really happy. I love the the school. I think we're um on a great trajectory in year three. And um, and I don't see myself as competing with Evergreen or Vancouver Public Schools. I'm actually working with them because I have relationships with people. I am able to call the district office and say, hey, we're working on this high school and beyond planning process. Can you help us think this through? And the person's like, sure, let me come over and talk to you about how to do that. So we're all serving the same community. And um I think in in Washington, the charter law is a little different. We only have 16 charters statewide. So that means that I think for most school districts, they don't really feel the pressure that school districts like Houston or um Nashville might be feeling with large organizations growing. Um, because we're really just there to serve a small number of families who decided that they just want to be in a different school and have a little bit more of an influence over what's happening with their children.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that you you called out the team charter, team public, and then talked about how you are closely connected with district partners, district systems, and and your colleagues that you formerly you know worked with. And I love that. What advice would you give about navigating that space so that educators and maybe even leaders aren't caught in competing priorities? Do you you pick up the phone to have meetings? Is this something that's structured already, or are you creating that structure for that that interface?
SPEAKER_02:Both. Um, as I'm describing this, I don't know that this is a path that anyone in Southwest Washington has um took yet, right? Nobody has walked this particular path in Southwest Washington because we're the first charter school in Southwest Washington to open. And so there's a there's a creating of what that pathway looks like, of what those conversations need to look like. And so it does mean that as the executive director, I have to make some really intentional choices about where I'm showing up. And um, for example, um, one of the district leaders invited me to like a countywide meeting about facilities. I gotta show up to that, right? Like I gotta stay in connection and in community with, and and um, and I think there are some relationships that will stay strong, and there might be some that don't. There might be some folks in the district office who I don't work closely with, and that's okay too. And so um, so I would say that when I left, I made some really intentional choices about how I left. Um I it was a pretty quick decision. I made a decision in August, but I as soon as I found out that I was gonna interview um with this charter school, I shared that. Uh, I shared my hopes for a transition and what that could look like. And luckily, the superintendent was totally amicable and said, you know, I was able to work part-time in both places and use my PTO and um and they were supportive. Cause I think again, if we just send our students and we sent our kids, we want all of our schools to be successful. And so um, and so even though I might have had some tension and some conflicts, I had to let some of that stuff go and um and just move into a space of partnership. And um, you know, there's I think the work, you know, there's this, there's this work around five dysfunctions of a team, and it talks about like how you get trust, commitment, accountability, results. And for me, I guess now I'm seeing rooted school Vancouver as an extension of that teamwork development that I've already done in the district office. And now it's just like it's a community coalition more. And if I can see it like that, then I can recognize that there are compromises and things that are gonna have to happen throughout the next couple of years, and we'll see what that looks like. Um, one of the things that I would love to do is um as a high school, we're placing our students on a pathway to financial freedom. And so Rooted School Vancouver is very focused on supporting our students to have a college acceptance letter and a job offer by the time they graduate. Love that. It's amazing. I mean, it the mission is um really clear and specific and focused on outcomes for kids. And so, what I would love to do is continue to have conversations with a career and technical ed director in Evergreen in Vancouver, and just continue to talk about like how are we creating a community where we're supporting internships, where we're supporting students to be able to get closer to career faster? Um, there are some just like siloed programs in this in the area. And so it's just so in thinking about a coalition, like are there convenings and roundtable discussions that we can have? And if they're already happening, how do I step into that space again with the belief and the perspective and that common thread that I've always brought, which is like, okay, that's great. We're providing these really robust career and technical ed programs in this region. How are we serving our black and brown and historically marginalized students? How are we giving access to students who are multilingual? How are we making sure their families understand these pathways? Um, and so I look forward to doing that. It's just from this position as the executive director versus the person who used to work in the district office.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that. I love that as a school, you all have that initiative. You have your college acceptance letter or the job lined up. I love that there's that option there. We know not every kid is supposed to go to college right out of high school. I know for myself it took me a couple of years to figure out what I wanted to do, and I did it in college, racking up student loan debt figure.
