Ruthless Equity: Disrupt the Status Quo and Ensure Learning for ALL Students

[00:01] SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Dustin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Ken Williams. Ken is an independent consultant whose company, Unfold the Soul, helps schools live what's on their posters. And we're here today to talk about his book, Starting a Movement, Building Culture from the Inside Out in Professional Learning Communities.

[00:34] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:36] SPEAKER_00:

Ken, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:38] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin. It's a real pleasure to be here, man.

[00:40] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Ken, I know you face no shortage of work on your calendar in helping schools accomplish what maybe has been in writing for a long time. Maybe as a school, we have known on paper what our mission is, but in terms of putting that into practice, many schools find that to be a pretty considerable challenge. What need did you see in the schools that you were working with that starting a movement is an answer to.

[01:04] SPEAKER_01:

In the work, I've noticed that schools have just lost their way in terms of the outcome. Way too often, schools work during pre-planning or during the summer leadership conference or during the spring days on putting together a mission statement. We wordsmith things to death. We have small subcommittees that go back to our teams and bring back more ideas. We have to make sure we add the word integrity in the mission statement and address 21st century skills along with technology. We put them up on posters all around the room.

[01:34]

We take votes. Most people are happy. Some people are not. We end up with a statement that we mount on the web page, on the newsletter, on the sign in front of the building. We take parts of it. We make T-shirts and posters and lanyards and rubber bracelets out of them.

[01:48]

And my question is always, what does that mean tomorrow in terms of improved instruction, in terms of more effective leadership? And what we found is that way too often the goal of mission statement work is to create the mission statement. That's inherently the problem. And we are putting a lot of great time and energy and answering a lot of great questions, by the way, getting to that mission statement. But we don't realize that the real work is about being on a mission. When you think about movements in history...

[02:15]

The women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the labor union movement. I mean, hell, go to Hollywood. Braveheart, William Wallace. How much time do they spend on making sure that they inserted integrity in the statement versus identifying the three to four to five or however many commitments that we are all going to be bound by and then get after what we're about? Mission should represent commitment. what we're about, our core purpose, why do we exist?

[02:44]

And in schools, we love kids is not enough. You have to decide as a school whether you're gonna be a learning for all school or learning for some school. Are we gonna invite kids to learn or are we going to expect that they learn? And each one of those choices, more than something that rolls off the tongue and sounds good, has a specific set of high leverage behaviors and commitments that go with them. And so that's the crux of it. We're out to make sure that schools are actually on a mission.

[03:15]

And that is what should be undergirded by a mission statement. But until the outcome of mission statement work becomes the mission and not the statement, we're always going to be stuck on this endless treadmill. You know, when you say the word mission statement work to an audience of educators, man, their eyes roll back in their heads because they know it's coming. this wonderful statement that tries to be everything to everyone and ends up not changing what we do on a daily basis. And so we saw a void in that and we know professional learning communities is the right work, but all too often the structures are being executed and the culture that supports a professional learning community is not being embedded as part of the fabric of the campus and while schools are engaging in the activities and efforts in a professional learning community the things we can see touch measure feel make copies of they're not getting the results they want and a lot of it is because we've not established the culture of a learning community

[04:10] SPEAKER_00:

And it sounds like there's an element of belief at the core there that does matter. But if I understand what you're saying correctly, it's not that we can simply articulate those beliefs and then hope they manifest in reality. We have to actually put some things into practice. It sounds like there's a behavioral side to the culture and the belief system that we collectively share. What are some of the starting points for that actual behavioral system? The set of things that we're agreeing that we're going to do In our school's culture to actually make that real.

[04:41] SPEAKER_01:

Again, all of this is, you know, it's framed by, you know, professional learning communities at work. You know, the architects being Rick and Becky DeFore and Dr. Bob Aker. I mean, that's the framework I worked through. You said a mouthful when you talked about the behaviors that have to go along with the beliefs way too often. And we mentioned this in the book.

[04:59]

We are great at the inspirational. For example, we believe all kids can learn high levels. That sounds great. If four or five staff members got out on the front of the steps of the school with megaphones saying that over and over again, there are people who would stop their cars and enroll their kids at your school out of district just to be a part of what you're talking about. We believe all kids can learn high levels. That's inspirational.

[05:17]

We're going to work to ensure learning for every student. That's aspirational. So we are great at the inspirational. We're great at the aspirational. But there's a third stage of visioning we talk about in our book, which is perspirational. And that's not to imply that we don't work.

