The Students Matter Ecosystem is predicated on the critical necessity of coherence within educational systems, emphasizing the vital alignment between leadership, instruction, innovation, and student experiences. The discussion transcends mere identification of systemic drift; it delves into the mechanisms required to construct an integrated framework that consistently honors the uniqueness and irreplaceability of each student. We explore why many educational systems falter in achieving this coherence and the implications of confounding mere activity with genuine transformation. Our discourse will elucidate the four foundational pillars of this ecosystem: Tactical Leadership, Powerful Student Care, Instructional Excellence, and Future Ready Schools. As we navigate this intricate architecture, we assert that the pursuit of coherence is not a luxury but an imperative for cultivating future-ready educational environments rooted in humanity.

Additional Notes

The discourse presented in this episode delves into the conceptual framework of the Students Matter ecosystem, elucidating the four foundational pillars that collectively forge a coherent educational system. Central to this dialogue is the notion of 'drift', which denotes the gradual misalignment between the espoused values of educational institutions and the lived experiences of students. The conversation transitions from a mere identification of this drift to a profound inquiry into the requisite elements for constructing a non-drifting system. A coherent system, as articulated, transcends the mere implementation of new initiatives or strategic plans; it demands a symbiotic relationship among leadership, instruction, innovation, and student experience, each reinforcing the others instead of functioning in isolation. The episode emphasizes the necessity of coherence as a non-negotiable aspect of future-ready educational environments, advocating for a systematic approach that prioritizes human dignity and student individuality throughout the educational process. It is posited that true educational transformation arises not from the addition of new layers of initiatives but from the integration of existing frameworks into a cohesive whole that genuinely honors each student's distinctiveness and irreplaceability.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, we delve deeply into the concept of coherence within educational systems, emphasizing its necessity for aligning leadership, instruction, and student experiences.
• The gradual misalignment known as drift must be addressed through a coherent framework that integrates all educational components effectively.
• We underscore that coherence is not merely an ideal but a practical necessity for fostering future-ready schools that honor each student's uniqueness.
• The four pillars of the Students Matter ecosystem—tactical leadership, powerful student care, instructional excellence, and future ready schools—must work in synergy to achieve systemic coherence.
• Achieving coherence requires a shift from merely adding initiatives to thoughtfully integrating strategies that reinforce one another.
• Ultimately, the success of educational systems hinges on their ability to cultivate environments where students feel valued and engaged, thus truly embodying the principle that students matter.

Follow Students Matter, LLC on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn with each of us individually: Kathy Mohney, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, and Dr. Grant Chandler.

To learn more about the Students Matter Ecosystem, stop by:

Students Matter

LearnHarbor

Until next time remember: See every student. Keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.

In our last episode, we named the problem drift, the gradual misalignment between what schools say matters and what students actually experience.

Yet naming the problem only gets us so far.

Here's the deeper question.

What does it actually take to build a system that doesn't drift?

That work is not another initiative, it's not another slogan, and it's not another strategic plan that gets buried under competing priorities and fragmented implementation.

Instead, it's a coherent system, one where leadership, instruction, innovation, and student experience reinforces one another instead of competing with one another.

Today, the Wheelhouse team presses me on the architecture behind the Students Matter ecosystem.

Why these four pillars?

Why do most systems struggle to sustain coherence?

And what happens when schools mistake movement for transformation?

If we're serious about building future ready schools rooted in humanity, then coherence can't be optional.

A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.

Welcome to the Wheelhouse, a Students Matter podcast where we navigate the intersection of leadership, learning and humanity.

I'm Dr. Grant Chandler and this is part two of our three part hiatus series exploring the Students Matter ecosystem.

Again, my thanks to Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, and Dr. Alicia Monroe for leading this conversation and pushing deeply into the thinking underneath this work.

Last episode, we explored the reality of drift, how systems slowly lose alignment between what they value and what students actually experience.

And if that conversation was uncomfortable, good, because drift should make us uncomfortable.

