Relationships That Raise Scores

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A conference hallway can be louder than a classroom, but it can also reveal what great school leadership sounds like. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, we sit down with Saida, principal of East Lawn Elementary, to talk about what actually holds a school together when the job gets hard and the needs keep coming.

Website: spotlight4success.com

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
Welcome to Spotlight for Success with American Book
Company.
I'm your host, Derek Pintozi,and here we are at the NCASA
conference in Wilmington, NorthCarolina.
We're here with our specialguest, Saida, and she is the
principal of East LawnElementary in the ABSS School
District.
So it's so great to have youhere today.
Thank you.
So what brings you here today?

SPEAKER_00 (00:26):
So this is one of my very favorite conferences.
It specializes in schoolleaders.
I've attended here ever since Iwas a principal fellow, which
was about six, seven years ago.
And as an intern learning how todo school leadership, I was able
to come to these kinds ofconferences.

SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
Great, great.
And um, what are someeducational uh strategies used
in the classroom?

SPEAKER_00 (00:49):
A lot of um, everybody used the the root word
of relationships, but it'sbigger than that.
It's also relationships speakinginto existence of goals.
So it's relationships plus goalsetting that I love you as an
individual, but I also want youto succeed as an individual.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06):
Great, great.
I love that.
And I've I've heard you've usedsome resources, you've used our
resources, American Book Companybooks.
Um, did you see any scoreimprovement and how did you use
those books in the classroom?

SPEAKER_00 (01:16):
Yes, so and that's one of the reasons when I saw
Glenn, who I said, ooh, I havean email back in 2015 of Glenn
Davenport.
And so when I saw it, I said,Yes, I remember purchasing one.
So I purchased one.
I also had some preview.
You know, as a broke teacher, Iwould take the preview books,

(01:37):
see how I was able to use those.
Yeah, this was back in the daywhen we did pen and paper.
This wasn't computer-based, soit said preview copy on it.
I took all the content that Icould and was able to make
quizzes and also able to makesome intellectual conversations
with my students, able to dosome peer.
Then it yielded gains.
So I became a green to bluestudent, green to blue teacher.

(01:59):
So that's part of our EVOS.
So the closer you are to get toblue, it's greatness.
So then when I was able to showmy principal that data, then he
said, Okay, well, we need to doa class that have Glenn come and
we're gonna go ahead and do anactual accounts payable.
So that's how we built thatrelationship because I took part
of his previews as a conferenceand also as a freebie, and then

(02:21):
I was able to go ahead andactually make some games.
And from then on, I said I can'tget away from ABCs.

SPEAKER_01 (02:26):
Wow, that's amazing.
We love to hear that.
And um, did you see any scoreimprovement?

SPEAKER_00 (02:30):
Yes, so that was the that was the biggest one is that
I was able to see that level ofgain when it came to um so I
initially started as a secondarybiology teacher and also math
teacher.
So I took that biology EOC, theABCs of that biology EOC, and as
I was saying, taking thatpreview copy that had the
writing in it, but at that time,once again, I was a broke

(02:51):
teacher, and I wanted to takethat core content and actually
build upon it so I can give mystudents an opportunity.
It also helped to aid to makesure that everything, this was
when back when we had textbooks,to make sure that that 500-page
textbook was now solidified inthe actual working workflow.

SPEAKER_01 (03:10):
Great, right.
And what's one of the favoritethings you do on your um
day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_00 (03:17):
Well, being a principal, especially
elementary, I just get to loveon children in a different
capacity.
My background is in secondary,so that's a different love.
But to actually get 15, 20 hugsfor them to say, ooh, you know,
as elementary principals, webecome superstars.
Yeah.
So it's always that superstarcake on every single day.

SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
And do you have any last wordsfor the uh and Castle community?

SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
I mean, the biggest one, of course, is we try to
make sure the content isfeasible and relevant.
I'm not so much a proponent intouh product, but I know that this
one has helped me.
So when he mentioned it, I said,let me make sure I at least
share the testimony of how itdoes not matter what level of
funding I have, and as I enterthe new roles, if I'm a

(04:03):
stakeholder, I'm gonna make surethat this product is elevated.

SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
Absolutely, that's inspiring.
Well, thank you for coming onour podcast, and we'll catch you
guys next time.