Episode 209
Episode 209: Strategic PD Planning with Chad Ostrowski
In this special midweek crossover episode with the Teach Better Podcast, Darrin sits down with Teach Better CEO and Co-founder Chad Ostrowski to dive deep into one of the most important leadership tasks schools face: planning professional development that actually moves the needle.
Darrin and Chad unpack the mistakes too many schools make—like treating PD as a day, not a movement—and offer a practical, strategic approach to make learning stick all year long. You'll hear about:
- How to build clarity into every phase of your PD plan
- The power of tiered professional development
- Why leaders must model differentiated support
- How to avoid turning your PD initiative into “the villain”
- Planning walkthroughs, building internal capacity, and protecting your time as a leader
- And how Teach Better + Road to Awesome are partnering to offer aligned leadership and instructional growth
Whether you’re a new principal or a veteran leader, this episode is packed with practical steps to help you develop PD that actually leads to instructional improvement.
👉 Learn more and schedule a conversation at www.roadtoawesome.net
👉 Connect with Chad and the Teach Better Team at www.teachbetter.com
Transcript
All right, my friends, welcome into a special edition of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. This is episode 209. And my guest on the show today is Chad Ostrowski from the Teach Better team. Now, Chad and I had this conversation for a very specific reason. You see, recently Chad and I sat down and did a webinar as a joint venture between Road to Awesome and the Teach Better team, where our focus was on how do we help school leaders
do the very best job possible with the strategic planning around their professional development for the upcoming year. After the webinar, which was extremely well received, Chad and I had a conversation and we thought, you know what, maybe we ought to recreate that, share that conversation as a part of a podcast. And so that's exactly what we've done. We sat down, we recorded an episode of the podcast and this podcast will be released both on
the Teach Better podcast, as well as here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Folks, this is a fantastic conversation. Make sure you get ready to take some notes because there's so many great things that are here that Chad and I are talking about, the steps, the thoughts, the things that you want to do to make sure that one, your plan is built well. Number two, your plan is executed well. And number three, you have follow through on the other end of your plan to ensure
that people have the success that you see the growth that you see that end product that you're hoping for down the road. Great conversation, lots of information folks. I'll catch you on the other side, but now let's jump to this conversation with Chad Ostrowski.
Darrin Peppard (:All right, friends, welcome into a special episode, combined episode of the Teach Better podcast and the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Darren Peppered here, Chad Ostrowski there, and we are gonna talk about that strategic planning work that needs to be done and that you want to do and do well when it comes to professional development. So Chad, man, I'm excited to have this conversation with you.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Me too, man. The funny thing is we nerd out about this stuff together all the time and you're one of my favorite people to talk about and talk with about these topics. So I'm really excited we get to capture it here on the podcast today.
Darrin Peppard (:Absolutely. so folks for full disclosure, we did about a week or so ago, maybe two weeks ago, a joint webinar, Road Awesome and Teach Better together on this very topic. number one, Chad, I thought it was such a great conversation. And you and I, mean, seriously, like for never having presented or spoken together, the flow was really good. So to me, it just made some sense for us to jump on.
I recorded a joint episode of our podcasts and maybe just share more of everything there is to do with how you develop and crush and follow through on that professional development plan. So I'm fired up, man. This is going to be fun.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah, no, I'm excited and I think the timing is perfect when we're recording this episode here at the tail end of the year as people are thinking about their plans for next year. And this this this is an evergreen conversation, regardless of when you're having it, making sure you have clarity and purpose and a goal for what you're trying to achieve with development and moving the instruction needle needle forward. I'm excited to dig into all of those components and
how administrators, schools, and districts can make their dreams a reality, so to speak.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, I'm curious. You know, I run into this quite a bit, you know, in the work that I do working with, you know, schools and leadership teams all over the country. Oftentimes, leaders will start the school year, and they'll have this great idea of here's what we're going to do. And this is what the PD is going to look like. And before they know it, it's October. And then again, before they know it, it's February. And before they know it, it's this time of year. And they're looking back saying, huh,
Yeah, I thought it was a good plan, but then the year happened. I would imagine you probably run into that every now and again as well.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Absolutely, I think it's a huge struggle going through the daily grind and keeping your mission and your goals for the year at the forefront. In fact, especially when administrators are putting planning together, a lot of times they get stuck in planning a day versus planning a movement or planning improvement. And when you're trying to fill that PD day, but not thinking about the full year and how you're going to support this idea, or you're not even providing
that clarity in the first place, right? I think that's when things tend to fall apart. Because if you're planning a day, your teachers are still just experiencing a day and then they're going back to whatever they were doing before. Hopefully some things catch on, but you can't expect things to happen magically without purposeful planning and clarity throughout the whole year. Teachers also pick up on the lack of that clarity when it's not there for them. If they're just experiencing a single moment in time,
and then never hearing about something again, it's going to fall flat. It's not gonna go anywhere. But if you start with a purposeful plan that's gonna move your instruction from where you are to where you wanna be, and then you have a strategic way to attack that plan, which is a lot of work that we do together, that's really how you can avoid that pitfall, right?