Today we move from diagnosis to design.

What does it actually take to create coherence inside a school system?

How do we stop layering disconnected initiatives and start building systems that align leadership, instruction, innovation, and student experience around a common purpose?

And maybe the biggest question of what kind of system would we have to build if we truly believed each student was distinctive and irreplaceable?

That's where we're going today.

So let's get oriented.

Good morning.

I'm Dr. Grant Chandler and welcome to another hiatus episode of.

Of the Wheelhouse.

Here we are sitting between seasons 12 and 13, and we're doing something really different.

So we'll talk about that in just a minute.

But before we do.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm sitting here with amazing humans.

My amazing.

My amazing team, Kathy Mone and Michael Piper.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Oh.

Oh, Michael.

We've been off sync for a while, so that was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That put us right back in there.

Like, it was as if we were kind of coherent at that moment.

Oh, funny that you should say that word.

Right.

We are missing Alicia today.

She's off doing phenomenal work.

Yes.

So good morning.

Dr. Alicia Munro.

We hope you're having a great time wherever you are, doing whatever.

Well, we know what you're doing, but hope it's going well.

I'm going to.

Again, we're going to do exactly what we did in the first episode, which is I'm giving up control, which is for anybody who knows me, that's really hard.

But I can give up control to these two people because they're amazing.

So I'm going to be quiet.

Yeah.

We put you in the hot seat last week, Dr. Chandler, and I guess it wasn't too hot for you because you said, okay, you can have control again, which I have known you for a minute, and that is tough for you.

So thank you for.

For trusting us with this.

We're looking forward to continuing the conversation.

So I am, too.

I'll do whatever you say.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna go ahead and get away, you know, throw away the notes.

Oh,.

I'm gonna say forget it.

Yeah.

So last week we spent our conversation really talking about drift and where you.

You really explained all of.

All of the components.

We talked about kind of those puzzle pieces of it.

So we know this is happening, right, that people are drifting, and not intentionally, but it happens more and more and more.

So we really want to spend time understanding.

So what is it?

What do we do about it?

What do we do with this coherence that we've really inherited in school districts across the country?

It is normal and natural for districts, schools, and classrooms to drift.

Right?

And as we talked about last week, that wasn't because it's not because we don't care.

It's not because we're not smart people.

It's just because we are still living in the system that we inherited.

The opposite of drift is coherence.

And it's really rethinking our approach in a way that brings about coherence.

So I'm just going to throw out the definition first and then we can chew on that a little bit.

So when I use the term coherence, what I mean is coherence happens when leadership instruction systems and what students experience.

Here's the kicker.

Actually reinforce one another instead of competing with one another.

When leadership instruction systems and student experience actually reinforce one another rather than or instead of competing with one another.

So what I'm hearing that's not being said overtly in that definition, but is being hinted at, is that all of those things schools are trying to accomplish every day, every month, every school year, they require something else other than an action plan.

So.

What creates coherence?

So I think you nailed it right away, and that is that more stuff doesn't bring coherence.

Right?

The action plan, the strategic plan, the continuous improvement plan.

And so what we don't want, right, so what we don't want is simply just to layer on other things that doesn't bring about coherence.

Right?

So if all we do is bring something else on board, we're already struggling with coherence.

We're already struggling to bring all of these things to where they're working together.

And then we do the opposite of what's going to make it stronger.

We bring another layer.

We're struggling with the layers we have.

We bring another layer that takes us further away from coherence.

Right?

And we also.

Districts tend to believe that being busy, activity after activity after activity brings about coherence.

Well, movement isn't coherence.

So drift doesn't happen because people don't care.

Drift happens when the work is disconnected.

So the problem isn't usually effort.

It's that the effort isn't integrated.

Right.

We're not thinking about how do we put all of these pieces together.

And in fact, in many cases, we're not even thinking about some of those.

So how many times do we think about the connection between leadership instruction and student experience?

We don't even go there.

And so if in order.

