September 23, 2024 • 25 mins
The Turnaround 4C Plan is your educational map for the school year to improve student success. This starts with developing a strong culture where all groups, students, teachers, and parents, feel safe and comfortable in their school, where they feel that they matter.
Your game plan goals are to build a positive climate, create a unified working environment, have a viable curriculum that will improve test scores and increase a school’s overall GPA, and finally, build up leadership density in the school.
In addition, the school improvement plan includes
- why these goals are important to improving the school this year
- who it will be impacted in reaching these goals
- identify your indicators of success
For a template, feel free to reach us.
Bryan Wright at at brwright44@gmail.com
Mark McBeth at lead2day@yahoo.com or
For more information about the the topics discussed, contact us at
Bryan Wright: brwright44@gmail.com
Mark McBeth: mark@educationalrelevance.org
If you found value in today’s episode, share it with a colleague, subscribe, and leave us a review. It helps us keep bringing you conversations that matter.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, keep leading with heart—and stay educationally relevant.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_0942 (00:00):
Welcome to Educational Relevance, a
platform for experiencededucators to share proven
methods and strategies tosuccessfully educate today's
students.
My name is Bryan Wright.
I've been a lead administratorfor over 30 years in education,
secondary schools.
With me today is Mark Mcbeth, acolleague and a partner of mine
(00:20):
who has been successful both asan author and administrator in
schools himself.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (00:25):
So, we've been going through this
four C's turnaround.
can you kind of review a littlebit about what that's all about
and what we've been working on?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (00:32):
Sure can.
In our Turnaround 4C plan, we'vetalked about four steps.
Climate, culture, curriculum,and connections.
And we've done podcasts for eachone of these four individually.
And the reason we we think thisis successful, cause we are
always looking about how we cando things to successfully
(00:55):
educate our children.
And have our children reachacademic success.
We want to keep the main thing,the main thing.
to make sure we give students anopportunity to be successful,
but also giving educators moreefficient strategies.
How to achieve that success.
And so that's why we're doingthese things, Mark.
What do you think
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (01:12):
Yeah, I think that that's great.
And 1 of the things that you andcome up with over the years,
Bryan, is a series of tools, tobe able to help facilitate these
conversations forward inturnaround schools.
And so how do we move climate,culture, curriculum and making
connections across all those,Is, easier done when you have
(01:34):
some sort of template, some sortof model, some sort of tool to
be able to move people forward.
The most common one, Bryan, is aschool improvement plan.
But, I think it takes a slightlydifferent approach when you're
going in to turn around inschool.
how do you approach, schoolimprovement plans when a school
that has been maybe strugglingover time?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (01:59):
Well, before I do that, Mark, to make
sure I talk about the turnaround4C, climate is what, who we are.
culture is what we do.
Curriculum is how we do it.
Then connections is why itmatters and putting all those
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (02:10):
Yeah.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (02:11):
As a turnaround agent the first thing
you got to do is make sure youhave a game plan.
Mark, you and I are old footballcoaches, so we always like using
that old terminology of when wewere trying to set up game plans
and so we start being successfulin individual games that our
kids are playing.
So, the same methodology applieshere.
(02:32):
You want to make sure you startwith the game plan and the game
plan usually incorporates thefour goals we discussed before.
The first one is creating aculture.
And so you want to make sure youcreate a culture.
And in that culture, you'retalking about building a
positive climate.
Every school we know has aculture.
So let's keep that in mind.
But what we want to do is tobuild a positive climate, so
people feel good.
And that's what I said about whowe are and what we're trying to
(02:54):
accomplish.
Second thing we're talking abouthaving a viable curriculum that
every school again has acurriculum.
But right now it seems thatschools we go to, kids aren't
learning the curriculum.
They have low test scores andactually, quite frankly, their
GPA.
And this is something that a lotof schools don't talk about.
The overall GPA of the school isusually under two.
It's not above two.
(03:15):
So we're talking about helpingthat school, overall school GPA,
having students find success.
How many students can you get onthe honor roll using the viable
curriculum you have?
The third one we'll talk aboutis Is building up a school and
teacher engagement, teachers buyinto their kids and engaging
them and learning and havingkids feel like they're learning
(03:36):
something from that teacher.
So they want to sit in thatclassroom.
So it's really important tobuild that give and take so that
kids are learning.
Teachers feel comfortableteaching it and there's a
valuable lesson in that regard.
And the fourth goal we'retalking about is always building
leadership density.
Having teachers become leaders,having parents become leaders,
(03:58):
having students become leaders,and everybody working together
to attain a common goal, whichis student success.
And that fourth goal we talkedabout is why it's so important
that we want to make sure wehave that school improvement
plan at the beginning so that wecan bring it all together and
that we can say, Hey, this iswhat we're trying to accomplish
this year in school.
(04:18):
What do you think?
As soon as we're hired.
we ask opinions.
What do you think?
We ask teachers their opinion.
We ask parents their opinion.
We asked students their opinion.
And we actually set up meetings,Mark, so they can actually come
in and share those thoughts andideas with us.
As a matter of fact, we talkabout teachers, we say, hey,
this is what we're going to do.
What do you think?
And we said, do you have anyideas?
(04:39):
And we actually have them bringidea to the table.
We have parents bring idea tothe table.
So when the first day of schooloccurs, we've already had those,
those mini meetings and we'vealready got things.
We say we're all working
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (04:51):
So when you arrive, in July you're
hitting the ground running,calling people into your office.
Are you calling meetings?
Are you going out and visitingpeople?
How are you building that?
That knowledge base to know whatto put in it.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (05:06):
The goals are the guideline.
And so you want to make sure assoon as you get in who's your
PTA, PTSA president, who's yourunion representative?
Or union president.
What's the leadership there?
You want to make sure these,these groups are discussed with
and talked to.
Who's your student council?
Get your student councilinvolved, have kids come in
there.
(05:26):
This is what we're trying toaccomplish.
So they know what's going on.
And then the one part you said,and I thought that was so key,
getting out in the community.
