Developing Leaders, One Conversation at a Time

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Welcome everyone to the leadership and management track. Like I said, my name is Alissa Christensen. Um I'm part of the Alpaca team and I'll be leading you through this track today if you're choosing to stay on this track all day.

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Um remember, you can hop through the different tracks depending on what um sessions you want to be in and all of that. Um but here we are today for the

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first session of the day for one on one management. And we have Mark Schuldt from the Council Bluffs Community School District um in Iowa. He is um an amazing

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uh principal leadership coach. and so he is knows all about one-on-one management. Um he's going to lead us through a great session today. Um so if

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you want to go ahead and open up your workbook um and then I'm going to stop sharing my screen and let Mark take over um and get started. So just give us just

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a second for some logistics and then we should be good. Take it over Mark.

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Okay. Thank you Alyssa. Just give me a second here if I can figure out No problem. my screen situation here.

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Just give me a moment. I'm a Google Meet guy and this opened up in a different

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window. So, I need to get my Alpaca up here.

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And also just a quick reminder, if you are putting in the chat anything, please make sure it's um switch to message everyone just so everyone can see um what you're saying. Good job, Mark.

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You're ready. There we go. You can see that. Okay. Yeah. Present.

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Okay. Well, good morning everyone. Um, it is my pleasure to um present a little bit of information about my my love of one-on-one one conversations and leadership coaching.

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Um, as Alyssa said, I am um I am the chief of schools for elementary and council community school district. We're about 8,000 kids just across the river

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from Omaha in Iowa and I live on the Omaha side. Um my passion is really leadership development um and primarily

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focusing on school principles and I believe that the the highest leverage and the highest investment that a school

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district can make is developing um good high effective um principles. I don't know of any schools in the nation that

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are highly successful and have a bad principle. I really think leadership matters. So today I'm really going to

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focus on that and just that really conversation. Um, one of my most probably the biggest leverage that I

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have as a coach is I meet with principles um, every week um, on site. I spend about 90 minutes in their school.

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Um, and what I'm going to talk through today is is how I how I coach them and give you some tools on how you could

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coach principles or teachers. So, very similar type type of work there. So to start off, I am curious um who is in the

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room. So if you could think about um putting in the chat, think about next year, even though this year might still

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be super fresh in your mind, but it's it's in the rearview mirror now. This school year is in the past. So next year 26-27,

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what um what is your position and what is one thing you want to get out of this workshop session? So take a moment and to drop that in the chat.

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Look like we've got some superintendent got quite a few principles here.

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Want to really learn more about feedback.

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was focus on behavior. I agree. Great principles make great teachers.

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Got a mix of principals at multiple levels.

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Your communication

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It looks like just about everybody that I can tell has dropped a message in the chat. So really

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a large a large a lot of you are current principals. Um elementary, middle, multiple levels, couple high schools, some assistants.

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Um, I see some coordinators and I do have at least one superintendent on here. Thanks, Mike,

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for joining us this morning. Very busy time. Okay.

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All right. So, we're going to jump right in and I'll I'll tailor this to like primarily the the next section that I

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share with you is really a focus of the work that I do one-on-one with principles, but the conversation is transcendent about um anybody that

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you're really working with. So, let me go ahead and get through this here.

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Okay. So thinking about a coaching visit, um it's on site and I come out to

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the school and it's planned and there's a focus. So I really want to talk about structure of the conversation. So even

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thinking about and we'll try and tie this to a principal to steer conversation as well. Um I think this this totally

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transcends um a whether you're coaching a principal, whether you're coaching a teacher, whether you're working with a colleague. Um, I don't know if it works

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great when you're talking to your wife or husband, but you could give it a shot as well. So, first and foremost, kind of like structure this the beginning of the

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coaching visit or the or the coaching conversation, the most important part for me is really that check-in and kind

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of some celebration. You know, often times, you know, we want we know people don't really get better when you just

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tell them how bad they are. They get better when they when you give them feedback on their strengths and they can

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grow on that. A lot of reflection. Um, I'll talk later about like some of those candid conversations that that are

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necessary to have, but for this part here, let's focus more on things are going well. This teacher is um, you know, she's doing well, he's doing well,

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principal is in good standing, and it's not the the candid type type of conversation, but I will share that

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later. So, start off with check-in celebration. This part here is really about really about building that relationship. And if you don't have a

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relationship with someone, they're not going to listen to you and they're not going to learn from you. They really have to know that you truly do care about them and their work and their

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practice. And so, at this point, you know, it depending on how much time 5 to 10 minutes I'll allocate for this. And this is all based on like a 90 minute session for a for a principal.