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, yeah, for sure. you know, you're, you're singing my song, you know, saying clarity, you know, how much you know how much that that means to me. I mean, that's like the number one thing I think for leaders is you got to get clear. And, know, I talked about this on the webinar, but and I talked about this, like, every time I speak to, you know, John Hattie, and you know, in his work, invisible learning talks about, you know, all of these different, you know, strategies that really move the needle in the classroom and
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:I know man.
Darrin Peppard (:one of those that that he really pointed to was teacher clarity and you know teachers being really clear about you know not only what they expect but you know how they're going to assess students and you know the whole process right and and to me you know knowing that that's a 0.75 effect size I think about that from a leader perspective and I would love to know what the effect size would be if we actually studied leader clarity because like you're saying
when leaders are super clear about what that plan is from from the very beginning. And there's something you said in there, I want to chase here in just a second. But the more as leaders, you're clear from the beginning all the way through the process, the more likely that professional learning is to actually stick and become something meaningful and to actually lead to the transition that you're hoping for, which which takes me to the thing I want to chase. I want to have you talk about this a bit too.
you had mentioned in there, just just that whole, you know, teacher perspective, and why that clarity is important for the teacher, in terms of here's why we're doing this professional development. I think something that a lot of times leaders will overlook. And so, folks, if you're saying, hey, I'm going to take some notes on this podcast. Here's where you start taking notes, right, like right here. Make sure you're listening to your teachers, you know, when
when you're picking up the phone and you're calling Chad and saying, Hey, I want TeachBetter to come in and do some work around rigor or, you know, we'd love to implement the grid method or you're calling me and saying, you know, Hey, we want to work, you know, we want you to bring culture first classrooms to our school. I would really hope and I know Chad would too, that you've had some conversations with people about why you're doing that. It can't simply be, I mean, it could be, but it shouldn't be that
you think this is what we need. I made this mistake as a building administrator a couple of times. know, hey, this is the professional development I want to bring to my staff. Well, one, do they have the capacity to do they even have that need, you know, and, and, and three, have you actually had that conversation with them? Let's talk, let's talk about that. Like how, from the very beginning, how do administrators best
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:gather the information they need to make a good decision to say this is what we need to move forward with from a professional learning perspective.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:And this tends to be a huge amount of the conversations we have before any PD ever happens with a school or a district. And a lot of times we'll come in and do a strategic PD plan and start with these conversations. And there's a couple of things I often find myself saying. First of all, you are absolutely right. If teachers don't see the vision, the purpose, the clarity, or don't feel like they have a voice or a heads up about what is expected of them,
They're going to ask me or you when you're running the PD, hey, do we actually have to do this? How much or how little of this do we have to do? What is expected?
Darrin Peppard (:Right. Yeah. the most uncomfortable question for the presenter, by the way. So, leaders, don't set us up for that.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right. And so the simple phrase I tend to use when I'm talking about that aspect is focus on practices, not products. Now, I love the grid method and I'm very near and dear to that framework. However, if any school that brings Teach Better in goes, everybody's doing grid method tomorrow without that reasoning behind it, like that's gonna get a lot of
pushback. However, if they say, listen, we are working towards more student centered practices, progress monitoring, formative assessment practices, and we want to focus on mastery and classroom instruction. Those are practices no one can argue about. So this is what I call creating a villain before you start. So if you put if you put the name tag on whatever the thing is you're bringing in, before you talk about the
practices around the thing you're bringing in, you're going to create a villain because you've given a name to the thing for people to go, I don't like fill in the blank here. No teacher or educator can say, I don't want to differentiate my instruction. I don't think I should formally assess for mastery. I don't think I should be standards aligned. I don't think I should have positive classroom behavior interventions and management, right? But if they say grid method or culture first class, whatever the thing is, like
Darrin Peppard (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:you are now creating a name of something before they know what the something is without a purpose behind it. And that's how you end up creating that kind of bad taste in everyone's mouth around the single idea that you haven't fully explained. But to your point, Darren, if you start the conversation with, we really wanna see these things in classrooms and we're bringing in this tool to help you achieve those goals.
We really hope that you'll take something from this PD or X, and Z from this PD so we can work towards our building or school goals. And that leads me to the first big question I always ask every administrator or team that I'm working with is, what do you want to see in every classroom every day? Or what should you or I be able to see in every classroom every day when I walk through your halls? If you can answer that question,
you now have one, two or three things that you can hang your hat on. Now everything that falls after that can support those one, two or three things. They can fall in one of those buckets. So now your staff knows what's expected. These three things need to be in every classroom every day. How are we doing that? You've been given PD, A, B and C that'll help you with those things. Now there's a purpose behind the training and development.
happening. So that's always how I start the conversation.
