Summary:

Dr. Jim welcomes Pat Wallace, superintendent of Danville Community School District, to discuss strategies for fostering an innovative, fail-forward culture in educational settings. Pat shares insights from his successful record of improving schools and underscores the importance of building community, rediscovering educational purpose, and developing leadership. They explore the transformative impact of focusing on small, incremental improvements and long-term growth over standardized scores. Gain actionable insights from Pat's journey to drive cultural shifts and elevate team performance in challenging environments.

Key Takeaways:

• Building Belief and Community: Creating a supportive and purpose-driven environment for educators is crucial to fostering meaningful change and innovation.
• Fail-Forward Culture: Encouraging an educational setting where educators are allowed to learn and improve through failures is central to Wallace's leadership approach.
• Incremental Growth over Time: Wallace stresses the importance of focusing on small, continuous improvements, using data and assessment-driven strategies to track growth.
• Leadership Development: Identifying and supporting emerging leaders within educational settings can lead to broader positive impacts, both for individuals and the organization.

Chapters:

00:00

Building Innovation Culture in Education Through Failure Tolerance

02:15

Empowering Educators Through Shared Leadership and Fail Forward Culture

07:09

Transforming School Culture Through Purpose and Community Building

11:17

Transformative Leadership and Building a Roadmap to Success

15:39

Innovative Education and Building a Tolerance for Failure

16:58

Long-Term Growth Strategies in Education for Students and Teachers

24:47

Overcoming Fear of Failure in Educational Settings

28:13

Building Community and Improving School Standards

30:43

Building a Fail Forward Culture in Education

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Pat Wallace: https://www.danville.k12.in.us/

Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda



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Pat's leadership is all about fostering positive change and maximizing the growth of every individual he comes into contact with. During his time as principal in Missouri, he led a diverse elementary school from the bottom quarter of the elementary schools in the state to the top quarter, which was the largest achievement growth in the state during that time period.

And his school was a state and national school of character, all accomplished during the COVID 19 pandemic. He brings these same tools to his superintendency and looks forward to sharing them with you. With others to help make a difference across the nation. Pat, welcome to the show.

[00:01:34] Dr. Jim: Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation because I think building an innovation culture and a fail forward culture in the K through 12 space is going to be a pretty interesting conversation to get into.

And particularly, I'm interested in understanding what were some of those key moments throughout your career that shaped your leadership philosophy .

And so I did that for three years. And like you said, those pivotal moments, the first one came in my second year teaching. I had a very veteran principal who came up to me and said he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And that was the potential to, to lead adults as well as students.

And so it really just allowed me to grow my circle of influence. So I ended up going to get my master's in school administration then finish that after, three years of teaching, I became an assistant principal, did that for three years. Really enjoyed it, but felt like I, I really wanted to bring the vision I had for school and leadership to life.

So after three years of that I got my ed specialist degree and then became a building principal at Wright city West elementary. The school I took over we were in the bottom quarter percentile of all elementary schools in the state of Missouri.

I think out of a thousand and 40 schools, we were like 777. Something like that. And so then the COVID 19 pandemic hit, but throughout all that work and bringing this idea of a fail forward culture forward we, when I left two years ago to take this job as the superintendent in Danville, we grew, over 50 percentile points.

And we are the 76th percentile. We are the. The school that grew the most in the entire state during that time frame. And my big philosophy is academics, of course. But also how are we developing good citizens, and good people. And so that's where the character education piece really came in.

And so this idea of failure isn't. Isn't common, but we're an institution of learning. And so I think that's really neat. When you and I talked and we discussed this would be a good topic, was the idea that, our teachers and adults have permission to learn just as much as the kids and innovate and grow and move forward. And so that's been known as one of my five, like collective commitments that, that I encourage, in every school district I'm in.

So when you look at your role as a leader, as a principal, and now as a superintendent, how are you taking luck out of the equation and making sure that everybody pays Who has the potential to be a good leader is surfaced in a way that they're on the radar of the people that would be giving those growth opportunities.

A lot of people just refer to it as, a building leadership team or a district leadership team. But Danville didn't have one of those. And so what we did is we started. Where I leveraged different fund sources. So that way we could pay people a stipend. Cause again, I think educators in every position are drastically underpaid for what they do.