You know, we talked about thatlast week, getting out there,
getting to know people in thecommunity.
Hey guys, what's your impressionof schools?
You know, a lot of times whenyou have a school that's a
turnaround school, sometimes thepublic persona is not the best.
(05:47):
So you want to find out what'sgoing on so you can say, Hey,
these are things we're trying toaccomplish here.
So you start getting the publicto speak for you and speaking
your behalf as well.
And what this does Mark, isbuild that leadership density,
giving people a chance to sharetheir ideas and say, Hey, if you
think this is going to workbetter, let's put this in play.
And then we start the schoolyear at that time.
(06:09):
Everybody's had to say so peoplehave some thought processes and
we can go ahead and begin whereat least we have an idea, a game
play where everybody feelsmotivated.
And that's where that positiveclimate, is now starting to
build because people feel goodabout having something to say
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (06:25):
Yeah, and I think that during those
meetings, I'm also conveying mycode, which then gives me
feedback of where they'rethinking.
So if I'm talking about studentlearning first, rigor,
relevance, relationships,generating results and those
things, and student disciplinesoff the charts, you know, we
can't do this or that.
(06:46):
Then that gives me that climatethat you're talking about that
negative climate.
Things that need changed, eventhough we're trying to enhance
that culture, it really gives methe starting points to think
about in that climate, but italso outlines, the expectations
to everybody.
My code is where we're headedfolks.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (07:06):
Well, let's, enhance that code piece
if we can.
Cause when you talk about code,you're absolutely right.
and I think I told you before,there have been schools that
just incorporated my code intothe part of their Immediate
climate and they put it inprint.
It did not become Bryan Wright'scode It became the school code,
but it became the school codebecause we met earlier as staff
(07:31):
We met early with the teachers,You met earlier with the parents
and they said, this is what Ibelieve in.
And they like, Hey, that'spretty good.
And then they said, We think ourschool should become the
embodiment of that very samecode you have.
So that didn't come now, a BryanWright code that became
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (07:47):
There you go.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (07:50):
It worked out a lot better.
And then that became part of theschool plan as well, and having
people believe in that.
And want to make sure I give youan example of that, Mark, there
was a teacher in one of theschools, that, I feel so
strongly about code.
I had asked teachers, write yourown code, put it up on the wall,
put it up on the board, let thekids see your code, let them
(08:10):
know what you're about.
So we had teachers do that.
They put their own codes up.
again, this is voluntary.
This was not mandatory.
This is voluntary.
But that teacher took it to adifferent level.
He said he wanted every studentto write their own code.
And he had student, codes allacross the room.
So when the kids came in andthey started acting
inappropriately, he said, Hey,isn't that your code up there?
(08:32):
Are you living by your code?
And kids made some tremendouschanges and the disciplinary
actions in that classroom wentdown significantly.
Because kids felt they had theirown code, they had
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (08:43):
All right.
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (08:45):
words.
It wasn't his, it was theirs.
So that's just a great way ofusing leadership density, but
also using code as an advantageto motivate the students and to
get better
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (08:55):
and I think we'll get in more depth on
that when we get into thediscipline matrix and those type
of things too, I got a questionrelated to a previous
conversation we had.
about superintendents who write5 year plans, who actually are
superintendents for three years.
What's the difference between, aturnaround principals school
(09:18):
improvement plan compared to,superintendents five year plan
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (09:25):
Oh, that's a, that's a great
question.
The difference, Mark, is when wetalk about a Turnaround 4C plan,
we're talking about totalimplementation within three
years.
if we're there five years,something's wrong, And you said
this once before, and I love thecomment.
You said the whole idea aboutus, the turnaround principals,
we got to work ourselves out ofa
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (09:43):
job.
Yeah.
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (09:44):
that's what we do.
So we're, we're not there, as aturnaround principal for five
years.
As a matter of fact, one of theschools I hired a guy who was a
teacher of the year there.
He was an excellent instructor.
And so I hired him.
And then sure enough, a year ortwo later, he became the
principal there.
And so he has some of the ideaswe started and we, him and I
(10:06):
still stay in contact to thisday.
And he's been there for severalyears that school, I went from
step A to step B.
He'd taken that school from stepB.
All the way to some of thethings he's doing are
sustainable, the school has beensuccessful, it's gone through a
renovation and changes, andthose changes have not, those
academic changes have not misseda beat, and he's still there.
(10:27):
Now, that's what we're about.
We're not there to stay five,six, or seven years.
We're there to make thosechanges.
I tell people, Mark, there untilthe legend becomes myth, all
right?
We're there, to make thesechanges and adjustments, get
that school, hopefully on theright track, then we're out of
there.
now you talk aboutsuperintendents,
superintendents.
(10:48):
I think they love to stay insome places for four or five,
six years, become asuperintendent, have a statue in
front of the school districtwith their behalf.
I think they all would lovethat, but it doesn't work that
way.
And if you're talking aboutmaking changes in the district,
one thing we should talk about,Mark, and this is something I
want to ask you about later on,because you know, this better
than I do when you were acentral office.
(11:08):
you're talking about makingchanges.
Understand, somebody's going tobe resistant to the changes
you're trying to
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (11:14):
yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (11:15):
And since they're going to be
resistant, you're going to haveto make sure you're going to
say, this is what's best forstudents.
Not what's best for teachers.
Not what's best for adults.
This is what's best for thestudents.
And that's going to be a guidinglight.
But understand if you're gonnamake those decisions, somebody
is not going to like what you'redoing.
So Mark, I'm going to turn thisquestion over to you.
How is the central officeworker,?
(11:36):
you know about the changebecause you've been right there.
When you see these changeshappening.
How do you keep people motivatedsaying, wait a minute, this is
what we do for the students.
Cause I think you made thatdecision once,
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (11:45):
yeah.
I think, it's, doing the rightthing all the time, which is
focusing on student learning.
I've been in these situationswhere the union gets heavily
involved in teacher protection.
And it
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (12:02):
right?