Darrin Peppard (:And I think, I think what's so powerful there is getting to this is what I want to see, not, I want to see the grid method in every classroom. I want to see standards based instruction happening in my classrooms. You know, when, when I was listening to you talk about that, it took me back to some time when I was a building administrator. And one of the
many initiatives. I think I've told you this at one point, we literally had 13 initiatives in the air all at the same time. And my gosh, wonderful, amazing assistant superintendent, you know, curriculum instruction person, but he wasn't very good at communicating what his vision was. And I think communicating that vision is critical. The villain, one of the many villains in our case was Kagan cooperative strategies.
if he had led with, I want to see high student engagement in every classroom, as you're describing, we wouldn't have had Kagan as the villain, right? But because it was led with we're going to do Kagan cooperative strategies, it very quickly became something that teachers could say, I don't like that. I don't like that. You know, none of them would have said, Oh, yeah, I, you know,
I don't think kids need to be engaged in my classroom. Come on. Right. But instead, yeah, we've we followed the model that you're saying don't follow. And by the way, I love Kagan cooperative strategies. I think it is one of the very best professional developments I've ever been through. I have a handful of districts that use Kagan cooperative strategies. They're phenomenal. I'm not saying Kagan is a villain. I'm saying in our case, it's a very simple
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
Darrin Peppard (:Here's a genuine example of what Chad is talking about and go ahead.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:And I think you're hitting on a really good point. The thing that becomes a villain isn't usually a villain or a bad product or process or framework or training. It usually has nothing to do with the actual stuff inside of the training. You just sent the message the wrong way, so it's not received the right way, right? Because once again, you started with products before practice. If you start with practices first,
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah. Yep.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:the product, they're just supporting the practices. So you don't have to worry about that whole kerfuffle.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah. 100 % 100 % Wow. And kerfuffle good word. I think. Yeah, well done. I think I think so much of this ties into as the leader, how do you create that vision? How do you generate that compelling vision of here's where I see my school in six months? Here's where I see my school in nine months. Here's where I see my school in in in two years. I think so often we get caught up in
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:I, yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:the mission and vision conversation as it being this big mythical like thing that we have to do because well, that's just what they said when they came and did our strategic planning, you have to have a mission and a vision when and those things are important. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But to me as as as a leader as somebody who works with leaders all over, I want that vision to be where do you see your school?
And you asked, know, question number one, what are the things that you want to see in every single classroom every single day? That's a question I love to ask leaders as well. And when you can answer that, that says, okay, I know what my vision is for this school. This is where I want to see my school and so many leaders right now, Chad, and I'll guarantee we have people listening right now, who are just getting ready to take on their first principalship.
And we have some people who are probably in their first couple of years, and then they're there. Obviously, there are those veteran leaders who are always just looking to sharpen the saw a little bit. But for the early career leader, I'll say this, that vision that you're creating starts small. used I used the the imagery in our in our webinar of climbing Mount Everest, and how you wouldn't just show up at the base of Mount Everest and say, here we go.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:we're going to climb this mountain. You have a lot of planning, a lot of steps along the way, and it's setting those interim goals, which I think will take us into maybe the next piece we want to talk about. But if you think about climbing Mount Everest, you're going to go from that initial stage, that first base camp where we're planning the hike.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:we're, you know, we're getting all of our supplies ready. We're planning this whole thing out. And the goal is let's get to base camp number one, which is that first, that first climb. And when we get that first climb done, there needs to be some, okay, let's adjust our course. Let's check in and see how everybody is doing. Let's celebrate the fact that we got to base camp one. And now let's figure out how do we, how do we go to base camp two? So
So our goal in this conversation is to talk about how you lay out that strategic plan for professional development. We've gotten to the vision. How do we get to Base Camp One? What's next?
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah, well first of all, you have to have the map to get to base camp one that gets you to eventually the summit, right? If you don't have those clear outcomes, expectations and entry points for staff, you're just guessing. You're just going, are you there yet? No. Are you there yet? No. Are you there? And the answer is always going to be no, especially when you look at your whole building, because you're not breaking it down enough. So one of the things we will actually start this conversation with is our 360 strategic development tool.
So we will actually, we've created 14 key areas, everything from unpacking standards, classroom management, master re-learning, assessment design, you name it. There's 14 key areas that we have found are high impact instructional areas. And we actually have schools go through these areas and they will actually assess, they will actually assess themselves on which of these areas have they already done.
which of these areas are they currently working on or which of these areas have they not even touched. And once you understand which of these key areas you're kind of focused on, you now have a starting point for the conversation. Do we want, because we need to continue to support things we're already doing. We don't want those to fall by the wayside. We need to dive deeper and really hammer in on the in-progress or the conversations we're currently having.
But we also need to assess, are there any of these kind of these red areas, I like to call them, where we haven't even touched these things yet, but we really need to, because they're going to get us to that third base camp eventually, right? Like, we need to start the conversation now. And so once we've gone through this plan, we actually have the conversation starter of, let's look at where you're currently at, so we can take you where you need to go. Now we can look at
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:What training and development do you need to take staff from where they are to where you want every staff member to get to? Are we creating multiple entry points? So then we will create tiers of professional development that each are identified with one of those key areas. So for example, maybe the first area is, can we just...