It's not just Pat's district. It's the community school district of Danville. So how do we all have an ownership piece in it? So that to me was like the biggest. Kind of operational strategies that create that structure in that team and empower people to really be leaders. But more than that it's just those, random chance moments.

Like you said, where, how do I identify the potential in other people, and seeing people emerge as leaders. Making sure to go tell them that, I think it's as simple as an acknowledgement. I maybe had this leadership in me and I just didn't see it until his name was Mr.

Frenner. I'll never forget him. Saw it in me himself, and I think just that simple conversation completely altered the path of my life because for me, I was very happy. I love teaching. I love coaching. I was at my Alma mater. I was living the dream, I had everything I ever wanted.

Cause you never know just how far one comment can take somebody.

So the bottom quarter, the top quarter. And what's interesting about that is the, Mindset shifts that have to happen to even consider that as a possibility. So walk us through briefly what you did in that environment to get people thinking about the possibility of making that sort of turnaround.

And what I started to [00:08:00] see pretty quickly was the lack of belief in their own capabilities, right? I think. You get school report cards from the state and the federal government, and then the superintendent central office folks are constantly, pushing. We got to achieve more student achievement, and there's all this pressure, right?

And I think over time when you're told, you're at the bottom quarter, you start to think you're a bottom quarter level teacher, right? And so the first thing we did is our professional development focus that year was all just around building community within the staff. Mhm. How do we become a united group that, that sees the purpose in what we're doing and reconnecting people to the purpose.

I believe every educator, they were, undergrads, at one point in time, they had to make a decision about what they wanted to do with their life. And they chose to dedicate their lives in the service of others. When, we all know it doesn't pay enough and the accountability is at an all time high.

And they say yes to everything. And everybody's just excited and happy and fresh and new. And yeah. Over time, the system can jade you, right? So how do we reconnect with our purpose and why we were in this business to begin with? So that first year, and it's same way in Danville, although the achievement in Danville's historically been really good.

But again it's this idea of how do you connect people back to their why their purpose? Like, why are you doing this work and getting them to see that? And then once you have that connection and that invigoration and you're excited again, Okay, now let's talk about what are we going to use that purpose to do?

How are we going to take that and drive us forward? And so that's the progression I'm using here as well as that first year I was hired here. It's just, let's reconnect with who we are and why we're here.

Why did you focus on that [00:10:00] versus what was in front of them, which is bottom ranking school scenario that everybody's stuck in.

That's what they've been hearing for years, right? That school had been in that percentile rank for a decade or more. And so I was like that's not working, right? It's not moving the needle. Things aren't necessarily getting better. These people don't feel good about what's going on or what they're doing.

So let's try something different. It's not going to hurt, and my belief too, is if people really are connected with their purpose and feel good about their work, you're never going to have a negative result. And so to me, it was like, why not start here?

And I think it was really well received and It was a novel approach, right? I think people were used to administrators coming in and beating them over the head with the state standardized test scores, and this is what it looks like, and it's it'd be the same old drum, right? And so I think the new approach really helped and reinvigorated people.

[00:11:35] Pat Wallace: Yeah. For me, it. It was fun to, to go back and be like, okay, how did we, how did we start this? And remembering, cause I was a principal for five years. So it was like going back and remember, what did I do that first year? And tailoring it to this district.

Cause this district was in a very different place than West elementary, where I was a principal was like, they have a historically good achievement level but not for all, right? Like, how do we look at, student groups with special education or diverse needs and, those kinds of aspects too.

It's my first time as the head leader of a building. And I got to save those best kind of Practices and what led to the most results and then cherry pick those and avoid the pitfalls that kind of went through the first time you're always learning so so for me here, too I'm not gonna say it's ever been, perfect as you go through it But I actually put together like a visual progression I called it the road map to success and it just clearly outlined all the different steps and what I think people here really appreciated about that is it was the first time somebody showed them like A clear picture of here's where we are.

Here's what we're doing and where we're going. And here's what we'll end up. And I outlined it as a three to five year plan. And everything since then has just been incredibly intentional from all our professional development to our, emphasis in our PLC work, whatever it is, they can see how it connects to this and it removes the guessing game.

And so for us, it was really important to line all that out. And my experience as a principal helped me to do that upfront and have that roadmap.