So we gotta slow down, we gotta think a little bit differently, and we gotta understand all of the parts and how those parts are gonna come together.

But I can't slow down, Dr. Chandler.

I have a timeline.

I need to be able to meet my, you know, compliance deadlines.

I need to be able to show student growth.

I need to be able to do so quickly.

So I want to.

I want to purchase this shiny object over here.

I want to purchase this program because it says that it's going to, you know, ensure results.

I'm going to get.

Move the needle, right?

It's going to do it.

And so this program's going to do it and.

Or this program's going to do it.

And what are.

Or what about this program?

So that's movement and that's activity, but that isn't coherence.

So I was just reading an article this morning about fidelity, Right?

Because we buy the program, we buy the cute shiny whatever, Right?

Whatever.

And I'm not going to knock resources or software, though.

There's some good stuff out there, but we grab onto them without thinking about coherence, and then we haphazardly Train adults who aren't really sure why we're doing what we're doing.

We train them sort of in how to use it.

And then we demand fidelity.

Excuse me.

Right.

And so really all we've done is added another layer.

We've added another layer.

So students matter.

Everything that we do, everything that we think about or talk about is about coherence.

It's about.

We're going to continue to move forward.

We're going to continue to work toward our deadline.

I'm not working in a vacuum.

I understand.

I understand that state departments and legislatures are demanding movement.

They're demanding all of these things, especially if you fall under corrective action.

I get it.

There's activity that we have to do.

But let's step back for a moment and think about if we're going to do all this great activity, how do we do it in a way that brings about coherence so that leadership instruction systems and what students experience actually support one another.

So the students matter ecosystem.

It's an attempt to answer one question.

How do we build systems that consistently honor students as distinctive and irreplaceable?

How do we bring that human centered learning?

How do we bring coherence to everything that we do in the whole educational ecosystem?

And so we've really.

We think we bring coherence into the table by using four pillars.

Leadership.

Thinking about.

And we call that tactical leadership.

Thinking about what students experience, we call that powerful student care.

We're schools.

So thinking about instructional excellence and what does that look like and sound like and feel like for students?

And then of course, putting it all together and making sure the system is moving us in the right direction.

And that pillar we call future ready schools.

And so the whole purpose of the students matter ecosystem is to bring about that coherence.

And let's start with leadership.

Tactical leadership is about.

It's about navigation.

It's about thinking very deeply.

It's about leading with clarity.

It's about acting with precision.

It's anchored in humanity.

And when leaders utilize the tactical leadership approach, they create stability, coherence and trust amongst all of the people and all of the parts that.

That are working in a very complex system.

Tactical leaders, they don't just react to conditions.

Their whole goal.

I think this is very different than the way we train principals and leaders.

Their whole goal is to move people together toward purpose.

So talk a little more about that, Grant.

Talk a little more about tactical leadership and how it is different and therefore what's going on with the traditional leadership models.

What's what's wrong with what really we inherit?

We attempt to improve with our leaders.

Fundamentally, the leaders in education are good people and they're working really, really hard.

But we haven't empowered them to stop looking through everything with a deficit lens.

Every tool we give them, school improvement, teacher evaluation, walkthroughs, it all comes from, and those are all, I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with all of those things, right?

But it all comes from a deficit lens.

What are we, where are we, where are we missing the mark?

What are we going to do about it?

What are we going to do to get 2% growth?

I'm going to go into your classroom.

I expect to see all of these things.

We see evaluation tools that name 75 different indicators of what good being a good teacher looks like.

You're not going to see 75 in a 10 minute walk in a, in a 10 minute visit.

You're not going to see a 75 in an hour long visit.

I mean, come on, what are we doing?

What are our look fors?

Yeah, right.

And so a tactical leader says what's really, really fundamentally important, Whether I'm a superintendent, I'm a building leader or I'm a classroom teacher.

Right.

What is, what's fundamentally my purpose, the purpose of this organization?

And how am I going to read the conditions, how am I going to know where we are, how am I going to bring clarity to what we do?

