High Retention Secrets: Leadership, Systems, and Shared Vision - Engaging Leadership

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High Retention Secrets: Leadership, Systems, and Shared Vision

Episode 263 • 7th August 2024 • Engaging Leadership • CT Leong, Dr. Jim Kanichirayil

The degree of difficulty in those circumstances has now been turned up to 11 in today's episode.

We'll be tackling how to solve this problem and the person guiding us through this story. Brad Saron is finishing his 17th year as superintendent. The last nine in the Sun Prairie School District. Previously, he was the superintendent in the Chippewa Falls area Unified School District and the Cashton public schools.

Before the superintendency, he was a high school principal and an English teacher. He's been the father of four very active kids and has been married for 24 years. So Brad, sounds like you've been slacking for 24 years. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:00] Dr. Jim: I'm pumped to have you on the show and being a retention and turnover nerd, I think the the topic that we've landed on where you're building a region or a district that has 90 percent retention, that's going to be a conversation that's going to be relevant to a lot of our listeners, not just leaders in the K through 12 space. But before we dive into that conversation. I'd like you to give us a little bit more context in terms of some key key milestones in your career and also some of the important things about the district that listeners need to understand before we dive into the main part of the conversation.

And so the Sun Prairie School District is growing in enrollment. And because of that, over the last nine years, we've [00:02:00] added two elementary campuses, each that required capital and operational bonds, referenda is what we call them in Wisconsin. And we also had to add a full comprehensive high school.

And at the time we had to pass the biggest. Bond in the state of Wisconsin, in order to be able to add a second comprehensive high school and with the addition of a high school, that's not the only thing you have to do when you add a campuses like that. We had to modify boundaries. We had to modify bell times.

We had to go through an entire staffing shift. We had to do a transition plan for all of our students that had been going to one configuration of schools into another configuration of schools. And it was an exceptional. Exceptionally difficult tasks to take on, but honestly, because of the leadership team that I have, and because of the amazing feedback that we have from staff and from students and, with the leadership of our board of education, we were able to successfully navigate those treacherous waters as we were doing so much so much building.

Prairie Area School District [: 00:03:00

[00:03:15] Dr. Jim: That's really solid context, and I don't want to go down too far a wonky lane, but I think we're short selling some of that referendum work and some of the transformation elements that you talked about. When you describe this transformation effort and all of the referendum work that you were able to pull off, you, you talk through or highlighted how complex a task that is.

And when you're dealing with all the different variables that are associated with getting a community to invest in education, which isn't necessarily the easiest thing that in and of itself can be extremely challenging. Can you tell us a little bit about how you and your team were able to.

s something that's necessary [: 00:04:00

[00:04:07] Brad Saron: Yeah, and that transformation, I honestly believe that we made it look too easy in that there was just so much intentionality between how we authentically engaged our community in real dialogue about how they saw the future. Of sun Prairie schools, serving kids and families and then how the board aligned the decisions that they had to make along the way directly to community feedback and how we then when we had to go to referendum could.

Again, illustrate that the questions that we had on that bond literally the future of the school district, how we had the opportunity to write the ending of our own story was directly aligned to the authentic engagement that we had from our communities. And so we were really intentional behind that.

people in ownership of their [: 00:05:00

[00:05:26] Dr. Jim: I really like your comment about we as a district and as a community have the ability to write the Write our story and i'd like to dig in a little bit more on a specific element of it of that You statement that you mentioned, which was a lot of the success was driven out of engagement with the community.

So tell us a little bit more about what specific actions you took to get the community engaged and committed to the vision that you had set out when you're looking at getting this referendum pass and future.

The implications that we had to be aware of when we were beginning to. Think about the configuration of schools that needed to be constructed at the right time when our growth rates would be in excess of our school capacity rates. And what recommendations what is the scope of the recommendations that they could make given those factors that they had to consider?

people that are going to be [: 00:07:00

There are some people that are going to be consulted for us, our community care holder group that was really a task force that to look at our secondary construction tasks. And And then for the majority of our population, just because you can't talk to every single person, we thought it was our duty to make sure that the information was there.

So everyone was informed. And so we had a very rich, communication, plan in order to make sure that the entire process was transparent to you. And while, while you think that the care holder group might've been, one of the more important elements of that entire process, the truth is that everything is important.

And when you're making critical decisions like that. Like we talked about, involve writing the end of our story. Every single component of that is important to make sure that the outcome aligns to how we want to serve kids and families.