[00:13:35] Pat Wallace: Yeah, that's a great question. I would do listening sessions, so I would go and I invited all the staff to come in and meet with me one on one as the new superintendent over the summer. So I heard from them individually. I also sent out surveys, to get a kind of a landscape of where the district's at.

But again, pretty quickly, what I gathered from meeting one on one with folks and talking and looking at those surveys was there's a pretty clear similarity between how people felt about their work here and how people felt at West where I was a principal was again, I just think they needed to be reconnected with their purpose and the belief structure of why, they're in this business because, I think that there had been some previous administration and other things that just, yeah.

People I think had lost focus of why they were doing what they're doing. And so that came through pretty clearly and just talking to people and reading body language and excitement and that kind of thing. And then getting a good background on the district and everything else. And then forming that guiding coalition pretty quickly.

We did that within two weeks. About, I'd say about my first two months here, that was one of the first things we did. And then that's really what helped me understand the nuances of everything, because you can't be in every room all day. So then when I had representatives from every aspect of the district, that really helped inform me.

[00:15:03] Dr. Jim: Okay. So I get the I get the value of the importance of mindset shift, or at least getting people to reconnect with the purpose of the job. But there is this other element of it, where, education in general isn't particularly known for being innovative, and generally speaking, it's always going to be here are the building blocks that have always worked, so we're going to stick with that.

When you're looking at what I referenced in the beginning of the show, building a tolerance for failure and failing forward, that's a pretty big mindset shift. So how did you tackle that particular shift within the district?

We want students to learn more and no more and be able to do more than they've ever been able to before. How do you find out those things? They'll take them to the next level. It's innovation, right? There's certain best practices. There's research [00:16:00] based practices or evidence based practices.

Education has a lot of, euphemisms and acronyms and things. There's all those things and we know those exist too, but like what works for you here in our context, right? What works for our kids here? The only way to do that is to try. Try new things. So going back to the start of the show and where we got here.

So my very first day as superintendent, everybody wants to know, all right, who's the new guy with, what are his expectations? What are his rules? And a part of my process is going through what we call those collective commitments. And the first one is believe, you got to believe in your work and that you can and do make a difference in the lives of others.

We talk about collaboration. So the second commitment is learn from all voices. The third one is treat relationships as wealth. The fourth one is show all the way up and then the fifth one's fail forward, right? And so for us like that fail forward when I really emphasize That is the thing that is going to lead us to success in the long game and as educators and when I was a seventh grade teacher, you look at things in just year Chunks, right?

So like we might have little ups or little downs in terms of student achievement, but are we growing? Are they getting better over time? And that's a unique approach to it. I think in education is people don't always want to think, the kid is kindergarten through 12th grade. That's 13 years, right?

So each kid needs 13 year goals, right? How are we going to get them from the time they started? So they're ready to make a choice about their future after graduation, right? And playing the long game and pushing, this idea of, we're an institution of learning, right?

That's what we do. That's our business, right? But why can't we learn to, they're sometimes adults are very reluctant to be learners, right? I don't know if it's the stigma of being afraid of being wrong, or it's the fear of the accountability of state assessments, and things of that nature.

That's where it started,

So how did you shift that thinking to So that you're taking care of the short term and the longterm at the same time, that seems like a pretty big bridge or mindset shift that was necessary. So how did you reframe it so that your staff is looking at this the right way?

And that's the data people typically latch onto, right? And that's what the state reports is, hey, how third grade do this year versus third grade next year, right? But they forget that's not the same students, right? You can't necessarily look at third grades percent proficient or advanced from 2024 and compare it to 2023.

Okay. It's different kids. So the first thing we did was start talking about the sense of growth, right? So I'm not necessarily after getting 80 percent of my students in third grade to be proficient or advanced. I'm interested in looking at how they scored at the end of second grade. And then what's that next step, right?

And we're a pretty small district. So we use 4 percent a lot because to us, 4 percent represents two students. So can we grow at least two students a year? And if we can do that over time, we will graduate kids with a hundred percent proficiency. And so for us, like breaking it down into chunks and actually looking at that growth data.

I think it was to 2018 because that was the end. Most recent version of this test you're comparing the same test and looking at that way that was really different to teachers too because they had been used to always getting the reports Like okay last year 86 of my kids were proficient, you know in the year before it was 90.