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (12:03):
at times make it very hard to move
forward, They're more worriedabout the adults, than the kids,
which I have a lot of respectfor.
I understand that.
but We have to produce a productas a service at the end.
And that's what we always keepcentral focused.
(12:23):
The other thing is, to clearlydefine things that are
unacceptable, it's justunacceptable to not, make
student learning rigor therelevance, the relationships
that they're doing.
It's unacceptable for us not tolook at results to determine
whether results are moving usforward or not.
(12:44):
As long as you keep those thingsthat central focus, you can keep
converting conversations back,And I think that's the key from
central office to theprincipalship.
It's always that same thing iskeeping that conversation.
Forefront.
They say, well, what about ourinstructional time?
(13:06):
How are we in enhancing studentlearning?
With that instructional time, ifyou want more planning time, how
does that enhance ourperformances?
How do we generate results as aresult of you having more
planning time?
I have no problem with planningtime if it enhances student
performance.
So let's just have thatconversation.
(13:27):
you want to have, change in theway that we discipline students
in the school.
Okay, how does that impactstudent learning?
It's just turning thatconversation constantly around.
Oh, I understand kidsmisbehaving.
How does this relate to otherkids learning?
How do we improve that to ensurestudents are learning?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (13:49):
And Mark, that's why when you talk
about the game plan itself, youask to come in cause not every
game plan is going to be thesame at every school, every
school.
When I run into a school, westart with a template of a game
plan.
But what we put underneath howwe want to reach those goals are
entirely different from schoolto school on that school's need,
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (14:12):
I was at central office working with
multiple principals acrossmultiple schools.
Each had unique needs anddifferences And so I had to
approach them differently,different plan within the same
system.
So it's even within the samedistrict, there's some
uniqueness, same expectations.
(14:34):
Just uniqueness.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (14:36):
As a central office worker, yes,
you're absolutely right.
I think, we all want to makesure we, want to be successful
with students.
That's our major goal.
That's our main thing.
You keep that the main thing,but as we're doing that, we want
to make sure that you have agame plan that's set up.
That's why it's so importantthat you incorporate different
viewpoint, different ideas.
So now once the game plan isgoing to be implemented.
(15:00):
First day of school, the firstweek we always have those
meetings with students.
We tell students, this is ourgame plan, this is what we're
trying to accomplish.
Then by the end of that firstweek,
mark_6_08-28-2024_0941 (15:10):
everyone
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (15:10):
knows exactly what we're doing, why
we're doing it, how it's goingto be implemented, we can talk
about how we're going tocelebrate it.
I mentioned earlier about GPA.
You know, we talk about testscore, but we don't really talk
about school's GPA.
And I think that's a hiddenasset we miss, because if you
got a school that's averaging a2.
(15:32):
5, 2.
6, 2.
7 as an overall school, Kidsfeel good.
More kids making the honor roll.
More kids are going to becelebrated.
You can put that honor roll inthe newspaper like we've done
many times.
Kids love seeing the name on thepaper and maybe the kid got Four
C's in the four, academiccourses.
But got four A's in the othercourses, that kid has a B
(15:53):
average.
He's on the honor roll.
And that kid feels good aboutwhat he's doing and what he's
trying to accomplish.
And that's the whole idea.
So I think a hidden gem and allthe things we're doing and
that's another part when we saya viable curriculum, for
example, that explains theviable curriculum, but also
explains student teacherengagement.
you're talking about the thirdgoal, Hey, Hey, the kid saying,
I'm interested.
(16:13):
And the kids in the classroomsaying, which learning in this
class, he can tell you what he'slearning.
That's great.
you see what's your grade andyou say, well, I got a C or D.
Then why aren't you doing betterin this class?
Now you can ask the student, ifyou learn all these things, why
aren't you doing better?
And it all said it puts the onthe back on the student.
And it's amazing to me, Mark,when you do that, the kids say,
ah, I could in this class.
(16:34):
Then you say, let's get it done.
that's where you start laughing.
Now, the one you worry about, ofcourse, when you say, well, he's
learned this class, not much.
And you say, what's theengagement?
You say, what you getting inclass?
I'm getting an A.
are you getting an A?
You're not engaged in And thenyou can talk about some
adjustments you want to make andtalk to the teacher about, hey,
what things can we do so kidsfeel good about what they're
learning.
So each one of these thingswe're talking about, each one of
these goals play a part in thatstudent success.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (16:58):
Let me, take what you were just
talking about, because I thinkengagement, it seems like it's
always a goal.
Student engagement's a big one,right?
But I had a guy tell me once,you know, well, don't create
more goals than God.
You can, have to have 10 and nomore.
(17:18):
How many goals do you thinkshould go on there, and then
why?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (17:22):
In schools, what you want to do is
make sure you've got enoughgoals that you can sustain
enough goals that you canachieve, but also just enough
goals.
So you can say, this is ourpathway to improvement.
And again, they're all studentbased.
but I've also seen programs.
They got seven, eight goals.
As a matter of fact, youmentioned superintendents and
superintendents coming to fiveyear plan.
(17:43):
You also read all thesedifferent goals they want to do
and all these different thingsthey want to accomplish.
sometimes they don't even get tothe second, third goal because
it's too many.
want to make sure you have justenough.
And some schools, it may be onlythree goals.
Some schools, maybe only twogoals, But, implement them with
fidelity, implement them with aclear focus in mind so that you
(18:07):
can achieve those goals andachieve success, which brings
the last thing.
If you have eight goals and youachieve six You only meet 75
percent of your goals.
So you're already a failure.
know, you may have met the firstsix.
So you want to make sure you,when you're talking about goals,
goals that you want to reach andgoals that you can see and
having people feel good about,keep that in mind.
Having people say, Hey, you area part of this goal and you're a
(18:28):
part of this plan and we're inthis together.
And also, the code is like thenavigation.
The code keeps
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (18:36):
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (18:37):
Right.
But everything else is the partsthat you all be fighting with
the waters gets choppy and thissort of thing, but you also got
your navigation piece and youknow, this is where we want to
attain, which is where we wantto go.
