February 10, 2025 • 22 mins
Unlock the secrets of harnessing data to revolutionize educational leadership! Discover how effective data-driven decision-making can transform student attendance and uplift teacher performance, all while fostering a supportive school culture. This episode guides you through strategies used by school improvement teams to identify and address challenges like chronic absenteeism, ensuring accountability and proactive interventions. Additionally, we dive into the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) model and how it can be pivotal in nipping issues in the bud before they escalate into bigger concerns.
But that's not all—hear about the transformative power of data in empowering teachers. Evaluation tools are essential, yet building strong, supportive relationships with educators is key. We explore ways to collaborate with teachers, understand their goals, and use data to drive progress, ultimately enriching the entire school environment. Plus, we open the floor for listener engagement, inviting you to share feedback and questions. Be sure to catch our chat with Angela Kelly, an inspiring principal leader, who will share her insights on balancing the demands of professional and personal life. Join us for this enlightening episode and aim to be 1% better every day!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Principal JL (00:10):
Welcome back educational leaders.
Today we're going to continueour Coach Em Up leadership
series.
Today's topic is data-drivendecision-making.
Now, I know this is not themost sexiest topic to talk about
, because when people aretalking about data, they start
to roll their eyes.
They're yawning there, you know, they start tuning out.
(00:31):
Oh, we want to make data drivendecisions.
Well, guess what?
To be an effective leader,making data driven decision
making is really important andit's not a glamorous part of the
job, but it's something that wehave to do if we want to get
our school and our teachers andour building and our
(00:52):
expectations in the rightdirection.
So today I'm going to talk aboututilizing data driven decision
making at a couple of differentlevels.
One I'm going to talk about itfrom the principal level, from
the building level to where hey,how can we use data as
principals to really driveimprovement in our building?
(01:12):
And what I do is I utilize myschool improvement team to help
with that, because they help meidentify issues that they see at
the building level.
And then we utilize a what datacan we use?
What metric can we use toimprove that area?
And then I'll also talk about,you know, at the teacher level
like, not teachers using data,but how can I, as a principal,
(01:36):
use data with my teachers forimprovement?
Because that's another piecethat's really important when
you're utilizing data as aprincipal to use when you are
trying to help your teachingstaff to improve and make them
better, so we can make everybodyin the building better.
So with that, I'm going to goahead and start at the building
level.
(01:57):
So, at the building level, youknow, I utilize my school
improvement team and they'll say, hey, mr Lennon, here are some
issues we're seeing, and oneissue from the time I started
was students' attendance.
Right, that was something theywere talking about before I
showed up and it was somethingwe continue to talk about Now.
Student attendance isn'tsomething that is nationwide.
(02:20):
This is everybody's goingthrough.
How can we get our studentsback in the buildings learning,
but also, you know, to help makesure kids are there so they can
learn the information, so theycan become better.
But it's frustrating becausewhen you have students not in
the classroom regularly, it'sreally tough on those teachers
(02:42):
to educate those students whenthey're not there.
Now I'm just going to just talkabout student attendance and
generalities.
I'm not going to get into thewheeze a lot of it.
But we have issues with ourstudent's attendance and that's
something that we decided as aschool improvement team that we
would tackle.
Now, before we tackle thestudent attendance piece, the
(03:03):
first thing that we did is welooked at how do we view the
culture of rebuilding?
Where are we at?
Are we inviting, you know?
Are we an inviting culture?
Are we, you know, telling kidswe're glad to see them here?
You know, all those things wereset in place before we really
got into tacking students'attendance.
Now, when we were looking at howto improve our students'
(03:25):
attendance, we looked at acouple of different metrics or
measures, and that's really whatyou got to understand is, every
situation that you are workingthrough will have some sort of
metrics, of a way to measure, tosee if you're improving in
those areas.
And if you don't have a way tomeasure it, sometimes you might
have to create that measurement.
(03:47):
So for us, we utilize the dailyaverage attendance rate and we
look at chronic absenteeism.