How am I going to navigate us toward that purpose in a more coherent manner so that my leadership, what kids experience, what happens in the classroom, that they all, and all of the systems that we provide, that they're all working together to get us toward that purpose.

And let us not forget that I gotta take adults with me, right?

I gotta take people with me on this journey because ultimately I need all of the adults in order to create the experiences that we want students to have every day in every classroom.

So I think that's fundamentally very different than what and how we train leaders to lead classrooms, districts and schools.

Tactical leadership.

Yeah.

And it was interesting that you talked about really every step of the way.

Right.

That it's not just leadership, you know, sitting in central office and what that looks like or at the school level, but the classroom level, it's all levels of the organization and the significance of, of building that, that coherence, really.

So how would a tactical leader behave differently under pressure?

Because we're, we're all feeling it.

We see and read the headlines across the nation with reading, I mean deficits, because that's how it's framed.

Right.

And there's a lot of pressure happening in districts and classrooms.

So how does a tactical leader behave differently under all of that pressure?

I love that you use that word, Kath.

Pressure.

Because, you know, unlike practice, the targets are all in motion and everybody is.

Is watching, listening, Everyone has an opinion.

Nobody's shy about it.

There's intense pressure.

So what does the tactical leader rely on to manage that pressure and stay true to purpose?

So we've given tactical leaders a whole series of tools that they can use so that they can make sense of the pressure.

Right?

So a tactical leader needs to be able to think differently, they need to be able to see differently, because eventually they need to act differently.

And a traditional leader, I mean, hey, and I did it too.

So this is.

I'm not faulting anyone.

Right?

The pressure's on, right?

Something happens, right?

The pressure's on.

What do we do?

Immediately, instinctively, we believe we need to move, like now, boom, move right, make a decision, go right.

And sometimes in an emergency situation, you need to do that, right?

Absolutely.

But 99% of that pressure doesn't come in an emergency situation.

So we need to equip our leaders.

And tactical leaders have the tools to step back, see underneath all of that, orient themselves within all of that, think about the human terrain, and then make a decision and move forward.

And those decisions become far.

Are made with far more clarity and purpose than I would argue many leaders make today because they simply don't have the tools in order to do that and to do that quickly.

Right.

This isn't about taking 20 years to make a decision, but this is about having some tools and skills and resources so that when you are under pressure, you know how to process what you need to process and think and hold true to that North Star to that purpose.

And maybe, just maybe, stop playing whack a mole, because that's always the visual that I have.

It's just like I'm just trying to.

To react because I have to, because everything's coming at me.

So we've got our leaders, and we're doing some significant work within tactical leadership.

You talked about four pillars.

So what's that student experience?

How do you.

How do we layer that in to the work of the students Matter ecosystem?

So powerful student care is all about what students experience.

And there are, you know, we've written a whole book around powerful student care that's out there.

But the fundamentally, it's about recognizing that teaching and learning is a fundamental relational endeavor and that what we need to do more than anything else is safeguarding each student's dignity.

When we think about powerful student care, and way back seven years ago, when I was conceptualizing this and I just did a powerful student care video and I ended it thinking about my own grandson.

But if you think about the people that are near and dear to you, that are children, and you think about what is it that we want children to experience in school every day?

Well, I don't want.

I never wanted a child to experience being on the receiving end of the deficit model.

I don't think anybody intends for that to happen.

Right, but it does.

Right?

It does.

When we focus solely on intervention, we are pushing kids through a deficit lens.

Right.

And that deficit lens is compounded by issues with instruction.

But that's a whole nother pillar.

Right, but what do we want?

You know, if a student is gonna be with us for 13 years, 13 plus years, what do we want them to understand about themselves and about each other?

I want two things.

I want.

Well, first, you know, of course, all the we know we want kids to read and write and do math and all that, that's a given.

We're school.

But above all else, I want them to know that they're distinctive and irreplaceable, that they belong, that they're valued, that they matter, that they have a place, that society, the world is for them, that they have a place.

