Summary:

Join Dr. Jim and Dr. Andy Vollmuth, superintendent of the New Prague Area Schools, as they explore the nuances of fostering a continuous improvement culture in K-12 education. Dr. Vollmuth shares insights from his career, emphasizing the importance of mission-driven leadership and embedding a learning mindset across school districts. Discover how schools can navigate challenges, empower educators, and maintain focus on academic and social development for students. Dive into strategies for effective communication, relationship-building, and sustainable growth in educational environments.

Key Takeaways:

• Emphasize Learning and Clarity: Prioritizing a culture of learning among educators helps align the organization towards its mission of student development.
• Empower Leadership at All Levels: Building capacity and leadership depth across the district enhances organizational strength and agility.
• Foster Open Communication: Regular and transparent communication builds trust and supports organizational alignment and progress.
• Sustain Long-term Focus: Continuous improvement in education requires patience and a commitment to long-term strategies and goals.
• Leverage Relationships: Developing strong professional and personal relationships is foundational to effective leadership and organizational change.

Chapters:

00:00

Building Continuous Improvement Culture in K-12 Education

00:54

Dr. Andy Vollmoth's Educational Leadership Journey

02:01

Superintendent Discusses Continuous Improvement in Education

08:07

The Importance of Community Passion in School Systems

10:01

Building a Continuous Improvement Culture in K-12 Education

16:33

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement in Education

23:51

Building a Continuous Improvement Culture in K-12 Education

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

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: https://www.npaschools.org/

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



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You have a lot more stakeholders that you need to navigate, and all of those stakeholders have vastly different priorities that they want to accomplish the challenge in implementing this mindset in the K through 12 spaces that you can easily devolve into a culture that focuses on the wrong sets of outcomes, and those outcomes may not matter when you're thinking about the mission of a district.

Prior to his experience at new Prague Andy served for 16 years as the principal at Normandale Hills elementary. That school was a 2017 Minnesota elementary school principals association school of excellence in 2020.

Andy was recognized by the M. E. S. P. A. As a recipient of the Leadership Achievement Award for the West Suburban division. Prior to his experiences in Bloomington, Andy was a principal at Lincoln K through eight choice school and his educational career started as an elementary Teacher with the Minneapolis public schools district.

Glad to have you on.

[00:02:13] Dr. Jim: Super pumped to have you on. I'm pretty interested in seeing how this conversation develops because as a private sector guy I'm, Been there and done that when it comes to continuous improvement every year.

There is always something that you're working on as far as a key initiative. And I think within the private sector, I would make the argument that it might be somewhat easier to tackle given that it's the nature of the beast. One of the things that I'm interested in finding out is how you actually apply this in a K through 12 space.

But before we actually dive into that discussion, I think it's important for you to set the set the tone. And give the listeners a little bit more detail into your background and experiences that helped your helped shape your leadership philosophy.

My continuous improvement culture development, if you will, is based on my experiences starting in Rochester at a high performing school, Lincoln K 8 Choice, as well as my 16 years in Bloomington. And fundamentally, I think it goes back to, as you were talking, Jim, I was thinking back to as I was doing a lot of my graduate school work, the concepts of Jim Collins and good to great 2001.

That gives me great clarity as to how I approach the work. We are here to serve students and to make sure that we are giving them the best education possible so they can grow academically and both social emotionally. And so that clarity, I believe, is critical and foundational in how I've approached this work.

So when you look back at your first year, what are some of the things that you might have done differently? Knowing what you know now because this is your first superintendency gig. So if given the opportunity to do something different in your first year on the job what would some of those things have been?

And one of the things that, that I will share that I still continue to reflect upon is I didn't have to have it all figured out. The day that I started, and in fact, I stood in front of our staff, our school community at the beginning of this school year, and I challenged them to think of 3 things, listening, leadership and learning and in particular learning what I have found in my.

I would have done a lot more deep diving into the school district, but I did a lot of that prior to coming in. So I don't have any regrets, if you will, but I think that I approach this from a learning perspective. I am a learner. I'm the chief learner, if you will, and I hope that transcends the organization.