And so you get those goals onboard with that that navigation,
you'll find student success
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (18:53):
so that also leads me to a second
thought how do, you know, you'rereaching or, making progress in
a goal?
Is there something that allowsyou to say?
Oh, yeah, we're on path,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (19:05):
Oh, as the goals continue, you're
going to have a philosophy ofwhy you should have those goals.
But then you have indicators ofsuccess under each one of those
goals.
So as you're doing yourindicators of success, then you
say, Oh, we're doing this.
We're doing this.
We're doing this So each one ofthe goals have their indicators
underneath it So you can saythis is our guidelines and make
(19:29):
sure those indicators are Liquidjust like any game plan in a
football game After the firstquarter they're doing something
right or wrong, you got to makesome changes in your game plan
Especially at halftime.
At halftime, you're doing somethings right or you're doing
some things wrong.
There's gonna be some changes athalftime.
Same thing applies as you'retalking about four quarters in a
school By the end of each one ofthe grading programs you have,
(19:50):
you're looking at the goals.
How are you doing?
Which ones are being successful,which ones you need to change.
You also have school data teams,you have school improvement
teams, you have school,management teams, so you got all
these things in line so you canalways make sure you maintain
and keep a focus on what thosegoals are.
One last thing we're also goingto talk about And that's going
(20:10):
to always be celebrate thesuccesses no matter how big or
small.
If you've got attendance of 87percent for the year last year
and your attendance first timein September goes 92 you better
make sure that's a wow.
We've, that's an indicator ofsuccess right there.
That's indicator.
We're doing some good things.
Let's keep that going.
Let's keep that momentum going.
(20:31):
When you're talking about a,teacher for viable curriculum,
you say first quarter, you get60 percent of your kids on the
honor roll.
And you say, wow, you only hadlike 35 the whole year.
Last year at 60 percent of thekids in your honor roll, make
that a big thing.
That's an indicator of success.
These are things that areshowing now people are seeing
things in motion that areactually working and they're
(20:51):
feeling good about what's goingon and that helped build that
positive climate.
And eventually when you startbuilding out and you say, these
are things that we think areimportant.
So yes, you build up on that.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (21:01):
as we wrap this up, I think one of the
things is, I always think aboutfrom a leadership perspective is
we write this school improvementplan overall, but inside my
world of the leadership team.
we're creating individual plans,individual goals of our
leadership practices to get usto those points.
(21:23):
And we have to think about thatwhen we're moving climate, when
we're moving culture, when we'reembedding curriculum, we have to
create those little steps that'sgoing to help us get to that
goal to help the teachers get tothat goal.
The community get to the goal,the teachers, the students to
get to the goal.
So that's one of the things thatI think is essential.
Overall, Bryan, is there asummary that you would send
(21:45):
people home with and say, usethis tool, use this template,
use this idea, what is it thatyou want to send people away
with right now?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (21:54):
Well, first of all, we, we do have a
template and if anybody wants totemplate, look for our, emails
on, on the bottom of our page,and we'll be happy to send our
School Improvement PlanTemplate.
Your whole goal is to make sureyou achieve student success and
you want student success to beattained.
And one last thing I'll sayabout that, Mark, is that every
(22:18):
educator administrator I knowhas an ego.
We believe we can go there anddo all these things with
students.
But the one thing we also got tomake sure, you better be humble.
Cause I'm always overwhelmed bythe stuff that teachers can do
in schools.
I'm always overwhelmed by stuffstudents do in schools.
And I see the greatness ofthose, groups and how they, help
(22:40):
to make their schoolssuccessful.
I'm always amazed by communitysupport when the community comes
out and that includes ourparents.
They say, Hey, all we want to dois best for our children.
And you give them an opportunityto do that.
So when you talk about, thesuccesses.
All the successes are gearedtowards the eventual, seeing
kids get better in school,better academically, better
(23:02):
emotionally, very spiritually.
and so in every school we talkabout, Mark, when we talk about
turnaround, say we're going toraise attendance.
We're going to raise testscores.
We're going to lower discipline.
We'll talk about these thingsthat we're going to do that when
he's mentioned the disciplinematrix next week and how we're
going to do that.
we have all these things in mindalready.
So game plan gives us ouroutline.
(23:24):
So we can say, okay, since we'regoing to reach these goals, This
is how we're going to go aboutdoing it.
then last thing I'm going to sayabout that is not only do we
give you the template, but thenhow you fill in that template.
Cause I was going to have inthat template, the philosophy of
why you should be doing it, butalso the indicators of success.
So you can always make sure you,you're always monitoring those
(23:44):
indicators.
So you, know, you're doing theright thing and you can make
those adjustments.
again, the game plan is alwaysliquid.
It's going to be changed, but atthe end of the year, if you
achieve those goals, you'rediscussing, I think you'll be,
you'll be happy with theoutcome.
And so will your district, I can
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (23:59):
Good.
Yeah, thanks, Bryan.
I think that the templates moresimplified.
It's not a big, huge school, thestate improvement plan thing.
It's it's really getting to thepoint.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (24:11):
and please understand.
I think you'll find successes init, within those successes,
You'll reach certain academicstandards and your school
improve as a result, but you'redoing it together.
A lot of people come to schooland they say, we're going to
reach our test scores.
Yeah, but We better build apositive climate first where
(24:32):
kids feel safe in theirenvironment.
The kids feel comfortable.
They want to be a part of, andthey have a say so in what
they're doing.
You want to make sure thatteachers feel comfortable when
they teach in the curriculum,but they want that student and
teacher engagement.
They will not be judgednegatively.
If they have a problem with thestudent, you want to make sure
your parents feel comfortablewhen they say, Hey, my child is
learning in this school.
These rules are in place sothey're going to benefit my
(24:54):
child.
Eventually, my child can leavethat school and become
successful citizens as a result.
Then you talk about theconnections with the community
saying, Hey, we like that schoolright now.
We see what's going on.
We see some changes there.
We want to support what they'redoing right there.
