The Snowball Effect: How I Visited Classrooms 1,173 Times in One School Year

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

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, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Sam Ladeau. Sam is a junior high administrator in the Chicago metro area. and one of the most successful ever participants in the 500 Classroom Challenge that we've been running for quite a while now. And we're here today to talk about Sam's practice of getting into classrooms and the impact that that's had on his leadership practice and his school.

[00:42] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:45] SPEAKER_01:

So Sam, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:47] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, thank you for having me. I love the work that you do, Justin. I really appreciate the support and the guidance that you provide.

[00:52] SPEAKER_01:

Well, thanks. It's really been an inspiration to see you taking action and to see you sharing that success with other people on Twitter and through your blog. You know, we challenge people to get into classrooms three times a day at the Principal Center, and we've had this 500 Classrooms Challenge going on for a while. I have to ask, for the most recent school year, how many times did you get into classrooms?

[01:12] SPEAKER_02:

1,173.

[01:14] SPEAKER_01:

1,173 classroom visits in one year.

[01:19] SPEAKER_02:

And that does not include formal evaluation visits. That's strictly just pop-ins to see what's happening.

[01:25] SPEAKER_01:

On a day-to-day basis, how many classrooms would you say you visited on the average day? And did you have certain days where you tried to visit all the classrooms and then certain days where you visited less? Or how did you kind of manage that in your schedule?

[01:37] SPEAKER_02:

Well, we've got about 50 classrooms or so. So I started with your challenge and guidance of getting in three a day. There are days that you don't get in, but once it got rolling and it really became routine, three became five, five became eight, eight became 12, 12 became 15. I would say by the end of the year, on average, I was probably in 10 to 15 classrooms a day routinely. And then there were days where things were rocking and I was hitting maybe 20 to 25 classrooms in a day.

[02:07] SPEAKER_01:

Wow. And this is at the junior high level, correct? So you have kind of a period bell schedule. Correct. When did you find that you were typically visiting classrooms? Like, did you start right at the beginning of a period or did you have kind of a rhythm that you got into classrooms?

[02:19]

Did you block off time like in a large block? What worked for you?

[02:23] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I started by blocking off just one period a day to try and hit three classrooms and I kept a data sheet so I could track where I was going, what periods, what time. So I was trying to shy away from doubling up and seeing the same group of kids with the same teacher.

[02:40] SPEAKER_01:

And let's talk a little bit about what you did when you got into the classroom. So obviously, you know, you're not staying for 20, 30 minutes if you're visiting, you know, 10 or 20 classrooms a day. So what did that practice look like once you got into the classroom?

[02:53] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I started with my goal of being maybe two to four minutes in the classroom. So I try and sneak in. because I want to respect and honor the hard work that teachers put into getting kids' attention and having them on task. So I sneak in, and then I'll just drop in a seat, an open seat somewhere, or maybe wander to the back. I try and stay out of the way. I don't want to be a focus in any way or distracting.

[03:16]

And then I'll just check out what's going on. And some teachers are comfortable with that. Others encourage your participation in whatever's going on or ask for a lending hand, and I'm open to that. So I just kind of go with the flow once I get in there. The main part of the goal that I had was to not exit the room until I shot the teacher an email saying, I noticed this. I thought this was pretty cool.

[03:42]

Tell me more about that. How did you get the kids to this point? Very supportive emails. Nothing was evaluative in nature in terms of intimidating, but me just wondering and showing an interest in wanting to have a deeper understanding of what's going on in our classrooms every day.

[04:00] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I think that learning posture of just genuinely wanting to understand what's taking place and, you know, not to grill the teacher, but to kind of share in their rationale and have that perspective that they have. So you would actually send an email while you're sitting in the back of the classroom before you leave?

[04:15] SPEAKER_02:

Yep. So I'd hang out for two, three, maybe four minutes, and I would not leave the classroom until I shot that teacher an email. Hey, I noticed this. That was pretty awesome. I can tell that there was some hard work that went into that. How did you know, that hard work look.

[04:28]

Or I would love to see how this wraps up. Can you shoot me an email? And, you know, I want to come back in two or three days when you see this wrapping up so I can kind of see it beginning to end.

[04:38] SPEAKER_01:

And what did teachers send you in response? Like, do teachers almost always reply or do they sometimes reply? Are they expected to?