Focus on unpacking the standards so we understand the rigor at which our instruction needs to be because if you don't know how to do that everything tends to get wonky later on down the road instructionally. Maybe tier two is assessment, clear assessment to measure if students are meeting those standards that we unpacked. And maybe tier three is truly student-centered differentiation with mastery learning or something like the grid method or PBL or fill in the blank with like your instructional vision.
here where you want everybody to get to. Now every single staff kind of has multiple people in these areas. But what you can do now is you've created a clear tiered plan where you can actually look at it and go, here's where I need everyone to get to. But here are multiple entry points for staff to start this work so that we don't have just 10 % of staff doing something, but the rest of the staff doing nothing because they're not working on this yet.
right, or they weren't ready for it yet. So this is how you slowly move that needle. And normally, and I know you know this, Darren, like three to five years is normally how long it takes to impact a large scale change in most schools. So we're thinking long term here. But you do have to break it up. So that's the first step we normally take is that assessment and then what are those PD training tiers that you need to have with your staff to make sure you're hitting the mark?
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, so let's let's stay on the tears here for just a second. Because what I am hearing you say, and what probably people are kind of processing right now is, so you're kind of saying I have my teachers in different groups. I'm not just saying we're all doing this, right? Because after all, isn't that what we as administrators want our teachers doing in the classroom meeting our kids where they are?
So are you advocating for us to model what it is we want them to do in the first place? I know I'm being a little bit cheeky on this, but seriously, right? Like you're actually saying, I'm not sure, maybe just go just a hair deeper with that. Maybe just one more shovel full of, we actually, yes, we are differentiating for our staff.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:at 100%, right? Like we should be differentiating PD for teachers just like we want them to differentiate instruction. Because if you think about any staff you've ever worked with or any leader that you've ever worked with that has a staff, we know that there are those rock star 10 to 15 % staff members. There's that middle of the road, I'm gonna do it because you told me to, but it'll be okay. And then there's like your holdouts, the ones you have to drag through every initiative ever.
or ones that are just lacking the training and support to kind of get where they need to go. Every single staff I think I've ever worked with kind of has these three groups regardless. And I think it's pretty safe to say that that's most schools have kind of those those kind of aggregates. And every administrator that's listening to this right now, name your top five teachers. I guarantee you got five names in your head right now that are ready to do run through the wall and do whatever you need in the best way possible. But if I also ask you
Darrin Peppard (:yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Name the five teachers that are going to complain about this new initiative that you have in your head. You also can name those five every single time. how do we overcome kind of this thing? And the truth is it's easy, differentiation. And so when you have the tiers, you can actually go through the process through those base camps with a clear individual goal for each of those tiers. So maybe in the first
phase, right? You have 50 % of your staff in tier one, you have 25 % of your staff in tier two, and 25 % of your staff at the goal you want everybody to be at. Now everyone's moving forward, but getting the work that they are ready for and that they need. Because you should also be assessing your current capacity to do the work you want to see.
Some teachers are probably already ready to do that. So let them do that. You don't need to start them at step one. Then as you go through and start evaluating to those next base camps, you can go base camp one, we got everyone through their tiers. Now let's shift the tiers. Tier one moves to tier two, tier two moves to tier three, and we build leadership capacity in tier three with the pilot group we started in year one. Same thing happens again at the end of that next base camp where you can then go, hey,
Now everyone's in tier three where we want to see them. We're fostering additional leadership. And if we want, we can even start talking about the next cycle of planning because now that initial group has got it. They're ready to go. So what's our next goal for instruction? Because here's another secret, Darren, and I know you know this. Education's like being a shark. If you stop trying to improve, you're dead in the water. You should always be inching forward.