So we looked at, kind of whatour patterns were and where do
we see the issues, and ourbiggest question was we wanted
to like find out a way to havesome sort of consequence for not
(04:07):
coming to school.
Now, of course, you havetruancy, you have all those
things, but a lot of that stuffsways kids not to come to school
.
But there need to be more fromour end to help hold people
accountable.
And so we had a policy to wherewe would take full credit from
students, but this policy wasnever really followed.
It really was something thatwas on the books, but it was
(04:28):
never something that we actuallydid.
So it was actually one of myassistant principals saw a
presentation at AdministratorDays about, you know, students'
attendance at a high school andwhat this high school was doing.
They answered some of thequestions we were asking,
because our biggest thing is,yeah, you could take credit from
(04:49):
somebody, but what do you dowith them?
I mean, they're not going to bein that class anymore.
You know where do you stickthem, and with us we have a
thousand students.
So being able to pull a kid andput them somewhere else was
really really tough for us to do.
So we looked at it from adifferent lens that this school
was looking at.
What if we looked at pullinghalf credit?
Right and so that would allowthe kid?
(05:30):
Yeah, okay, you'd missed somany days.
We're going to pull half credit.
But we had an appeals processthat we as well, because parents
know like their kids got tocome to school, and so we had
everything laid out.
This make it work for us.
And we figured out how to pullthe data we needed, how to
(05:57):
monitor the students' attendance, to where we can get early
interventions.
And then this is where we camein with the MTSS model, to where
we would utilize tiers ofinterventions depending on that
student's attendance.
And so we were trying to getreally proactive with the
attendance piece by getting tothe kids earlier, really
(06:19):
tracking that data so we canhelp them before it becomes a
problem with truancy and thenthe law.
We really didn't want to getthere, but that took a lot of
people working together, and soour leadership team will meet.
We have an attendance committeethat meets once a week in our
leadership team and we canidentify the kids that, hey,
these kids aren't attending.
Oh, here's our first level ofinterventions.
(06:41):
Okay, they're getting to thislevel.
We'll go to the second tierwhen we get to the third tier
now, we're referring them to theSTARS program, which is
actually a program within ourcommunity that helps families,
help them remove barriers sothey can make it to school and
so attendance doesn't become anissue.
So, really utilizing what pieceof data we needed you know how
(07:05):
we're going to use thatfollowing that data, spotting
patterns, taking action then wewere always looking to make
improvements.
Now I would say we started thisattendance policy this past
fall and throughout the firstsemester we actually had a 3.79%
increase in daily averageattendance and we were able to
(07:27):
reduce our chronic absenteeismby 8.5%, and so being able to
look at that data and havesomething to measure it against
really showed that.
Hey, you know what?
What we implemented is working.
It is something that is workingfor us and it's helping our
kids get in school, becauseattendance is an issue.
And guess what?
(07:48):
Our kids are more present inschool, they are in the
classroom learning, and so I'mreally excited to see what our
data is going to show later.
So we utilize in Nebraska theACT in the high school and we
utilize that data.
Now we look at that data.
But you got to understand whatthose state of standards
assessments are.
(08:08):
They are basically a snapshotof where you students are at
that point.
It's good data to have, but youhave to look at other pieces of
data around that piece to makeit make sense.
You can't just say here's yourtest scores, we did good or bad.
I hate the fact that we utilizethe ACT as a way to measure the
(08:28):
success of a school, becausethere's so many more variables
that you can look at to helpmeasure the success of the
school.
And so one of the things weworked on really hard on the
past year actually since I'vebeen here but we started
implementing this year was thatattendance piece and we're
seeing the fruits of that laborand so really the shout out to
(08:48):
the school improvement team andmy assistant principal and
everybody the teachers and staffthat work really hard to help
break down those barriers, helpthose kids attend school so we
can have them be in class, sothey can learn and be more
successful.
Now we'll look at other datapieces as we get going, and so
this will be an ongoing storyfor us on where we're at,
(09:12):
because really this spring willtell a story to where you know,
kind of how we land overall as aschool year.