[05:30]

Of course, we can't extract another pound of flesh from educators in this country. Our point with that perspirational stage is we've got to take those things that are inspirational and aspirational, things that are often that they kind of roll off our tongues and translate them into the work that results in us rolling up our sleeves. And that's where we're not clear. For example, an activity I do with staffs all over the country, and it's fail-proof, is I ask them, you take that first statement, we believe all kids can learn at high levels. And then I ask them to define, what is high levels of learning? And you get, I don't care if it's 15 educators in a room, 100 of them in a room, no two people have the exact same answer.

[06:08]

And that launches into a really often spirited and provocative debate as to one, whether there should be one definition of high levels of learning, whether we should have multiple ones, what should it mean. And so you can't be a school that believes that all kids can learn at high levels until you become crystal clear about what that means. You know, Becky DeFore talks about clarity precedes competence. One of my colleagues, Brian Butler, is, I mean, he is nuts about common language and being really clear on that. And so those are some of the things that you get cleared up on. Another one is this, all means all.

[06:42]

That sounds really good. It makes for great T-shirts. I mean, you can get pumped up about that. But then my question is, what does that mean? What does it look like? And then when you decide to become a learning for all culture, what do learning for all cultures do?

[06:55]

We've got to do more than create T-shirts and get people pumped up and try to guilt teachers in the meeting. We've got to set them up in ways that make that kind of work not only realistic, but it's supported with resources. And the path is clearly defined. And so with this kind of work, the collaborative culture is then redefined. It really is. And I can identify five specific commitments that are required in schools that seek to be a learning for all culture.

[07:25]

What does learning for all mean? Does it mean every student learns every standard in the curriculum? Does it mean that they learn certain skills? Aspects of the curriculum, all those things have to be clarified so that we can move from, like I said, statements and phrases that roll off our tongue to ones that have us roll up our sleeves. And so a small example, just one quick example, that's what you asked for and I went on for 10 minutes about something else, is the fact that Learning for all doesn't mean every student is going to master every standard in the curriculum. That would be foolhardy to think that, and it would throw this whole initiative into one that sounds like it's Pollyanna.

[08:04]

Schools don't improve because every student learns the entire curriculum. Schools improve because students master the most essential targets in every curricular area, the most essential. So one of the things that I do in emphasizing this work is I try to breathe life back into the word essential. That when I say essential, I mean essential. I mean back to the wall. No kid can walk out of here without this knowledge.

[08:27]

If it's algebra, I can get five algebra teachers together, access their knowledge, skills, experience, give them access to a curriculum, and ask them to identify what algebra students must know, must master, and be able to do before moving on to the next math. These essentials cannot be limited to preparing for a standardized test. These essentials have to prepare kids for the next grade level, the next course, the standardized test if it's part of the equation, and success beyond the K-12 system. And so teams rallying around essentials and then teaching them like they're essential is one major, major step in the direction of becoming a learning for all school and actually living out our school's mission.

[09:13] SPEAKER_00:

Right. So for any set of beliefs like that, like if we believe all students can learn and all students can can master the essential knowledge and skills, there is a belief that's at the core. But I'm guessing there's kind of a typical pattern that plays out. So let's say a school team or a school leader, some core group decides, all right, we're going to do this. We're going to become a professional learning community school. We're going to decide this.

[09:34]

to do whatever it takes to help all students master essential knowledge and skills. We're going to have PLC meetings. We're going to decide what we're going to do when students aren't learning the four PLC questions. And they have all these resources. They have all this research that's been done. They have all these books to guide them.

[09:49]

And yet still they call you. And my question for you is, What do they say when they call you and they say, hey, Ken, you know, we did all the stuff that we thought we were supposed to do. We made all the posters. And yet it still feels like we're running in 10 different directions. You know, we have PLC meetings. We're meeting every week.

[10:05]

We're spending a lot of time on this. What do people come to you with in terms of the problem that they recognize?

[10:10] SPEAKER_01:

Well, almost exactly what you just said. And oftentimes they don't know what the problem is. I think that's why they call me in because they don't know. They follow all of the structures like you just mentioned. We've got meetings in place. Teachers have common planning time.

[10:21]

They're creating common formative assessments. We are masking for agendas after every meeting, and yet we're not getting the results they want. Often they say this as well. We've got teams that are all over the place in the building. We've got some teams that have taken off with it, other teams that have stalled, and other teams that need triage. And what that amounts to is that most schools and most districts have what we call pockets of excellence.

