Making Teacher Voices Heard - Engaging Leadership

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Making Teacher Voices Heard

Episode 258 • 25th July 2024 • Engaging Leadership • CT Leong, Dr. Jim Kanichirayil

So what are the things that you can do to keep your employees engaged? If you're a smaller school district, how do you build stickiness when you aren't dealing with unlimited resources within your district? Today's episode will tackle those questions and provide a road map for smaller districts to build Scrappy ways to keep their teams engaged energized and aligned to the mission. Today we have lisa green superintendent of the school district of kohler joining us Lisa, lisa has [00:01:00] a 35 plus year career That's taken her from first grade teacher to superintendent. She spent 25 years as a classroom teacher before making the move into a district office role as a professional learning specialist.

erintendent role at Kohler in: 2021

[00:01:25] Lisa Greene: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

So whenever we're talking about the scrappy underdog type organization, I'm always excited to dig into those conversations because anybody can be successful. If you have unlimited resources, it's the ones that you have to be creative. Yeah. That really deserve more credit and more spotlight. So I'm glad to have you on.

versation, I think the first [: 00:02:00

[00:02:23] Lisa Greene: So yeah, I've had a long trajectory to where I am today. I started off as a first grade teacher and switch grade levels quite a bit as I was a teacher. It really helped me build my strength of curriculum. I wasn't afraid of change. Some teachers like to get in that grade level and they just stay put.

I was not one of them. I really liked the challenges of learning something new as a lifelong learner. So I spent about 25 years as a classroom teacher. And through some trainings of working with department of public instruction I was tapped on the shoulder and nudged into that. You need to leave the classroom and have a greater good focus.

l license that I got with my [: 00:03:00

But I did miss the kids a little bit. When you're a teacher at heart and you want those kids. After a few years at the district office, gaining a lot of experience, a lot of Yeah. Insight into how a district is run. I served as a professional learning specialist and that one year where I organized all the professional development for the district and worked on initiatives and sustainability that had a big impact on the rest of my trajectory is that I really learned that professional development was a gift and it was something that we really had to hook into as teachers.

Bay, Wisconsin and it was a [: 00:04:00

So then I saw this little small town Kohler about an hour away. It. as elementary principal, district assessment coordinator, curriculum director, title one, title three it was just like all of these roles into one and I thought, wow that's a big job, but it had some attractability to me. So I applied for it, got the job, moved my family and our self to Kohler where I served as principal for six years and then was tapped on the shoulder again and asked to apply for the superintendent position.

And that's where I sit today finishing up my third year as a superintendent.

One thing that I'm curious about before we dive into some of the things that you've observed in your time as a district leader, you spent 25 years as a classroom educator. And one of the things that, that we've seen across the country is that. There's an educator shortage, people aren't coming into the industry.

as an educator, how has that [: 00:05:00

[00:05:05] Lisa Greene: So as I was honing my skills as a teacher and gaining some leadership opportunities I had a principal who was very very supportive of me and kept nudging me, which is what brought me to where I am today. So I have taken that and looking at the landscape With a shortage of teachers, which therefore leads into a shortage of leaders.

If we don't have the teachers at that level, they're the ones that we draw from the leadership. I'm starting to try to encourage my staff to go into that leadership probably a little earlier than what I did at 25 years hanging in there. So around that 10 15 year mark, you've got a good basis underneath you to draw from.

You don't want to jump into that leadership role too soon because you need to have some credibility with the teachers. But certainly you don't need to spend 25 years in the classroom before we need to nudge you into that leadership role to have that broader spectrum.

Somebody tapped you on the shoulder and. Mentioned, Hey, you should be doing something that's broader in terms of scope within the district. And that actually spurred you to take on more strategic roles. When you look at how you're shaping your district and you want educators to start thinking about leadership earlier than what happened with your situation, how are you taking chance out of the equation where everybody has an opportunity to step up and lead if that's the.

Yeah, of course that they want to take.

Yes, I am worthy to become a principal. Yes, I [00:07:00] am worthy to become a superintendent. So I'm trying to build that capacity within them and give them that confidence. confidence that they need so that they're not waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey, you should do this, but have that internal, like I can do this and I'm willing and I want to learn more and I want to have that broader impact.