And. The reason why I mentioned that is I think if you're using a framework, and it could be really, it doesn't necessarily have to be that framework. It could be anyone, but that framework is particularly good. What I'd be curious to understand from your perspective is if you flip the outcome and you look at districts that might go to referendum and fail.

When you think about failed referendums, what's commonly the reason or the gap that exists within that racy framework or even some other framework that you're using that leads to failure of a referendum gets passed any insight on that?

Areas where we agree that's really that really is something that school districts and organizations across the nation are struggling with.

And the efforts are won or lost based on the strength of that. And then I think the other part that's worth calling out when we're talking about what's happened within your district is the fact that, once you've established that vision, there was still a lot of ground floor work that was done.

You mentioned nine months, 60 people and thousands of hours, but a lot of times people rush to. Build the team and do some tasks without defining what's the end goal? What's the type of community or world that we want to live in X amount of years down the road, if you can't gain agreement around that, you're not really going to make a whole lot of progress.

You're going to do a lot of stuff, not going to get very far. So really great stuff. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. It's a it's probably topic for another discussion, but I want to wind this back to. What I opened the conversation with, and that's your 90 percent educator retention rate.

And even if we take the [: 00:11:00

no more than 10 words.

A robust system of a shared vision gives you the gives you. The capacity to be able to help people understand their place in an [00:12:00] organization.

Across a district, and particularly in your leadership team, because that's really where it's won or lost. So tell us a little bit about the work that you did to make sure it didn't lose momentum when it came to life.

The type of community engagement, and it could be that you use a model from the International Association of Public Participation, which is [00:13:00] IAP2, or it could be use the model of future search, or you could use a SWOT analysis and does really matter with the model that the engagement just needs to be authentic.

And once a school district or an organization have a, has a blessing, has the blessing of understanding what the people whom you serve, what they expect, you can begin to then nest those expectations into another system, which is the system of governance. And that is one where you have elected officials that are publicly elected and entrusted to govern an organization in a way that is.

That reflects those community expectations. And so when you're bored, when the board, a school district board has an understanding of community expectations, and they can begin to translate those expectations into a methodology for holding the system and accountable for making. Progress toward them. Then there's this alignment that alignment takes place.

rategic plan that a, that an [: 00:14:00

[00:15:05] Dr. Jim: Yeah, I like how again, we're continuing the emphasis on a shared vision, and I want to drill into a couple of things that you mentioned. You mentioned that there's a lot of reasons why people might decide to stay within the organization. So we've already checked out building a shared vision and mission is going to be critical, downstream.

And then systems that are informed by that shared mission and vision are going to be important as well. But I want to get a little bit more tactical. When we look at the reasons behind why people stay and specifically in your district, since you've built this track record of 90 percent retention, those reasons are going to change and they're going to change fairly frequently.

e moment might be. Tell us a [: 00:16:00

[00:16:15] Brad Saron: Yeah, we and one of the things that we. Uses a touchstone is a district wide document called our strategic planning calendar and the strategic planning calendar is really done by our assistant superintendent of teaching, learning and equity. And she does an absolute remarkable job at making sure that the systems that we have at the school district that are related to our strategic plan, which is really a plan just to make progress towards the board's expectations.

ite space in those calendars [: 00:17:00

But they're not, they don't have a sense of urgency in the longterm in terms of us achieving our goals as a system. And so that strategic planning calendar includes again the integration of nested systems at the district level and at the school level, and at times the classroom level to make sure that we have that sequence of discussion.

And so we will always come back to those things. And I have to tell you that the board's role in this, that tone from the top and making sure that. When it says that it's going to hold the system accountable for making progress toward those expectations and it's been the board itself is spending its time there talking about those expectations rather than getting pulled into some of the, those day to day, Crises that might be technical in nature, but they're unrelated to goals.

We have built in checkpoints where our board about every hundred days then gets an update. On our progress as we're using our as our, as we're using, not only our predictive data, but also our outcomes data, in trying to better understand. Where are we at right now? What is our goal? What are the adult behaviors we're trying to change in order to shift the trajectory of our outcomes?

And where are we along the way through checkpoints on our journey to making continuous improvement?

What's the mechanism that you've built in within that strategic plan that allows for shifting of priorities and the ability to move quickly to address those priorities when needed?

And so often we will have instances come up where we've got to, pause in some of the work. The regular work that we are engaged in, but it can never be at the expense of the progress strategic project progress we make based on, like I said, that strategic planning calendar. And so we will move items around in our [00:20:00] calendar to make sure that we are able to address more of a timely issue or when a crisis arises.