[10:43]

You've got some going on here, some going on there. But a school-wide change cannot happen with pockets of excellence. It's got to be fidelity. There's not one practice or commitment in the professional learning community's framework that has not been done by good teachers since the time of public schooling. The challenge is to make it across the entire school with fidelity. That's what we're looking for so that we can get away from doing parent requests every spring so i can make sure that i get mr bader uh for my son's fifth grade teacher so one of the things that we look at when i go into schools and try to help them understand you know what they're missing is to one of course validate the great work they're doing but i can tell you right away if i ask them this question if what your school stands for can be summed up in one declaration what would that declaration be And when I've got a staff in the room, they come up with some great declarations, but they are rarely, if ever, the same.

[11:39]

Every once in a while, I'll have a school that's got a slogan that everybody knows, you know, success for every student. And they can give me that. But then I ask them what that looks like in practice. And so...

[11:50]

What it requires typically for a school or district that you described that's got all the pieces in place is to really get to the why of the work. That's really what it's about. It's the why of the work. You know, why do you meet as teachers? And nine times out of ten, if I can get them to feel safe in the room, they will tell me because the principal said so or because we're doing this initiative. I think the crux of that is we give lip service in schools.

[12:17]

We give lip service to teams. We give lip service to the idea of teaming. We call them teams. We put them on a little committee list and put their names on, you know, Amy, Justin, Ken. You're not a third grade team and you're going to meet every Wednesday. And I believe that, you know, folks are up to their meetings.

[12:33]

And for the most part, we are all good team players and we're compliant and we go. But here's a question I ask of teams. If the next five of your team meetings were canceled for some reason, would you still get your work done? And nine times out of 10, they answer yes. And then I tell them, then you're probably not a team. We give lip service to teams.

[12:52]

So part of the tweaks that I make for schools and districts like that is I help teams establish true interdependence. Because that's really why people work together. I really try to take our work, I try to take this work and make it relatable in terms of how we operate as humans. I'm not into guilting people into working harder for kids, or if you don't do this, you don't love children. I get down to human nature. And human nature says this.

[13:20]

If you, Justin, are on our team and you're kind of slacking off, that may annoy me. And maybe I'll decide one week to confront you about it. But ultimately... if I'm still gonna be able to get my work done and hand it in, I don't know that I'm gonna engage in the potentially awkward process of, holding a peer accountable.

[13:42]

It's not until we are bound interdependently by a goal. And in schools, for the most part, we're not. We talk smart goals, but we're really not bound. Teachers identifying essential learning targets. And I mean essential. I'm talking about the ones no kid can walk out without because that's what essential means.

[13:59]

Essential is even a ratchet up from important. It's more important than important to be redundant. When we decide on those targets that are essential, then our commitment as a team of three teachers is to ensure that 100% of our kids master, let's say the handful of targets amounts to five, these five targets by the end of our quarter in nine weeks. That's our interdependent sense of urgency, short-term smart goal that the three of us are gonna rally around every single kid mastering those targets by the end of nine weeks. And when we meet on a week-to-week basis, that's where we're hyper-focused on monitoring kids' journey to mastery. I know ultimately you've got your class and I've got my class and she's got her class, but to be interdependent, this is really what going from my kids to our kids really looks like in practice.

[14:44]

You can talk it all day, but until you've got a goal that brings you together and that cannot be accomplished by any one person, you don't have true interdependence. And that's where everything starts. Outside of being clear that we're going to be a learning for all school, you then have to create the systems within teams that compel them to meet. If we got nine weeks to make sure all 75 of our kids master these five goals, we got to meet. We're going to be compelled to meet. People are not going to need to snoop revise us to make sure that we're at the meeting on Tuesdays because we are going to meet.

[15:16]

We're compelled to. And if I slack off and miss a couple of weeks and your goal and Amy's goal is affected, how long before someone says something to me? Mutual accountability is born of interdependence, not PD. We don't need ropes courses. We need goals that bind us, that really bind us. And in schools, for the most part, we taught that.

[15:36]

We fill out the paperwork. But we really don't have many teams that are bound by true interdependent goals.

[15:44] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And really, we've structured... you know, much of our work in schools to create discrete units, maybe so that we can measure the test scores of one teacher so that we can cut our losses if somebody is not pulling their weight and, you know, the rest of the team can get their work done. As you said, you know, I think that's such a different way of looking at it to say, okay, it's not that I have to get all of my students to our targets and you have to get all of your students to our targets, but it is a team goal that we work on interdependently.