And the two words that I are distinctive and irreplaceable.

And it's really built on this framework that human dignity is a birthright.

Respect has to be earned.

But human dignity is a birthright.

And we do not organize our schools currently around this expectation that every student experiences dignity as a birthright.

Not in how we grade, not in what we expect, not in how we organize our classrooms, not in how we do classroom management, not in how we deal with issues when they arise.

Their children, they're going to mess up, right?

They're going to make mistakes, they're going to misbehave their children.

We don't throw our own children away at home just because they misbehave or they don't meet whatever expectation that we set up for them.

So, yes, we need to deal with all of those things, but we need to do all of that in a way where students experience dignity, where they come to know that they and everybody else in that school is distinctive and irreplaceable.

So I'm hearing a couple of things in those remarks, but I'm also very conscious of our instructional audience who is Also aware that they didn't choose the grading system with which they must comply, nor did they choose the schedule that herds children through each school day.

But I am hearing in the initial frame that at its heart, teaching and learning is a relational endeavor.

And what that causes me to think is, is that we undervalue as participants in an existing system our daily moment to moment impact.

When we prioritize another's dignity, that that in itself, moment to moment, day in and day out, that intention has a kind of P wave seismic impact on everything.

Am I off base?

Am I playing that up too much?

No, no, I think, I think that's fundamentally absolutely correct, right?

I mean we don't have control.

Some of us have control over schedules and grading.

That's why tactical leadership is part of the ecosystem, right?

Because this is where we, where we get drift, right?

But even within those structures that I don't choose as a teacher, I still get to choose how I use them.

I still get to choose how I show up every single day in my classroom.

I still get to choose what kind of, what kind of interactions I have in my classroom.

I still.

There's a lot of control.

There's a lot of control that teachers and leaders have every day, even in a system that we inherited.

And so it's that approach, it's that thinking, it's that relational piece.

You know, there are five tenets of powerful student care and we've hit on a couple of them already.

But the ones we haven't mentioned are this belief that each and every student shows up to school every day wanting to do well, even if you can't see it.

No.

Who chooses?

Nobody chooses to be a failure.

Why do we, why do we, why don't we stop treating children as if that's a choice they make, right?

Nobody does.

There is not a human being that chooses.

I prefer I wake up today and I prefer I want to be a failure today, right?

I want to fall flat on my face.

Nobody does that, right?

And we also need to build, we need to build into this conversation, into the work self efficacy students belief that they can be successful and self agency that they have the voice and the power to be able to make that happen.

And then of course there's this whole idea and we'll talk a little bit more about this in instructional excellence, but of this joy filled learning.

What happens when learning is authentic and relevant, Right?

What happens to learning when a student says, I find purpose here, Right?

And not just some students.

Eat, experiencing that, right?

Eats every day, right?

Eat Them every day.

So let's go there.

Let's, you know, we.

Sounds phenomenal to be able to, to ensure that powerful student care is a focus and in place.

But you've said it multiple times.

Ultimately we have to teach.

So you talked about or introduced instructional excellence.

What does that look like?

What is it?

So instructional excellence is very intentionally designed instruction.

Notice I didn't use the word lesson plan.

Right?

That's a dirty word.

Right.

But it's very intentionally planned instruction that is humanized in nature.

It is relational in nature.

It brings joy filled learning to the space.

And joy filled doesn't mean, haha, it was so much fun.

Right?

It was a game.

Joyful means it's relevant, it's authentic, touches upon the lives of students today, their lives now as second graders, and not just what their lives are going to be like when they're adults.

Because what second grader, I don't know, a second grader who can say, you know, oh, this is what my life is going to be like when I'm 25 years old and oh, I probably need to, I might need to be able to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

It doesn't happen.

Right?

It doesn't happen.

So we have to figure out instructionally, because we have powerful relationships with children.

We know what makes them tick.

Right?

We know how they think, we know how they learn, we know how they operate.

