The Assistant Principal Podcast

Frederick
Too many discipline referrals. A low performing teacher. And an overflowing car line. What do these have in common? Well, they aren't all problems. In fact, they're actually all symptoms. And they're the kinds of things that, if you ask for advice for people, will give you some pretty generic stock answers. Put those students in ISS. Put the teacher on an action plan. Repave your parking lot. And if we're stuck in urgent mode, we might be tempted to just jump on these stock answers.
Frederick
Because acting is better than doing nothing. And because it seems like the answers will fix the issue. Unfortunately, the answers only address the symptom and in each case discipline. Poor teaching car lines. If we don't invest in identifying the problem. Our actions may be wasted. Hello colleagues, and welcome to the Assistant Principal podcast. I'm your host, Frederick Busky. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. This is a content focused episode. The content will stand on its own, but we take deeper dives into podcast topics in our micro journal, Quadrant 2, and members of our Apex community can expect to get support on implementing the ideas we're looking at and adapting them to their unique contexts.
Frederick
You can learn more about Apex and Quadrant 2 at frederickbuskey.com backslash the assistant principal. We always begin with celebrations and so today I'm celebrating being out in schools with teachers, instructional coaches, principals and of course, assistant principals. I'm always so impressed and inspired at how hard people are working. And for me to be able to support that work and help people grow and help them grow other people. I'm just blessed and so that's what I'm thankful for.
Frederick
Remember that strategic leadership has four principles. Purpose over urgency problems, not symptoms progress. Instead of action and people instead of tasks. And today, of course, we're focusing on that second principle of problems. So I recently encountered a conversation in a social media environment where a principal was asking for help and ideas about how to stop a revolving door of discipline referrals. And this post garnered lots of responses. There were over 100 comments on this post in just a few hours. And you had suggestions like provide staff with a list of teacher managed behaviors compared to office managed behaviors.
Frederick
Identify teachers who are effective at handling behaviors and then ask those teachers to do some professional development. Engage in shifting the culture of the teachers. Have grade level behavior coordinators, empower your staff. Get a group of teachers to look at the referral data and develop a plan of action. Now, there's nothing specifically wrong with any of these ideas. They're good ideas. But the people offering them are offering those suggestions without actually understanding what the problem is. Because too many referrals is a symptom, it's not a problem. Now we'll get back to the discipline issue in a few minutes, but I want to deconstruct how we actually move from jumping it, treating symptoms, and getting to identifying and then later solving problems.
Frederick
First, let's understand why do we treat symptoms when we're stuck in the urgent zone? We're stuck in a gravitational pull of urgency. Our brain responds in a certain way. There's an urgent algorithm going on in our brain. And just like there's an algorithm running in the background when you do Google searches, when we encounter a problem or a symptom of something, our brain runs into an algorithm. And usually we take we identify a pain point, we think about the history of how we've handled that before, and we think about what can we do right now, or this is kind of strange, but if we don't want to act right now, we tend to think of what's a big, complex way that we could solve this issue.
Frederick
So when we're dealing with discipline, some of the historical things that might pop up to us are pbis, which of course is one of those big things doing staff development or maybe let's just hammer the kids down, which is a smaller, more immediate action. The thing is that pain is a symptom, and the pain is not the problem. So how do we move from treating symptoms being caught in that urgent zone, to actually investing in figuring out what the problem is? The first step is really simple.
Frederick
Just stop. Just stop and ask why. When you find yourself in that situation where you you're jumping to respond, there's a problem. Air quotes brought in front of you and you're ready to dive in and you're going to fix it. You put on your fix at hat. Just stop. Just think. Wait a minute why? And you can ask that why in different ways.
Frederick
Why is this a problem? Because maybe it isn't even a problem. Or maybe it's not a problem for you? Like, why is this happening? Why is this happening now? Why is the student acting this way? Why is the teacher acting this way? Why are you acting this way? So just stop reacting. And become intentional and start asking why. That is the transition point of getting from treating symptoms. To being ready to start investing in figuring out what the problem is. Now I'm going to run you through a process for how we dig down and look for root problems.
Frederick
This process can be gone through in three different ways, so the first one is informally where I just stop and I run the steps through my head to generate some options and thoughts and figure out what I think maybe the problem is and if I'm dealing with something minor or something simple, I just want to. On that process in my head. The second way to do it is kind of a semi formal version of that where I run through those options, but I do it with someone else.