Oh, no, I lost four no, no different kids Maybe that 86 is more growth than the 90 the year before and so framing everything through growth and then setting goals If every grade level can grow four percent each year Then that's playing the long game, and then everybody will leave being proficient in theory by the end of their high school career.

[00:20:54] Pat Wallace: yeah, so we have a pretty robust assessment system, and it's gonna sound not fun, but I really believe [00:21:00] in an assessment driven teaching and learning model. And what I mean by that is you start. By defining what proficiency needs to look like and be like from the student perspective. And you do that by creating your assessments first.

So our whole system, I'll line out the whole thing for you. So you have your one time of year, summative assessment, the state standardized test. From there we screen students three times a year on a universal screening for basic, foundational reading and math skills. And then depending on how they do for that is what helps determine there's.

Special education goals or their intervention goals. Then from there, we use a system called evaluate, which is a growth standards based assessment. So every month students take 25 questions of an ELA test and 25 questions of a math test aligned to the state standards, and then those standards Over time will show, so we take it in September and then those standards will match up to November, which matches up to January and then to March and then October set to December to February to April.

It's okay. They still got, six more months to learn. So having those checkpoints and those benchmarks really helps. Then from there, our teachers have common assessments weekly that they look at in their PLC groups and analyze. And then we expect teachers to have daily exit tickets. And it's nothing more than a question or two, but how do we know in real time students know and understand what you intended them intended for them to know and understand.

And so one of the little mantras again, we use as we try and remove, the term, I think. You know from our vocabulary. No, I know. I know how this student did because I have the evidence, right? I have the data. And then you flip that model in reverse everything builds, right? So the daily exit ticket leads up to can you predict?

You End of the year expectations, because the sooner you find out a student isn't on track to meet end of the year expectations, you can do something about it sooner versus waiting till May to find out. And so then each in theory, every day, every week, every month, every, trimester. We're getting measures to see if our students are actually growing or not.

And that's what we look at there, too. It's not progress. It's not a status. It's progress, right? Are we our kids growing? Are they learning? We give opportunities for reteaching and relearning reassessment. All those things. We believe in that mastery model where the expectation is that, at the first time it's, for the long time.

[00:23:58] Pat Wallace: Yeah. Every staff member has to, [00:24:00] create their yearly goals and yearly planning things. And my point was, again, just like for the students growth, right? We're not going to sit down and name 30 things that you should be doing better tomorrow. It's like, all right, what's the most impactful thing you can do next?

And we focus on that next piece. Okay. And then we target that until we hit it. Then. All right. What can we do next? And so for me it's the same strategy. I think it'd be pretty, hypocritical to say, Oh, we believe in growth for students, but teachers, you should be perfect. That's just not how it works, so they deserve the right to learn and grow and get better. And I reserve the right to learn and grow and get better. And for me it's the exact same philosophy. It's the same type of Goals, it's, for them, their assessments is their observations, right?

Giving them multiple chances to demonstrate mastery, giving them the resources they need, the training and the tools. And I think, one of the things I was thinking about, like, all right how, how do you get the staff to buy into it? You almost have to wait for one of them to fail.

And so setting the tone again, we all reserved a right to learn.

And I like how it bleeds into how you're working on development of your principles as well as your educators. When you're presenting something like this, I'd imagine that there would be some sort of resistance to this idea in general. So what was the most common resistance that you encountered and how did you overcome it?

So the first thing is like the, [00:26:00] maybe a little bit of historical or, Compartmentalized fear of just that idea of, well, am I gonna get in trouble? If I don't produce enough on this? The second one is the more, kind of humanity approaches. Our teachers care so much about the kids that sometimes they view their failures is harming the students.

And what I have to remind them Is if you love these kids and you're doing everything you can to help them learn and grow and get better, they're going to learn and grow and get better. And so to me that it's innocent risk. We're not putting anybody in danger. We're not harming anybody.

And so then what I would always do is I come back, that first hour of the next day, because each lesson, you'd reproduce it, you'd iron it out, it'd get a little better, whatever. I'd come back to my first hour next back, right? I got to clean this stuff up because by the end of the day, I realized that this would have been a lot better or whatever.

And my first hour kids, would joke with me and it built some camaraderie or whatever, but they didn't get harmed, by me teaching them at first, again, I just failed forward and it brought us closer and it was really ironic, right? Cause at the end of the year.