We can design instruction with that human factor in place and think about some of the things that we know and some of the assumptions that we make.

Does every second grader come in at the same level of readiness?

Does every second grader have to get to the finish line in May just because of their chronological age?

I mean, there's so many variables in this work.

That's where this coherence piece really, really matters.

Right?

Because it fundamentally forces us to think differently.

Not that we're saying, oh well, you know, Grant's two years behind.

We're not going to expect him to learn how to read this year.

Yeah, we are.

Yeah, we are.

But that expectation is going to look differently for Grant.

How do I teach him to read intentionally teach him to read in a place that's going to, in a way that's going to celebrate his humanity, recognize his dignity, understand the context of where he is and where he needs to go and think about what's actually doable in terms of growth.

Right?

How am I going to get him as far as I can get him?

Because not every second grader is going to end up at the same Place.

Place at the end of the year.

And we look at that as a deficit.

And it shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be.

We need other measures besides proficiency.

Absolutely, Absolutely.

But instructional excellence does not mean lowering the bar of expectation.

It means raising the bar of expectation, but personalizing that and knowing that not everybody fits into the same mold.

Who decides?

Who decided that every child who was 8 years old needed to be in this place at this moment in time.

It doesn't make any sense at all.

Any of you who have raised your own children know that your own two children were so dramatically different, right?

Absolutely.

So this instructional excellence is intentional.

It's being innovative and getting results.

Because we said this in the podcast earlier, right?

Innovation that doesn't change.

Instruction is theater.

So it's really, you know, so there's an AI component.

How could we not.

How could we not think about artificial intelligence in the 21st century?

How could we not think about how we teach children to access and utilize these tools in the 21st century?

Because they're gonna need.

This is about self efficacy and agency, Right?

They're gonna need to know how to do that when they leave us.

So the demands.

The demands on us instructionally are huge.

Right?

But we have to stop and rethink how we do things, because simply responding to the deficit model that we've been doing, right?

And Kathy knows I'm a huge opponent to some of.

And I won't name them, but I'm a huge opponent to some of the ways that we go about doing this work.

Not because the idea was bad, right?

Not because the idea was bad, but because the ideas are still forcing children to respond and be pushed through a deficit model when we really need to be thinking about what our instruction provides first.

And as I, you know, I sit here listening, Grant, I just keep connecting it back to tactical leadership and really understanding the.

We don't lower the bar.

Students come in at various levels.

Our responsibility, our moral imperative is to ensure that students are reading, are writing, are able to do math, are able to do these things.

We cannot do it alone.

Not one single teacher can do it alone.

And without that tactical leadership piece in place and really understanding that the work of the leaders, including those in the classroom, and the significance of them moving together, what that looks like, because that pressure back to that word and that burden is immense.

And so to think I have to do it alone is just.

It's an impossible feat in many cases.

So talk to us a little bit more about the fourth pillar before we get into this Connection of all four of them and the significance.

So this future ready schools, what do you mean by that?

Future ready schools is really, it's the culmination of all of the work in the ecosystem.

Because this is where the systems reside, right?

All roads lead to the systems that are gonna help work coherently.

Right?

Coherently.

To make sure that our, each and every student is ready for life in the 21st century.

And pretty soon we're gonna have to be talking about the 22nd century.

And I don't even know what any of that's really gonna look 30 or 40 years.

But we need to be thinking about and be ready for that.

This pillar provides the frameworks and it's the pathways, the partnerships where it all comes together.

But it's not systems for systems sake.

It's a systematic approach where humanity is fundamental.

And if we look at all four pillars together, tactical leadership, powerful student care, right?

How we lead with purpose, with clarity, with precision, with humanity.

What we want students to experience.

Dignity, distinctive, irreplaceable, those five tenets of powerful student care.

And we think about our instructional excellence really intentionally planning instruction that's going to get each and every student there.

And we're supported by this systematic approach in doing so with future ready schools.

