[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_01:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Dr. Don Parker. Dr. Parker is a highly sought after speaker and professional development provider who specializes in supporting teachers to build trusting relationships with students and improving the culture and climate of schools. Dr. Parker's more than 25 years of experience as an administrator and teacher have provided him with the knowledge of how to best apply evidence-based methods and student interventions to improve student behavior and achievement.
[00:39]
Dr. Parker has a strong belief in creating a school climate in which the entire staff strive for excellence to meet the academic and social-emotional needs of each student. He's the author of two books, Building Bridges, Engaging Students at Risk Through the Power of Relationships, and his new book, Be the Driving Force. Leading Your School on the Road to Equity, which we're here to talk about today.
[00:58] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[01:02] SPEAKER_01:
Don, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00:
Hey, thank you, Justin. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
[01:07] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I'm excited to talk with you about your book and about what it means to be the driving force for equity. Let's start there if we could. What does it mean for a principal to be the driving force for equity?
[01:20] SPEAKER_00:
Okay. So what it means for a principal to be the driving force for equity is It just means that the principal understands that leadership, it starts at the top. And as important as it is for a leader to be the driving force, it's just as important that he filters down the expectations for his staff, the expectations for the students and the expectation for the entire school community of what his vision is and to encourage, inspire, and just lead the way in order for his school to implement equitable practices, policies, and things that we can do to better serve all our students and especially our historically marginalized students and students from historically marginalized groups.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01:
So it's a big job and it's a job in which often we doubt ourselves, we feel imposter syndrome. You start in the book by talking about how self-confidence is the key. Why is self-confidence so important and what can leaders do to develop their self-confidence as they serve as that engine for equity?
[02:26] SPEAKER_00:
Okay, so yeah, I share a story about how my mom lost her key. She asked my dad to get her a new key cut for the car. So she was trying to get the key to start the car when she got the new key from my dad. She wasn't sure if that was the correct key or not because the key wasn't easily going into the ignition and she wasn't able to turn the key to get the ignition started. And so she had to talk to my dad, have my dad come out and assure her that she had the right key. And once she was assured that she had the right key, she had more confidence, she used more force when it was necessary, she used more finagling when it was necessary, and then eventually she was able to turn that key and get that car started.
[03:07]
So the point here is that educational leaders, you have to believe that you are the key to your school's success. And just like my mom had to assure herself that she had the correct key, principals have to assure themselves that you have all the things that you need in order to be a strong leader. You have to have the confidence, you have to have the skill, you have to have the will, you have to have the technical knowledge, and you have to have the influence in order to do what it takes in order to start your school on the road to equity. So now, you know, since a lot of leaders don't have confidence or are working on their confidence, you know, now technology has changed. So I end the story with letting leaders know that now cars technology has changed so much. It's rare that we use a traditional key that we put in the ignition to start the car.
[03:58]
Now, most cars are pushed to start. So my question to school leaders is, What push do you need in order to start believing in yourself and believing that you are the key to your school's success? And so ways that school leaders can build their confidence is by continuing to study school leadership, by to continue to study evidence practice and be knowledgeable about what those best practices are and how to implement them. And to get a mentor is another great way to build your confidence and success. And then just keep a journal and think about your past successes and things that you have accomplished but then don't just stop there all right continue to get mentorship professional development in order to sharpen your tools and just learn more about cutting edge research and school leadership and continue to just grow your knowledge and then just practice those things in your school so that you can continue to lead your school to new heights
[04:57] SPEAKER_01:
Well, if we are going to be the drivers, be the driving force for equity, it makes sense to me that we would have to have a clear definition. And in chapter four of the book, you talk about creating a vision, identifying that destination, kind of painting a picture for people of what that destination looks like. Take us into that process a bit, because on one level, Everybody believes in equity, at least they say that, you know, we all say we believe in equity, but having a specific vision goes beyond just giving lip service to the idea. What does it look like to actually create that vision with stakeholders and get everybody behind it?