Frederick
Or maybe I've got some paper so I actually start writing some stuff down. That's going to take a little bit more time if I'm doing it than if I'm doing it alone in my head, but for issues that might be a little bit more complex, it's better to take that extra time. And then with issues that are really complex or really critical, like we're overwhelmed by discipline issues or we have major backups in our car line for those kinds of issues, I'm going to do something a little bit more formal. And in that case, I'm going to make sure that I get some stakeholders involved and that we really take the time to map out and record and spend time with each of the steps that I'm about to go over.
Frederick
So the first step in learning to identify problems is the preparation phase. In the preparation phase. Consist of a couple things. So first you want to collect and examine your data. With a thing like discipline, that's pretty easy because you should be able to go into your discipline system and look at the data and start looking for patterns to start to give you some ideas of what's going on. For something like a car line that's taking too long to unload students, you actually may need to go out and collect data. How long is it taking from a car from the moment they drive on campus to the moment they drive off campus? How much time is it taking on average kids to get out of the car and then the car to get moving again? How many cars are actually going through the line every day, right? So for some things, you may need to go out and collect data.
Frederick
The second piece of preparation, then, is to just do a simple review with yourself about the six dimensions of organizations and the idea that most problems are all about alignment. So remember, the four most important dimensions in the six dimensions model is a purpose. Structures, resources and people. And anytime that any of those pieces aren't aligned with each other, you start to get friction and that friction is going to generate symptoms. So in essence, every problem is a problem of alignment. And as you start to work through the process, which you want to be aware of is where's the friction? What's not aligned to the purpose? Is it the structures that we're operating under, which may be what's happening in a car? My line is that our people aren't aligned to the purpose or maybe the structures aren't supporting the work of the people.
Frederick
So just be aware of that, those 6 dimensions and the issue of misalignment. 3rd remember that motivation equals value divided by effort, because a lot of symptoms are generated by problems that rest within people. And if we're going to be working with people, we need to remember that when people see a big value for little effort, they are going to be highly motivated, but if they see little value and lots of effort, they're not going to be motivated at all. So park that in the back of your brain. Fourth we need to be aware that there may be more than one problem, especially when we're talking about something big like discipline, and I'll go into that in an example in a few minutes.
Frederick
But most of the really critical problems that we're going to try to uncover actually have more than one root problem, because we work in contexts that are very complicated. And that's OK, we just want to be aware of that finally. In preparation, we want to identify who the stakeholders are and as often as possible, we want to include those stakeholders. So we've done a little bit of this preparatory work.
Frederick
We've looked at the data and we've remembered the six dimensions and the idea of misalignment and m - V divided by East. We know that there might be more than one problem, and we know who the stakeholders are, and hopefully we've brought them to the table after the preparation phase. Then we moved to phase two, which is asking why and asking why has three parts to it.
Frederick
The first is just the sunburst, and you can think of this as just what we used to call brainstorming sessions. But you just make a circle and put your issue in the center of that circle and then ask why is this happening? And every idea that you have, you just put out as a little sunray coming from around that circle. So this is the sunburst where we just want to generate as many ideas as possible.
Frederick
We don't want to censor. We don't want to not write something down because it sounds goofy. Basically, we just want to get as much as we can on the table around that sun as we can. The second part of the Y phase is to interrogate each Y. So for all those different ideas that we had, we're going to work around and we're going to think more deeply about the why. And we can do that with four thoughts. So the first is to ask why again? The second is to think, well, I wonder. To wonder if.
Frederick
The third is yes, but. And the fourth is aha. So why's, of course, are just digging deeper. I wonder statements capture ideas that you have about maybe how to solve the problem. And we put those down because we don't want to jump to problem solving right away, but we don't want to lose those valuable thoughts either. Yes, but is a way to surface objections. And again, we're still in a phase in the Y phase of really trying to get generate as many ideas and as many possibilities as possible.
Frederick
So we don't want to shut things down by protesting or saying no, that can't be right, but we can capture, yes, but statements. And then finally, AHA is where we have one of those big moments that we think, oh, this is going to be really important. So we've done our sunburst, we have 10 different sun rays, and then we go through and we interrogate each of those rays and we get deeper into the Y. Then we step back and we start to look for patterns. We start to integrate what we're seeing, we look for connections, we look for themes, we look for areas of promise, and we look for loops.