SPEAKER_02:And that's the part of it that this school was founded on. So when rooted opened initially in New Orleans, um, Jonathan Johnson, who's the founder, had a student who had to make some tough choices about needing to make money versus going to school. And that's in high school for some of our kids and families. And um, the economic situations for a lot of our families, particularly those in poverty, um, causes them to have to make different choices when they're in their teenagers. And I remember being a teenager, I I um worked, but I didn't have to worry about whether or not our lights were paid, our roof, you know, the roof over our head was taken care of, and some of students do. And so giving them uh a faster pathway, um, and our school students get industry credentials, and so they're working on like tech credentials. So even when they graduate, like they actually are qualified to go into the tech field um and just have some of those positions available to them right away. And then the other part of it too, I would say, is uh I don't know about you when you were 16 and 17, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. Like it's like there's so much out in the world that exists, and especially now the tech industry, particularly, there are so many um fields that we are that are opening up. And so we're also trying to make sure that we're providing that space and a college and career prep course is a part of the experience, is that students are able to explore their career and understand more about their options and also understand that it shifts. Like when I went to college, I went to college to be a sports agent. I was I was super interested in representing athletes. Um, I have a family where professional athletics is a thing that's happened and it has also been harmful for people in my family. And so I thought that by becoming a representative, I would be able to make a shift in in that field. But then when I got into the sports marketing uh program in University of Oregon, I just couldn't do it. I was like, I can't, I cannot commodify the athlete as a human. And so I was like, I'm gonna, and eventually I found my way to becoming a teacher, but um, but I also just think we have to give people more time to some of that stuff out.
SPEAKER_00:I agree, and I love that that your school is doing that. That is amazing. I want to shift a little bit to another focus area of yours. I know we talked about your support of late career educators, and those would be people who've been teaching for 20 years or more. Their experience, valued, they've seen a lot, a lot of change, a lot of you know, good things happen, maybe some not so good things happen. You mentioned just the changes in your leadership. And so, what unique strengths do you see that these veteran teachers bring as to a transforming school context?
SPEAKER_02:It's such an important uh point of reflection, I think, for us in the education field. And I I'm not sure how it was in the 70s and 80s and 90s with educators, and and I know that there was um, I haven't studied kind of the the demo the demographics around how long and the average tenure of teachers, but I do know that in the district that I just came from, um, a large majority of the teachers are in that late career category. And um, and I think in my work at Teach for America, I probably spent the first, probably half of my career mostly working with novice educators. So I worked in that space probably also because I was a novice, it was a safer space for us together in a community of novices. Um, but I think what we were able to do was to, you know, ask questions, have sense of possibility. And so when I started to transition into the more traditional environment where um where that was the majority demographic of having late career educators, it was a it felt very different to me. And so I had to start to understand what was happening in that space. And so what I've come to understand over the past five years or so is there's a lot of wisdom in that group of educators. And if I even think back to the people who influenced the people who I looked up to, so Harriet Ball, for example, was uh educator who helped design the KIP model. So some people know that, you know, some people see it as the founders, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, but Harriet Ball was their mentor teacher. And so I feel like when late career educators are able to see themselves with wisdom and see themselves as people who can mentor younger teachers, I think that helps the practice improve because it starts to it creates more collaboration. And collaboration obviously is a theme and all the things that I'm I've been thinking about in my career, but um, but I think what's dangerous is when late career educators isolate themselves because then they get and stay fatigued. And I think that you can actually get more energy and working with people who are coming into the profession than you can isolating yourself. Um, so wisdom is an important thing. The other thing that I think is important that I've noticed with like career educators is um there's all this like community memory. And in Vancouver, for example, like there's all this history that they have. Like they have they know. Um, I remember talking to some principals actually who had been principals for like over a decade in the region. And there's there's so much that they know about like the growth of the school district, the growth of the community, what has changed in the neighborhoods, the ways in which families have shifted in terms of you know what they care about. And that matters because context matters. You can't just go into a classroom and and not have context and and community history. Um, but