But what we're very protective about is those strategic spaces where we know that we have to, we must meet to discuss and to hold each other accountable and to look at that sort of performance culture as we are making progress on our strategic plan, which, like I said, is related to the board's expectations, which are grounded in community expectations.

So you mentioned leadership relationship as one of the key factors that you look at. What's the story of your district and [00:21:00] how you've built your leadership team and your leadership capability that speaks to that retention story that you've you've been able to build over the last several years or over several years.

It's goals of what that shared vision means, and then also how each sort of node in that network. Each person that contributes to the success of that system, each person understanding what their role is in that. And so that aligned system will immediately also result in retention of principles and retention of your vision.

e retention of staff. And so [: 00:22:00

And so in the Sun Prairie Area School District, we just had a leadership meeting this morning. We are blessed. Unbelievable. Principal retention and when we will have principal retention and year over year through, like I said, the roller coaster of staffing initiatives or, resource scarcity with budgets, when you have principals have the space to be able to develop genuine relationships around shared vision with teachers and to be able to work through things like, positive school culture and environment.

ree. All of those things are [: 00:23:00

And to get back to your question I think one of the correlating factors in a robust system is this interesting notion that a robust and aligned system will retain your principles well. And when you retain your principles you're tilting the floor underneath each one of your campuses to develop those rich relationships in between, Your principals and each one of the staff members and it doesn't happen every time, but when you tilt the floor, the majority of times it happens, you're going to be more likely to see resilient relationships in between principals and staff and that is going to increase retention.

Is that a function of how you develop when you look across the employee life cycle? What are the levers that you're pulling at that leadership tier to build that type of stability at the principal layer, which is critical for educator retention?

Jim, if you and I walked around our schools and we looked at each one of, we did tours of five of our nine elementary schools you would not, you would see unique attributes that match the culture of that community, but when you really look at what are the key processes that each one of the elementaries are implementing.

e of our schools is, has the [: 00:25:00

And so their colleagues can learn from each other. That's really the environment we're looking to achieve and the environment that we've worked so hard to be able to, to establish because culture like that doesn't happen overnight. And it happens through trusting genuine relationships and it happens through being vulnerable.

And it happens through through. The years of becoming like these target hardened, exceptional leaders that care about their staff and they care about their colleagues and each other.

So if they were to ask you that question, what are the key principles that they need to remember out of this conversation that's going to help them build this type of organization as they work on building a top district or organization?

And the advice that I have isn't something that. Is magical and it's not something that is is a technical shift, meaning you can just change one thing and all of a sudden, the switch is flipped and you can transform your organization, but it's really one of building an aligned and healthy, robust system.

And then from there, working genuinely with your board to try to integrate what the community expects into what the board is governing for. Like I said before. The board has been elected and they have been entrusted by the communities in order to govern on their behalf. And when your board has an understanding of what to hold the system accountable to achieve, that alignment is just really, it's really powerful.

gic plan around those things [: 00:28:00

There's a lot of talk about accountability. There's a lot of marketing fear in that community. I really tell people just to pause when you're not sure what to do next. Pause and do an environmental scan and look at those nested systems to try to figure out of your understanding of community input of your understanding of governance or your understanding of strategic planning, where right now are you strongest and enter at that point and build out from there.

s trying to govern, but they [: 00:29:00

Then you start there and work backward. But I wouldn't try to force any one of those nested systems through just the charisma or the individual vision of a superintendent. You really want to do an environmental scan. You want to look at where the system is strong, enter there. And work out from that space in terms of alignment.

The other thing that I tell superintendents is that you got to give yourself some grace. This whole process takes three to five years to begin to round out and develop and allow the systems to mature a little bit. So give yourself a little grace. I told you before, it's not. A switch that's going to be flipped, but it's going to be consistent, authentic engagements that are trustworthy in nature.

nd when you, where you build [: 00:30:00

[00:30:10] Dr. Jim: Great stuff, Brad. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

[00:30:31] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us, Brad, and sharing with us your story. And I think when you're looking at building an organization that has the type of retention that your organization does Everything that you mentioned is, is critical. I really like your emphasis on systems because it reminds me of some of the key principles or at least core principles for the success of any organization.

very good point. But there's [: 00:31:00

Why is this important? When everyone can rally around a shared sense of why you're going to make a lot more progress in terms of the direction of the organization. So everything that you said is important. I love your emphasis on systems leading to success.

your community, your board, [: 00:32:00

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