So I'm trying to build the capacity within them by giving them small leadership opportunities, working on committees, taking that ownership so that they're building that confidence in themselves.

You came out of a much larger school district in Green Bay and you moved over to Kohler. And when you look at that small district landscape, tell us a little bit more about some of the unique things about the district that created [00:08:00] interesting challenges for you to tackle as you were stepping into the role.

When I was hired as the elementary principal, I was elementary principal, curriculum coordinator, assessment director, title one, title three, and crossing guard. And I'm still as a superintendent, still the crossing guard to this day after school, I get out to that street corner by three o'clock. It's all hands on deck.

When the, the gym floor needs sweeping, I grab a room sometimes. We all wear many hats and it's having that. Ownership in a smaller district where you can build that capacity of that. We're all in that's critical because without that, the work doesn't get done. Now with that is the flip side of people get burned out pretty quickly because we're all things to everybody.

So it's making sure we [: 00:09:00

And that's where we hook into that leadership is showing that value, which is important to people. We all want to be valued, and respect it. So that's really important in a small district to make sure that we do that.

So how do you thread that needle when there's always so much to do and you're dealing with a smaller team with smaller, [00:10:00] with fewer resources? What are the things that you've put into place to reduce burnout? Because that's one of the major reasons why educators leave the profession is that. One, they feel unsupported by leadership, but two, the workload is just massive.

People maybe not our first year teachers, although certainly valuing them, but after they get a couple of years, two or three, really encouraging them to do at least one or two committees and helping lighten that load for everybody. And then that gets them involved. When you think back to my roots of being a teacher, making sure that your students are engaged in the learning is a critical piece of their success.

so a key to a small district [: 00:11:00

[00:11:00] Dr. Jim: When I opened the show, I talked about the different things that smaller school districts have to do to be scrappy, to not only attract talent, but retain them as well. And I always make the argument because I'm a retention and turnover nerd, that it takes a lot more effort for you to keep the talent that you have, then attract new talent.

And we see it all the time in the private sector where. Whenever there's some sort of staffing issue, CEOs and business leaders will say let's just hire more people, but they never deal with the revolving door that might exist within their organization. And the reason why I bring this up is when you looked at stepping into your district, And potentially some of the problems or challenges that existed within the district.

em into that next leadership [: 00:12:00

[00:12:02] Lisa Greene: I think it all boils down to relationships, treating people with respect and trust and making this a good place to work. Because now in this environment, teachers have choices. They didn't have choices back in the day when I first started. Teachers didn't move school districts. You're in a school district for 20, 30 years.

It was not unusual to retire from a school district that was your only one. Now teachers have choices. So it's really important that we not only attract quality staff, but we retain because it's expensive to have to retrain people and to make sure that they're. that those sustainability and that professional development is there.

So one of the things that I think is important in a small district is to invest in that professional development. We really put an emphasis on sending teachers out to conferences and letting them network with people, builds the excitement, they come back with ideas, then they then in turn, we'll share with the rest of the district, booting them into that leadership role.

nancial investment, but it's [: 00:13:00

And a conference is a great place to do that.

So tell me about. A little bit more about what intentional relationship building looks like what's involved in it How does a district leader show up in a way? Where you're fostering the kind of relationships to keep your teachers dialed in And also interested in going that extra mile. What does that look like in practice?

So I have. easy access to all the teachers. They have easy access to me. So it's really, I'm very fortunate and be able to have those relationships to know all the teachers. Now, I came from the elementary principal as well. So obviously I have a stronger relationship with my elementary staff, but it was an easier transition for me to become a little more accessible to the middle school, high school, develop a relationship with them.

So I know all of our teachers. Checking in on them on what's going on in their life is important. If they're going through a parent who's ill, those things, and it's making sure that we treat them as people and know that we're a family and we have each other's back. That goes a long way to retaining staff when this is a good place to work.

Ready or interested in taking broader roles or larger scope roles within your organization so that relationship building is actually feeding some of your leadership pipeline thoughts that you have as a district leader.