I also think the challenge of that is there can be grief. So there's like there's grief of the old systems changing, and whether they know that they're grieving or not, that is, you know, how there's that grief cycle of like denial, anger, like that's the stuff that happens. And I feel like that's actually what we're seeing a lot with some of the really intense collective bargaining cycles that are happening right now, is I think that there are some folks who are really grieving what a system used to be. And they're fighting to get some resemblance of what's comfortable and what's familiar. Because I think it's it's more than money. I think in these collective bargaining um kind of negotiation processes that I've seen. I mean, in Evergreen, we just had the longest um work stoppage in like the history of the district this last year. And um, and at the same time, the educators in this district are the highest paid in the region. And so there's like this yin and yang happening where it's like the resources are there, but there's something that's happening that's causing this really intense grief and this really intense feeling. So I think as leaders, we have to be more thoughtful about how we're supporting those mentor-mentee relationships, how we're building space for community and moving people out of isolation. So building PLCs and really making sure those PLCs are high functioning. I also think it's important that when we're in the process of building new practices and creating space for learning and new. New ways that we also give people the space to grieve and figure out how to do that in a way that um honors their community memory, but also pushes them forward into the new future because um what's outside of the K through 12 system is moving very quickly. Like what's happening in the industries, what's happening out in the career fields, I think is moving really quickly. And we need to prepare our students to be ready to step into those fields. And so that means the K through 12 system has to change.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think it's so important that you you kind of talked about this this grief that is is happening with teachers who have been in the field for 25 or more years, they've seen it be so many things and have kind of wedged themselves into this place of of comfort. And so if you come and and disrupt that, it can be very jarring, but if you're not connected with the why behind the resistance, then I think you get you get distracted and lost from the the real focal point, and that is how you would be able to connect with that veteran teacher, not by just saying you won't get on board, you're just obstinate, you don't want to change your, you know, now, like you said, you're attacking, you're giving feedback on their identity that they are not agreeing with, and then now you're at odds with each other. Um, because I have a friend who teaches kindergarten, and they're, you know, she's been in education for a few years, but this is her first year teaching kindergarten, and she's on the team with a veteran teacher. She's been there almost 30 years, and so my friend has all these amazing things she wants to try and do with all the kindergarten students, and she cannot get this veteran teacher on board, they're just it's like running into a brick wall with every suggestion that she has. And now both teachers are frustrated, right? You have one that's like, Oh my gosh, we can't try anything new, and the other is like, Why are listen? I know what works, this is what works. Right. But I think we're able to step back and and kind of see it from the other person's perspective and and find the the value in it, then I think there could be that collaboration that took part, you know what I mean? Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, there's all the interpersonal stuff I think that goes on in these in these co-teaching or mentor mentee relationships. And I that aside, so let's just say people have personalities and sometimes they must and sometimes they don't. But the other level of resistance that can emerge, and I think um there's a framework around managing complex change that um I think it's Lipett is the person who um generated this framework. But there are these conditions that need to be in place, whether it's vision, skills, incentives, resources, action planning. And what we're talking about right now is um incentives. So it's that that column, because you might have the vision. So it is the the why can get clear, because if we don't have the why, then people get confused. They're like, I don't know what to do. This doesn't make sense to me. Um, if they don't have the skills, they have anxiety, right? But if they don't have the incentives, there's resistance. And so I think that's where with late career educators, when you're trying to build incentive, it's like, what like what's the incentive to change? Like I've been doing this this way for 20 years. I have my curriculum, I know how to teach this, I know what happens in September and October, November, December, January, you know. And teaching is hard. Like you do want to get a structure and some routines in place because you're already dealing with the social emotional pulls of what kids are experiencing, and that's depleting for you as a human, just trying to navigate that every day. And so I have a lot of empathy for any teacher who has to like change a curriculum or change a structure because what's the motivation for that? And so, what you said earlier about the kindergarten teachers? Um, I wonder if I was working with that with both of them as a third party in the conversation. I wonder what both of them want to get out of the school year. I wonder what their