Right? You should always have that next idea. And I'm not saying overwhelm people, but the minute we go, I think everything's okay. There's no school in this country that I've worked with that is okay on all fronts, that has no room for improvement, that has no, even the schools that have high performance. And I know you see this a lot could probably have a better culture. Even scores in some schools that have amazing culture need help with some of the instructional performance issues, right? Like
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Kids love being there and they're having a great time, but the academics aren't aligning to those goals. So like, there's always those pieces and parts where you can bring in your resources or your trainers and your PD to support that work.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, what I love about that model and about how how you guys at Teach Better Drive professional learning is that, you know, hey, next year, I'm going to hire seven new teachers. What do I do with them? How do I how do I get them going? And that was always a struggle for us, you know, as a leadership team was, you know, we would hire you know, when I was a high school principal, I had, you know, 130 teachers on my staff or whatever I had.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:So every year, you know, even, I mean, we had great culture, we didn't have real high turnover, but I still was probably going to hire five, six, seven new teachers, you know, because some would go on to administrative roles, some would retire, you know, those kinds of things, you're still going to hire new people. And our struggle was, how do we catch them up? And typically the answer we got was, get them, you know, get them an instructional coach. Well, okay, but
Sometimes I have one year three of my instructional coaches were new to the district, like, okay, how do we catch them up? You know, if we're going to send them to 100 different, you know, professional development things, they're not going to be here doing any coaching because we're just trying to simply catch them up. so what I love about about tearing your staff is it allows you to, to really think about, okay, when this person comes on board, I don't have to put all five of my new teachers in tier one, I may have a teacher who comes in who
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:you know, has a lot of skill and a lot of will and I could put them right into tier two, I don't have to just simply say, here is our basic let's catch them up process. So I really appreciate that a lot. I think there's just so much merit to thinking about tiering your teachers in terms of what do they really need in the classroom. And, and I'll say this too, by the way, you know, you mentioned, you know, you're gonna have five who are going to push back, I had five like,
faces jump to the front of my mind. My five and literally it was five I had five who pushed back on everything and so administrators I'm going to give you a tip. I'll share with you how I managed that you know in what I see a lot of times what I hear from a lot of administrators is those five or seven or two or whatever you have. A lot of people will just avoid them. They'll just stay away from them. You know I don't want to engage with them.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:They're always there. Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:I would tell you lean in to them. mean, lean into them. And I don't mean go be a jerk to them. I mean, go lean into them. My five, two married couples, by the way, a four of my five, I just really leaned into their voice as often as possible. I was intentional to show up in their classrooms when they didn't have kids when I was getting ready to make
decisions, and I would just have conversation with them. They weren't necessarily going to change my mind. And they had to learn that being heard didn't mean getting your way all the time. But the more you can lean into those people, that's a big part of this whole process, because they can sink this for you, or they can help it help it continue to float and continue to thrive. And the more that you
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
Darrin Peppard (:lean into those people, have conversations with them. I probably spent more time with my five toughest than I did with anybody else. And they were all five, by the way, phenomenal teachers. You know, it was never a question of skill. It was a question of will. And I think that's an interesting piece too, that leaders need to be thinking about. You'll have some teachers who, man, the will will be there. I mean, they'll be like, man, Chad, I'll run through a brick wall for you.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:She do write it.
Darrin Peppard (:but they may not have the skill. you can't necessarily put them at tier three just because they're going to carry the flag for you. You've got to know the combination of skill and will in order to really get them put in the right place.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah, and tying the outcomes in each tier to those three to five things you want to see in every classroom also allows you to approach those conversations you're talking about and use that plan as a third party in the conversation. So then you can go, hey, we're going to bring this in because it's focused on this. How do you currently do that in your classroom? So a lot of times, thing those five teachers, they're usually like really high.
performing teachers that go, I'm good, I don't need this extra thing. And it can never be if you don't do this, it's wrong. And if you do this, it's right. Because now you once again have created the villain all over. It has to be, are you doing this practice? If you are, conversation's done, we're good. And if you're doing the practice, the tool and the resource you use to implement the practice becomes irrelevant.
So now you have the power as the administrator to go, hey, I know you know that we've talked about our three look-fors and classroom goals. As long as you're doing these things, Whether you're doing the grid method or stations and centers, and you know, like is irrelevant as long as you're differentiating and personalizing learning for individual student growth, for an example, right? And so there's a lot of power in respecting those five.
in their opinions because sometimes it's because they already think they're doing the thing you want to see. And that's where I think the clarity and I'm going to throw you this phone because I know you have like four billion things to talk about after the statement I'm about to make. And the truth is, no matter how good your tiered PD plan is, if you don't have clarity and good leadership after the plan starts, it's gonna fall apart, right?
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, yeah, boy. Yeah, you just floated that one right over the plate to me. I was I was already like getting ready to ready to jump in on that anyway. So that's perfect. Yes, absolutely. As as the leader and the leadership team, you've got to have a really clear plan of how you're going to support this throughout the course of the coming year. It's one thing to say, okay, our plan is we're going to bring, you know, teach better and we're gonna do the grid method. And, you know, we've got these three tiers and all that kind of stuff. And then
when the school year starts, we're just going to keep running around putting out fires as administrators. If that's your plan, your plan will fail. Because as Chad was just saying, even if you're five or doing the things you want them to do, whether they're using, you know, the particular method that you've brought in or not, how do you know? And for that matter, how did they know? So you've got to make sure you have a plan for you use the word look for us. Perfect, right?
And these are our look for us when we're in classrooms. But if you don't have a plan for when you're going to be in classrooms, and how you're going to provide feedback, how you're going to collect data, all of those types of things, the plan is going to fall apart. You know, who's going to provide support? You know, how are you going to array your team so that you're getting regular check ins in the classroom?
Typically, I'll use the word walkthroughs for that, but there's so many different things you can call them. A couple of districts I work with call them learning walks. Whatever it might be, you have to have a plan. I had a leadership team of four when I was a high school principal, and we divided the building in four sections. And the idea was we were going to rotate every month. So in September, I had the fourth floor, for example.
you know and that's going to be I'm going to get into every single classroom at least once during that month. Now ideally you're in a little bit more than that but you know hey take as many as you can but you have to decide and build it into your plan. This is how frequent we're going to be in classrooms. This is the feedback that we're going to try to provide. This is what we're going to look for.