But we are starting off reallywell with that with that piece.
So that is from like a builderlevel, how you can utilize data,
how you can look at spottingpatterns, take in action, and
then how do you keep improvingupon the action that you take?
So that is one piece.
(09:33):
Now another piece is you canutilize data to help your
teacher storm and grow.
Now we all have some sort ofevaluation tool.
All right, it's a tool andthat's why I look at it.
I don't look at it as a way youknow, I don't like playing the
gotcha game, right, and so whenI look at an evaluation, yes,
you're going to get a score, butwhat does that score mean?
(10:00):
I mean, different models havedifferent meanings to their
score and it is a data piecethat you can utilize.
But outside of utilizing therubrics in the evaluation tool,
where you're looking at you knowwalkthroughs and you're having
those conversations don't lookat.
You cannot, as a principal, justutilize the tool a couple of
times a year for a teacher yougot to try to get in there as
much as possible and to whereyou're doing walkthroughs,
(10:22):
you're trying to get theevaluation done, but you're also
having conversations with yourstaff.
Outside of that, you're notgoing in there evaluating them
every time.
You might want to go and visityour staff just to see how
they're doing.
Just check in on them and say,hey, just checking in and see
how you're doing.
Because what that does is itsets that relationship with your
staff to go.
(10:42):
You know what, every time I seethe principal, he's not here
just to evaluate me, he's nothere just to check up on me to
see if I'm doing what I'msupposed to be doing.
He's actually just checking up,seeing how things are going and
hopefully providing thatsupport.
So I really work hard to try tohelp my teachers understand.
When I come in I just want tosee what's going on.
You know, I want to kind ofhelp them in any way I can.
(11:04):
But then there's thatevaluation piece that we utilize
.
But I try to not make theevaluation the number one thing
that I utilize with my staff.
So when I'm talking about youknow, teacher performance and
trying to help them get better,I want to know I always do
pre-meetings and post-meetingsbefore I even get into the
evaluation piece.
(11:25):
I want to know what thatteacher's goals are.
I want to know, hey, what areyou working on?
Because your teaching staff,you know if they have the growth
mindset, they're going to beworking on something.
It's my job to figure out howcan I support them in that work
and, hey, where are some thingsyou're struggling with to where
I can maybe try to provide someresources.
So, what are your goals?
Let's get really clear on whatyour goals are and then how I
(11:47):
can support you with those goals.
And then you got to finddifferent ways to measure that
goal and so you know it could be.
You know, yeah, you can usestudent data, you can utilize
state testing, you can utilizeso many different things.
But ask that teacher, how areyou going to measure this, how
are you going to find thesuccess?
And then you look at that datawith them and you go, you coach
(12:07):
them side by side guys, you getside by side with them with the
data that they present and say,oh, here's some patterns we're
seeing, here's some, you know,some resources we can look at.
And then maybe let's try somedifferent things.
And as a principal, as aeducational leader, you got to
be able to be an instructionalleader at times and you got to
be able to help your teachersand provide feedback and try to
(12:30):
help them get over the hump onsome things.
That's where the collaborationpiece really takes hold when you
make, when you look at ateacher valuation and you're
collaborating with them, bututilizing data to do that, it
makes it much more impactful,much more powerful and helps
that teacher learn and grow eventhat much more effectively.
(12:50):
So there's lots of ways you cando this, you know.
But at the same time you wantto pull different data pieces
and different things in to helpthat staff.
Now I'm being very generic andbasic.
I can go into specific detailson some of this, but I'm not
going to do that on my podcastbecause I don't want to be
calling out anybody.
So I'm not going to get intospecifics.
(13:11):
But I will talk about howthings are done broadly in this
episode because, yes, I can talkBilly level stuff, I can get in
a little bit more detail onthat, but I'm not going to get
into the day-to-day interactionswith my teachers because that's
information just for us to gothrough.
At the same time, being apracticing principal, I'm going
(13:33):
to keep that informationconfidential.