[05:34] SPEAKER_00:
So the reason the vision is so important is because we have to see where we're going and we have to know what we want. that destination to be that we're reaching. Because the right in the vision and things like that, those are the actions. However, we have to tie outcomes to actions. And so once we reach that vision, we should be able to look back and be like, okay, these are all the things and all the work and all the actions that we've taken in order to promote equity and enhance equity in our schools. And these are all the outcomes as a result of the actions that we've taken.
[06:08]
And so throughout the book, Be the Driving Force, just to give you a background of what I was thinking when I wrote the book, I combined my love for driving and my love for cars with my love for school leadership. And so all throughout the book, there's an analogy that's a school practice that ties back to something that has to do with a car or driving a car. So when we talk about vision, I was a PE, health, and driver's ed teacher. So I taught driver's ed. And during the driver's ed process, as a driving teacher or the driving instructor, I had to sit in the passenger side of the car while the student driver was learning how to drive. And we often had to teach students the principle of aiming high and steering and what that means is you're not just looking one or two cars down the road you have to look as far down the road as you can while you're driving a car and what that does for you it lets you see kind of imagine where you're going and that you're heading in the right direction it lets you see what hazards might be in the road things that you may have to avoid
[07:13]
And as a school leader, when you take that analogy, when you're leading your school, you have to know exactly where you're going, like a year down the line, maybe two years down the line. And your vision actually drives your practices and your actions. And so when you work with stakeholders and people in the community and your staff to come up with a school vision, everybody's getting on the same page and they trust your leadership because they want to go where you want to take them as far as what you're trying to establish for your school. And it guides your school principles, your policies and all the actions of your teachers and staff. And so when you can. Lavaughan Jenkins, lead your school when you can be aware of what roadblocks and what barriers may be in a way of student achievement or what roadblocks and barriers may be in a way of equity and things like that.
[08:06]
Lavaughan Jenkins, Now you know how you need to navigate, but if you don't know where you're going. You know, if you don't have that vision, then you're haphazardly in that school and you won't work towards that progress of promoting equity. And so when I was a school principal, that's one thing that I had to do. I had to like sit down with my staff and, you know, we had to talk about our values. And that's the way a principal creates a vision for their school, where you get all of your stakeholders, your parents, your students, community members, your staff, And we had meetings and we talked about what do we want our school to look like? How do we want to serve our students?
[08:45]
What values do we want to govern ourselves by? And then we wrote all of that down. And then we drafted our school vision statement. And once we drafted our school vision statement, what I did was I made it like a living and breathing document. The foyer of our school had a bulletin board with our school vision on it. Whenever I had a staff meeting, we would have the date of in the agenda and on the top of every agenda what the school vision statement and we reviewed it at every staff meeting and it just serves as a reminder for everyone hey this is our vision This is how and what we do, and this is where we're trying to go, and this is what we're trying to accomplish.
[09:23] SPEAKER_01:
So, Don, after we've got that vision created, communicated, put literally at the top of the agenda, as you said, we have that as our destination. How do we get there climate-wise? How do we create the kind of school where students have the experience that we want them to have? Talk to us a little bit about climate and how we create that climate.
[09:41] SPEAKER_00:
Sure. So we all want a climate where students feel respected, valued and appreciated. But at the same time, we want students to work towards high achievement. So when we talk about climate, you know, I often ask my teachers the question, if you were sending your student to school, Okay. How would you want that school to, what are some elements of that school that you would like about that school environment? Okay.
[10:08]
How would you want the teachers to treat your child? How would you want the teachers to work as far as educating your child? Things like that. And so they all kind of wrote down what they would expect from the school, what they wanted from their student. I said, okay, well, every child deserves these aspects of the kind of a school climate that we want our students to come because every student deserves to attend a school that is warm, that is caring, that has high expectations, and that's going to support the child academically and social and emotionally. So in order to do that, we have to make sure that we provide that same climate for all students.
[10:51]
So what do we need to do in order to achieve these things, to have the kind of climate that we want our students to attend school in? And so what that is, is, you know, doing things like greeting students at the door, you know, letting them know that we're happy that they're there. Giving students fun experiences with their education. Varying our teaching methods to make sure that students can grasp concepts and teaching students in a way that they can learn. And then, of course, providing that academic and social and emotional learning support for all students. And so I created a model where I worked together with my team to create a model for my school.