Frederick
And as we look for those connections, those themes, the areas of promise and the loops, there will be patterns that arise. And usually those patterns will point us to where the root problems are. Now again, if this is a simple issue and I don't have a lot of time or it's not worth a lot of time to me invest for me to invest in, then I'm just going to ask the why and probably not do the big sunburst and interrogate and integrade. Just going to ask why, think about a few ideas and land on something that sounds reasonable but for something that's complex then I want to work through that whole process.
Frederick
Now, I'm not going to take you through this in a podcast, and as I'm recording, I'm wondering if this is even working because this is a fairly visual process. But I think it really is important to introduce you to this idea so that you can begin reflecting and being more aware when you're confronted with air quotes problems that you become more aware and stop and think, OK, this is a symptom, what's the problem? And at least start asking why. So let's go back to that discipline issue. 4 minute. Let's imagine that in a week we're having 100 for referrals. Some of you are probably in shock that they would be that low.
Frederick
Some of you may be wondering how do you have 100 referrals in a in a week. Either way, we're going to deal with 100 referrals. And so where are those referrals coming from? Let's say 10 of them are coming from a specific individual student and 15 more. Are coming from a small clique or social group of students where there's a lot of drama going on South. That's 25 % of our referrals right there, 10 from one student, 15 from a from a small clique of students. And then we've got one teacher who is rotating kids out of her classroom on a consistent basis.
Frederick
In fact, she's responsible for 25 referrals, so there's one teacher is responsible for 25 % of all the referrals forgetting. We also notice that there's a specific hallway, and during transition times, we're getting students that are getting in trouble in that hallway. That's another ten referrals. And then we've got lots of issues around the bathrooms on a specific hallway that's another 15 referrals and then and so that's 75 and then the other 25 referrals are just this kind of mix of different things.
Frederick
So a couple things jump out to us as we start to look at our data and then as we start to ask why. We're going to try to dig in why is one student. Responsible for 10 referrals. What's happened? What's actually happening with that student now? If I just react and I'm in urgent zone, I'm just going to keep punishing that student. But if they've got 10 referrals, I'm going to guess that punishment really isn't working. What's happening with that student? Why do they have these 10 referrals? And if we can figure out the why, then we can start to decrease, we can start to treat the problem, not just the symptom, and we can work to decrease that number of referrals.
Frederick
If we've got a particular group of students and there's lots of drama going on, again, I don't know that detention or in school suspension is going to teach the kids how to address their drama and how to respond and. Deal with the problems that they're having in their relationships. So that would lead us down a different road. We look at our teacher and we realize new teacher has no classroom procedures in place. And so there's lots of noise going on. Teachers getting frustrated, kids are getting frustrated. Teacher blows a gasket, kicks kids out of class. That's 25 % of our referrals. And again, we're using these processes, the sunburst, interrogate and integrate to start to get down to more what the root problems are.
Frederick
And in that teacher example, I guess we could go further, right? This is not always a simple process, but we can also ask why doesn't she have classroom management or why doesn't she have procedures in place? Does she not know what procedures are? Does she not know how to teach them? Did she teach them? But she doesn't know how to reinforce them, does she doesn't believe in a procedural? Classroom does she not have the ability to manage a classroom and teach classroom procedures? Those are all options that we would look at as we start to dig deeper into the process.
Frederick
And wherever we land as the root problem, then that's the step that we would begin on to start to turn things around. Now just looking at that one student, that click of students and that one teacher, that's 50 % of our referrals. And again, we don't have to take this to 0 referrals. We don't even have to drop it in half. But if we can get 10 % better, if we can cut 10 referrals a week out, each of those is 30 minutes, that's five hours that we just got back in our day that then we can reinvest somewhere else.
Frederick
So looking at this. I might think, hey, working with that beginning teacher. I think I can help that person develop some classroom procedures. And is it worth spending 30 minutes a day for two or three weeks to help them learn how to teach procedures? How to reinforce procedures to students? Yeah, because 30 minutes a day is 1 classroom referral. And if you're getting 25 referrals a day from this teacher or 25 referrals a week, that's almost one every single day.