[16:09]

And I think of the peer accountability the the mutual accountability angle there and how as leaders you know if you're the principal of the school you can put in supervisor accountability you can say you are required to turn in logs so that i know you met so that i know everybody showed up at least and you're required to turn in data so i know how your students are doing and i know that you looked at how your students are doing and we can at least control the you know whether that discussion about you know what's our why why are we doing this um you know what do we really believe in terms of our mission statement we can have those discussions make sure that happens and we can deal with the accountability and what are your thoughts on managing the part that maybe feels like it's in you know in between someone's years you know if we have two-thirds of a great team and we have the accountability and we know we've done the vision work we know we've done you know the best we can to get people

[17:03]

on a collective mission but it looks like we have a team member who just doesn't want to be there just doesn't want to commit and yet they're doing the things that we ask them to do so we can't go in and say well you didn't turn in your log you didn't show up for your meeting you didn't bring your data the accountability is there but we want it to be more than accountability and we want it to be more than a mission statement that's on paper what does that look like

[17:25] SPEAKER_01:

I'll say first that if it's an issue of competence, then that's a leadership issue. And way too often we pass the trash and we try to hide inadequacies that we should be dealing with as leaders. If as a school leader, we're asking teammates to literally carry someone who is not equipped to do the work, then that's a leadership issue. I mean, nothing in this book or that book is going to be able to affect that issue. Now, if we're talking about, if we assume that our teammate is competent, and that they were either a part of the process where we decided that we're learning for all culture, or they were informed of that process during the interview, then there are a couple of things to look at. One, I'm going to make sure that those goals are interdependent.

[18:10]

I'm going to make sure that we've got a culture that recognizes the work of teams as opposed to individual teachers. That was my point about you and I running into the principal with our stuff being done and it being okay. We talk team, but we still keep falling back to recognizing individual teachers. These are the last vestiges of teacher isolation. What we want, assuming that the teammate is competent, we want the first level of accountability to happen at the team level. We've been saying that for 100 years.

[18:37]

But for 99 of those years, we've not really set teams up to be truly interdependent. Again, if your livelihood, if how your team is regarded, if... You've got a goal that's not going to be met literally because someone is not pulling their weight. You're not going to have to have ropes courses and falling back to each other's arms and doing a bunch of iMessages to help folks confront one another.

[19:04]

That's going to happen. You use the iMessages and ropes courses to maybe smooth those edges because, Justin, maybe you went off on me in a way that maybe it may have been over the top, but why you went off was legitimate, right? But you're going to go up, but you're going to confront me because literally you are being affected. Skin in the game is critical. We've got to set teams up to where there is skin in the game. Otherwise, we are...

[19:28]

We are hoping against hope that people summon the courage to confront one another, or for folks who enjoy that confrontation, they will relish it. They will relish the opportunity. So that's where we want the first level of team accountability to take place. I've got to know that that team's got real interdependent goals, and they've made a commitment to the work. Now, secondly, in terms of doing the work, and Anthony Muhammad and I go back and forth about this consistently, Because both of us, our work specializes in kind of holding a mirror in front of schools and challenging them to live their promise. And so here's what we debate about.

[20:03]

Beliefs follow behaviors. I know that both of us understand and know that belief is way too visceral. We don't have enough lifetimes to get in there and change people's attitudes. But what we can legislate are behaviors. So here's an example. Schools all over, we have no shortage of data.

[20:21]

I'm not sure who came up with this acronym, the DRIP syndrome, data rich, information poor. But schools have no shortage of data. The problem is we look at data everywhere I go. Can we look at data yesterday? Or we're looking at data. You can look at data all day long.

[20:34]

What I advocate for is something that... Tom Maney and Susan Sparks Maney really turned me on to. And that's the power of protocols. So the next book I'm writing that I'm working on as we speak is really taking the next step to hold that mirror up and say, if we claim to be a learning for all culture, this is what's required.

[20:53]

Do you want that? Do you really want it? Because that's what's required. Listen. In any industry outside of education, if you and I are in a company and we're charged with creating remote controls for devices, or there are four of us, two of us make buttons, two of us make housing, And we're finding that one of the housing guys is making housing that fits the buttons perfectly. And the other one's housing is off by a couple of millimeters, which makes a huge difference.

