Grab your copy of Culture First Classrooms: Leadership, Relationships, and Practices that Transform Schools from your favorite vendor: Amazon or Barnes & Noble or get your autographed copy here.

In this episode, Darrin Peppard sits down with Rae Hughart, educator, TEDx speaker, and founder of the Teachers Deserve It (TDI) movement. Rae is passionate about empowering educators to reclaim their time, reduce burnout, and amplify their impact in the classroom.

Rae shares the intriguing backstory behind the TDI movement, starting from an unexpected dinner conversation that led to co-authoring the book Teachers Deserve It with Adam Welcome. She emphasizes the importance of practical, sustainable teaching strategies that genuinely give teachers back their time and autonomy.

Key highlights from this episode include:

• Origin Story of "Teachers Deserve It": How a dinner conversation with Adam Welcome sparked the creation of a movement and a bestselling book.
• Practical Tips to Save Time: Rae details a powerful email automation strategy that helped a teacher reclaim five hours of their week. This simple yet effective tip provides immediate value for educators overwhelmed by their inboxes.
• Supporting Paraprofessionals: Rae discusses the crucial role of paraprofessionals in schools and shares how the TDI team responded to community requests by creating dedicated training bundles specifically designed to uplift and support paraprofessional staff.
• Content Creation and Problem-Solving: Rae provides insights for educators interested in creating impactful content online. Her advice: clearly identify problems and offer actionable solutions.
• Leaning into Leadership: Rae reflects on her growth as a leader, specifically emphasizing the importance of active listening, facilitating reflection, and allowing time for solutions to emerge naturally.

Connect with Rae Hughart:

• Website: TeachersDeserveIt.com
• Social Media: @RaeHughart
• TikTok: @RaeHughartEDU

Free Resource:

• Email Automation Download (available via TeachersDeserveIt.com)

Tune in to learn practical strategies to save time, reduce burnout, and re-center your practice on what truly matters—because teachers deserve better.

Hey everybody, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. This is episode 199. Yes, one episode away from hitting the 200 episode mark. Very excited about that, but we'll cross that bridge next weekend. Right now we have episode 199 and I am thrilled to welcome my guest, Ray Huert onto the show. Ray is an educator, a TEDx speaker.

and she is the inspiring force behind the Teachers Deserve It movement. Now, Ray is going to join us to share some powerful strategies that educators can use right now to reclaim their time, to tackle burnout, and to enhance their impact in the classroom. Before we get to that, I just want to give you a quick reminder that our brand new book, Mine and Katie Kinder's brand new book,

Culture First Classrooms, Leadership, Relationships, and Practices that Transform Schools is officially out. Make sure you grab your copy and join the conversation. We have links down in the show notes for you to grab, whether your favorite platform is Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, or if you're looking for that autographed signed by me, you can get that on our website. If you enjoyed today's episode, by the way, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. It truly helps more educators like you find out or show. Now, let's jump in with my conversation with Ray Heward.

All right, everybody, here we go with Leaning Into Leadership podcast and my guest, Ray Huert. I tell you what, I know I say it all the time that I'm really excited about a guest and I'm really excited about a conversation, but that is 100 % true today. I've been catching up off and on here recently with my friend Ray, and now we get to have the opportunity to hit record button and continue that conversation. So Ray, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

I'm so thrilled to be here. I love this podcast. I've been a listener for a long time, so thrilled to be on the pod.

Awesome, awesome. you know, I think probably everybody listening to the podcast knows who Ray Hubert is, but maybe just give them the really quick, like just a couple of elevators, elevator floors of here's who Ray is.

Yeah, no stress. Hi everyone. My name is Ray Hewer and I'm the CEO and founder of the Teachers Deserve It movement and I get to support teachers in a variety of ways these days, all focused on sustainable teaching practices. So how can educators be just a little bit more efficient and effective in their practices as much as I should really practice my elevator pitch. It's really just about giving teachers back a little bit of their support, a little bit of their control over their life to

maybe grab happy hour drinks with their friends or make it home for bedtime. So I love my new gig. It's been so fun and I've, you know, I've been in education for a variety of years. So being able to see lots of different lenses and be in essentially the dream job right now is a good gig.