Once you know what's more important to them. Now we can build the structures in place to tap people on the shoulder if need be, or create committees and you get to know a little bit more about what their passion is. And you also know what their learning has been and where to build. So it really is about using that more informal [00:16:00] relationship building, but also tapping into our structures of our professional development, our staff development.

meetings the trainings that we have to make sure that I'm not standing in the back just supervising, but I am actually there participating with them. That goes a long way with staff. It makes them seem that we are all in the boat rowing in the same direction. And I try really hard not to ask the staff to do anything that I wouldn't do with them.

So I think to make it a little bit more formalized, to make sure we are all in on it. Yeah. on participating on committees and being those decision makers at the table and makes a little bit more formalized process, especially through committee structure.

[00:16:48] Lisa Greene: How it all began with the committee structure for me is at the elementary level when we were working with our positive behavior intervention supports, it's a lot of work working with the social emotional learning behaviors and [00:17:00] every single teacher needed to be a piece of that because there's a lot of layers in it.

So all staff was assigned. to a committee to do that work within that committee, there was a leader and then the leadership committee would meet to do some of the greater, deeper work. But every staff member had buy in and every staff member had work to do. So that philosophy just played in.

To the larger picture, when we have interview teams, we have teachers on that teachers want a voice. They have a seat at the table. And most of the time when we open it up, we have more than enough teachers willing to step up to that leadership. We just make sure that we have a revolving door. So it's not the same ones all the time.

And if we do this we will it. Show them that we value them and we respect their decision and that goes a long way with retaining staff and making this a good place to work so that we do retain our staff and we attract new ones because they think speak highly of our school district.

When you get all of this feedback coming in, how do you make decisions on what to prioritize and what to take action on, because you can only go for so long when terms of getting feedback, if the people on the team don't see any action coming out of it, they're going to check out because it's going to be like, Oh, this is another listening tour that doesn't go anywhere.

So it really comes [00:19:00] down to not just having committees, just to have committees. But to get the work done and in a small district where we wear lots of hats, we have to get the work done. And we can be very nimble at that if we're intentional. So I think it's really important when you leverage staff on a committee structure to get the work done that it's not the intent isn't, Oh, you to do my work as a supervisor, but for you to have a seat at the table and to value the opinion.

And if I don't value their opinion, then I'm not going to waste their time having them have a seat at the table. So it really is making sure that the. The intention and the outcome of what the committee is, what's the purpose

Because I think some [00:20:00] people might've heard that and thought, yeah, I don't want to do extra work that the superintendent doesn't want to do. But if we're looking at it from a, let's build a leader, full organization delegation is like critical for. Senior and executive leaders.

And it is important to have them engaged in that process and to understand that some issues, sometimes we're looking for. a simple solution to a complex problem. And when they are part of that process, then they see that sometimes things aren't just as an easy solution. There's more to this and they get a little bit deeper understanding.

rstanding and grace given to [: 00:21:00

[00:21:07] Dr. Jim: Now that's a that's good context. The other piece that I'm wondering is if you're using delegation as a leadership development lever, which it sounds like you are. When you look at what items to delegate to whom. How have you built out the structure so that you're playing to everybody's strengths and making sure that they're being developed and being put in a position to be successful with those things that you're handing off.

So it really does, again, once again, boil down to relationships and being tuned in and knowing your staff and making them feel valued [00:22:00] so that they're willing to do some of those things to get that work done.

So when folks end up going to those conferences, how are those conferences feeding that leadership development and growth engine that you've built within the district? Tell us a little bit about how you're leveraging that.

So when you give teachers that role to be [00:23:00] presenters and be the professional developers of their colleagues, that naturally loans itself more to those leadership roles. So it's really important to have them always come back as part of their learning process and. Finish, then close that loop by then taking what they've learned and applying it and saying, this is how this will work here.

Otherwise, we just go to professional development. We collect all these things, but if we don't take that next step to close that loop and really implement something, then that time and that money is not well spent. So it really is important to make sure that they take the leadership in giving that information to everybody who wasn't allowed or didn't have the opportunity to go to the conference.