motivation is. I wonder, um, do they have any similar motivations? And like, how do they then build a plan in that space? It might not be everything that they agree on, but there might be something that they're all there, both there for. Um, and so the piece before around um the strengths, if if my strength is my wisdom, if my strength is my community memory, if my strength are things that all have to do with the past, then how do I start to incentivize that there's something that you can get out of this future if you do this a little bit differently? And I think in equity work, the way that I've recently talked about that is that our community, like this community that you are a part of, the memory that you have, we can either get better or worse as a community. And this group of kids is the future of this community. And so I think when we talk in those terms, a lot of lay career educators do want to see because they have alumni, they have kids who they've seen either go you know a good route or not. And I don't think any teacher gets into the field to not see their kids be successful. I think all teachers want ultimately student success. And so, but how do we just remind them that like the things that we're doing can affect that? And and I think they know that for the most part, but they there's a lot that has changed in the system lately that I think is causing folks to feel a sense of pressure and and but if we can honor their legacy and like what they've brought to it, but also become partners in transformation, I think it could it could make a difference.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. I think that's a great place to start to find in that that kind of cross-section, that that intersectionality. What are we both looking for out of this year to find that common ground and as the the starting point and then backing it up to where where is it fractured? Where have we, you know, we're approaching the same goal, but we're coming at it two different ways. And so then how can we get on the same path? I think that's a great starting point. If anybody's listening and you are coming into you know conflict with team members for your grade level, that's a great place to start, is to talk about what what's your goal for the school year, and then seeing what is in common there and building off of that. I love that so much. Yeah, you talked about it.
SPEAKER_02:And as new educators, we have to be humble enough to you to say that like I I honor what you bring to this, and I wanna I want to elevate that. I don't want to, I don't want to that to disappear, right? But how do we level it up but elevate what you bring?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you talked about incentives as part of that um model, um, the managing complex change model. What types of incentives or motivators have you seen as being most powerful for driving for driving change in this context of you know seasoned wisdom laden teachers?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think when we're looking to transform schools and we're looking to transform classrooms, I would probably say the incentives I've seen that matter. Uh, one is belonging. And I think what districts maybe are struggling with is what does belonging look like for teachers? We've been talking about belonging for kids, but I don't know that we've been talking about staff belonging. And I wonder how many districts are actually um accounting for that. Are they are they do they have data that indicates where staff are better at with that? Um, in Evergreen recently, um they have an affirmative action plan which talks about teacher retention. And in the teacher retention part of that plan, it does talk about some ways to both gather data but also um some strategies to put structures in place to help improve belonging um for staff. Um, I also think leadership is a is an incentive. I mean, personal, local, and immediate, I've always been interested in more agency over what's happening in the system. And so I don't think we should take it for granted that that teacher leadership matters and giving teachers the opportunity to lead and influence on things that matter to them. And then also, I was working with a school that I think does a really good job of structuring committees in the building and making sure that people get to be involved in committees in ways that they care about. Um because all the decisions cannot be made top-down. There has to be some space for people to ponder and play around with things and put, you know, try new strategies. I think we all want to be creative. Like I think it's human nature to want to try things out. Um, recognition is always good, right? Like just recognizing people and you know, it's the carrot or the stick kind of idea, obviously. Um, and then I think the last one I would say, um, and this is one that maybe there's a little tension in my current theory of action in schools, but I think voice really matters. And so, how are we balancing teacher voice with family and student voice? Uh, and I think teachers get to make a lot of decisions, right? Like they make every decision in the day. I think I've heard something that teachers make nearly as many decisions as air traffic controllers. Wow. There's just like so much that a teacher has to think about in a day. But I think that teacher voice also matters alongside student and family voice. And I've seen actually recently that when we put student and family voice into the mix, it actually helps teachers level up a bit because they start to feel that connection and that proximity to kids. It's like we can't just have kids entering and exiting classrooms, and there's like no connection and proximity to actually how they're