[04:44] SPEAKER_02:

No, there's no expectation. So teachers would reply if it was just a comment like, wow, that was really awesome. Wow, I've never seen that before. Wow, you told me you were going to do that. And I was so excited to see you moving forward and doing that right away. So just be a thanks or thanks for coming in.

[05:00]

You're welcome anytime. And if I asked a little bit deeper question or when is this wrapping up, I would love to see when you get to this point that you mentioned today, then they would send me a date or time to come back. So very quick one, two line responses. Yep, nothing too deep.

[05:15] SPEAKER_01:

I think sometimes we make this too hard on ourselves, right? We think we have to have this big, huge suggestion for improvement or else our time has been a waste, right? We think we have to kind of meet this minimum standard of feedback. But it sounds like you really just emphasized paying attention, noticing something that the teacher was doing, and then saying something to acknowledge that and possibly spark a conversation.

[05:37] SPEAKER_02:

Yep, right on. There were no checklists. I just wanted the teachers to know that I cared about what's going on and wanted to be a little bit more a part of what was going on. especially because a lot of the decisions administrators make, sometimes they're made with not quite all of the knowledge or familiarity with what's really going on in the trenches. So the more I can grasp and kind of have my finger on the pulse of what's going on, I think the more effective I can be in helping that administrative decision making.

[06:05] SPEAKER_01:

And what would you say are some of the types of decisions that you've made that have been better as a result of those classroom visits?

[06:12] SPEAKER_02:

I think being that buffer or liaison between decisions that are being made at the district level and then we're asked to pass on to our staff. So I think seeing the space in the classroom when you've got 36 bodies in a classroom, what you're being asked to do looks a lot different than if you have 19 bodies in the classroom. When kids are in and out due to other services, also seeing the time that teachers have and the behaviors and resources that are already in there. So when decisions can be made that take into account those things, I think really help the teachers feel more comfortable and alleviate a little bit of the stress and anxiety because we all feel like we're being pulled in so many different directions, particularly before we're allowed to kind of finish off one path or one direction when we're tugged another way.

[07:06]

It's helpful when you've got a liaison or buffer to kind of provide some perspective as those expectations are coming down.

[07:13] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you can kind of run interference whenever there's a mandate or some sort of initiative that affects teachers. You can kind of get out ahead of that and say, well, here's what I'm seeing in the classroom. Here's, you know, what I anticipate when this reaches the classroom.

[07:25] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a big one, being able to anticipate teacher anxiety or questions before we then pass that on to the teachers, the expectation or initiative.

[07:35] SPEAKER_01:

Now, a lot of people will say, you know, getting into a thousand classrooms sounds great, but I have all this other stuff to do. What does the rest of your job look like as far as how do you get out of the office? How do you manage to step away from everything that's going on? Because, you know, some people would even say, hey, if I'm emailing 20 teachers a day, then I'm probably getting 20 responses back. And that alone is going to make my job more difficult. So what do you do to manage the discipline, the parents who want to talk to you, the email that comes in, and just all of the other work that you have to deal with as an administrator?

[08:08] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great question. So what I found was the first step was blocking it off on my calendar. Well, I'll speak for myself in the past. Getting in the classrooms was kind of the ideal thing that I would do if I had time. And what I think many of us find out is we never have time. We never have time.

[08:27]

However, I realized that I have or make time for everything that's cemented in my calendar, so I don't ever miss a committee meeting. I don't ever miss a parent meeting. I don't ever miss, you know, meeting with a teacher about this or that. So I figured if I could take the classroom visits and cement that in my calendar, I wouldn't miss that either. And what I think maybe we all know is things snowball. So if I'm in the office and not a presence out in the schools to maybe proactively or preempt any type of behaviors that would need office support.

[09:07]

If I'm in the office, then those behaviors end up getting sent to me in the office, which keeps me in the office more. The more I'm in the office, the less I'm out being a presence and maybe preempting some things or positively modeling our expectations. And then it snowballs. The more I'm in the office, the more they get sent, the more I get stuck, the more they get sent, the more I get stuck. So by starting with the three, getting out there, well, that kind of, if you start right away at the beginning of the year, it's real. At least for me, I found that that three could become five, six, eight, ten real quickly at the beginning of the year.