You know, you, you said it earlier, it takes, it's to.

We believe as students matter.

You don't just do one of these because if you do one of them, the you're not going to get where you need to go.

This is about all four of these pillars coming together.

Aligning leadership, instruction systems, adult behavior, what students experience every single day, all in a way that gets us where we want to go.

If you take one of those pillars out, then the rest of them simply become initiatives.

And if we approach the pillars like an initiative, you just added another layer, right?

So what we don't want as students matter is you say, oh, okay, I like it, I like it.

I like your approach.

I'm going to do tactical leadership.

And we would say you're missing the point, right?

You may start there, you may start there, but tactical leadership in order.

The whole point of tactical leadership is to employ powerful student care, instructional excellence and future ready schools.

That future ready schools movement, in order to get you where you want to go.

So you may start in an area, but in order to really get to where you want to go.

That true north, that human centered experience for students, where we really accelerate what we want to have happen for students, it takes a coherent approach amongst all four of those pillars.

So if that's the goal.

If coherence is the goal, what does it actually take to implement this in a real system with real people?

It takes a different way of thinking about how we do school.

Right.

This approach is about fundamentally rethinking the work, not in terms of additional layers, but in more coherent moves.

And so it's not more.

It's not more work, it's not more work.

It's different work.

It's rethinking what it means to lead an organization, whether that's at the classroom level, this building level, or the district level that is fundamentally tasked with growing young people.

We've lost sight of.

Right.

Our students are telling us.

Our students are telling us that they don't want to be herded.

Right.

That they, you know, that they want to experience something fundamentally different than what they're experiencing now.

And you see pockets where kids are completely motivated from what if you step back from relational human tactics?

Right.

Who would want to go to school every day and never be seen?

I don't know very many adults who would go to the workplace every single day and continue to show up every single day and never be seen, or only seen through a deficit lens.

And yet that's what we expect our students to do on a daily basis.

Yeah.

I'm hearing that there is something that leadership teams that members of learning organizations need to be conscious of and need to be focused on that guarantees intentions get realized in the system within which everybody is learning.

In your school, in your district, you have said kids do not experience our intentions, they experience our systems.

And if that's the case, how do we ensure that intentions make it into systemic practice?

So that's what happens when the four pieces come together.

That's why you need the four pieces.

Right.

You need leaders who navigate with clarity and act with purpose.

You need teachers who design and deliver instruction that's aligned, engaging and joy filled.

We need students to experience dignity, belonging, challenge and hope.

And when we have all of that, districts are building this shared, grounded identity in humanity and future readiness.

And we believe students matter, that it takes these four pillars to coming together.

And we've built an incredible amount of tools and resources because we know this is really hard.

We know this is not how most districts think or how most districts operate.

But we believe that this level of coherence between all of these moving parts is the missing link to getting what we want and to delivering what we want for students every single day.

A radical humanization of schools where clarity, coherence, and innovation serve the dignity and potential of each student.

And with that, we'll all see you next week.

Again, my special thanks to Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, and Dr. Alicia Munro for leading this conversation.

So here's what I hope people take away from this.

Coherence is not about having the perfect framework.

It's about building a system where the experience of students consistently reflects the values adults claim to believe in.

That's harder than it sounds.

Coherence requires discipline, it requires alignment, and it requires leaders who are willing to stop protecting fragmentation simply because it feels familiar.

The truth is, most schools aren't suffering from a lack of effort.

They're suffering from disconnected effort.

Too many priorities, too many competing directions, too many systems operating beside one another instead of reinforcing one another.

And students feel every bit of it.

So if this episode challenged you, maybe that's the right response.

Coherence.

It's not something you announce.

It's something you build, protect, calibrate, and sustain over time.

And next episode, we go even deeper.

Understanding the ecosystem is one thing.

Actually implementing it inside real schools with real pressure, real politics, and real human complexity, well, that's something entirely different.

And that's where we're headed next.

Stay oriented.

We'll see you in the next episode of the Wheelhouse.