[11:29]
And whenever I wanted anyone to think about my school, I wanted them to think about this model. And so what I did was I ordered t-shirts from my entire staff. We worked together as a team to come up with the model for our school. And on the front of the t-shirts was the school name and the school logo. And on the back of the t-shirt was our motto, and our motto was above and beyond. Simply that.
[11:50]
And so I wanted my staff to work to create the kind of climate where every staff member goes above and beyond to meet the academic and social-emotional learning needs of our students. And that was our reminding message that we were going to do whatever we had to do to help our students to be successful. And so every Friday, you know, we can have dress down day where staff can wear jeans if they agree to wear their staff T-shirt because staff, they like wearing jeans. But we also want them to wear a T-shirt so we can constantly give that message to students, parents and community members that we're committed to going above and beyond to create that climate to help all of our students be successful.
[12:29] SPEAKER_01:
And I think, you know, paying attention to how school feels to students, how they experience going through the school day. I mean, so much comes down to how we as adults, you know, treat them, what the feel is like, what the expectations are, and certainly keeping that at the forefront. Makes a big difference. You also talk in chapter seven about policy, though, that this is not just about everybody being nice and trying and doing their best. There are some very real policy things that often need to change. As you've worked with schools as a consultant and thinking of your own experience, what are some of the policies that often leaders have to confront and say, we have this policy in place and it needs to change?
[13:10] SPEAKER_00:
Absolutely. So after spending several years as a teacher, I became a dean of students. Thank you. And when I was a dean of students, this was around the time when zero tolerance was very popular in schools. Because as you can imagine, students and staff, as you can imagine, staff, they were very frustrated with some of the unsavory behavior that was taking place in schools. And so when zero tolerance policies came about, they were made so that they would deter students from doing some of those unsavory behaviors.
[13:41]
We want to deter students from being disrespectful. We want to deter students from getting into fights. and things like that. And the zero tolerance policies was punitive discipline, where students were being suspended, students were being expelled. And a lot of schools realized that, hey, you know what? Our students, they aren't achieving to the levels of which we thought.
[14:01]
And our school climates aren't becoming healthy and thriving like we thought that they would as a result of exacting these zero tolerance policies. So it's ironic that I did a workshop yesterday on restorative practices. and how we used to have discipline policies that said if a student came to school and they were high because they smoked marijuana this is one of the problems that we really had at the school when i was a dean of students students would come to school smelling marijuana and so our discipline policy at that point was we would automatically issue them a 10-day suspension now as we have looked at discipline policies and and seen how they have hurt students then we changed the policy. So we still had a punitive element to it with students. They will be issued a 10-day suspension, but if their parents agreed to sign them up for a substance abuse awareness program, we will reduce that suspension for five days as long as the student will go through that substance abuse program, okay?
[14:59]
But here's the issue where the policy had to change even more is because is anyone asking the student, why do you feel it's necessary to get high? Like what social and emotional issues and what problems are you having in your life that you're trying to escape? How can we teach you some better coping methods? I want to know why you feel it's necessary in order to get high. What are you really trying to escape or what feeling are you trying to get that you can't get from a healthy method? And so now the policies are now let's support these students with these social and emotional problems that they're having.
[15:32]
And so we don't want to really exclude students from being out of school, but we want to make sure that we're supporting students with their social emotional learning so we can get back to teaching a whole child. And so that's how policies have to change, because if your policies are hurting students academically and socially and emotionally, because students will also feel rejected when they were being suspended. But then no restorative practices take place upon that student's return. And so now the student hasn't learned from their mistakes and they come into the school environment and yes, they've received the punishment and impunitive discipline, but they haven't learned the lesson of if they're in the same situation in the future, what should they do different? And so now restorative practices and restorative policies and procedures help students learn from their mistakes. And it doesn't make students feel like they're rejected because we welcome them back into the school community where they feel accepted and valued.