[09:40]

Things seem to be lighter all around at the beginning of the year. Now, the more I'm out preempting behaviors and modeling expected behaviors and kids and teachers know that at any time you can pop in or be coming down the hallway, that has a very positive influence. So now there are less things being sent to me in the office, which is more time I can be out and about. And the more time I'm out and about, the less it's getting sent, the more time I'm out and about. So that's how that goal of three quickly became an average of probably 12 to 15 in just a few months. And I can say that when I started, like everybody else, ideally, I would love to be in classrooms all day, every day.

[10:20]

I thought with your challenge, if I set a goal of 500 for the year, which I thought was absolutely impossible. I thought if I set that goal of 500, even if I fell short at 200 or even 100, I was going to be pretty happy because that was 200 or 100 more visits than I would have made otherwise. But like I said, once you get out there, it's just cyclical. Being out there allows you to be out there even more.

[10:46] SPEAKER_01:

Wow. So it's kind of a reverse Sisyphus. Instead of the ball rolling down the hill, you really build that snowball's momentum uphill. In practical terms, let's say a kid gets sent to the office and it's your responsibility to talk with that student and figure out what to do during that time when you're scheduled to be in classrooms, that time that you've blocked off. What did you set up or what procedures did you put in place to handle situations like that, that without that pre-planning, would have pulled you back to the office. You know, they're going to call you on the radio and say, Mr. Ladeau, please come to the office.

[11:19]

You know, we need you for such and such. How did you get ahead of that issue, the potential for interruptions?

[11:23] SPEAKER_02:

Well, there are always going to be interruptions, so you need to be flexible. And I think when if a student or teacher needs you, then they learn to respect that time just like they would respect a meeting with a superintendent. And then it really helps others kind of filter what their emergencies are and what can wait or what they can take care of. So if there was an emergency, the office knew that they could call me. But like I said before, with preempting things, if there are students that I want to really have an eye on from the year before or past trends or relationship, I'm constantly seeing them in the hallways. I'm seeing them in the classrooms.

[12:00]

I'm appreciating their work. I'm recognizing their efforts before they ever get to me in the office, which gets to your snowball comment.

[12:09] SPEAKER_01:

So the way you had it set up, the office could still call you. They knew how to reach you and you weren't unreachable, but they would really only do that if there was a true emergency.

[12:18] SPEAKER_02:

Correct. And then teachers and kids get to know while he's out and about a lot. And if I really need him, I know I can catch him. If I just sit tight in the classroom, he'll probably pop in in a few minutes. So it's not really the office that they need. It should be me that they need.

[12:35]

So if I'm out there, we'll eventually get to them. They don't need to come to me. And again, if there's an emergency, we handle that. But you will find, I think, if you can really commit to this, that you'll see the more you are out there, the more you are able to be out there.

[12:49] SPEAKER_01:

So what's been the reaction from some of your colleagues, perhaps in the district or other people who follow you on Twitter, who've seen how much you're getting into classrooms and the impact that that's having?

[12:58] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, people in the district and outside the district will reach out to me on Twitter, other social media, give me a call and commend me for the efforts that I'm putting forth and then inquire a bit as to how I have found a way to make it work for me in my situation so that they can try and apply it to their situation, which is why I thanked you for your hard work and guidance and challenges because what you've been able to pass on through me or to me with that inspiration is having residual effects with other educators. So thank you and keep doing the work you're doing, Justin.

[13:33] SPEAKER_01:

Well, thanks very much, Sam. And likewise, keep up the tremendous work in getting into classrooms, building those relationships with students and teachers and getting into the learning on a day-to-day basis, figuring out what's taking place in classrooms and chatting with teachers about that over email and just really, I think, showing an interest and making a difference by your very presence. I'm really struck by the kind of snowball effect that you talked about, where the more you're in classrooms, the more you're able to be proactive and you're able to be in classrooms even more because you're not constantly getting called back to the office to deal with discipline and things like that and really taking a proactive approach. So again, my hat goes off to you.

[14:11] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, thank you. And I can tell you another awesome byproduct of being out and about in the classrooms is if this is something that other people are able to do and the comfort level is there and the policy allows, if you can take pictures and send those out on the spot right there in live time through social media. I've had parents email me and say, you know what, it's awesome when I'm in Japan for six weeks and my phone dings and I look at it and there's a picture of my daughter and what she's doing in school today. I have parents call me and say, it was really awesome because last night when my son came home, I could say, I saw what you were doing in world history yesterday. It was this, this, and this. Tell me more about that.

[14:56]

really shifting the conversation at home from, how was your day? Fine. What'd you do? Nothing. Parents were able to more proactively engage in the learning that their kids are partaking in during the day. So parents have been really, really happy and appreciative of these efforts also.