Frederick
So that's where we may start. We may just spend 30 minutes a day for a week introducing two or three really key classroom procedures and help coach that teacher through that. And that's probably not going to fix everything. They're not going to be a masterful artist of classroom management in a week or even two or three weeks, but it's going to decrease the problem because what if we can get that teacher to have a little bit better classroom and she goes from 25 referrals to 15? referrals.
Frederick
That's five extra hours a week that we just bought back and now we can take that extra five hours and we can reinvest it either in the same problem, in this case, this one teacher, if we think we can make it substantially better, we reinvest in her to try to bring down those discipline rates more. Maybe we can take that five hours and invest it in our tier of supports and focus on that one student and see if we can. Get that person to get settled down if we can get them the skills and support that they need so that we're having three referrals a week instead of 10 from that student.
Frederick
Or maybe we can take that time and invest it in that group of kids with all the drama now. We could hit all three at once and you know to a certain extent you can't ignore these things. But the question is where do you focus your effort? Where do you really focus your effort on addressing that root problem and making the situation better so that you don't have to treat it over and over again? Ok, I'm not really going to go down the road of what we do once we figure out what that problem is.
Frederick
This is really just to help you see that when stopping and asking why and going through some kind of a process of problem identification, you can take something big like discipline and distill it down into one specific or multiple specific problems, but you can choose one specific problem to deal with we can take. Or hundred discipline referrals every week. And we can bring that down to I am going to work with this teacher to introduce these three classroom procedures. That step is manageable. And in that step we are treating a problem. And in treating the problem, that means we're not going to have to continue to revisit the symptom because if we build the capacity and skills of that teacher to manage her own classroom, that's not something we have to continually.
Frederick
New once she understands how to manage her classroom, how to teach and reinforce classroom procedures, our jobs done, we are not going to be seeing those kids again. And that's why it's so important to focus on figuring out what the problem is. Because then that's where we can invest our time instead of just spending time treating symptoms that are going to recur over and over again. So again, I'm not sure how this plays out on a podcast and I would love feedback from you. Did I go too deep or did you lose these threads? Is this too complicated a topic to put onto a podcast or was this great? Did this give you lots to think about and do you want more like this? I'd really appreciate it if you have a strong reaction either way.
Frederick
If you would email me at Frederick at Frederick Buskey com. The only way I can really make the show better is by talking to or hearing from people that are listeners and get their opinions and where they think we should go with this. So I would love some feedback. There are some visuals, especially around the identification of problems, the Sunburst interrogation and integration. There are some visuals that go with that and Q2 subscribers are bimonthly micro journal. Those people are going to get those visuals sent to them in an email about a week or two after this comes out.
Frederick
So they'll be support for that and I think that will probably also include a link to a video where I actually explain it and break this down. More and breakdown another example. Apex members will actually be doing this together in Group coaching sessions so we can take it live on the scene, your issues and challenges and we can walk through and break that down in a group format. So if you want to get some of those visuals, you can subscribe to Quadrant 2 by going to my website frederickbuskey.com backslash Quadrant 2 and you can find a link to sign up for that email micro journal and that's free.
Frederick
If you want to join Apex you can go to Frederick Buskey com backslash apex launch or if you'd like a special offer, you can email me and ask about joining APEX as a founding member. And again, my email buskey dot com. So when you get out of your car, send me an email about what you thought about this episode or go to my website frederickbusky.com backslash Quadrant 2 to subscribe to Quadrant 2. If you're already a Quadrant 2 subscriber, maybe thinking about, maybe think about taking that next step and joining Apex, and you can find more about that on my website frederickhusky.com backslash apex launch live. Or better yet, email me and ask about.
Frederick
Joining Apex as a founding member. Ok, that wraps up today's show. We'll be back next week with Maria Werner. Maria is a third year assistant principal and Apex member, and we're going to unpack her journey from being stuck in that black hole of urgency during her first year to being strategically reactive her second year and to now being a strategic leader this year. Maria's full of passion and she's so authentic that you're not going to want to miss this episode. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and rate this podcast again. You can ask questions, make requests, give me feedback at frederickfrederickhusky.com I would love to hear from you.
Frederick
That wraps up today's show. I'm Frederick Busky, and I hope you'll join me next time for the Assistant Principal podcast cheers.