But at the same time I amwilling to talk to people in
generalities about how to helptheir teachers get better.
But if you wanted to know moreon a side note, on a private
conversation, I can get intomore specifics, but I'm not
going to do that with thepodcast.
(13:54):
Overall, it is important to usedata Like it's not the most,
like I said earlier, it's notthe sexiest thing to do, but at
the same time, it's an importantpiece of us making teachers and
making your building better,and there's so many different
ways you can use it.
There's so many differentmetrics and measurements that
(14:14):
you can utilize to make yourbuilding better.
I just gave you like oneexample with attendance, and I
gave you kind of a scenario witha teacher knowing that, hey,
what kind of data pieces couldyou use?
But also how can you helpsupport teachers use data and
their own improvement, and sothat's really important.
How do we utilize this data andwhat is your goal?
(14:35):
So when you start thinkingabout goals and what you want to
improve upon, you got to startthinking about what data are we
going to use so we can measureif we are making improvements,
and that's super important toremember as you go through and
utilize data to help yourselfmake decisions.
Don't be afraid of utilizingdata.
(14:56):
It is something that will helpyou.
It's actually informationthat's super important and
valuable if you use it correctly.
I know, and you know, you couldtake data and spin it.
I'm a math teacher.
All right, when I was a mathteacher, I can make data, make
people believe what my data say.
However, I want to say it, butyou really got to be objective
with it.
You got to really understandwhat is this data really
(15:19):
measuring?
What does it really say?
What is the story behind it?
But then utilizing that data tospot patterns over a period of
time will help you really naildown what you need to improve on
.
Then you got to figure out anaction plan for that and then,
once you get the action plan in,you got to start monitoring it,
utilizing that metrics that youdecided to utilize.
(15:41):
And is the improvement makingit?
Is it, you know, doing what youwant it to do?
And if you have all thosethings down, that is the best
way to utilize data to makedecision making.
So if you guys really enjoyedthis episode or any episodes, I
really like you guys to reallyshare my podcast with other
(16:04):
people.
Put out a review.
I would love to hear back fromyou.
I would love to hear the thingsthat you have enjoyed about the
podcast and some things thatyou've taken away.
If this podcast is valuable,I'd really like you to share it
with other educational leaders,or maybe an inspiring leader and
those people.
I want to create this communityto where we can have these
(16:24):
talks and this information, towhere we can help each other
learn and grow as educationalleaders.
So, if you really like this, Ireally like to subscribe to the
podcast.
I really like to hear somefeedback.
You can email me attheprincipaljl at gmailcom.
That's super easy to do.
I'm also on TikTok.
I have everything down in theshow notes, guys.
(16:46):
You can go down in the footerand you can find all my social
media links and all my emaillinks to where you can get in
touch with me on a regular basis.
But also a fan mail click isalso a good way to reach out,
because what that will do it wasactually send me text messages
from you saying, hey, I really,you know, give me feedback, I
(17:07):
really love this part about yourshow, or hey, I have a question
about this.
And if there's anything thatyou have questions about, feel
free to reach out.
I would love to answer thoseand I would love to create this
community of everybody helpingeach other as well, and I will
also, you know, look to give youa shout out if you go ahead and
give me some feedback.
So I always want to recognizethe people that are watching the
(17:30):
show or not watching orlistening to the show and being
able to provide feedback intothe show, because I want to be
here for you guys to where youguys are getting valuable
information and you guys arefinding value in the content
that I'm creating.
So, with that said, I hope youguys really enjoyed this episode
of the Coach Em Up LeadershipSeries.
(17:52):
This is really fun to do.
I only got maybe a coupleepisodes left, guys, of this
Coach Em Up Leadership Series,but I have some really exciting
educators coming on the show.
I'm lining up interviews leftand right right now and it's a
lot of fun.
I'm really excited to releasenext week's episode with Angela
Kelly.
(18:12):
I'm really excited to releasenext week's episode with Angela
Kelly.