[16:25] SPEAKER_01:
I think that makes such a difference to know that if you do have a consequence, when it comes from someone who cares about you, who's welcoming you back, who is there to support you, who cares about you getting on the right track, that makes such a difference compared to just the, well, our policy is you're out of here for 10 days and you know, maybe you'll come back. Maybe you won't. We don't really care because you're not our problem for 10 days. Like just the feel of being pushed out versus the feel of being welcomed back.
[16:49] SPEAKER_00:
I think just makes such a dramatic difference. You're exactly right. And then also some schools have policies that hurt students academically. where they only have certain seats for AP or they have some prerequisites that students have to meet in order to be allowed to take AP classes and things like that. And those are barriers because what it does is it prevents access to students gain the quality of education that some other students have who may not be students from historically marginalized communities. But yet, when it comes to certain students and student groups, we're finding that they don't even have access to some of these AP courses.
[17:29]
And a lot of students even don't have access to high quality schools. So in education, there's a lot of barriers to students really receiving the quality of education that they need in order to education do what it's supposed to do, which is to be the playing field leveler for a lot of students to help them be successful, not only in school, but also in life. And so we have to look at any policy that we have that may take opportunities away from students.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01:
And as I have seen more and more examples of those types of policies, like maybe originally the idea was to motivate students, but I think we often have to look at whether that's really working, right? Like we're going to have this high bar to motivate you, or we're going to have this extremely severe consequence to motivate you to not do that thing. And those don't always work the way we intended, right? Those often function in kind of the opposite way we intended from, you know, discouragement to that feeling of rejection. Talk to us a little bit about how we can get perspective from students on how they feel about any given policy or practice. Because I feel like some of these things would be more obvious to us if we heard them directly from students and didn't wait, you know.
[18:38] SPEAKER_00:
You're 100%. 100%. And so that's what I love about restorative practices too, because what it does, it gives students a voice. And what we have to do is stop thinking that the adults have all the answers. All right. So one thing that we would do with our students is we would just have focus groups where we're going in.
[18:56]
We're talking to a group of students. Hey, you know what? Tell me how you feel about this. Tell me how you feel about that. What's your experience in class? How can we improve your educational experience?
[19:06]
And the students will openly share how they feel about their educational experience and their journey and what they feel like would motivate them. or what they feel things that the school could do to further support them, to help them to be successful. Because you're 100 percent right. When students see some of these prerequisites, things like that, they often get discouraged as opposed to being encouraged and supported. And, you know, even when we do get students from historically marginalized groups inside these AP classes, now we have to look at, OK, what can we do to support them along the way? All right.
[19:41]
So we always have to encourage students voice and see their side of the story and understand what their experience is, because that's what empathy is, is when you put yourself in the other person's shoes. And sometimes as educators, you have to create the space and opportunities to do that.
[20:00] SPEAKER_01:
Let's talk a little, if we could, about culturally responsive practices, because this is an area in which schools often find themselves not really where they need to be, right? We have students whose needs we're not meeting, and we know there are practices we could be using that would do a better job of that, but we're often not sure where to start. Take us into the idea a little bit of culturally responsive practices and talk about how school leaders can promote those.
[20:26] SPEAKER_00:
Absolutely. So culturally responsive teaching is a way of bringing students' culture and experiences into the classroom and making it part of the education. And so one analogy I use with this is, let's say if I was a DJ and I'm in a DJ booth and I'm playing all the music that I love from my era and all my favorite songs, and I'm just in a booth and I'm rocking and rolling, I'm jamming, I'm loving the music, I'm bobbing my head and I'm feeling the vibes. But then when I look out At the dance floor, I'll notice everybody just standing on the wall, all right? They're not feeling my music. They're not into it.
[21:02]
And so as a DJ, you kind of got to accommodate your audience and play the music that's going to get them up, interested, and engaged. It's the same way with teaching, Justin. As a teacher, we can't always just get comfortable in teaching the content that we want to teach and teaching in a manner in which we enjoy teaching, all right? Just like the DJ has to accommodate his crowd, the same way the teacher has to accommodate their classroom with students. And so in other words, we have to find out what our student's interested in. We have to connect the content to students' interests.
[21:37]
And that has a lot to do with their culture. What experiences have they had? And now how can we take our content and connect it with students' culture? And we're all familiar with the phrase, windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. And so what that is, is we have to get curriculum materials. And what the windows is where students can look through a window and see into other cultures.