Yeah, for

sure. Yeah, definitely. Well, and so I mean, the whole the whole teachers deserve it. I mean, it goes back to I know it's title of your book. It's honestly, it's just something that you live out loud. And so maybe just talk a little bit about, you know, where that title came from, whether you want to talk about that from the book perspective, the business perspective, or just Hey, this is who Ray is.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's a really strange story. I probably need to craft it up to be something far more inspirational and special. But the real story is that I was at a conference and I had dinner plans with Adam Welcome, who at the time wasn't really even a good friend yet. And in my mind was like the edgy celebrity. If there ever was an edgy celebrity and he reached out via Twitter and was like, hey, let's meet up. We're going to be at the same event. Let's grab dinner. And I was two hours late to the

And they waited for me and there was 11 people at this dinner and I was like, my god I'm mortified right? It was because of traffic, but like it's still not an excuse that they waited So I was so just I was sweating through my shirt. I was so embarrassed apologize profusely I sit down and obviously Adam welcome for those of you who are not familiar amazing educator beautiful keynote speaker And has written a lot of books one of which he wrote with Todd and a Sloanie. It's called kids deserve it

great book, best selling, amazing. So many educators I know have used that in their classroom. And I sit next to him, which I don't know how he saved that seat for me. And he leans over after pouring me glass of wine. And he goes, hey, I want to write another book. And I was like, dude, go for it. At this point, he could say anything to me. And I'd be like, I'm a champion. I'm so embarrassed.

Right.

Yeah, and he's like, want to call it teachers deserve it. And I was like, yeah, like a sequel to kids deserve it. Like dude, sounds great. And he goes, do you want to co-author it with me? And I like almost spit out my drink. was like, how, how many people did you ask? Right. Either this is a book where 70 teachers are going to be writing, you know, a little snippet or you've asked 70 people and they all told you, no, right. Like there's no way you're coming to me. And he's like, no, no, no, I really, I think we should co-author it together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

all flushed and I'm like, I really appreciate that. I am not interested, but thank you so much for thinking of me. He's like, well, why aren't you interested? I'm like, ew, teachers deserve it. It's the worst title. It sounds like you're going to complain about administration. It sounds like we are just going to like put admin and leaders on blast and talk about how they're the reason teachers are unhappy. And he looks at me quite frankly, and he goes, well, if that's not what the book should be about, you have control to change it.

the next phase or chapter of my life. And the one thing I knew I didn't want to do was go out and do my own professional development. I didn't want to form a team. And the main reason why was because although I really believed in the concept, I wasn't, I wasn't committed to doing anything on my own because I really believe in the team model. So I collected the right people, a lot of amazing people smarter than I am to come in. And now my job is truly getting

to support the Teachers Deserve It movement, which is really a movement. It's building a community of educators who have access to taking control of their life again. And it's not by putting down others. It's by taking the steps that we can take as classroom educators and make an impact on others, but also on our own lives. And I have loved every single minute of it.

Well, it's certainly been fun to watch this journey. mean, obviously, you and I have known each other, I think, since 2020, somewhere in that window of time, 2019, 2020, somewhere in there. And certainly, this is a new transition for you and a new phase, like you put it, which I think is always really exciting. I've been enjoying, we were talking before we hit the record button, that

Yeah, wild.

you know, certainly you're, you know, you're in the inbox almost every single day with, know, with some different information. I like so many, you know, we'll kind of stray from work every now and again and start scrolling on the phone. And of course, you know, I'll see, I'll see you pop up on Insta or on Tik TOK and unlike many, so I'm actually going somewhere with this. Just stick with me. unlike many,

that I'll see in my feed, classroom teachers who are just complaining or venting or putting an administrator on blast or whatever. You're really bringing some important things to light. You're shining the spotlight on it's OK to take care of yourself as a teacher. It's OK to have boundaries. It's OK to

Go have some drinks with your friends on the weekend. That was one I saw earlier this week. Just talk a little bit about where some of that content comes from. And there's a reason I want to ask this question. Number one, for the educators. But number two, so many educators also are content creators. And so I'd love to hear where does that come from?