She's an empowered principalleader to where really she takes
her coaching and hereducational leadership
experience and wraps them in andhelps educational leaders be
the best they can be and alsohelp them balance their life
with being a principal, but alsowith their family.
So that's an exciting episodethat actually will be released
(18:33):
next week.
So hopefully you tune in onthis, that one as well.
So, hey, I'm going to go aheadand let you guys go.
This was a fun one.
Like I said, we're talkingabout data-driven
decision-making isn't alwaysexciting, but it's important
part of what we do.
And then, as I like always say,always look to be 1% better.
Welcome back educational leaders.
Today we're going to continueour Coach Em Up leadership
series.
Today's topic is data-drivendecision-making.
Now, I know this is not themost sexiest topic to talk about
, because when people aretalking about data, they start
to roll their eyes.
They're yawning there, you know, they start tuning out.
(00:31):
Oh, we want to make data drivendecisions.
Well, guess what?
To be an effective leader,making data driven decision
making is really important andit's not a glamorous part of the
job, but it's something that wehave to do if we want to get
our school and our teachers andour building and our
(00:52):
expectations in the rightdirection.
So today I'm going to talk aboututilizing data driven decision
making at a couple of differentlevels.
One I'm going to talk about itfrom the principal level, from
the building level to where hey,how can we use data as
principals to really driveimprovement in our building?
(01:12):
And what I do is I utilize myschool improvement team to help
with that, because they help meidentify issues that they see at
the building level.
And then we utilize a what datacan we use?
What metric can we use toimprove that area?
And then I'll also talk about,you know, at the teacher level
like, not teachers using data,but how can I, as a principal,
(01:36):
use data with my teachers forimprovement?
Because that's another piecethat's really important when
you're utilizing data as aprincipal to use when you are
trying to help your teachingstaff to improve and make them
better, so we can make everybodyin the building better.
So with that, I'm going to goahead and start at the building
level.
(01:57):
So, at the building level, youknow, I utilize my school
improvement team and they'll say, hey, mr Lennon, here are some
issues we're seeing, and oneissue from the time I started
was students' attendance.
Right, that was something theywere talking about before I
showed up and it was somethingwe continue to talk about Now.
Student attendance isn'tsomething that is nationwide.
(02:20):
This is everybody's goingthrough.
How can we get our studentsback in the buildings learning,
but also, you know, to help makesure kids are there so they can
learn the information, so theycan become better.
But it's frustrating becausewhen you have students not in
the classroom regularly, it'sreally tough on those teachers
(02:42):
to educate those students whenthey're not there.
Now I'm just going to just talkabout student attendance and
generalities.
I'm not going to get into thewheeze a lot of it.
But we have issues with ourstudent's attendance and that's
something that we decided as aschool improvement team that we
would tackle.
Now, before we tackle thestudent attendance piece, the
(03:03):
first thing that we did is welooked at how do we view the
culture of rebuilding?
Where are we at?
Are we inviting, you know?
Are we an inviting culture?
Are we, you know, telling kidswe're glad to see them here?
You know, all those things wereset in place before we really
got into tacking students'attendance.
Now, when we were looking at howto improve our students'
(03:25):
attendance, we looked at acouple of different metrics or
measures, and that's really whatyou got to understand is, every
situation that you are workingthrough will have some sort of
metrics, of a way to measure, tosee if you're improving in
those areas.
And if you don't have a way tomeasure it, sometimes you might
have to create that measurement.
(03:47):
So for us, we utilize the dailyaverage attendance rate and we
look at chronic absenteeism.
So we looked at, kind of whatour patterns were and where do
we see the issues, and ourbiggest question was we wanted
to like find out a way to havesome sort of consequence for not
(04:07):
coming to school.
Now, of course, you havetruancy, you have all those
things, but a lot of that stuffsways kids not to come to school
.
But there need to be more fromour end to help hold people
accountable.
And so we had a policy to wherewe would take full credit from
students, but this policy wasnever really followed.
It really was something thatwas on the books, but it was
(04:28):
never something that we actuallydid.