doing. So I think student feedback and student voice is actually an incentive. Um, and there's an organization that um, I think it's the Center for High School Success. They do something around ninth grade success, and they've um historically done a lot of work around like what are the early indicators for high school graduation and how do we keep ninth graders on track. They've recently put out a survey for what are the conditions that need to be in place in a classroom. Um, and it's called Pertz Elevate, which is a survey that you can give to your students in the classroom. And that survey starts to help you understand what students are feeling about the classroom and the conditions in the classroom. And so that student voice for us and the work that we've been doing over the last couple of years is critical. Like that's the driving um motivating factor for teacher change. Um, so those are the things I would say. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Those are all really great incentives. And in just your last point about that student voice being the driving force in what teachers you know are doing, that that feedback loop, all of those things is so important. And we just had an episode on Tuesday Talks a couple of weeks ago about um shifting from parent-teacher conferences to student-led conferences, and so much variance in opinions on that topic, but a lot of overwhelming support for teachers from teachers and from parents who have been a part of student-led conferences, and really that empowerment from hearing from the student, like you just said, levels up the helps the teacher level up, and then also is teaching kids that that agency and giving parents a chance to really hear from the voice that matters in all this, because like you mentioned earlier, the student is at the center of all of the decisions that we make, should be at the center of all the decisions that we make as well.
SPEAKER_02:Can I ask a question on that? Yeah. So when you are hearing the different opinions and the different perspectives, um, is it that the feedback was where there was discomfort, or is it that there was discomfort in that something else? Like, were the teachers concerned that there wouldn't be information shared, or that this because I've heard that sometimes where they're worried that the student won't be fully open, or that the student isn't prepared to like lead that type of conversation? So, what were some of the things that they were concerned about?
SPEAKER_00:It kind of ran the full spectrum. Some teachers were concerned that this is a big shift from what they've been doing, and that it would take a lot of time to make that transition a reality. And then also, some teachers pointed out they've invited kids to be a part of the conference, and the kid just gets up and walks out or doesn't have anything to share. And also some feedback from parents from administrators were that parents have said that a student-led conference wouldn't be as informative, it would be less formal. So it was a lot of these came from personal experience with it and maybe didn't go so well, but also just the fear of the thought of changing and shifting to that student-centered. So it was kind of ran the full the full gambut. But you know, if a kid comes into a conference and has nothing to share or isn't interested in sharing anything, I think that speaks volume.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's data, definitely. Definitely asked because I think one of the things that I that's true about change is that change sticks when it becomes culture and it's not a project. And sometimes when we talk about strategies like this, we talk about them as initiatives or projects. And I've I've been guilty of that. I'm not gonna sit here and say, like, I haven't tried to launch an initiative that's like very standalone and people feel like it's coming out of nowhere. But when it comes to student-led conferences, probably what makes them most effective is when there's a culture of feedback and students have had the chance to practice before that moment, right? They've had opportunities to um to be in conversation where they're leading and driving the discussion first. I mean, how often do we actually allow students to drive a full discussion with a group of adults? Right. That's a huge skill. And then second, um, I think there's the creating a culture of listening because for some students, when you say that like they got up and walked away, like that gives me data to say, like, oh, they don't feel comfortable. They don't think that this is gonna make a difference. And so um, which I have heard in some recent work that we've done is students are um they're like, yeah, we shared the feedback, but nothing changed. Nobody told us if anything had been heard. So it's so important to create that culture of listening, of share, of doing the feedback loop where you're sharing. Here are the things that I've changed because this is what you told me. Um, because then that helps them to build more of an understanding of how to even go about that. And and how powerful would that be? How powerful could it be to create a community of learners across our systems where they feel like their voice matters, because that is when we get the kind of democracy that we want. That's when school becomes like a truly democratic project, is that we're building, you know, future change agents who can, you know, speak on issues that matter to them and they can generate um and influence groups of people. Um, and that's what we want. So I felt I hope people stick with it and recognize it's not just a project that it just like takes more repetition, right? More practice. Yep, they'll then they'll get better at it.