You know, so many things that I see online are great concepts in theory, but they're very challenging to implement. And we saw that post-COVID, everyone was like, self-care, self-care. we as educators, not even as classroom teachers, but everyone in the education ecosystem had a million and a half things on them. So while so many of us, I know leadership included, wanted to do right by telling people to take care of themselves and put family and health first, it's really hard to do when you're

due list is unfinished and you have students showing up the next day. And so the focus of what we're working on is really to give access to educators on how they can save time and be more efficient and effective so that they can go do those things. Because it's great to say, hey, go grab drinks with your girlfriends. Or hey, make sure you make it home for bedtime because that's really strong for your family. there's no educator out there who's then going to leave that work behind.

when it really does impact 30 to 180 plus students if they don't do their job well. And we wanted to take this theory and make it more actionable. So I was talking to an educator on Tuesday who was telling me the previous week, so last week, she saved five hours through one of the tips and tricks that we gave her in our learning hub. Five hours? That's.

I've ever heard of a better purpose in my life than if I can gain a minute, five minutes, five hours back in a week for a teacher. Because that five hours might be, you know, grabbing drinks with friends. It might be getting a workout in. It might be, Darren, listening to this podcast and having time to actually consume it. Or it could be napping on the couch with your puppies and catching up on Paradise New on Hulu, right? And that's okay. But we want to make sure that it's a sustainable practice.

No kidding.

And so that's the biggest focus for us is wanting to get that out there. So when we're talking on TikTok or Instagram or anything else, we're identifying the problem, but then we're identifying that there are solutions that are beyond just hope and wishing. And that's the fun part.

See, I think that's one of the biggest pieces right there. I'm going to come back to this. I guarantee I'm going to make a little short clip of what you just said there. Specifically, I'm talking to those of you who are content creators who are like, I want to be like Ray. I want to be like Darren. I want to be like Adam. Right. It's not just about getting on there and saying something cute or click worthy. It's identify a problem and present solutions to a problem.

I think that's one of the pieces that people miss in the work that we do. We're not just out here stroking our egos. This is we are here to help. For me, very, very much so. It's very similar to what you do, but mine's very focused on administrators. How can I help you be more intentional with your time, be clear about what you're doing, yada, yada, yada? Which I think is another reason that you and I just see eye eye on so.

much, right? But you gotta solve problems.

Well, I was gonna say that, because...

But I was to say that because I, really don't focus on administration because a lot of our team is educators, like they've never been in that role. So I think one of the other issues is that educators believe that they're supposed to be an expert in everything or they're supposed to know everything. And for me, I work with, you know, for instance, I'm working with a district in the South Side of Chicago and they want a lot of stuff. And we're like, okay, we could do this. We can solve this problem. We can work with our teachers. We can work with your paraprofessionals. We can work with their coaches.

When it comes to administrators who need strategic strategies for their own practice, that's when we call you, Darren. It's like, well, we're not the right fit for you, but we know a guy and he'll help you be more efficient, effective in your day-to-day job. And that makes everyone better.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So let's dig in a little bit further. I want to come back to you. You have a teacher who said, I saved five hours. I mean, oh my gosh. So let's talk about that. Let's share a sum of as much as you want of the strategy. So folks, I'll give you a second. Pull over. Open a notes app.

flag this moment in the podcast to come back and take notes. How in the world do you help a teacher save five hours in a week?

Hey guys, I hate to tell you, you don't need a pullover. We have a free download. You can just go grab and steal the entire thing. So you'll be totally fine.