[22:01]
Mirrors, when they're reading books and we have curriculum where students can identify with the characters. They can see themselves in the characters in these stories. And then doors where they actually have some of this. They can walk through and feel like they have some of the same experiences as the characters in the books that we're reading. what that does justin is it lets students feel significant it helps them better connect with the content and it makes it feel like hey this has meaning it makes it relevant to students and if we don't have relevancy you know in our education for students if they can't see themselves in the stories and in the content then they're not going to be able to apply it to their real lives and apply it to their futures to see how it's going to be potent for them to learn the material so when we have Culturally relevant pedagogy, what it does for our students is makes them further engage with their education and helps them retain the information better.
[22:58]
And so that's why culturally responsive teaching is so important.
[23:01] SPEAKER_01:
Love it. So mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors.
[23:05] SPEAKER_00:
Yep. And let me tell you one more thing that I added on to it. And this is the Dr. Parker add on. OK, it's called sunroofs. All right.
[23:13]
Let me tell you what sunroofs is. I'm just talking about be the driving force, lead your school on the road to equity. If you think about what a sunroof does, when you look up through the sunroof and you can see that the sky's the limit. And so what the sunroof analogy is for me is that you can be driving along and you can know students have to believe that the sky's the limit. So where teachers are encouraging students so much that they can be everything, anything that they want to be, as long as they continue to work towards it, that the sky's the limit. And it's just like being in a car, knowing that you can go anywhere that you want to go to reach the destination.
[23:49]
destination of what success is for you. And knowing that that sunroof serves as a reminder that the sky's the limit. And I believe in you as your teacher. And I want you to believe in yourself to continue to work towards your dreams and goals, because that's what also is missing in education is teachers have to understand that their mindset determines if they're going to be successful or unsuccessful, and if their students are going to be successful or unsuccessful. So what I mean by that is this. If a teacher doesn't have high self-efficacy, if they don't believe that they have what it takes in order to help their students grow socially and emotionally and also academically, then when they go into the classroom, they're just going to be going through the motions.
[24:35]
And if a teacher that just goes through the motions, they're just gonna have a classroom full of students that just go through the motions. However, when a teacher believes that the success of their students is tied directly to their actions and their beliefs, so if a teacher believes that, okay, my students can, improve their behavior. My students can reach high academic standards. All right. So their actions then are, I'm going to make sure that I plan, engage in lessons. I'm going to make sure that I'm enthusiastic when I teach my students.
[25:05]
I'm going to let my students know that I believe in them. And so now, since they believe that in their heart, their actions are going to show that. And then when the students see that, when they step into the classroom, they have these great, fun educational experiences. And now they see that the teacher believes in me. And now that causes the students to believe in themselves as well. And therefore, this teacher's mindset of having that belief in students filters down into that classroom environment where students are now also working to achieve those goals because they know that their teachers believe in them and it causes them to believe in themselves as well.
[25:37]
That's an equitable behavior that we need our teachers to have.
[25:41] SPEAKER_01:
both the importance of believing in your students, but as you said, having that self-efficacy and believing in your own ability to effectively teach your students. I think that's huge. And as I think back on people who maybe I thought did not have the best attitude towards students or have the highest expectations of students, in a lot of cases, it turned out that that was because they didn't have that self-efficacy. They didn't believe that they had the tools that they needed to be successful. So it's easy to imagine before becoming a leader that when you move into a leadership role and start pushing for the things that you believe in, that everybody will be happy and everybody will treat you the way you want to be treated and everybody will be glad for the changes that you're making. But as any leader, who has spent time in the trenches understands often this is a very hard job.
[26:25]
This is often a brutal job. And some of the changes that we often feel most passionate about will be fiercely resisted by some people. And I think a lot of leaders end up with criticism every day. Every decision is criticized. People are opposed to some of the changes they want to make. So you end the book talking about charging your own battery, keeping your battery charged through self-care.
[26:49]
How do we deal with the stress of the job, especially when it comes to pushing for the kinds of changes that we've talked about in this interview?