SPEAKER_00:That's right, giving that that structure throughout so that it doesn't seem like you're just putting them on the spot at this conference, and now all of a sudden you have to talk about your learning and challenges and be really open. It should be something practiced throughout throughout the school year. And I love how you said that creates that the transformation becomes culture, not just a short-lived initiative and and being able to make that happen. So, how do you you know go about ensuring that the change you want to see in your charter school now is not just implemented but sustained?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, these are the big questions. Yeah. So um, I've officially been in my position for two months. Um, I've a uh part-time and now I've been full-time for um actually just two weeks because my job was a part-time position, but it just got increased to full-time um like two weeks ago. So the things that I've learned so far about the environment, um one, the charter school is already really solid in having uh an academic program. We call it the rooted DNA. And so there are elements of the program that are already really well structured into the schedule, such as student-directed learning blocks where students have an opportunity to drive their own learning. This is time they can work on their industry credentials or they can work on intervention or um, and in a high school context, it's nice to be able to give students some choice time and how what they do with their time. And um, and so that environment and that those structures are in play. But I think in order for us to really get to the level of excellence that we um are promising our families and our students, is we have to continue to build like monitoring plans and making sure that we're doing more to data, like to analyze data and just do more around progress checks. And so, what are the hallways experiences like? What is the quality of student work? Um, what is the quality of student discourse? And I think that's where we're at in the growth of the school right now in year three. We've also had some turnover with teachers, which I think a lot of schools who are opening have, where we have our founders and the people who were really excited to get things launched, and then they have moved on to other endeavors. And so we have some new folks who have come in. And so I think, in order to sustain, when you have your founders who have a lot of experience in the program, and then you have new folks, it's trying to figure out how do we create that PLC, that collaboration. And so it's very similar to what we talked about earlier, where it's like you have this wisdom and this group of folks over here, and then you have a new group who are coming in, and how do we bridge um because they also have wisdom too. We hired some really um great previous uh teachers and folks who have a lot of experience in their content area. Um, and so for me as an executive director, I'm trying to figure out like how do we protect their time, how do we make sure that there's resources? Are we have do we have the right tools? Like, are we giving them the right supports for intervention block, for example? Um, we've been having like technical issues getting into systems, and so I'm just trying to make sure we have the right resources. And so if I was to go through like the managing complex change matrix, I feel like our vision is pretty clear. We're the mission and vision is clear. Skills are mostly there. We've got folks who understand the DNA and they're implementing a lot of the elements of the DNA. Um, incentives are probably something we have to work on and just making sure we're creating belonging among the staff, that we're creating uh a strong leadership feedback loop, that student and family voices centered resources is probably where I'm spending my time right now. Um, and then action planning, yes, and then um how we're monitoring culture and just like keeping things. And I think through that we'll be able to get some sustained change. One thing I want to say kind of at the end of this is that um I'm also not the same executive director as the executive director before me. And so the executive director before me was the founder, and he and I are we're just not the same humans, and so we have um a lot of similarities in terms of what we believe and want for kids. But I think what I'm trying to figure out are like what are the rituals and traditions that are a little bit more aligned to my leadership, and so um, so we're working on that right now, and just so it's an adjustment, I think, for staff because it's a change, it's like a change amidst a big change is you know, having a new leadership uh come in, and then also just the change of opening a new school, and so but all of that to say it's what I said before like this school cannot just become a project, like we have to create a culture, and the culture is through the routines, the traditions, the plans, um, having the clear resources. So I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, based on your track record for going after, you know, leveling up after leveling up and leveling up, you are the person that is fit for this new adventure. And I love this so much as another step in your journey. And I'm sure that you're gonna guide your team into the greatness and the possibility that I know you have envisioned for that specific charter school.