These are things we all wish toattain as we're discussing that.
So Mark, we can do all that.
Then we're on the road to asuccessful school turnaround.
(25:18):
Well, Mark, next We'll betalking regarding our school
matrix
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (25:22):
Well, I'll talk about how it was
originally created, and then youcan talk about how you've
enhanced it and used it acrossseveral districts and coached
other administrators through theuse of it.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (25:33):
Thank you everybody for listening and
we hope to see you next time.
Bye.
Bye
Welcome to Educational Relevance, a
platform for experiencededucators to share proven
methods and strategies tosuccessfully educate today's
students.
My name is Bryan Wright.
I've been a lead administratorfor over 30 years in education,
secondary schools.
With me today is Mark Mcbeth, acolleague and a partner of mine
(00:20):
who has been successful both asan author and administrator in
schools himself.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (00:25):
So, we've been going through this
four C's turnaround.
can you kind of review a littlebit about what that's all about
and what we've been working on?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (00:32):
Sure can.
In our Turnaround 4C plan, we'vetalked about four steps.
Climate, culture, curriculum,and connections.
And we've done podcasts for eachone of these four individually.
And the reason we we think thisis successful, cause we are
always looking about how we cando things to successfully
(00:55):
educate our children.
And have our children reachacademic success.
We want to keep the main thing,the main thing.
to make sure we give students anopportunity to be successful,
but also giving educators moreefficient strategies.
How to achieve that success.
And so that's why we're doingthese things, Mark.
What do you think
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (01:12):
Yeah, I think that that's great.
And 1 of the things that you andcome up with over the years,
Bryan, is a series of tools, tobe able to help facilitate these
conversations forward inturnaround schools.
And so how do we move climate,culture, curriculum and making
connections across all those,Is, easier done when you have
(01:34):
some sort of template, some sortof model, some sort of tool to
be able to move people forward.
The most common one, Bryan, is aschool improvement plan.
But, I think it takes a slightlydifferent approach when you're
going in to turn around inschool.
how do you approach, schoolimprovement plans when a school
that has been maybe strugglingover time?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (01:59):
Well, before I do that, Mark, to make
sure I talk about the turnaround4C, climate is what, who we are.
culture is what we do.
Curriculum is how we do it.
Then connections is why itmatters and putting all those
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (02:10):
Yeah.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (02:11):
As a turnaround agent the first thing
you got to do is make sure youhave a game plan.
Mark, you and I are old footballcoaches, so we always like using
that old terminology of when wewere trying to set up game plans
and so we start being successfulin individual games that our
kids are playing.
So, the same methodology applieshere.
(02:32):
You want to make sure you startwith the game plan and the game
plan usually incorporates thefour goals we discussed before.
The first one is creating aculture.
And so you want to make sure youcreate a culture.
And in that culture, you'retalking about building a
positive climate.
Every school we know has aculture.
So let's keep that in mind.
But what we want to do is tobuild a positive climate, so
people feel good.
And that's what I said about whowe are and what we're trying to
(02:54):
accomplish.
Second thing we're talking abouthaving a viable curriculum that
every school again has acurriculum.
But right now it seems thatschools we go to, kids aren't
learning the curriculum.
They have low test scores andactually, quite frankly, their
GPA.
And this is something that a lotof schools don't talk about.
The overall GPA of the school isusually under two.
It's not above two.
(03:15):
So we're talking about helpingthat school, overall school GPA,
having students find success.
How many students can you get onthe honor roll using the viable
curriculum you have?
The third one we'll talk aboutis Is building up a school and
teacher engagement, teachers buyinto their kids and engaging
them and learning and havingkids feel like they're learning
(03:36):
something from that teacher.
So they want to sit in thatclassroom.
So it's really important tobuild that give and take so that
kids are learning.
Teachers feel comfortableteaching it and there's a
valuable lesson in that regard.
And the fourth goal we'retalking about is always building
leadership density.
Having teachers become leaders,having parents become leaders,
(03:58):
having students become leaders,and everybody working together
to attain a common goal, whichis student success.
And that fourth goal we talkedabout is why it's so important
that we want to make sure wehave that school improvement
plan at the beginning so that wecan bring it all together and
that we can say, Hey, this iswhat we're trying to accomplish
this year in school.
(04:18):
What do you think?
As soon as we're hired.
we ask opinions.
What do you think?
We ask teachers their opinion.
We ask parents their opinion.
We asked students their opinion.
And we actually set up meetings,Mark, so they can actually come
in and share those thoughts andideas with us.
As a matter of fact, we talkabout teachers, we say, hey,
this is what we're going to do.
What do you think?
And we said, do you have anyideas?
(04:39):
And we actually have them bringidea to the table.
We have parents bring idea tothe table.
So when the first day of schooloccurs, we've already had those,
those mini meetings and we'vealready got things.
We say we're all working
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (04:51):
So when you arrive, in July you're
hitting the ground running,calling people into your office.
Are you calling meetings?
Are you going out and visitingpeople?
How are you building that?
That knowledge base to know whatto put in it.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (05:06):
The goals are the guideline.
And so you want to make sure assoon as you get in who's your
PTA, PTSA president, who's yourunion representative?
Or union president.
What's the leadership there?
You want to make sure these,these groups are discussed with
and talked to.
Who's your student council?
Get your student councilinvolved, have kids come in
there.
(05:26):
This is what we're trying toaccomplish.
So they know what's going on.
And then the one part you said,and I thought that was so key,
getting out in the community.
You know, we talked about thatlast week, getting out there,
getting to know people in thecommunity.
Hey guys, what's your impressionof schools?
You know, a lot of times whenyou have a school that's a
turnaround school, sometimes thepublic persona is not the best.
(05:47):
So you want to find out what'sgoing on so you can say, Hey,
these are things we're trying toaccomplish here.
So you start getting the publicto speak for you and speaking
your behalf as well.
And what this does Mark, isbuild that leadership density,
giving people a chance to sharetheir ideas and say, Hey, if you
think this is going to workbetter, let's put this in play.