[00:23:54] Lisa Greene: Typically we've found that teachers come back, especially like when we send the high school teachers to their [00:24:00] national conferences or their state conferences on, on their subject area, they come back energized with some great ideas and because they come back so energized and excited, that's contagious.

And I think that people like, Oh, I want to go to a conference and learn more because we tap into that natural learner of what teachers really are. So as we encourage them to learn, they then will in turn and spread that wealth Cause they're so excited to come back.

And it doesn't really matter what function you're in. If you're an organization that is regularly sending people out to conferences and you're not redeploying that learning internally you're wasting a lot of time and money on something that probably could have picked up on YouTube or something like that. One of the things [00:25:00] that I'm thinking about. And I'm not in the K through 12 space, but when you're building this sort of leadership development.

Process internally and growth minded process internally. I would wager that you would get some folks that are saying this is just more stuff on my plate that I don't have time for. So how do you overcome that resistance? And. I don't need to ask an and part, that's the question.

And the why and the impact it will have and if teachers know that it will affect their daily life, it will be better for student learning. It's good for the students. It will bring families in if they [00:26:00] understand the impact that it has. Typically, teachers are very willing to step up and do what it takes if it benefits the kids and the families.

That's what we're about, right? So if you can show how this is going to impact student learning or how it will positively impact The kids were all in. It's all about the kids and making sure that we give them that good learning environment and welcoming the families. So a lot of what we do as well, we want to make sure families are welcomed and involved and they can lift some of the load as well.

Having, PTOs and some of those organizations also do some events and tap into again, everybody on deck. We're all working in the same direction and we're all working to provide our student learning experience.

[00:26:55] Lisa Greene: I think it's important to be involved and engaged in the PTO organizations and [00:27:00] tap into the parent resources that are available. We're very fortunate, again, in Kohler to have extremely solid positive reinforcement from parents. They're very supportive of the school. Our community is very supportive of the school.

When we have an event, we're very supportive. We have community members show up. Our Friday football games are not just high school. It is the community is there, and that's important to make sure that we tell our story to the community about the great things happening at our school so that they want to buy in, we just passed a referendum for 21 million, which was a big deal here with incredible support from the community.

And it's because they could see our story and they know what we're doing here. So I think, again, it's all about engagement and making sure. Everybody's engaged in what we're doing, but we have to tell our story to make sure that happens. So it's maintaining relationships with our parent organizations, our community organizations.

That's all really important to have that community support.

What you've done in your district, and there's another small district leader that's listening to this conversation. They want to do the same thing. What are the key things, key steps that they should be paying attention to so that they can start the work of implementing this sort of culture build within their districts?

And those will be your first steps. If you make a misstep on that and they don't feel valued, they don't feel appreciated, makes your [00:29:00] hill a little steeper to climb. So it's really important building those relationships and really comes down to relationships with people and. Oh,

[00:29:14] Lisa Greene: gosh, I'm not as active on social media as what I probably should be. I'm a little old. I'm not in, into the too many Twitters and those types of things, but certainly can be reached via email through the Kohler School District. And I, we do have a Facebook page as well. So I guess basically the best way is to check out the Kohler School District on our website and find the contact information there.

If you're a leader of a small organization and a small but mighty team, and you're thinking about how do I [00:30:00] get, how do I build in structure within my organization that gets people engaged and it. Helps move the needle on retention. One of the big things that I would focus on is leveraging those relationships to really understand what each person on the team cares about from a professional development perspective, and then take inventory of the things that you're doing as a leader that my part might provide growth opportunities for those individuals on your team.

And I think when you look at leadership development and when you look at, Pulling the levers for retention within your organization. One of the things that often gets missed is how valuable delegation can be when it comes to developing the team underneath you. Oftentimes when you're in a small organization, you're wearing 12 different hats and you feel like that's gotta be the status quo for everybody.

l task wheel, and you're not [: 00:31:00

So I appreciate you sharing that with us and and hanging out for those of you who have been listening to this conversation. We appreciate you checking it out. If you like the discussion, make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. Make sure if you haven't already done so make sure you join the engage rocket community. You can find that at www. engagerocket. co slash HR impact, and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.