Darrin Peppard (:And this is how we're going to coach that whether that's you as the administrator or if you have an instructional coach on your staff or whatever, you've got to have all of these different pieces laid out and decided in your plan. Also, you should have here's how we're going to celebrate it that make sure that's in your plan too, because when you are celebrating things when you're reinforcing the things you want to see, that's when you start to see more and more and more of that. building that plan to me, really
comes down to all of those different pieces. And then this is something else I'll add, the primary leader on the campus, if you are the building principal, lay out these expectations from the very beginning with your team, and hold your team accountable. That is a part of your role in this process. Don't just say, know, hey, Chad, I expect you to do, you know, two walkthroughs of every classroom this month in your section and
Jeff's gonna do his and Scott's gonna do his and blah, blah, blah. And then I never check on you because oftentimes what happens, especially with the system principles, here's what I'm supposed to do, but I'm busy with discipline. I'm busy with this, I'm busy with this, I'm busy with this. Yeah, so you've gotta be really clear with that expectation and then you have to reinforce that expectation. In some cases, and you know what? You can tear your administrative team if you need to.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:was gonna say, yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:You may have a couple on your administrative team who you know what I tell them they're going to go do these walkthroughs they're going to go and they're going to crush it and they're going to give great feedback and they're going to collect wonderful data. There's one on my team who's maybe brand new I need to go with that person. I need to spend time with that person and support that person. But those things I think are so critical and those are the things that get overlooked because like I said when we kick this off administrators will be like you know holy cow it's March man I haven't been in a classroom in two months. No.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Sure.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
Darrin Peppard (:I get it, but no.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah, and that's a fantastic point because you can give the directive, but if you're never talking about it after that, it's not going to happen. And the truth is like. Those we serve will value what we continue to value ourselves. If you don't value it enough to have continued meetings, touch points, collecting the data like it like.
What we usually do from an instructional standpoint is I'll work with districts to help facilitate this and we'll create a walkthrough like Google Form so that anytime a walkthrough happens, the form gets filled out. It's super simple, easy, clean, and then it gets fed into a spreadsheet and then you can actually go what percentage of our staff are doing what we want. Like if you align the Google sheet to the observation form,
to the outcomes you wanna see or the look for is you can literally evaluate a grade level, a building, an individual, and you can filter all that data. Now you have a monthly meeting where you're reviewing that from your observations and going, how are we doing as a building? Is our data getting better or worse? And just that little bit of like, hey, we're gonna collect this and we're gonna talk about it on this date at this time, and that's a non-negotiable.
Like that alone can be enough for the work to happen. But I'm hearing a bunch of administrators listening right now going, Darren, you know, that sounds amazing, but I got a lot of stuff going on in my building. Like a kid over here was vaping in the bathroom and there was a fight in room 214 and I got to get the fundraiser email out and there's a PTO meeting later today. Like how do...
As an administrator, I love the idea, right? About the idea of like, let's make time to go in the classes. But like, where's that time coming from is my question.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah. Well, I mean, let's be honest, administrators face a lot of time bandits, right? There are so many things that can steal your time and pull you in a million different directions. You know, you've seen me, you've seen me do this in this live with with a group, you know, with, you know, hey, folks, you know, on the count of three, just shout out your, your biggest time bandits. And it's always things like, you know, discipline, or emails or meetings are the things that that administrators did not go into administration to do.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:I know.
Darrin Peppard (:Right? Those are the things that are going to suck away your time. But the truth is, you know, I know you want to be in classrooms and it's easy to say, yeah, that sounds good. But I think there's two pieces. One you already touched on, and that is if I continue to value this, if it's important to me, I'm going to find a way to make sure that that priority happens. The second thing is you just simply have to be intentional about your use of time.
And you've got to be intentional about putting your priorities on the calendar in advance, leverage your admin assistant or whatever to help you stay on task. So like for me, every single Sunday, when I was a school administrator, I built my calendar for the coming week. And I started by putting my priorities right onto the calendar.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yes.
Darrin Peppard (:If I knew I had to do 10 walkthroughs that particular week, I'm going to get them on the calendar now. If I knew that I had a big report that I had to get sent over to the district office, I'm going to block that time on my calendar. If I, you know, I was always real big on really being focused on, you know, school culture. And so I would actually put time blocks on my calendar for school culture. Even if I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, it was, I'm going to put school culture 15 minutes here.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:22 minutes here, I'm gonna, you make sure you block those things on your calendar. Because if you allow others to dictate how your time is used, it will not get used the way you want it to. yeah, and the second thing, or the third thing, I guess I would say on this too, is sometimes you just got to get up on the balcony. And I talked about this, wrote about this in Road to Awesome, the journey of a leader, I call it balcony level leadership.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:100%.