And then we start the schoolyear at that time.
(06:09):
Everybody's had to say so peoplehave some thought processes and
we can go ahead and begin whereat least we have an idea, a game
play where everybody feelsmotivated.
And that's where that positiveclimate, is now starting to
build because people feel goodabout having something to say
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (06:25):
Yeah, and I think that during those
meetings, I'm also conveying mycode, which then gives me
feedback of where they'rethinking.
So if I'm talking about studentlearning first, rigor,
relevance, relationships,generating results and those
things, and student disciplinesoff the charts, you know, we
can't do this or that.
(06:46):
Then that gives me that climatethat you're talking about that
negative climate.
Things that need changed, eventhough we're trying to enhance
that culture, it really gives methe starting points to think
about in that climate, but italso outlines, the expectations
to everybody.
My code is where we're headedfolks.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (07:06):
Well, let's, enhance that code piece
if we can.
Cause when you talk about code,you're absolutely right.
and I think I told you before,there have been schools that
just incorporated my code intothe part of their Immediate
climate and they put it inprint.
It did not become Bryan Wright'scode It became the school code,
but it became the school codebecause we met earlier as staff
(07:31):
We met early with the teachers,You met earlier with the parents
and they said, this is what Ibelieve in.
And they like, Hey, that'spretty good.
And then they said, We think ourschool should become the
embodiment of that very samecode you have.
So that didn't come now, a BryanWright code that became
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (07:47):
There you go.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (07:50):
It worked out a lot better.
And then that became part of theschool plan as well, and having
people believe in that.
And want to make sure I give youan example of that, Mark, there
was a teacher in one of theschools, that, I feel so
strongly about code.
I had asked teachers, write yourown code, put it up on the wall,
put it up on the board, let thekids see your code, let them
(08:10):
know what you're about.
So we had teachers do that.
They put their own codes up.
again, this is voluntary.
This was not mandatory.
This is voluntary.
But that teacher took it to adifferent level.
He said he wanted every studentto write their own code.
And he had student, codes allacross the room.
So when the kids came in andthey started acting
inappropriately, he said, Hey,isn't that your code up there?
(08:32):
Are you living by your code?
And kids made some tremendouschanges and the disciplinary
actions in that classroom wentdown significantly.
Because kids felt they had theirown code, they had
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (08:43):
All right.
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (08:45):
words.
It wasn't his, it was theirs.
So that's just a great way ofusing leadership density, but
also using code as an advantageto motivate the students and to
get better
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (08:55):
and I think we'll get in more depth on
that when we get into thediscipline matrix and those type
of things too, I got a questionrelated to a previous
conversation we had.
about superintendents who write5 year plans, who actually are
superintendents for three years.
What's the difference between, aturnaround principals school
(09:18):
improvement plan compared to,superintendents five year plan
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (09:25):
Oh, that's a, that's a great
question.
The difference, Mark, is when wetalk about a Turnaround 4C plan,
we're talking about totalimplementation within three
years.
if we're there five years,something's wrong, And you said
this once before, and I love thecomment.
You said the whole idea aboutus, the turnaround principals,
we got to work ourselves out ofa
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (09:43):
job.
Yeah.
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (09:44):
that's what we do.
So we're, we're not there, as aturnaround principal for five
years.
As a matter of fact, one of theschools I hired a guy who was a
teacher of the year there.
He was an excellent instructor.
And so I hired him.
And then sure enough, a year ortwo later, he became the
principal there.
And so he has some of the ideaswe started and we, him and I
(10:06):
still stay in contact to thisday.
And he's been there for severalyears that school, I went from
step A to step B.
He'd taken that school from stepB.
All the way to some of thethings he's doing are
sustainable, the school has beensuccessful, it's gone through a
renovation and changes, andthose changes have not, those
academic changes have not misseda beat, and he's still there.
(10:27):
Now, that's what we're about.
We're not there to stay five,six, or seven years.
We're there to make thosechanges.
I tell people, Mark, there untilthe legend becomes myth, all
right?
We're there, to make thesechanges and adjustments, get
that school, hopefully on theright track, then we're out of
there.
now you talk aboutsuperintendents,
superintendents.
(10:48):
I think they love to stay insome places for four or five,
six years, become asuperintendent, have a statue in
front of the school districtwith their behalf.
I think they all would lovethat, but it doesn't work that
way.
And if you're talking aboutmaking changes in the district,
one thing we should talk about,Mark, and this is something I
want to ask you about later on,because you know, this better
than I do when you were acentral office.
(11:08):
you're talking about makingchanges.
Understand, somebody's going tobe resistant to the changes
you're trying to
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (11:14):
yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (11:15):
And since they're going to be
resistant, you're going to haveto make sure you're going to
say, this is what's best forstudents.
Not what's best for teachers.
Not what's best for adults.
This is what's best for thestudents.
And that's going to be a guidinglight.
But understand if you're gonnamake those decisions, somebody
is not going to like what you'redoing.
So Mark, I'm going to turn thisquestion over to you.
How is the central officeworker,?
(11:36):
you know about the changebecause you've been right there.
When you see these changeshappening.
How do you keep people motivatedsaying, wait a minute, this is
what we do for the students.
Cause I think you made thatdecision once,
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (11:45):
yeah.
I think, it's, doing the rightthing all the time, which is
focusing on student learning.
I've been in these situationswhere the union gets heavily
involved in teacher protection.
And it
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (12:02):
right?
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (12:03):
at times make it very hard to move
forward, They're more worriedabout the adults, than the kids,
which I have a lot of respectfor.
I understand that.
but We have to produce a productas a service at the end.
And that's what we always keepcentral focused.
(12:23):
The other thing is, to clearlydefine things that are
unacceptable, it's justunacceptable to not, make
student learning rigor therelevance, the relationships
that they're doing.
It's unacceptable for us not tolook at results to determine
whether results are moving usforward or not.
(12:44):
As long as you keep those thingsthat central focus, you can keep
converting conversations back,And I think that's the key from
central office to theprincipalship.