[21:19]

How could we not be expected to ask, what practices are you implementing in your lab to come up with the housing that is right for this product? Resistance to that kind of protocol. Listen, I understand that. are, it's a huge paradigm shift in our culture. When I was a teacher, if kids crash and burn on an assessment, and God forbid I taught it effectively the year before, then my first natural conclusion was, well, that's that class. I'll do my best to reteach it, but that's that class.

[21:48]

And now we're saying the answers are in the room, no matter what the kids' backgrounds are, whether they're poor white kids, poor black kids, poor brown kids, kids that don't come to school speaking a king's English, kids with IEPs, AEPs, LOPs, 704s, 693s, whatever you want to call them, kids who are unmotivated. We don't chalk it up to... whether or not the parents make enough money at home or whether they read with them every night. We say, what can we do?

[22:12]

Because that's the one thing we control. And until schools and teams are ready to face that, you can't call yourself learning for all culture. And so for a teammate who doesn't seem to be doing the work, I put those protocols in place because you can't run from those. If you and I have interdependent goals, like we are literally bound, like you can't succeed unless I succeed and I can't succeed unless you succeed. And I mean that literally, literally. then if your kids really crush it on Section 1 and mine didn't, you are compelled, you are more compelled to share what you're doing well.

[22:44]

We now have these issues of an effective teammate hoarding best practices. Conversely, when my kids aren't doing well on Section 1, I am compelled to get help because we are bound. So I can't control that teammate's attitude, but I can legislate behaviors. And I'm going to make sure they are, I'm going to engage them in a few behaviors that are going to yield results. Now, short of the person literally saying, I'm not doing this, it's hard to avoid answering the questions in that seven-step protocol I use with teams to really analyze student data.

[23:19] SPEAKER_00:

I took that for granted as a teacher in Seattle. We had, I think, some grants to teach protocols and to do some work in protocols. And I remember when we first started, everybody thinks they're too smart for a protocol, right? Like, oh, I know how to look at data. I know how to talk to my colleagues. I know how to reflect on my practice.

[23:34]

But yeah, we don't need that. But the reality is the natural way that we interact, even with colleagues that we work very well with, doesn't lend itself to some of those questions that we force ourselves to ask in that protocol. I mean, we really zoom in when we have no choice but to follow the protocol. So that's, I mean, I think that is just a huge takeaway for every school that does not religiously use protocols when they're called for. I think that's a very powerful takeaway. So Ken, as we consider how we can put some of these protocols in place, how we can deal with individual team members who aren't pulling their weight, or how we can take on the challenge of redesigning the work so that it truly does require a team effort.

[24:17]

It truly is interdependent work. What are some of the foundational core beliefs that you bring to that, that you think are at the heart of the next set of challenges we face in really making learning for all a reality?

[24:30] SPEAKER_01:

I know that some of the strongest paradigms that are challenged with the work I'm talking about are almost obsessive need to segment and sort kids, to sort, select, and rank kids. And learning for all flies in the face of that. And so one of the things I'm really working on hammering in the next book is more than the practices, there are cultural norms and mindsets and practices that still exist in schools that we have to face if we're really talking about learning for all. In terms of moving this work forward, aside from the work that adults are going to do to enhance and deepen the work of teams and then everyone else who supports those teams,

[25:21]

It's also going to bring to the surface some really longstanding paradigms that need to be shifted. Again, I hope schools live their posters. So learning for all, I can find that on a poster in every school in America in some form or another. And what I seek to do is to say, if you really want to live that, this is what it looks like. And so some of the things that I'll mention in the book that I definitely mentioned when I worked with schools and districts and that I'm going to hammer home in my next book is that it's going to challenge some of your grading practices. If we have a learning for all culture, and again, learning for all doesn't mean every student learns the entire curriculum.

[25:56]

That means every student at the very least masters what is most critical in every curricular area. what is most essential. That's learning for all. That is going to challenge some of the strongest paradigms that exist in our schools today, and that is the need to rank, sort, and select kids. We have so many things in place, so many practices, so many protocols that support, that look for opportunities to rank, sort, and select kids. Typically, In its most base form, high, medium, and low.

[26:35]

That's what you hear in the elementary schools. And then when you get in the secondary, it's algebra, then remedial algebra, then remedial modified remedial algebra, and then modified twice over, sometimes bacon broiled remedial algebra. We've got 10 different segments of underperforming tracks below the standard and a couple above. And we seek to, I'm telling you, here's an example. Classroom teacher, engaged in instruction for a couple of weeks, gives an assessment that kind of just does a quick dipstick, touches base about how kids are doing with that content. All 25 kids pass the assessment.