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I um I think so much is possible in our school system, and I think that I've seen over the last um two and a half decades, I've seen incredible leadership. And that's the place that I that's the that's the consistent thread, is throughout all of my experiences, I've just been surrounded by just phenomenal leaders, people who um, you know, I've worked alongside a lot of phenomenal leaders. And so when you when you have phenomenal people doing the work, courageous people doing the work, there's a lot that's possible. Um, and so I want to create a space where students don't have to mute themselves, they don't have to mute their brilliance, they don't have to shrink. And so when you have phenomenal leaders who also don't shrink, right? Like we can't shrink because if we shrink, then we're sending the message that we need them to shrink, and that's not what we want. And so we want to continue to um establish these environments where just be expansive. And I have a business on the side, it's my consulting business, it's called Expansive and Empower Ed, because I just feel that the way that we're gonna move through the challenges in our system right now is just to expand our thinking and to be much more generative and creative. Um, and that can be scary, but I always think I'm like, what other choice do we have? We can't keep doing things the same way and getting the same results. We know that's insane to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:As we wrap up, like just what is one question that we should all ask ourselves as educators, leaders, as community members, if we truly want to be the change we want to see in this world of education, what's one question we should really all ask ourselves?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think that if we know that this work is about possibility, and we know that we're building schools, we're building classrooms where people don't have to shrink, families have a voice, they don't have to fight to be heard. They get to show up and have a voice and be influential in their child's experience. And we're architecting, you know, architecture building transformation together. I hope people ask this question um around who do I need to become so that the students and communities I serve can also fully become themselves.
SPEAKER_00:I like that the reflective piece of that. Who do I need to become in order for the students to become their greatest selves?
SPEAKER_02:I love that. And I say that mostly because I think in my journey throughout, I've always had to be operating with a sense of humility and learning. And whether it's that example of reading, thanks for the feedback and recognizing, like, I'm getting defensive, I gotta figure this out, or going back to get my doctorate. I've consistently thought about how I need to grow and my professional self, my interpersonal self, grow my emotional intelligence so that I could continue to show up for students and community and serve fully. And I think it's a journey. Um, and I think that's okay. And and sometimes I experience educators to have insecurities or to feel like maybe I'm not a fit for this, or maybe I'm not um, you know, don't have the skill. But it's one thing to not have it, it's another thing to not go after it and find it. And and it's and we can find those solutions if we just keep looking.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Thank you so much. This was such a great conversation. There's so many so fast, I'm like, oh, we're done. There's so many branches of this conversation to even come back to at a later point. But I wish you all the best in this this school year that we're in right now. I know you have great vision, and you're gonna pull together the resources to make that vision a reality. And I love that so much for your students and your school. Thanks so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and um anytime, Tiffany, I can always come back. Maybe I should come back in a year and and tell you how things have gone because I've you know we we have possibility, but we also got to get outcomes. So I want to tell you how things have gone. So um ready for me to come back.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I would absolutely love that. Thank you so much. Okay, so everybody, thank you for joining me for another amazing Tuesday talks. Remember, this is where we come to bring together families, schools, and community. Continue to follow me on Instagram at Dr. Tiffany SLP for more educational topics. Join me here every week for another amazing conversation about all things education. Be sure to do all the social media things, you know, the likes, the subscribes, the all those things. Do that and join me back here next week for another great Tuesday talks. I'll see you then. Bye. Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday talks. See ya.