Tell me a little bit more about how you've embedded a learning mindset across the district as a way to achieve some of those higher end goals that you want to achieve as a leader and as a district.

It scares me. And so my goal this year is to become more efficient, more knowledgeable and efficient with AI. So it starts with creating that culture. I was, I'm blessed to. Have the opportunity to lead a really high performing school district. But one of the things that, that we are doing over the last couple of years, the last 18 months now is to truly, really create some systems and structures that sustain us so that we can get pull or we can get really focused on teaching and learning.

Again, I go back to clarity about why we exist as an organization, teaching and learning. And we're not completely there yet. And of course the journey is ongoing. But at this point, we're really focusing on how do we create those systems and structures within the district at the district level that then filter into our buildings to, to ensure that learning is our top priority.

[00:08:07] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah. I take a and this is just my perspective. I started my career by working for the Minneapolis public schools, and during that time, I think Minneapolis public schools was the largest, if not one of the largest school districts in the state of Minnesota. Then had an opportunity to be in Rochester, which had about 17, 000 kids.

And again I very much appreciated my time there. And then I moved to Bloomington and we were on 10, 000 kids. New Prague is about 4, 000 kids. If you had our early childhood programming, about 4, 200 kids. And I, I. I have learned very very early on that I believe schools are schools, kids are kids, principals are principals, teachers are teachers we have all these differences, but we are all very similar when you really unpack why we come to the building.

I graduated with 21 students in my graduating class and that's three towns put together. And so my mom is proud to say that I was in the top third of my graduating class. I don't know how big of an achievement that was. But it goes back to when I think about New Prague, I think about the importance of a school system in a local community, right?

It really becomes central to the community. And there's great passion in our local communities because it's not just New Prague proper. It's Elko New Market. It's the surrounding communities. There's great passion for our school system. I think our job is to capture that passion. And we talk about a prom, a proud tradition in order to create a promising future for all of our students.

[00:10:01] Dr. Jim: One of the things that's interesting about this conversation when you talk about continuous improvement is that in my mind, I always go back to how G. E. Executed continuous improvement in the private sector. There are a lot of bottom line benefits that happened as a result of it.

But culturally, I think when people look at GE as an organization today, it can be a cautionary tale. And when we talk about applying the continuous improvement culture in the K through 12 space, that's a whole different set of circumstances that you have to deal with. So tell us about how you got started in building this sort of culture within a space that isn't typically known for continuous improvement in the sense that the private sector folks.

Understand it.

John Dewey talks about what the wisest parents want for their own child, or children. That's what society should want for all children. When we were at Normandale Hills, we had a saying that all kids are all of our responsibility, All the time. And that was from the administration to our cooks and custodians for our, to our teachers, to our paraprofessionals.

I want to make sure that every kid has the opportunity to receive a high quality education. And that just drives me. That's my passion. And that's why I get excited about coming to work. On a regular basis, I've been really lucky to work with great professionals. And I think that's true of educators.

And again, my role and my play in that has been to create some systems and structures to give them what they need. And then also to accelerate. That collaboration on behalf of all students. So I think it goes back a little bit, Jim, to mindset. What is the mindset that we bring as leaders to the organization?

And then how does that transcend the organization so that continuous improvement isn't just something that we talk about? It's really something that we live and we do on a regular basis.

[00:12:43] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I really think that leadership transcends environments, right? And so I've been had the good fortune to work in non profit, but I think there are a lot of similarities from the work that I would do in a for profit world, though I've never formally been in that world, so it's hard for me to say completely.

I do that as a parent all the time. And though I think my wife and I have been fortunate to have three healthy kids and provide a lot for them, but I always want to give them just a little bit more. That's who I am. And that's a little bit of that competitive side. Going back to how that plays out into my role as a superintendent.

[00:14:05] Dr. Jim: I like what you said there where the focus in mindset Is on how do we maximize what we have versus focusing on things that we don't have. So tell me a little bit more about how that specific mindset is important in the K through 12 context in building the right kind of continuous improvement culture that isn't toxic.

The system craves the status quo. And so in that continuous improvement culture, we have to continue to push on the system in order to create new opportunities for our staff. I think we have limited energy. I [00:15:00] know I do. I really proud of the work that I'm able to do, but it's not, it being a father and a husband is to me, the most important work that I do.