[27:15]

I always ask the question, what's your reaction as a teacher? And, you know, a couple will try to tell me the answer that they think I want to hear. It's like, ooh, I'm pumped up. And I was like, okay, what's the real answer? And the real answer is always this. It must have been too easy.

[27:28]

That assessment, that assessment, see, here's, here's, The red flag for us not being rigorous is that all the kids succeeded. What is wrong with that picture? That's our red flag, that we're not being rigorous enough. And that's because we have a hardwired, subconscious, expected level of failure based on our love affair with the bell-shaped curve. And we will just not let it go, even though that bell-shaped curve has been disproven, misrepresented. It wasn't even used in the way it was intended.

[28:03]

And yet we cling to it. And every time we give an assessment, we expect to have success. The high group, the medium group, and the low group. And then here I come talking about learning for all. Every student mastering the essentials. That's what's going to prepare kids for the 21st century.

[28:19]

If a kid from the hood on one side of town takes a summer job at Starbucks as a barista, and a kid from the suburbs from another side of town takes a job at Starbucks as a barista, and I go in to order my caramel macchiato from one place on one day and the second place on the second day, shouldn't they taste the same? Yes, sir. There are five steps to making a caramel macchiato. Do we adjust the steps? Do we make it maybe three steps for the kid from the hood or the kid with the IEP? Of course not.

[28:48]

Those five steps are essential. And anybody seeking to be a barista at Starbucks to make a caramel macchiato must know those five steps. That's the minimum. Now, some are going to know many more steps. Some are going to go on and love coffee to death. Some are going to hang on by the tips of their fingernails with those five steps.

[29:07]

But our new minimum has got to be the essentials. It's got to be the bar. It's got to be the essentials. And this kind of work is going to fly in the face of a lot of things we do in schools that still seek to rank, sort, and select kids. And I'm not going to go any further because I can go on for three days. But that's at the heart of it.

[29:27]

And that's when the work gets provocative, challenging, and that's the real work of culture, when it challenges your assumptions and beliefs. And so I'm going to put a cherry on top to kind of Kind of double back to that question you asked before about the teammate within the team structure. We in schools, we don't make enough time to talk about culture all year long. It's another thrust of the book was to make this important work of mission and culture ever present, not just for the two or three days we set aside for leadership teamwork. It's to make it ever present. So You know, my first question to that teammate would be, you know, you were there when we made these commitments or, you know, you were aware of those commitments when we interviewed you.

[30:14]

And you understand how all those commitments are completely aligned with the learning for all culture. So what is it that I'm not understanding? You know, everything's got to be based on shared purpose. shared mission, and that becomes the lens for everything we do. Every praiseworthy comment, every constructive piece of feedback, every confrontation should be framed in the context of who we said we are and what we seek to become.

[30:38] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Starting a Movement, Building Culture from the Inside Out in Professional Learning Communities. Ken, if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to find you online?

[30:47] SPEAKER_01:

My website is unfoldthesoul.com. Email ken at unfoldthesoul.com. You can hit me up on Twitter. My handle is at Unfold the Soul.

[30:58]

On Facebook, I have an Unfold the Soul page. If folks are interested in a signed copy of the book, they can shoot me an email or order through the website. And, of course, the same goes for anyone interested in doing some work, having me do some work with them at their school or district. Just contact me there. Or at 678-207- 9631, you can give me a call, send me a text. And so I try to stay really accessible.

[31:28] SPEAKER_02:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[31:32] SPEAKER_00:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Ken Williams on starting a movement? One big takeaway for me is the idea that structure is not enough, that a mission statement is not enough, that culture, if we want to change our school's culture and really create a different reality, a different set of opportunities for our students, We have to look at it at every level. There are elements in terms of accountability at the whole school level, accountability at the individual level, redesigning the work at the team level, and really looking at our collective beliefs. Are we doing work together that contributes to a mission that we all have committed to and believe in? So it's not a simple technical or structural fix. And one thing I really appreciate about the PLC work is the range of resources that are out there, both for the cultural sides and the technical sides of that challenge.

[32:26]

So I want to encourage you to check out Ken's work, including starting a movement, building a culture from the inside out in professional learning communities, as well as the rest of the support that you can find for building professional learning communities in your school. And I want to recommend a resource called All Things PLC. So we'll put a link in the show notes, but you can just Google All Things PLC to connect with a community of schools and school leaders that are building professional learning communities in their schools.

[32:53] Announcer:

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