You know what class scored the best on our standardized test that actually ended up being my first hour, and it's just reminding them that we're not, you're not hurting anybody by doing this. But I think those are the two most common fears. And so how to respond to those, I described how to respond to the one about students.

The other one again, like I said earlier, is just you almost look forward to the moment where they try something and maybe it doesn't necessarily go well. So you can stand alongside of them and show them like, You're not in trouble. I appreciate you taking that risk. As long as you can, come back to it and reflect on and learn about it, then it wasn't a failure anyway.

But I think they like, okay, this is real, we're not just. Saying a bunch of nice words, but we actually do mean it,

What's been the impact so far?

And I see a lot deeper relationships when I was doing the listening sessions, when I first got hired, we're One building for an entire district. We have a daycare center attached to. So we're birthed through graduation under one roof. And there's this stigma, I think, between the elementary side and the secondary side and how they didn't really cross through that side of the hallway.

The board had asked, previous administration to lead that work. And we could never as a district get past choosing essential standards, right? And even one of my teachers she's awesome, but she would tease. She's we've been identifying essential standards for eight years. And I said this will be the last time, and we're going to move past it.

And so this past year, We move past it. And now we're actually writing proficiency scales. And next year we're developing the assessments. And actually the work is progressing, which to me is a sign of progress. And then even more, just concrete than that, our state assessment scores, even before we've gotten into the meat of the work, like year three is always the hinge point, right?

So next year, we're going to really hit assessment and really start Doing data analysis and those kinds of things. We've just been laying the groundwork. Like I said, like making sure we feel good about the work. We're connected with our purpose. And then getting the tools ready for year three.

We are getting better. We are improving. And like I said, this district has a really strong history of good student achievement. My question is can't we always do better.

[00:30:43] Pat Wallace: Yeah. So I think, the progression I would go through is start with the staff and their belief structures, right? Like, how are they feeling about the work they're doing? The impact they're making their purpose? They're wise and start there, right? And I know that's a pretty popular thing to say.

Just when you say it it just doesn't make sense. So just like putting it out for your staff that you can learn, there's, you have the. You have permission to get better, right? And so opening that door and making it okay, modeling for your staff. Like when you have failures, I don't know. I don't take myself too seriously, as, so as a superintendent, like I'm pretty open and vulnerable about things.

And I think that makes, Me, maybe relatable to, so sometimes, I don't know. Sometimes you've got the position be more than it needs to, or what it is. And I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense but just don't be afraid to admit you failed to write. Nobody expects you to be perfect.

Like you said, there's a lot of things out there for Progresses and roadmaps and things you could do to education has a lot of tried and true strategies. Don't be afraid to try something new and then learn from it and you'll be amazed what spawns from those kinds of things.

So best practices is a common term. I like next practices, right? So how do you find those? You got to try.

[00:32:26] Pat Wallace: They can email me or, find me through the district website. I also have a Twitter. I don't tweet or it's X now, I don't do that as much as I should probably, but I do have that. It's Mr underscore Pat underscore Wallace. They can reach out to me and I'll respond to the DMs and things like that.

I probably need to get better at social media. But those would be the easiest ways.

I think one area where we definitely [00:33:00] agree is unifying a long purpose and mission. I think that's critical. In in the story that you told, I think the other part that's important and it's worth calling out is your emphasis in building community across everywhere that you went. And when you have that unified purpose, and then you are intentional about building support systems amongst peer groups, I think that creates a really strong culture that you can drive forward from.

But there was one other element that I think is, it's worth noting. And it was the concept of focusing in on being 4 percent better every year. And I'll break it down even further. I think in general, if you want to build an innovation culture and you want to build an innovation culture that is built for the longterm, if you can focus on being 1 percent better in everything that you do every single day, you're going to have a massive impact over time.

Everybody gets wrapped up in the big picture and thinking about how that big destination at the end is impossible to achieve. Really, it's just a matter of reorienting your mindset and focusing in on small incremental shifts that get you to the goal. And I think that's the underrated part of what you described that I wanted to pull out.

So for those of you who've been listening to this conversation, Appreciate you hanging out. If you liked the discussion, make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. If you haven't already done so make sure you join our community. And then tune in again tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.