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Obviously, you don't have 90 minutes when you're working with a teacher.

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Coaching conversations with teachers are anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes and I'll talk about what you would take out for that. So really like what's going well

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is a question that I usually always start with and I want them to reflect and think about internally what they're doing that is successful and then I will

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probably follow up with a question like well tell me why that was su successful.

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What did you do that contributed to that success? And that's important for me to really build their self-efficacy. Um

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because in teaching um leading a building there's so many managing and challenging things that that you do every day and if you feel success even

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if it's small a little win for example um you're going to be able to roll that into a more challenging um a challenging

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task down the road. So really this really builds relationships and it really recognizes their progress and um it just feels good you know it feels

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good to start off and just celebrate right. So second thing that I do when I'm coaching principles and I do coach

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principles to coach teachers and one of the things that we always have um is is

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top of mind. Um and when I'm coaching a principal this is the this is the second thing that I really ask. It's like so

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what's top of mind? You know what's keeping you up at night right now? Um I personally my experience and I've been

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doing this for about nine years. Um, I find that if there's something just like burning in a principal's mind or or a

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teacher, it's really difficult for them to be in the moment and really to focus on what the goal is of the meeting. And so I always give them an opportunity to

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just kind of share, you know, especially the principal because it's a it's a lonely position, you know, they're sometimes they feel like they're on an island and so it's helpful for them to

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have somebody to um to talk with. So this part is really like surfacing any

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current challenges maybe a stress point um maybe something that they need help in problem solving. I don't usually

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solve work to solve the problem with a principal here. We just surface it. If it's something small minor then yes

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we'll talk we'll talk about it and address it. if it's something pretty significant, um we'll look at calendars and we'll find like another time um soon

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later that day or the very next day to give them some space and a thought partner to help problem solve that. I

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find when you do that then they can kind of check that off or just set it aside a bit and really be here in the moment.

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When I coach principals on doing this with teachers, oftentimes they might close with this because um there's just

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so much, you know, when you're working with teachers, they'll talk about, you know, Jimmy behavior problems, this and that. You don't really want that to um

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to really dominate the beginning of your coaching conversation, but yet you want them to know that you care and that you listen and you want to support them. So

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you'll have to figure out when the best time that is for you to fit that in.

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Okay. So the next step in this first part is really about the followup and um

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like I'll always follow up from the last week. Um you'll see at the end of this that there's always an action step um on what they're going to do next. And so

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this is the time when I follow up on that action step. It really helps to build consistency, transparency, and dependability. Um, that they know I'm

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going to ask them that. And it's kind of like a built-in accountability measure.

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Uh, because they know and like when I get there, I mean, I've got principles I've been working with for several years and when I when I come in, they'll start off and just tell me what's going well.

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They'll say, "Hey, top of mind is this." I don't even have to ask the question.

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And then they'll say, "I'm so excited to tell you about about what I did on my followup." And so, it's really great.

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So, like from a when you're coaching teachers, this would be you, let's say last time you were in the classroom, you were giving them feedback on on student

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engagement and you provided like uh some some coaching around that. This would be a time to follow up and and get them to reflect on, well, how's that going now?

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Last time we talked about engagement, you were going to try this strategy.

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Let's see how that's going. What does that look like now? So, really that part is just about following up and discussing that. One thing that here

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that's important to note that one of my um I would say was a weakness of mine in my initial first years of coaching is

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that I took their word for it and I didn't look for evidence, right? And so if I knew like if an action step with a

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principal was to go they were going to conduct a leadership team meeting and they were going to you know address uh you know elephant in the room that was

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really bogging down some some issues in the school and if I just say well how'd that meeting go and oftentimes I'll say oh it was great you know it was great

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it's always great um even though it's not. So then I try to like dig deeper.