[15:11]

It's made a difference at home.

[15:12] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and just to give them that same level of awareness. Just as often as administrators, we don't know enough about what's going on in classrooms. That's triply true for parents. So if we can get ourselves in there and then share that awareness, share that information about what's happening in classrooms, boy, that's tremendous. And I would imagine builds an incredible amount of goodwill within your community.

[15:36] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely.

[15:37] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What would you say, Sam, to someone who has tried this in the past, maybe has even signed up for the Instructional Leadership Challenge, but just hasn't made it happen yet? What would you say to someone who maybe is taking their second or third shot at this?

[15:51] SPEAKER_02:

What I say to myself is I always find time for things I value. I always find time for things I really want to do. So as I look at the things in my schedule, there are things that I accomplished because for whatever reason, external or internal, I really want to do that. And so I had to look at myself in the mirror and say, I talk the talk. I say I'm all about kids. I say I would love to be in classrooms all day, every day if that was possible.

[16:20]

Well, if I really value that, then why don't I make it a priority in my schedule? So your challenge really struck a chord with me to challenge myself and say, if I value this the way I claim to, There's no reason why I can't find or make time to make it happen. And like I said, you start small. Your challenge was three classrooms a day. I would say to somebody trying this a second or third time, one classroom a day. Start there.

[16:47]

If you value your school, your school community, the work your teachers are doing, wanting to be a part of that, giving feedback, being supportive to our teachers, being a role model for our kids in the hallways, if that's really what you believe, I gotta think. You can find two to four minutes once a day in your schedule.

[17:05] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Sam, thanks so much for the inspiring story that you shared with us and the specific advice on how to get into classrooms on a more frequent basis. If people want to find you online, where's the best place for them to do that?

[17:18] SPEAKER_02:

At Twitter, at Sledo84. That's at S-L-E-D as in David, E-A-U-X 84. Or On my blog at slido84.wordpress.com.

[17:34] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Sam, thanks again for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It has been an absolute pleasure to speak with you.

[17:39] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Justin. Thanks for having me. I had fun.

[17:43] SPEAKER_00:

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

[17:47] SPEAKER_01:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Sam Ladeau about getting into classrooms every single day? For me, one of the big things that I was surprised by and that I think Sam really exhibits to an unusual extent is that snowball effect. You know, I think there's a value to us in getting into classrooms to any extent. But since Sam has gotten into classrooms so much, as he said, 10, 15, 20 times a day in some cases, he's actually able not just to take in information, but to proactively make a difference in the culture and the climate of his school by being in classrooms so much and being able to prevent discipline issues from ever having to reach the office. So I want to encourage you to start where you are. Don't feel like you have to get into classrooms 1,173 times this year.

[18:37]

It's okay to get into classrooms a smaller number of times. And I think any effort at all is going to make a difference. And if this is a new practice for you, if getting into classrooms every day is something new, I want to encourage you to start with the number three. Three classrooms a day. You don't have to stay for half an hour. You don't have to provide feedback.

[18:58]

You don't have to fill out a form. You can simply show up as Sam does and pay attention. And I do recommend that you either chat briefly with the teacher or just shoot them an email of acknowledgement and just let them know that you appreciate being in their room. You appreciate what they're doing on behalf of their students. It's easy to start small, but give yourself that target of three classrooms a day. And if I can support you, you can go to instructionalleadershipchallenge.com and sign up for our free resources to help you get into classrooms.

[19:30]

And if you've already been doing that, if you've already been getting into classrooms and you want to take it to the next level and really make those conversations with teachers and that feedback to teachers substantive and impactful, and you want to connect that to your formal evaluations, even though that's a different process process, I want to let you know about a new program we're launching at the Principal Center called the High Performance Instructional Leadership Certification. The certification builds on my new book, Now We're Talking, 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership, available from Solution Tree. And we go deep on the idea of evidence-based framework-linked conversations. So in your school, you have an instructional framework. You have curriculum. You have professional development that you've done as a school.

[20:15]

And you have an evaluation tool that has specific language in it that you can use to talk about what you see when you're in classrooms. So evidence-based framework-linked conversations. conversations are the topic of our new high-performance instructional leadership certification. And you can find out more about that at PrincipalCenter.com.

[20:34] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at PrincipalCenter.com slash radio.