We'll put that in the show notes. We'll do that. Make sure you send me that, and we'll put it in the show notes.

That's the whole point, we just want to give you access to tools, that's why I keep saying. Okay, so this teacher reaches out via Instagram and is like, hey, we are forming like a little cohort crew and we're gonna do a few of the courses in the learning hub to save some time. What course should we start with? And I was like messaging her back and forth. was like, what do you do? What do your partners do? Where do you teach? What state are you in? I was like, what's the most annoying part of your job? What's the part that you love? What's the part that you hate?

And essentially we concluded that there were a few courses she could take with her, you know, little cohort, but the best one by far, first right off the bat was email automation. And the reason that one was so good is because she's reaching out to me in February. She was kind of really stressed and she was like, we're going to take this course, but I'm already overwhelmed just having to sign up for the learning hub. Like I can't imagine going through a robust course. And I was like, no, no, no girl, don't worry. Our courses are super short. They have really clear objectives. It's usually one.

or two objectives. It's like the whole point is that you're not taking this big robust course. You're learning one skill. You're going to go implement it then we're going to give you feedback and make sure it works for you before we move on to anything else. So they decided to all implement this email automation strategy. And here's the gist friends, although you can go grab the download. You are going to go into your email, whatever you use, Gmail, Outlook, whatever. You're going to set up a vacation mode on your email. Even though you're not on vacation, you're still going to keep going to work and you're going to have

this vacation mode send an automatic response to your audience when they email you at whatever email address you're setting this up at. So you can do this as an administrator, you can do this as a teacher. Our course specifically focuses on classroom educators and the assumption is that as a classroom educator you have colleagues emailing you, you have administration emailing you, and you have parents emailing you. And here's how you're gonna set up this vacation mode response. So it's gonna go every time you get something in your inbox. It's gonna say hello and

a warm welcome greeting and the first few sentences are going to be how you got their email, acknowledge that it's important to you that you get back to them soon, give them a clear timeline of when that's going to be, 24 hours, 48 hours, two minutes, you decide, but set that expectation so they know in advance, and then in the next section you're going to say, if...

This topic is better not via email for us to discuss, then let's make sure we set up a meeting. A phone call, an in-person meeting, you decide. Give them a link to your calendar so that we can set that up really easy for you, automatically taking it off email if it's not the right space.

Next section is while you're waiting for me to get back to you Here are some really common things people ask me about that might be helpful to you And that's where you're gonna list a bunch of bullet points and put it in a fun way, you know Make it more interactive, but you know, are you looking for your students grades? Click here, you know, are you looking to call in an absence? Here's the details Are you looking for good reads for the fall semester for your you and your learner? Click here, you know, whatever people normally ask you you can change this anytime you want I know

Most teachers are working with right now to like give updates quarterly of what these links are and then warm, you know ending at the end Thanks so much eager to get back to you via email and you know sign sign your name and this is just a Peace of mind element this helps you streamline your inbox You're able to see what is going on and get the stress off your back of needing to respond quickly to people so that they feel heard and you're setting the right tone and the other thing I like is a lot of the time and not only

sets the right tone, but it solves the problem before I even engage with the parent who might be looking for something. And it doesn't mean that I don't go back and reply to the parent, but more often than not, we're seeing that parents reply back saying, nevermind, got it. And then that's one less thing for you to do. within the course, obviously we have a ton of other templates of helping you just streamline some of your responses. So you as the educator can focus on the personalized element of the email, not just the entire structure, but it's such an easy way to make sure

that you feel seen and your people that are engaging with you when you're busy still feel like they have your attention.

So I love that so, so much. man, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to a hard time containing this one. um, administrators, regular listeners, folks, you've heard me talk about as administrators, you need to schedule time to do your email. Don't just be, you know, Oh my gosh, here came an email. I got to stop what I'm doing and go respond to this. Right. I always scheduled two times a day on my calendar. Boom. Here's what I'm going to do it. So.