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So tell me about that like let's take a look at the agendas. what were some of the notes that you took from that meeting? I find that it's just more

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transparent. And it's not that I don't trust them, but if I don't really know or if I don't actually see them do that leadership move, then it's hard for me

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to coach them and provide meaningful feedback if I don't really know what it is. And same thing with principles and teachers. You know, following up is the

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best is you get in the classroom and you see that. So if you gave them some feedback on on instructional um strategy

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that would improve engagement, you need to get back in that classroom in a couple of days to see that. So

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part one, okay, next part is really the conversation. And this is really about more of a coaching a principal part. And

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this is really clarifying an area of focus like what you're going to see. For example, I'm coming out. We're going to observe a third grade PLC meeting. I

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want to know what they're going to watch for. What should I expect to see? And really, I'm really watching the principal's behavior in that meeting so

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I can help that principal

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afterwards. So, this is that big chunk that would not be the same for coaching a teacher. This would be more for coaching um coaching a principal. Um so

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we'll go on to the third part. So this would work for coaching a principal. So after the

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observation whether you're seeing instruction or you're having a coaching conversation or you're observing

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a principal's um behavior, leading a leading a team meeting or conducting a walkthrough together, you're going to really identify and confirm next steps.

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This is such a critical thing about growth of of the the principal or the teacher here. You want to really clarify what the step is, what the action step

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will be, and make sure that it's realistic, specific, and actionable.

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And I always want to make sure that the it's bite-size. It's very granular. Um, and we define bite-size as it's

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something that could be done within one week. So the feedback that you provide or the coaching you provide is something

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that that individual could try within the next week. If it's too big for that, break it down and think about chunking

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that that piece of feedback that you want them to try. So that's really that's really what that part is. And then what I do as a as a principal

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coach, then I schedule that next visit and we talk about what that next focus is going to be. um and then really think

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about what they'll do during that next week because I'll be back in a week. And that's the thing is like being consistent. Now, if you're coaching a

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teacher, you're probably not doing it week by week. But I do recommend minimally. Um I know a lot of research like from Ken Marshall is like every

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teacher every 3 weeks. Some of you might think like, "Oh my gosh, that's crazy." Um, but really that's best practice if you do it small chunks and have those

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smaller shorter observations of of teaching practice. So, what you think about right now? Um, kind of like

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talking a lot, which I I think that's I don't know how there's other way to do it, Alyssa. Um, it's a reflective question. So, think about the smallest

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next step that could create the biggest impact before the next coaching conversation. What is that? That is a reflective question that you really want

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to think about when you're coaching. um you're talking with a teacher or with a principal, what is that smallest next step? And think about the highest

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leverage next step. You know, if you're coaching a teacher and engagement is terrible, you probably don't want to

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coach them on high level um reflective questions or like a DK3 question for students when your low-level stuff is

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not even, you know, impacting their engagement. So, you have to really think about what that is. So, Alyssa, any should we take a pause here before we go on to the next part?

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anything in the chat there for some reflection or some questions that you might have.

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Yeah, if you want to throw anything um so far that stood out in the chat, go ahead.

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Sounds good. We can get the the chat rolling again. Yeah.

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Anything popping in? Okay. Yes. Can you Oh, there you go. Yeah.

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Um, so can you see the chat mark? Yeah, absolutely.

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Okay. Okay. Just checking. So, any preferred tool to use for note-taking and documentation would probably be uh

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Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, what I do, I just use a a Google doc and

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I have each one of these parts just listed. Um, and I'll go back here. I'll go back to that slide

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and it looks like um during part two I think you froze for like 30 seconds.

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So if you want to just really quick go through part two uh again.

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Yeah. Yeah. So so my template is basically you know at the top of my page I have check-in celebration and it's just written down and then I'll take

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notes on what they say top of mind. I just have that I take some notes on what they say and then follow up from last

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meeting. I look at this each week and then I when I'm planning for my my visit then I'll bring that up and so I always have that so I never forget what what

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the follow-up was. The second part really is really more coaching principles and like clarifying the area of focus like what you're going to go

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out and see that on that visit. Um it may be going out and and doing some observations in the third grade classrooms. It could be observing a

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third grade PLC. It's really clarifying that area. And so again, on my note taker, I'll just have that and I'll listen to the principal as they talk and I'll take

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those notes. And then we go in and do the observation together. Um, and if the principal is leading it, then I'm taking notes about the observations of the principal. I'll write down some

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reflective questions that I want to ask for followup. Um, if we go into classrooms together, basically I'm not taking notes then, but

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I'm walking into the classroom with the principal. We might observe instruction for 10 minutes. Then we come out into the hall and I ask some reflective questions there about what did you see?

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What did you notice? Um what's circling through your mind? And then we get down to that deeper coaching conversations about what we saw. And that's when I

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really coach the next step. And then as far as like my notetaker again, I'll have next steps. I'll jot that down, schedule the next visit, and then the

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and then that piece there. And then what I do is I take a little summary of that and then I email it to the principal or I would email it to the teacher just to

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clarify what the next step was so they're very clear on it and like when our next coaching visit is. So kind of

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kind of quick review on that. Anything else in the chat that we want to make sure and address before we move on?