It's always that same thing iskeeping that conversation.
Forefront.
They say, well, what about ourinstructional time?
(13:06):
How are we in enhancing studentlearning?
With that instructional time, ifyou want more planning time, how
does that enhance ourperformances?
How do we generate results as aresult of you having more
planning time?
I have no problem with planningtime if it enhances student
performance.
So let's just have thatconversation.
(13:27):
you want to have, change in theway that we discipline students
in the school.
Okay, how does that impactstudent learning?
It's just turning thatconversation constantly around.
Oh, I understand kidsmisbehaving.
How does this relate to otherkids learning?
How do we improve that to ensurestudents are learning?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (13:49):
And Mark, that's why when you talk
about the game plan itself, youask to come in cause not every
game plan is going to be thesame at every school, every
school.
When I run into a school, westart with a template of a game
plan.
But what we put underneath howwe want to reach those goals are
entirely different from schoolto school on that school's need,
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (14:12):
I was at central office working with
multiple principals acrossmultiple schools.
Each had unique needs anddifferences And so I had to
approach them differently,different plan within the same
system.
So it's even within the samedistrict, there's some
uniqueness, same expectations.
(14:34):
Just uniqueness.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (14:36):
As a central office worker, yes,
you're absolutely right.
I think, we all want to makesure we, want to be successful
with students.
That's our major goal.
That's our main thing.
You keep that the main thing,but as we're doing that, we want
to make sure that you have agame plan that's set up.
That's why it's so importantthat you incorporate different
viewpoint, different ideas.
So now once the game plan isgoing to be implemented.
(15:00):
First day of school, the firstweek we always have those
meetings with students.
We tell students, this is ourgame plan, this is what we're
trying to accomplish.
Then by the end of that firstweek,
mark_6_08-28-2024_0941 (15:10):
everyone
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (15:10):
knows exactly what we're doing, why
we're doing it, how it's goingto be implemented, we can talk
about how we're going tocelebrate it.
I mentioned earlier about GPA.
You know, we talk about testscore, but we don't really talk
about school's GPA.
And I think that's a hiddenasset we miss, because if you
got a school that's averaging a2.
(15:32):
5, 2.
6, 2.
7 as an overall school, Kidsfeel good.
More kids making the honor roll.
More kids are going to becelebrated.
You can put that honor roll inthe newspaper like we've done
many times.
Kids love seeing the name on thepaper and maybe the kid got Four
C's in the four, academiccourses.
But got four A's in the othercourses, that kid has a B
(15:53):
average.
He's on the honor roll.
And that kid feels good aboutwhat he's doing and what he's
trying to accomplish.
And that's the whole idea.
So I think a hidden gem and allthe things we're doing and
that's another part when we saya viable curriculum, for
example, that explains theviable curriculum, but also
explains student teacherengagement.
you're talking about the thirdgoal, Hey, Hey, the kid saying,
I'm interested.
(16:13):
And the kids in the classroomsaying, which learning in this
class, he can tell you what he'slearning.
That's great.
you see what's your grade andyou say, well, I got a C or D.
Then why aren't you doing betterin this class?
Now you can ask the student, ifyou learn all these things, why
aren't you doing better?
And it all said it puts the onthe back on the student.
And it's amazing to me, Mark,when you do that, the kids say,
ah, I could in this class.
(16:34):
Then you say, let's get it done.
that's where you start laughing.
Now, the one you worry about, ofcourse, when you say, well, he's
learned this class, not much.
And you say, what's theengagement?
You say, what you getting inclass?
I'm getting an A.
are you getting an A?
You're not engaged in And thenyou can talk about some
adjustments you want to make andtalk to the teacher about, hey,
what things can we do so kidsfeel good about what they're
learning.
So each one of these thingswe're talking about, each one of
these goals play a part in thatstudent success.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (16:58):
Let me, take what you were just
talking about, because I thinkengagement, it seems like it's
always a goal.
Student engagement's a big one,right?
But I had a guy tell me once,you know, well, don't create
more goals than God.
You can, have to have 10 and nomore.
(17:18):
How many goals do you thinkshould go on there, and then
why?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (17:22):
In schools, what you want to do is
make sure you've got enoughgoals that you can sustain
enough goals that you canachieve, but also just enough
goals.
So you can say, this is ourpathway to improvement.
And again, they're all studentbased.
but I've also seen programs.
They got seven, eight goals.
As a matter of fact, youmentioned superintendents and
superintendents coming to fiveyear plan.
(17:43):
You also read all thesedifferent goals they want to do
and all these different thingsthey want to accomplish.
sometimes they don't even get tothe second, third goal because
it's too many.
want to make sure you have justenough.
And some schools, it may be onlythree goals.
Some schools, maybe only twogoals, But, implement them with
fidelity, implement them with aclear focus in mind so that you
(18:07):
can achieve those goals andachieve success, which brings
the last thing.
If you have eight goals and youachieve six You only meet 75
percent of your goals.
So you're already a failure.
know, you may have met the firstsix.
So you want to make sure you,when you're talking about goals,
goals that you want to reach andgoals that you can see and
having people feel good about,keep that in mind.
Having people say, Hey, you area part of this goal and you're a
(18:28):
part of this plan and we're inthis together.
And also, the code is like thenavigation.
The code keeps
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (18:36):
Yeah,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_09422 (18:37):
Right.
But everything else is the partsthat you all be fighting with
the waters gets choppy and thissort of thing, but you also got
your navigation piece and youknow, this is where we want to
attain, which is where we wantto go.
And so you get those goals onboard with that that navigation,
you'll find student success
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (18:53):
so that also leads me to a second
thought how do, you know, you'rereaching or, making progress in
a goal?
Is there something that allowsyou to say?
Oh, yeah, we're on path,
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (19:05):
Oh, as the goals continue, you're
going to have a philosophy ofwhy you should have those goals.
But then you have indicators ofsuccess under each one of those
goals.
So as you're doing yourindicators of success, then you
say, Oh, we're doing this.
We're doing this.