So it was actually one of myassistant principals saw a
presentation at AdministratorDays about, you know, students'
attendance at a high school andwhat this high school was doing.
They answered some of thequestions we were asking,
because our biggest thing is,yeah, you could take credit from
(04:49):
somebody, but what do you dowith them?
I mean, they're not going to bein that class anymore.
You know where do you stickthem, and with us we have a
thousand students.
So being able to pull a kid andput them somewhere else was
really really tough for us to do.
So we looked at it from adifferent lens that this school
was looking at.
What if we looked at pullinghalf credit?
Right and so that would allowthe kid?
(05:30):
Yeah, okay, you'd missed somany days.
We're going to pull half credit.
But we had an appeals processthat we as well, because parents
know like their kids got tocome to school, and so we had
everything laid out.
This make it work for us.
And we figured out how to pullthe data we needed, how to
(05:57):
monitor the students' attendance, to where we can get early
interventions.
And then this is where we camein with the MTSS model, to where
we would utilize tiers ofinterventions depending on that
student's attendance.
And so we were trying to getreally proactive with the
attendance piece by getting tothe kids earlier, really
(06:19):
tracking that data so we canhelp them before it becomes a
problem with truancy and thenthe law.
We really didn't want to getthere, but that took a lot of
people working together, and soour leadership team will meet.
We have an attendance committeethat meets once a week in our
leadership team and we canidentify the kids that, hey,
these kids aren't attending.
Oh, here's our first level ofinterventions.
(06:41):
Okay, they're getting to thislevel.
We'll go to the second tierwhen we get to the third tier
now, we're referring them to theSTARS program, which is
actually a program within ourcommunity that helps families,
help them remove barriers sothey can make it to school and
so attendance doesn't become anissue.
So, really utilizing what pieceof data we needed you know how
(07:05):
we're going to use thatfollowing that data, spotting
patterns, taking action then wewere always looking to make
improvements.
Now I would say we started thisattendance policy this past
fall and throughout the firstsemester we actually had a 3.79%
increase in daily averageattendance and we were able to
(07:27):
reduce our chronic absenteeismby 8.5%, and so being able to
look at that data and havesomething to measure it against
really showed that.
Hey, you know what?
What we implemented is working.
It is something that is workingfor us and it's helping our
kids get in school, becauseattendance is an issue.
And guess what?
(07:48):
Our kids are more present inschool, they are in the
classroom learning, and so I'mreally excited to see what our
data is going to show later.
So we utilize in Nebraska theACT in the high school and we
utilize that data.
Now we look at that data.
But you got to understand whatthose state of standards
assessments are.
(08:08):
They are basically a snapshotof where you students are at
that point.
It's good data to have, but youhave to look at other pieces of
data around that piece to makeit make sense.
You can't just say here's yourtest scores, we did good or bad.
I hate the fact that we utilizethe ACT as a way to measure the
(08:28):
success of a school, becausethere's so many more variables
that you can look at to helpmeasure the success of the
school.
And so one of the things weworked on really hard on the
past year actually since I'vebeen here but we started
implementing this year was thatattendance piece and we're
seeing the fruits of that laborand so really the shout out to
(08:48):
the school improvement team andmy assistant principal and
everybody the teachers and staffthat work really hard to help
break down those barriers, helpthose kids attend school so we
can have them be in class, sothey can learn and be more
successful.
Now we'll look at other datapieces as we get going, and so
this will be an ongoing storyfor us on where we're at,
(09:12):
because really this spring willtell a story to where you know,
kind of how we land overall as aschool year.
But we are starting off reallywell with that with that piece.
So that is from like a builderlevel, how you can utilize data,
how you can look at spottingpatterns, take in action, and
then how do you keep improvingupon the action that you take?
So that is one piece.
(09:33):
Now another piece is you canutilize data to help your
teacher storm and grow.
Now we all have some sort ofevaluation tool.
All right, it's a tool andthat's why I look at it.