And so trying to think about how we maximize the time that we do have. And focus our energies on the right things, right? There's a lot out there, but how do we stay laser focused on what those right things are? And so that clarity around, in our case, developing students, giving them, making sure our buildings are safe spaces for them, making sure that they have the opportunity to grow academically and social emotionally to me is why we are here, right?

And that I hope that transcends into the rest of the organization. So there's more of a focus on why we're here. And then using the resources that we have. In order to maximize the experience for students. At the same time, it's my job then as the leader working with other leaders and community members to see if we can find other resources to bring into the mix.

[00:16:10] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you mentioned systems crave the status quo. And when you think about building this continuous improvement culture within a K through 12 space it's, your principles will end up making or breaking this. So how did you filter this down to the principal level so that they're actually active in building this sort of culture, what were the steps that you took?

But one of the things that I have done, and so again when leaders are learning, so too will our students, right? When the adults in the organization are learning, so too will the [00:17:00] students is I walk people through a really reflective activity. When we're doing that to tape, what is your vision?

We used to have people write philosophies of education or philosophies of leadership. And working with a mentor of mine, Dr. Rick Dressen, who was a. long time superintendent in Minnesota. We created a place where we share, we have students right there, their vision. So my, my, my mission statement, excuse me, is to be a visionary leader who works to maximize the potential in an organization through creating a culture of continuous improvement for all.

And it doesn't mean anything to this podcast, but what it does mean is that it shows, I share it with you to show the clarity that I have. About the role I share that with the principles at the beginning of the year, and I asked him to think about this is who I am. And this is what I'm bringing to this space, especially when I was brand new to the organization.

[00:18:00] Dr. Jim: So when you walked your principles through that mission statement of yours, how has it received and what actions did they take as a result of you verbalizing that?

I try to minimize that and more make it about how I make it more about how we're going to work together to have them grow, for their own continuous improvement, their growth on behalf of The organization or their particular school. So I think it just gives them clarity about who I am and how I'm an approach to this work.

[00:19:03] Dr. Jim: So when you look at that you've got the continuous improvement philosophy. You've built out a mission statement that you're verbalizing and you're saying all this stuff out loud. How does that show up in your interactions with your principle? Principles. And how you develop them.

But then also what do they need for their staff to grow the staff? And I think that's still a work in progress, to be honest with you. We faced some challenges last year in terms of a budget reductions and just some other things just that, that sprung up in the year. So we haven't been as focused on as laser focused as I would like us to get [00:20:00] to.

But again, that's, that systems and structures work that we're doing. But I think it just shows them that they have the autonomy. They have the. The expectation is that they'll continue to be the lead learners in their building and then that filters through the, their particular buildings.

If I'm a legacy employee in an organization and there's a new, um, chief in town, I can easily fall back and say I can wait this person out and just keep my head down. So if you encountered it, what were the steps that you took to bring them alongside and get more momentum and moving forward with your vision and your mission?

I was still a principal. Thankfully my leaders in Bloomington allowed me to do that. Just sitting down and talking to principals, directors, union leaders. And I asked him three really simple questions. What's working. What's not, I don't want to know name names. I don't want to get into that, but what's not working.

And then my last question I think is the most important. How do we. Make this a better organization. And from the very beginning, it's that mindset that I am not here as the superintendent to fix the new Prageria schools. Cause I don't think it's broken. I think there's way more good than there's not, but how do you develop that collaborative approach with the leaders who are going to do a lot of the work?

And they're leading in their particular buildings, and they're creating the culture within your buildings. First and foremost, I think you have to have relationships. You have to have personal and professional relationships with people within the organization. And again, I've been thankful to work with really great professionals.

During my time as a leader, I've asked people to slow down a little bit because they don't, I don't want to wear people out, but in quite a, and I'm being very honest, I've never had to ask somebody that I work with to work harder. And I think it's because of the, and I believe I had to be a pretty hard charging person who's pretty passionate about this work.

I think that has to, the culture development has to do, has to get some credit for that.

Level as well?