We're doing this So each one ofthe goals have their indicators
underneath it So you can saythis is our guidelines and make
(19:29):
sure those indicators are Liquidjust like any game plan in a
football game After the firstquarter they're doing something
right or wrong, you got to makesome changes in your game plan
Especially at halftime.
At halftime, you're doing somethings right or you're doing
some things wrong.
There's gonna be some changes athalftime.
Same thing applies as you'retalking about four quarters in a
school By the end of each one ofthe grading programs you have,
(19:50):
you're looking at the goals.
How are you doing?
Which ones are being successful,which ones you need to change.
You also have school data teams,you have school improvement
teams, you have school,management teams, so you got all
these things in line so you canalways make sure you maintain
and keep a focus on what thosegoals are.
One last thing we're also goingto talk about And that's going
(20:10):
to always be celebrate thesuccesses no matter how big or
small.
If you've got attendance of 87percent for the year last year
and your attendance first timein September goes 92 you better
make sure that's a wow.
We've, that's an indicator ofsuccess right there.
That's indicator.
We're doing some good things.
Let's keep that going.
Let's keep that momentum going.
(20:31):
When you're talking about a,teacher for viable curriculum,
you say first quarter, you get60 percent of your kids on the
honor roll.
And you say, wow, you only hadlike 35 the whole year.
Last year at 60 percent of thekids in your honor roll, make
that a big thing.
That's an indicator of success.
These are things that areshowing now people are seeing
things in motion that areactually working and they're
(20:51):
feeling good about what's goingon and that helped build that
positive climate.
And eventually when you startbuilding out and you say, these
are things that we think areimportant.
So yes, you build up on that.
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (21:01):
as we wrap this up, I think one of the
things is, I always think aboutfrom a leadership perspective is
we write this school improvementplan overall, but inside my
world of the leadership team.
we're creating individual plans,individual goals of our
leadership practices to get usto those points.
(21:23):
And we have to think about thatwhen we're moving climate, when
we're moving culture, when we'reembedding curriculum, we have to
create those little steps that'sgoing to help us get to that
goal to help the teachers get tothat goal.
The community get to the goal,the teachers, the students to
get to the goal.
So that's one of the things thatI think is essential.
Overall, Bryan, is there asummary that you would send
(21:45):
people home with and say, usethis tool, use this template,
use this idea, what is it thatyou want to send people away
with right now?
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (21:54):
Well, first of all, we, we do have a
template and if anybody wants totemplate, look for our, emails
on, on the bottom of our page,and we'll be happy to send our
School Improvement PlanTemplate.
Your whole goal is to make sureyou achieve student success and
you want student success to beattained.
And one last thing I'll sayabout that, Mark, is that every
(22:18):
educator administrator I knowhas an ego.
We believe we can go there anddo all these things with
students.
But the one thing we also got tomake sure, you better be humble.
Cause I'm always overwhelmed bythe stuff that teachers can do
in schools.
I'm always overwhelmed by stuffstudents do in schools.
And I see the greatness ofthose, groups and how they, help
(22:40):
to make their schoolssuccessful.
I'm always amazed by communitysupport when the community comes
out and that includes ourparents.
They say, Hey, all we want to dois best for our children.
And you give them an opportunityto do that.
So when you talk about, thesuccesses.
All the successes are gearedtowards the eventual, seeing
kids get better in school,better academically, better
(23:02):
emotionally, very spiritually.
and so in every school we talkabout, Mark, when we talk about
turnaround, say we're going toraise attendance.
We're going to raise testscores.
We're going to lower discipline.
We'll talk about these thingsthat we're going to do that when
he's mentioned the disciplinematrix next week and how we're
going to do that.
we have all these things in mindalready.
So game plan gives us ouroutline.
(23:24):
So we can say, okay, since we'regoing to reach these goals, This
is how we're going to go aboutdoing it.
then last thing I'm going to sayabout that is not only do we
give you the template, but thenhow you fill in that template.
Cause I was going to have inthat template, the philosophy of
why you should be doing it, butalso the indicators of success.
So you can always make sure you,you're always monitoring those
(23:44):
indicators.
So you, know, you're doing theright thing and you can make
those adjustments.
again, the game plan is alwaysliquid.
It's going to be changed, but atthe end of the year, if you
achieve those goals, you'rediscussing, I think you'll be,
you'll be happy with theoutcome.
And so will your district, I can
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (23:59):
Good.
Yeah, thanks, Bryan.
I think that the templates moresimplified.
It's not a big, huge school, thestate improvement plan thing.
It's it's really getting to thepoint.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (24:11):
and please understand.
I think you'll find successes init, within those successes,
You'll reach certain academicstandards and your school
improve as a result, but you'redoing it together.
A lot of people come to schooland they say, we're going to
reach our test scores.
Yeah, but We better build apositive climate first where
(24:32):
kids feel safe in theirenvironment.
The kids feel comfortable.
They want to be a part of, andthey have a say so in what
they're doing.
You want to make sure thatteachers feel comfortable when
they teach in the curriculum,but they want that student and
teacher engagement.
They will not be judgednegatively.
If they have a problem with thestudent, you want to make sure
your parents feel comfortablewhen they say, Hey, my child is
learning in this school.
These rules are in place sothey're going to benefit my
(24:54):
child.
Eventually, my child can leavethat school and become
successful citizens as a result.
Then you talk about theconnections with the community
saying, Hey, we like that schoolright now.
We see what's going on.
We see some changes there.
We want to support what they'redoing right there.
These are things we all wish toattain as we're discussing that.
So Mark, we can do all that.
Then we're on the road to asuccessful school turnaround.
(25:18):
Well, Mark, next We'll betalking regarding our school
matrix
mark_6_08-28-2024_094149 (25:22):
Well, I'll talk about how it was
originally created, and then youcan talk about how you've
enhanced it and used it acrossseveral districts and coached
other administrators through theuse of it.
bryan_6_08-28-2024_094225 (25:33):
Thank you everybody for listening and
we hope to see you next time.
Bye.
Bye
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