I don't look at it as a way youknow, I don't like playing the
gotcha game, right, and so whenI look at an evaluation, yes,
you're going to get a score, butwhat does that score mean?
(10:00):
I mean, different models havedifferent meanings to their
score and it is a data piecethat you can utilize.
But outside of utilizing therubrics in the evaluation tool,
where you're looking at you knowwalkthroughs and you're having
those conversations don't lookat.
You cannot, as a principal, justutilize the tool a couple of
times a year for a teacher yougot to try to get in there as
much as possible and to whereyou're doing walkthroughs,
(10:22):
you're trying to get theevaluation done, but you're also
having conversations with yourstaff.
Outside of that, you're notgoing in there evaluating them
every time.
You might want to go and visityour staff just to see how
they're doing.
Just check in on them and say,hey, just checking in and see
how you're doing.
Because what that does is itsets that relationship with your
staff to go.
(10:42):
You know what, every time I seethe principal, he's not here
just to evaluate me, he's nothere just to check up on me to
see if I'm doing what I'msupposed to be doing.
He's actually just checking up,seeing how things are going and
hopefully providing thatsupport.
So I really work hard to try tohelp my teachers understand.
When I come in I just want tosee what's going on.
You know, I want to kind ofhelp them in any way I can.
(11:04):
But then there's thatevaluation piece that we utilize
.
But I try to not make theevaluation the number one thing
that I utilize with my staff.
So when I'm talking about youknow, teacher performance and
trying to help them get better,I want to know I always do
pre-meetings and post-meetingsbefore I even get into the
evaluation piece.
(11:25):
I want to know what thatteacher's goals are.
I want to know, hey, what areyou working on?
Because your teaching staff,you know if they have the growth
mindset, they're going to beworking on something.
It's my job to figure out howcan I support them in that work
and, hey, where are some thingsyou're struggling with to where
I can maybe try to provide someresources.
So, what are your goals?
Let's get really clear on whatyour goals are and then how I
(11:47):
can support you with those goals.
And then you got to finddifferent ways to measure that
goal and so you know it could be.
You know, yeah, you can usestudent data, you can utilize
state testing, you can utilizeso many different things.
But ask that teacher, how areyou going to measure this, how
are you going to find thesuccess?
And then you look at that datawith them and you go, you coach
(12:07):
them side by side guys, you getside by side with them with the
data that they present and say,oh, here's some patterns we're
seeing, here's some, you know,some resources we can look at.
And then maybe let's try somedifferent things.
And as a principal, as aeducational leader, you got to
be able to be an instructionalleader at times and you got to
be able to help your teachersand provide feedback and try to
(12:30):
help them get over the hump onsome things.
That's where the collaborationpiece really takes hold when you
make, when you look at ateacher valuation and you're
collaborating with them, bututilizing data to do that, it
makes it much more impactful,much more powerful and helps
that teacher learn and grow eventhat much more effectively.
(12:50):
So there's lots of ways you cando this, you know.
But at the same time you wantto pull different data pieces
and different things in to helpthat staff.
Now I'm being very generic andbasic.
I can go into specific detailson some of this, but I'm not
going to do that on my podcastbecause I don't want to be
calling out anybody.
So I'm not going to get intospecifics.
(13:11):
But I will talk about howthings are done broadly in this
episode because, yes, I can talkBilly level stuff, I can get in
a little bit more detail onthat, but I'm not going to get
into the day-to-day interactionswith my teachers because that's
information just for us to gothrough.
At the same time, being apracticing principal, I'm going
(13:33):
to keep that informationconfidential.
But at the same time I amwilling to talk to people in
generalities about how to helptheir teachers get better.
But if you wanted to know moreon a side note, on a private
conversation, I can get intomore specifics, but I'm not
going to do that with thepodcast.
(13:54):
Overall, it is important to usedata Like it's not the most,
like I said earlier, it's notthe sexiest thing to do, but at
the same time, it's an importantpiece of us making teachers and
making your building better,and there's so many different
ways you can use it.
There's so many differentmetrics and measurements that
(14:14):
you can utilize to make yourbuilding better.