Darrin Peppard (:You've got to get up out of the fray and take a look and check in on your priorities. For me as a school leader, I had six priorities, six things that like to me, these are going to really move the needle. I would literally go stand on the balcony above our gymnasium. And in my mind's eye, I'm putting my six things down on the floor. I was a basketball coach. I mean, that's kind of where this comes from. But I needed to like literally go stand on the balcony and say, okay, I say that
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Sure.
Darrin Peppard (:you know, being the instructional leader is one of my six, which it was, how am I doing on that? Am I really putting the time in that I need to put into it? I think you have to have that reflection time to hold yourself accountable. And I mentioned your admin assistant, but man, my admin assistant, she knew my priorities. She knew exactly what had to happen. I also gave her full access of, know, my email calendar, all that kind of stuff. So she would, she would make sure.
my priorities were on the calendar. And if I got lost, would find every now and again, I would find balcony on my calendar. And it was Marilyn putting it on there like, Hey buddy, get over on the balcony. You're like not focusing right now. I need you to get refocused. So I think it's really important that you are super intentional with your time and make sure that you are setting that aside and make sure also that you're clear that
those things will come first. You know that the only things that will keep me from doing these high leverage items on my calendar are number one, the superintendent calls number two, the building is actually on fire. Not like the fires we're always putting out, but it's like literally the building is on fire. Otherwise, don't allow yourself to be interrupted. I'll tell a quick story. And this is an extreme. I wouldn't recommend this one.
but I got away with it. I did a no office day quite frequently where I would go out and either shadow a student or I would just do, just be in classrooms the entire day. And my day was blocked. And I had a parent show up insisting to see me. I three assistant principals. He could have seen one of those three, but nope, I insist. I am gonna see Mr. Peppered. And my secretary said, he's not available.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Sure.
Darrin Peppard (:And he said, I know he's in the building. She said, I didn't say he wasn't in the building. I said he's not available and I'm going to sit here and wait until he does. Okay. 2 45. I came back upstairs and there he's sitting by the way. He was angry about a grade that his daughter got. hadn't even talked to the teacher yet. He didn't need to see me. You know, I mean, so be it. But my secretary did such an amazing job. She was like, no,
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right.
Darrin Peppard (:You can call the superintendent if you want, but his priorities today are to be in classrooms. If you'd like, I'll schedule a meeting with you tomorrow. He would even come, this guy was a dentist in town, he's like, Darren would even come to your office to meet with you if you want, tomorrow, but he can't do it today. And yeah, the guy was pretty livid, but ultimately, these are my priorities. By the way, I didn't do that my first year as a building principal, I think I was about, I don't know, year three or four.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Sure, sure, you'd established yourself first, right?
Darrin Peppard (:So I was a little more bulletproof, yeah, than I was in year one. But I just think it's that important to say, look, this is what it's about.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:That's it.
So let's take that example though in a less extreme example or aspect of that. Let's say you don't want to go full force. What you could do is you just have the protocol for that gatekeeper, whoever it is to ask these questions. Have you contacted the teacher? I'm very sorry if you haven't already discussed it with the teacher. It's not appropriate for you to talk to Mr. Peppered yet because we that's the that's the chain of command in these conversations.
And the first thing he's going to ask you is, you talk to the teacher? And then as long as you stick to those guns and those guidelines of like, hey, if you haven't talked to the teacher about this grade, there's nothing I can do because I don't have all the context and I need you both to have this conversation first. But that also respects the professional autonomy of your educators and your team to go, if you have it, I'm not going to let you just skip, hop and jump over the head.
of my staff is you want to try to get something done, you know? And so I think the story is extreme, but I think the point is really valid in terms of protecting those things. And I think you're absolutely right. And the same thing goes with PD, with instructional initiatives, with culture building, with building focuses and priorities. All of those things will die immediately if they get off of, like if they get outside of your blinders.
Darrin Peppard (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Right? Because the truth is there's always going to be something else to do. literally is always something else to do, whether you're a teacher, administrator, leader, district, school, whatever. There's going to be something trying to fight for that space in your vision. So you are the only one stopping things from entering or leaving that scope. And so I love the focus on taking that responsibility on yourself and making it a focus.
Darrin Peppard (:Absolutely.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:And I'm sure you're have good weeks and bad weeks and better weeks and worse weeks at it, but as long as it's in there most of the time, you're gonna be moving things forward.
Darrin Peppard (:Right. And I think also, in order for the lasting change to genuinely stick to be independent of you as the building leader. You know, as we're recording this, the high school where I was a principal, they're wrapping up, you know, last day for students, actually, or for seniors just was yesterday. I know this because a handful of my friends have seniors and I'm seeing all their pictures on Facebook and what I'm seeing
in a lot of the photos and some of the things that they're doing are things that we created while I was there. But those systems have endured long after long after I'm gone. And that's what you want from your professional development. When if you're saying these are the things I want to see in classrooms. Those are things that should endure whether you take another position you retire you you know, go be a superintendent like I did. So
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Love that.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:That's something we should be thinking about in our plan as well. How do we build systems for this rather than it being just dependent on Darren just on Chad, or for that matter, it shouldn't be dependent on Chad as the trainer who comes in and provides the support or Darren as the trainer who comes in and provides support. You know, what are some what are some thoughts you have around that? I mean, we're we're
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Agree.