[26:57] SPEAKER_00:
So it is a challenging job. And, you know, I talk about in my book an experience of a school leader who was getting a lot of resistance from her staff. But in her heart, she believed that she was doing what it takes in order to move the school in the right direction. And oftentimes change is accompanied with discomfort because growth and comfort do not share the same space. All right. So as leaders, what we have to do is have the power of influence, right?
[27:27]
in order to influence the staff and let them see the vision, let them understand the integral role and part that they play and also respect other people's thoughts and things like that. But as leaders, what we have to do is make sure that we're in tune with our staff and make sure that we also let the staff know that we're going to support them and give them the tools and support that change requires in order for that change to be successful. So school leaders just have to believe in their heart that they're doing the right thing. And so every day when you go home at the end of the day, you feel comfortable looking in the mirror saying that I'm making an honest effort to do the work that needs to be done. And knowing that this is challenging, But still in your heart, knowing that it's necessary in order to do the work for the improvement of the school, the community and the student success.
[28:21]
But that also comes with the leaders having to make sure that they're healthy. All right. So your body can withstand, you know, a lot of the stress. Make sure that you're getting enough rest. Make sure that you also are, you know, having fun in life. OK, because, you know, the phrase work hard, play hard or work hard, play hard.
[28:41]
all right we have to have balance in our lives we have to have things that we do that ground us and then we have to also stay committed to what that goal is but in order to do the work justin all right think about this all right before the pandemic it was a lot more attention to how leaders dressed because i remember this and how a lot of leaders they charge themselves with going to school with a shirt and tie you know slacks and dress shoes Right. But post-pandemic, a lot of leaders realize, hey, you know, it's so relaxed, you know, student achievement isn't tied, you know, to the way I dress. So then I notice a lot of leaders being a little bit more relaxed when they were having slacks, some gym shoes and maybe a polo. All right. And so the analogy is this. When you're a school leader and you have to walk around a school, you have to do a lot of movement.
[29:28]
It's easier to walk around in a more comfortable pair of shoes than a pair of dress shoes that are uncomfortable. So you have to wear shoes that are fit for the task. And as a leader, it's the same thing. You have to wear a body and a mind that's fit for the task. And so when you're healthy, when you're in shape, All right, you're better able to do work that you need to do. All right, it's easier for you to get accomplished what it is that you need to accomplish.
[29:57]
So let's say if I wasn't in shape, when I was hit with those stressful situations, My body would respond. And then next thing you know, the physical responses to stress, you get headaches, you get increased heart rate, you feel overwhelmed with stress because the cortisol level in your body. But let's say if you're physically in shape, when you hit those stressful situations, your body is used to working hard. Your mental focus is stronger. And so those stressful situations aren't as stressful because your body is used to the toll that you put on it. So leaders have to exercise.
[30:31]
We have to stay mentally healthy and we have to have those grounding techniques to help us better combat stress because it is a stressful job. So that goes to the importance of self-care, especially if you're working to promote equity and you have a lot of challenges and barriers. You have to be fit for the task.
[30:50] SPEAKER_01:
So the book is Be the Driving Force, Leading Your School on the Road to Equity. Don, if people want to get in touch with you, talk about working together, or learn more about the work that you do with schools, where's the best place for them to go online?
[31:03] SPEAKER_00:
Okay, well, it's easy. So my website is drdonparker.com, and they can always email me at drdonparker at drdonparker.com. And on Twitter, I'm at drdonparker1. So basically, if people remember my name, they can get in touch with me because all of my social medias are connected to my name.
[31:25]
So I encourage people to reach out to me. If your listeners follow me on Twitter, I'll follow them right back. If they shoot me an email, I'll definitely email them back within 24 to 48 hours. And if they need workshops and professional development at their school, all they have to do is contact me. We set a date. And that's what I love doing.
[31:45]
Justin is having an impact in helping leaders and helping teachers. My motto is bringing out the best in teachers so they can bring out the best in their students. And that's what I'm here to do.
[31:55] SPEAKER_01:
Well, Don, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[31:56] SPEAKER_00:
It's been a pleasure. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
[31:59] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