I just gave you like oneexample with attendance, and I
gave you kind of a scenario witha teacher knowing that, hey,
what kind of data pieces couldyou use?
But also how can you helpsupport teachers use data and
their own improvement, and sothat's really important.
How do we utilize this data andwhat is your goal?
(14:35):
So when you start thinkingabout goals and what you want to
improve upon, you got to startthinking about what data are we
going to use so we can measureif we are making improvements,
and that's super important toremember as you go through and
utilize data to help yourselfmake decisions.
Don't be afraid of utilizingdata.
(14:56):
It is something that will helpyou.
It's actually informationthat's super important and
valuable if you use it correctly.
I know, and you know, you couldtake data and spin it.
I'm a math teacher.
All right, when I was a mathteacher, I can make data, make
people believe what my data say.
However, I want to say it, butyou really got to be objective
with it.
You got to really understandwhat is this data really
(15:19):
measuring?
What does it really say?
What is the story behind it?
But then utilizing that data tospot patterns over a period of
time will help you really naildown what you need to improve on
.
Then you got to figure out anaction plan for that and then,
once you get the action plan in,you got to start monitoring it,
utilizing that metrics that youdecided to utilize.
(15:41):
And is the improvement makingit?
Is it, you know, doing what youwant it to do?
And if you have all thosethings down, that is the best
way to utilize data to makedecision making.
So if you guys really enjoyedthis episode or any episodes, I
really like you guys to reallyshare my podcast with other
(16:04):
people.
Put out a review.
I would love to hear back fromyou.
I would love to hear the thingsthat you have enjoyed about the
podcast and some things thatyou've taken away.
If this podcast is valuable,I'd really like you to share it
with other educational leaders,or maybe an inspiring leader and
those people.
I want to create this communityto where we can have these
(16:24):
talks and this information, towhere we can help each other
learn and grow as educationalleaders.
So, if you really like this, Ireally like to subscribe to the
podcast.
I really like to hear somefeedback.
You can email me attheprincipaljl at gmailcom.
That's super easy to do.
I'm also on TikTok.
I have everything down in theshow notes, guys.
(16:46):
You can go down in the footerand you can find all my social
media links and all my emaillinks to where you can get in
touch with me on a regular basis.
But also a fan mail click isalso a good way to reach out,
because what that will do it wasactually send me text messages
from you saying, hey, I really,you know, give me feedback, I
(17:07):
really love this part about yourshow, or hey, I have a question
about this.
And if there's anything thatyou have questions about, feel
free to reach out.
I would love to answer thoseand I would love to create this
community of everybody helpingeach other as well, and I will
also, you know, look to give youa shout out if you go ahead and
give me some feedback.
So I always want to recognizethe people that are watching the
(17:30):
show or not watching orlistening to the show and being
able to provide feedback intothe show, because I want to be
here for you guys to where youguys are getting valuable
information and you guys arefinding value in the content
that I'm creating.
So, with that said, I hope youguys really enjoyed this episode
of the Coach Em Up LeadershipSeries.
(17:52):
This is really fun to do.
I only got maybe a coupleepisodes left, guys, of this
Coach Em Up Leadership Series,but I have some really exciting
educators coming on the show.
I'm lining up interviews leftand right right now and it's a
lot of fun.
I'm really excited to releasenext week's episode with Angela
Kelly.
(18:12):
I'm really excited to releasenext week's episode with Angela
Kelly.
She's an empowered principalleader to where really she takes
her coaching and hereducational leadership
experience and wraps them in andhelps educational leaders be
the best they can be and alsohelp them balance their life
with being a principal, but alsowith their family.
So that's an exciting episodethat actually will be released
(18:33):
next week.
So hopefully you tune in onthis, that one as well.
So, hey, I'm going to go aheadand let you guys go.
This was a fun one.
Like I said, we're talkingabout data-driven
decision-making isn't alwaysexciting, but it's important
part of what we do.
And then, as I like always say,always look to be 1% better.
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