Looked at me at, so they were maybe on the journey to become an administrator and they looked at me and they say I want to teach teaching is my passion. And I said, that's great because I believe we need teachers. We need leaders at all different levels of the organization from the administration to the teachers, to our support staff.

The more leaders we have, the better off we are. Maybe some people would be nervous if there was too many leaders. That excites me. My job is to then curate all the great ideas coming from those leaders. On behalf of the mission vision of that particular, in that case, that school, but being able to create leadership to empower them on behalf of the organization, I think can, it has a compounding effect that helps create that culture of continuous improvement.

Hey, if there's a growth opportunity, this is a person that I might slot into those growth opportunities.

And so By having that background information and creating what I would hope is deep relationships with people I've been able to put them in positions where I think they can do work that is exciting to them that they feel empowered to do. And really create that synergy, if you will, across the organization.

[00:25:31] Dr. Jim: Yeah, I like your emphasis on focusing in on a smaller number of things with greater discipline versus all the things that might pop up. I really like a lot of the things that we've covered here. I think one of the things that I'm curious about is when you're building a continuous improvement culture. You're looking to answer how do we make things better?

You're filtering this down into the organization and empowering those people underneath you. How are you getting line of sight when it comes to progress against objectives?

And when we talk about communication, it's to do all different stakeholders within the organization, not just the leadership or the teachers or the formalized leaders. It's really everyone. And then the other piece, I think, to that question is it's clarity about what we're working on. Again, I see I think one of the challenges in public education continuous improvement is you don't see results over time.

So it's not a short fix, right? These are longitudinal plans that you hopefully put into place. And results over time.

[00:27:17] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I think it's talking about data. I think it's talking about the things that work and I, and again I think it's the caution to people that this is a long term plan, less is more, and when it comes to improvement not in school improvement for sure, I think it's a less is more approach.

And so how do you focus on what you identify as the things that need to work on, but then build strategies and build initiatives on top of one another? I referenced synergy earlier. There is a one particular thing that we're going to do. We can't bring in a new curriculum or we can't provide just one aspect of professional development, and that's going to fix a portion or an aspect of K through 12 education.

And so you'll want it. There's the tendency to go back to the way we've always done things. And as a leader, we have to push up against that.

[00:28:46] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, I've never really thought of it that way, but I, three things came to mind. Relationships, again, professional relationships, and they also have to know. The bandwidth of your people that you're fortunate enough to work with. So that personally what are they [00:29:00] able to where can you put them in spaces where they're successful professionally and personally?

I think communication, I always say communication breeds trust and a lack of communication breeds mistrust. So how do you have a regular cadence of communication going on in the organization that is shared with all? But also then how do you communicate what your priorities are to within the organization at that particular time?

And the last thing that came to mind is empowerment of the professionals, right? The more that we can empower the people to do the work I think the testament of leadership is not necessarily what happens during their tenure. It's what happens once they leave. And what are the things that withstand the test of time?

[00:30:05] Dr. Jim: I like how you've tied in, Long term sustainability as part of that framework and mindset. So I appreciate that. So if people want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

And again, I think leadership matters. I believe strongly in that. And I do think leadership transcends. And so my goal would be to learn from people in K 12, but honestly, I think I also learn a lot from people who are in for profit organizations or leading nonprofits, whatever it might be, because I think we, we have the same goal to make our organization the best as possible in our case for our students to learn.

[00:31:07] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us, Andy. And I think the listeners are going to learn a lot from this conversation. When I think back to the conversation that we had, there's a couple of things that stand out that I think are. Key factors that drive success in building a continuous improvement culture within the K through 12 space.

I think first is that sense of mission or purpose that you need to build within the organization. And one of the things that you mentioned is that a mantra of yours were was along the lines of all kids are all of our responsibilities all the time. And that Defining a north star for your organization in any organization is going to help you answer the why for a building a continuous improvement culture.

And as you mentioned, All systems love the status quo. So if you're not learning and you're not answering the why question, you're going to stay stagnant. So I think those are important lessons to draw from this conversation. For those of you who have been listening to this discussion or this chat, we appreciate you hanging out.

If you liked what we talked about, make sure you leave us a review. If you haven't already joined our community and make sure you do that, and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.