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I don't think so. Okay. Just want to monitor the time. I'm down to 11 minutes and I gotta Yeah, you're doing great.

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Okay. So, I'm currently in Kansas City right now and I am co-f facilitating a leadership retreat for an executive cabinet for a school district and my

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colleague that is presenting right now while I'm snuck away quick. He is the one that I've really learned from this.

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He's actually a coach of mine as well.

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And so, Coaching on the Red Line is really been developed by Steve Garing.

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And you can see down at the bottom of this, you'll have the the references there. So, this is a great approach that works for um whether it's a principal or

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a teacher. And I really use this framework when I'm coaching principles to use when they're coaching teachers.

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So, really, it's all about um it's called coaching on the red line. If you have a you know that the tachometer on your automobile, there's that red line

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for RPMs. And when you hit that red line with the accelerator, that's like maximum, you know, input there in that

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car. If you exceed that, you could really cause some damage to the car and you know have some issues. So the red line is finding that sweet spot on where

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the what the feedback is needed at that time for that person. And if you go over that red line, it's going to be very

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difficult for them and you're not going to get a lot of um a lot of growth out of them. So what I want to go through

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pretty quick though, there's really two sides to this. There's an indirect side and there is a direct side. Okay? And so

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I'm going to start on the left side, the indirect where it says cognitive coaching. And cognitive coaching is

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where I believe every coaching conversation should start unless there's like a you know a real big issue and I'll I'll

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touch on that just in a moment. But assuming that the teacher or the principal is in good standing, you start with cognitive coaching because you want to give them an opportunity to reflect.

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And so definition of cognitive coaching, open-ended. It encourages reflection. It really helps to generate some ideas,

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some actions, but the person that you're coaching is the one that is is developing that because they can do that. they're maybe a more veteran

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teacher, maybe not a first year teacher that doesn't have a lot of strategies yet, but somebody that can really think about that. Along with that, there's coaching stems like what's on your mind?

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What do you what do you think? How might you approach this? What might be your next step? So, those are all very

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cognitive, but as the coach, I'm not telling them anything. I don't want to take their opportunity to think and solve and develop their own solution

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away from them. That's why I want to start there. Now, if I'm not getting much from them, when I ask, you know, what do you think? What might be your

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next step? And they don't know, then I move, right? Then I go over to collaborative coaching. This is when we

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might do something together or a thought partner kind of generate some of those ideas, right? Um some of those coaching stems. Let's think about this together.

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Um what if we looked at some possible other options or maybe let's brainstorm some things. So now you are entering a

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you know a collaborative conversation with that person to help them as a thought partner right. So at

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that point if something's shared or if you even kind of help create it it's important to go back to cognitive

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now and put it back on them. So what do you think your next step might be or how how might you approach that? So even

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though you helped generate it, you want them to really own that action and really commit to that action. Okay.

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The next one is consultant. That's kind of like me. I'm a consultant. I get paid to do some work. I'm coming out and I'm

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going to help you, you know, improve what you're doing. Right? So this is really about a shared experience, providing examples, providing some

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expertise. you know, as a principal, you're coaching a newer teacher and that teacher, you ask some questions and she

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just really doesn't know like let's say, you know, h how might you increase student engagement in your classroom and and you're hearing crickets, right?

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Well, as a consultant stance, we call these different stances, by the way. You could say, "Well, yesterday I was in,

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you know, in Alyssa's classroom and I saw her do this strategy and it really helps students increase engagement. What

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do you think about that?" Okay. So, I share the example. I'm I've got the shared experience. I'm presenting that

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to her and then I want her to think about it. So, how might that work for you?

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what do you think you could do to um to implement something like that? I'm not telling her she has to. I'm just

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providing some some ideas that I either whether I know it from my own experience or the research I've done or something

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that I've seen in the school. But it's very important wherever you start, you've got to end on cognitive coaching.