Darrin Peppard (:We're going all over the place, but we're still talking about like, do you build this plan, right? So like, what are your thoughts there?
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Of course, I think you'll agree with this statement. And if you don't just let me know. But if we do our jobs well from a strategic standpoint, eventually we won't be needed because they will have the internal capacity to accomplish their goals on their own. Right? So for me, it's about building the capacity internally to carry the water when the vendor or the trainer or the PD leaves.
And one of the things I often start these conversations with is this has to be your school's work, your district's work. It can't be road to awesome's work coming in or teach better works coming in. It might start that way, right? But it has to become something you internalize or it won't last longer than I keep coming. And so it's one of those pieces in parts where
We have to create internal capacity, leadership and strategic plans to carry the work forward, regardless of who is coming into our ecosystem, because the ecosystem has to be able to maintain those systems on their own. And to your point, it's exactly what you just saw. The systems were strong enough to survive you leaving so that they stayed there.
And oftentimes, I think it's the little things that you've already discussed. I often say, when we do the things we don't want to, when we don't have to, is where progress lives. So there are so many things that we don't have to do today, because like, I can do it tomorrow. I don't need to do it, because if I don't, no one will know. And no one will send me an email. So when we do the things we don't have to do, when we don't
Darrin Peppard (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:want to do them because they're that little bit of extra time or work or effort, that to me is when you put it on that calendar even though you don't want to do it that day, you're going to commit to doing it even though you don't have to, you don't want to. Doing that a thousand times in a year will get you to your goal because you're never going to be perfect and want to do those things all the time. But doing those things consistently is where growth lives.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I think that's, that's pretty stellar. So I think something, you know, as we kind of wind down here, I think something else that people should be thinking about, you know, as you're, you know, saying, hey, you know, maybe I want to work with with Roe Dawson, maybe I want to work with TeachBetter or whomever it might be. Again, I think getting back to what is it that you're really looking for in every classroom? What are the systems you want to develop? And then, you know, as a leadership team,
how are you going to support and reinforce and coach and analyze the work that that's being done is is super critical. So I think something that maybe we can talk about just really quick is that wrote awesome and teach better. Actually, you can work with both of us together. This, this was kind of a kind of a fun idea that that kind of came.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Absolutely, yeah.
Darrin Peppard (:didn't really come out of nowhere, but certainly a conversation you and Jeff and I have had about supporting both sides of this, right? You've talked about some amazing things, working directly with the teachers, but I know sometimes you run into the administrators need some support. And that's, and that's where I come in. And and vice versa. Go ahead.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Yes.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, we've actually put together collaborative packages so that instead of having to bring in two vendors, you could just have one single kind of contract and take care of all your needs kind of at once. And I think honestly this collaboration I'm really excited about it because I think it fills gaps on both ends of the services we tend to provide schools and districts. So even when I'm providing, you know.
amazing PD here from the teach better side of things, it can still fall apart if that leadership isn't there to drive the message. The same thing on the other side, right? If you're trying to lead leadership change and planning strategic vision and clarity, but the work isn't getting done or the training subpar. So I'm super excited because I think it's a great fit. And I think it's a way to approach any goal.
Darrin Peppard (:Right.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:from both ends of the spectrum. And I'm even like confident enough to say that I think both of us together can help make any leaders vision a reality given the right time and support, especially when we're working together.
Darrin Peppard (:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm excited to have the opportunity to work alongside you and the Teach Better team. I think, you know, some really, really cool stuff. so folks, know, shameless, shameless plug here, reach out to both of us will put in the show notes, contact information for both Teach Better and Road to Awesome. So whether you're listening to this on the Teach Better podcast platform, or you're listening to this on Leading Into Leadership, either way, you're able to get in touch with me.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:Same.
Darrin Peppard (:with Chad. Man, I appreciate this conversation, Chad. I really hope leaders took away some actionable steps, some things to really think about as they're putting this plan together going into next year so they can actually find some success.
had Ostrowski (Teach Better) (:It's been amazing. Appreciate your friend.
Darrin Peppard (:All right, right on.
All right, as I told you, this is an absolutely loaded conversation. I hope that you came away with a lot of great thoughts, a lot of great ideas. If you're feeling like, I need more, reach out to me, Darren at roadtowesome.net, or reach out to Chad, Chad at teachbetter.com. Together, we will help you make sure that you absolutely crush your plan. And if it's appropriate, Chad, myself, or both of us will help you to actually implement your plan.
Darrin Peppard (:That's what I've got for you here, folks on this very special midweek episode of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. I will see you again very soon for episode 210, which will drop this coming Sunday. Get out there, have a road to awesome week.