Build that. You build that right into what Ray is talking about right there in the response. You know, hey, I will be responding to emails today at 3 p.m. or tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. You know, or whatever, whatever the case may be. Holy cow, folks, we're going to make sure this is in the show notes because you've got to get down there. You've got to grab that thing and build that email response. Administrators, I'm telling you right now, if that's saving a teacher five hours in a week, number one, you need to get that in front of your teachers. Number two.

You need to do it because it probably will save you more than five hours. mean, let's be honest, administrators, we know our teachers are probably getting 100 emails a week. You're getting 500. So in addition to some of the other things that I've shared with you here on the podcast, holy cow, this thing is absolute gold right here, Ray. Wow, that is so cool.

And it's,

but it's also so easy to do. It'll take you somewhere around 10 minutes to set it up, because you'll question every single word you use, and you'll edit some links and whatever, but then you just let it sit. You won't do anything until you wanna change it. So it's just an opportunity for you to set something up that if you take 10 minutes today or 10 minutes tomorrow to do it, you don't have to worry about it next week, which is just nice to have that kind of off your shoulders.

And if you want to know what that looks like, just email Ray. Because she has that set up with her email. When I email Ray, boom, I get something back almost right away. And it's exactly what she just said. Hey, I got your email. It's important to me. I'll get back to you. Here's some great resources. Have a great day.

say, Darren, for someone like you, who who you email back and forth all the time, I'm sure you're just deleting it. And that's the best part is that the people you're responding to that get this email

Who's going to hate you for giving them access to tools? Like if they know it's coming and they don't want it, they're going to delete it like everything else that we delete in our inbox. But if for some reason it's a person that would really value from the extra resources, then great, you provided them extra value that they weren't expecting. And for parents, especially for those who at the elementary level, the middle school, the high school, you can put stuff in there specific to your course. I cannot tell you the amount of teachers that tell me the creative ideas of things that they've linked that they only have to make

once and then it's constantly being sent out to their parents without their parents ever even needing to know they wanted it. So it's just nice little reminders that are as automated, again, less work for you.

Right.

I love it too. as I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about, again, as this is me wearing my principal hat, I delegated that all to my secretary. But even through this, mean, administrators think about this, right? You get that email, teacher who's angry at the, or a parent who's angry at a teacher, and they haven't even talked to the teacher yet. So that could be like built right into your steps. Hey, while you're waiting to hear back from me.

Have you spoken to the teacher? If not, click here and my secretary will connect you with them or schedule a time with you or whatever the case may be. Or is your question about something to do with health? Click here and that'll take you right to the nurse and the nurse will contact you or whatever, right?

You know?

also have, and I only have seen this once, so please if you're listening, do this, because I'll be flabbergasted when I get your email. I had a teacher where the link was actually an example of a templated email. So the link didn't bring them to anything more than the teacher had already templated an email. And it was essentially, you looking to, you know, whatever, accomplish XYZ, copy and paste this email, this is the email address to send it over.

you'll get that answer really quick. So it's so much more than just directing them places. It's here, I'm saving the parent time, but I've already drafted this in the language they need, fill in your kid's name and they'll send it to the nurse or whatever else. So there are so many ways to link. You can hyperlink anything these days. So it's just fun to get creative.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, I'm thinking even like school counselors, high school counselors, parents are requesting all the time for letters of recommend or whatever. Here's a link that this is what I need from you to write the letter. So boom, click here, get that to me. I mean, just on and We can riff on this for hours. But I want to shift gears just slightly. And I want to talk about a group of educators who maybe

They don't get as much love as they should. And I'm talking about our paraprofessionals. You and I were talking before we hit record. I spent some time with a couple of different districts working specifically with classified staff. And Dr. Andrea Gilbert I had on the show. I don't even remember what episode number it was. I'll link it in the show notes for you guys. But her work with Converse County One and Douglas just pouring into paraprofessionals.

I think that is just such important work. you just had something hit my inbox this morning, a bundle that you guys are putting together specifically for paraprofessionals. So I want to have you talk about that a little bit, because man, that's a group that needs much more love than we give them.