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You've got to let that person reflect and own it. Okay? Because it's they just have to chew on that, right? So that's

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really the indirect side of coaching on the red line. But again, you have to find that sweet spot. If you're a

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veteran teacher, you're probably the sweet spot for that person is probably cognitive coaching. You know, you say you can say, "Hey, I noticed that, you know, several kids were were off task

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there during that lesson. What do you think about that?" Oh, you know what? I forgot to ask that question. I didn't have the materials out. Next time I need

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to do this, this, and this. They got it right. But a new teacher might not. And so then you kind of slide over to collaborative or consultant and provide

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some support for them, but then get back to cognitive so they can really own it and think about what they're going to actually do next. Okay. So draw a line

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down the middle of that. Now we're more on the direct side, right? You you've done some coaching. Maybe you're not

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seeing what you hope to see. So you have to be a little bit more more direct, right? More candid. So the first you

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know less direct is calibration coaching and this is really about just you know kind of like coming to agreement on what

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we think should be there. So you're observing a teacher and about 70% of the kids are on task and paying attention.

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30% are not off not on task. So you ask the teacher hey tell me about engagement. What do you think? Yeah it was pretty good. Well, I counted, you

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know, about 30% of your kids weren't on task. What do we think the target is?

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And the teacher says, well, I think it should be a hundred. Right? So, let's let's kind of think about that as a 100 there. So, you're kind of calibrating that. So, you're not thinking one way

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and the teacher is thinking something else or principal is thinking something else as well. So, it's clarifying expectations, sharing some of that, and kind of looking at some of that data.

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That's when you kind of bring that. And so if you really establish that example that I shared about 100% engagement,

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then you might say, "So what's your next step in in thinking about 100% of your kids engaged?" And then they're

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producing it because then I went back to cognitive. It's kind of like you're always jumping back there. The next one on direct is called candid coaching. And

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and this is an example. Think about a teacher on a on a on a learning team PLC that's really um kind of a pain in the

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butt. Um her colleagues are coming to you complaining about her. She's negative Nancy. She's not focusing on students, always admiring the problem.

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So this stance is about challenging um and even stunning them, right? Because

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it's really about causing that deep reflection that they need to have. And you can see you might say something like let me be clear when you do this it's

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hurting the team blah blah blah. So for that example of that teacher you may say hey I've observed this and when you dominate

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the conversation and start really complaining about students I notice that your colleagues are starting to resent you and it's frustrating them and they

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really don't want to be in that room with you. That's the stunning part. Then go back to cognitive. So what do you

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think about that? Process that. What might you do differently knowing this information now?

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Right. So there's plenty of people that we work with all the time that we may not have the tool, but I hope that you all know that candid conversation is

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really helping to develop them. You ask that question, but then you got to get them to own it. Okay.

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could be also um could be for the principal, could be a teacher, could be any of that stuff, but it's about what's

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what being candid. The following one is really command coaching. And this is this is when you're not you're not

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really coaching as much. You're just going to tell them, you know, I work with a principal that is always late on turning in some reports and I've given

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several um reminders and deadlines. It's still late. It's almost like I'm the supervisor. Hey, hey, bud. Listen, you

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got to get this in. I need it by the end of the day.

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And and it just has to be in, right? So you you just tell them specifically what has to happen. What is that action? But still, you can still go back to

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cognitive and you might say, "So what is your next step to ensure that gets in by 4:00 today?" Get them to articulate

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that. So this was super fast, really fast. It's a great framework. I hope you use this and kind of think through. Um I

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think Alyssa my contact information should be available to them, right? So if they have some other questions later, they could reach out to me and I'd be happy to kind of follow up and and

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clarify some of this too. Like we have like absolutely minute left for any questions.

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All if you have a Yeah. If you have a question, you can go ahead and put it in the the chat

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and we can kind of look at it really quick for the next minute or so. Yeah.

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Um, do you have a book that you recommend, Mark, for this topic?

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For this topic, oh my gosh, there's a million. Um, I like Kim Marshall's um, Supervisory Walkthroughs. Um, that's a

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great one. Um, Paul Bamick Santoyo has done a lot of good work. Um, he's got a book called Get um, Get Better Faster.

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It's really about a 90day um kind of a framework that works like this. Um yeah, so many

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any Okay. Um I will make sure to get a little list from Mark and and give it back to everyone that's here. Um you have a podcast podcast, Mark, that you recommend?

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Oh gosh, there's a million. Yeah, I'm on the spot right now.

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Okay, I'll I'll make sure we get a list from Mark um and send it out to everyone everyone here. So awesome. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and

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let um Mark head out. Just hype him up one more time in the chat if you want to and just thank him for his time. He's headed to

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his other conference that he's at in Kansas City. So, thank you so much, Mark, for being here.

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Yeah. Thank you all so much. Good good luck in your leadership. Leadership matters. All right.