Yeah, like I mentioned, we have a learning hub that has courses that all have very clear objectives, but we actually decided before we even launched the Teachers Deserve It movement that we wanted to give educators really easy ways to find solutions to the problem they have versus really hunting through the treasure trove of resources and maybe not finding the right fit. So we release every month a bundle, some sort of bundle for educators. The ones that are out already is, know, teachers deserve their time back bundle.

It has five courses of simple easy ways to save time the example of the email one is in there We have the teachers deserve creativity bundle teachers deserve Leadership skills bundle and now we just released on pre-order teachers deserve paraprofessional support and this is actually a really fun bundle that is for paraprofessionals and this came from our community asking for it I will tell you one of my favorite things Darren. I know you do this really really well is we are

choosing as a company, as a team to not produce content that isn't requested by our community because our community knows what they want and we just need to be smart enough to ask them, take their feedback and bring in the experts to create it. So we had two different districts reach out wanting to kind of roll out the learning hub to all their staff and make that a part of their strategic plan for professional development next year. And they felt like their paraprofessionals were being underserved. And it was so fun in the conversation.

we release so much content. Like to be able to say we release three to eight courses a month.

is just absurd. like, we'll just create a paraprofessional bundle for them that there'll be plenty of content for them to look through. They'll get certificates at the end of their learning and we can focus on a variety of topics. So we're so excited to release the paraprofessional bundle. You actually can get a little preview of one of the courses right off the bat right now in the pre-order and can actually steal the entire download, which is really fun. And that's all about just establishing what a paraprofessional is, right? How do you understand your job? How can you do it well? And it's full of inspiration.

Which paraprofessionals should also have access to? Why is your job important? You know and obviously the other bundles are also gonna or the other courses are also gonna include question stems and sentence starters, how to collaborate with your teacher, how to you know abide by confidentiality laws, all that stuff. But I'm just so excited to serve a community that is already in your building. You don't need to go buy or go find money to support your teachers further. Your paraprofessionals are already there.

let's make sure they're fabulous before we invest in other ways to support our teachers as well.

Yeah, no, I think that's wonderful. again, that's a group that, we can't love on them enough. There's certainly, you know, I go back to my time in the buildings and thinking about times where I would hear a paraprofessional say, well, I'm just a paraprofessional. No, you're not. Your job is important, like you said. And this is just another way for school leaders to support and to let them know, hey,

I see you, I value you, I trust you, I believe in you, and here I want to pour into you and help you be the very best you can be in your job. I think it's fantastic. And I applaud you guys for listening to your community and them saying, hey, we really could use this. Cool, we've got the resources to do it. We have the people to do it, and we're going to put that together for you. So good work. I think it's awesome.

on the

The best part is we know paraprofessionals are either excused from Institute days or they're thrown into some sort of training that they're not sure how it applies to them. The best part of this is now you don't have to plan PD for your paraprofessionals the rest of this coming school year, right? It's already done. They are in a specialized training where they can work through these courses, apply the skills, and then get follow-up, ask questions, really engage with the content, and you can start seeing that development grow throughout the year. So it's just nice to kind

to have it done for the administrators. You already have so much on your plate. Darren, I know that you and I could speak on this for ages, but I just think no one talks enough about the tough job administrators have to kind of say, okay, we got the PD for the teachers done. We got the PD for the year for paraprofessionals. What else can we take off your plate? Win-win.

yeah.

Yeah, that absolutely is. I love it so much. holy cow, our time has just flown by. I had a feeling that was going to be the case. Always is when you and I get a chance to hang out. We're at that point. I'm going to ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the podcast. This is the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So, Ray, what are you doing to lean into leadership?

I am constantly striving to lean into leadership, Darren. I definitely want to continue to improve my leadership and...

You know, to lean into leadership, think I'm just constantly listening to podcasts and striving to be a listener. One thing I know I'm not good at is I am immediately a problem solver. Someone comes to me with any sort of dilemma and I'm like, my gosh, let me brainstorm 17 ways on how to fix it. And something I've learned I need to do better is sit back and let things marinate. So that is definitely something I'm working on as I lean into being a stronger leader is not always fixing problems, but

learning how to facilitate reflection and then strive to let things marinate a bit before I jump into all the solutions that might be possible. Because sometimes a solution comes an hour later after the conversation's done.

Yeah,

yeah, now that's good stuff. I appreciate that. Ray, obviously, if people aren't already connected to you, they're going to want to be connected with you. What are some of the best ways for them to be connected with you and learn more about this movement that is teachers deserve it?

Yeah, friends, I'd love to connect with you. Obviously on social, I'm just at Ray Huert. You can find me everywhere. On TikTok, I think I'm at Ray Huert, edu. But just to confirm, I own at Ray Huert on TikTok. I just can't log into it. So the one that you want to follow is the edu on the backside. But more importantly, as much as I would love to connect with you, you got to go connect with the team. The team is doing amazing things. That's where our blogs are published every week. We have anywhere from three to eight blogs published every week. We have a podcast that publishes episodes on Wednesday.

We have our learning hub that has the bundles every single month, like all this stuff that's over at teachersdeserveit.com. You can follow Teachers Deserve It at teachersdeserveit on all social media platforms.

There we go. Awesome stuff. Well, it's taken, wow, like 200 episodes of this podcast to get you on the podcast. But finally, finally, we've made it happen. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation, hit the record button so others can hear us. My good friend Ray Huert, so awesome having you here on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me here.

Thank you for the opportunity. Love this pod and can't wait to continue to be a listener.

Man, that was such a great conversation with Ray. Again, I appreciate her coming and joining me here on the show. You know, I've known Ray for years and finally we had the opportunity to hit record in one of our conversations. So again, thank you so much, Ray. Really appreciate you and wish you only the best of luck with the Teachers Deserve It movement. And now it's time for a pep talk. So a couple of weeks ago, I was in a school and we were having some conversations about

why school leaders need to be in the classroom. And I'll be honest with you folks, I hear it all the time from leaders who tell me all the reasons they can't be in the classroom. know, whether it's, you know, I need to be in the office just in case something happens, or, you know, there's all these different demands on my time and so forth. Folks, we have got to stop sacrificing the important at the altar of the urgent.

We spent so much time chasing our tails and handling other people's crises that we're not focused as leaders on what truly matters. When I was in this school a couple of weeks ago, several of the administrators shared with me what they really think the priorities are at the school. And in this particular case, the priorities were safety, instruction, and culture. I said this at this time. We had agreed to a certain number of minutes.

per week that administrators would get into the classrooms and give feedback and to really coach the educators. And I said to them at that point in time, if you spend 120 minutes each week, each of you in classrooms, will that increase or decrease safety on your campus? Of course, the answer is increased. said, if you spend 120 minutes in a classroom, each one of you, every week, will that

improve or will that hamper teaching and learning in your classrooms? Of course, the answer is it will improve it. And then finally, if you spend 120 minutes each of you every week in classrooms, will that improve or will it harm the culture of your school? And of course, the answer is it will improve it. Folks again, stop sacrificing the important at the altar of the urgent.

We have to develop strategies. have to put systems in place so that as leaders, we can genuinely focus on what is important. You want to know more. You want to have some conversations with me. You want to lean in and say, wait a minute, Darren, I don't agree with you. Let's have that conversation. If you want me to work with your leadership team, if you want me to support you, let's have that conversation. Leaders, you got to put what is important at the top of your list.

Don't worry about managing your time. It's time to manage your priorities. All right, folks, that's what I've got for you this week. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Again, episode 200 will be dropping next Sunday. Absolutely cannot wait for that. One more big shout out, and thank you to Ray Huert for joining me here on episode 199. Get out there, folks, and have a road to awesome week.