Welcome, Culture Makers!

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Let's welcome everyone in. Come on in.

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Wonderful. Well, all those things kind of come together into this kind of why we're all here today. Um in in our very

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first Little Wins workshop. And so what the Little Wins workshop is really meant to be is is to is as we all know little wins stack up to create school culture.

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It's not often times big frameworks or big systems or the the big efforts that that make it happen. It's those little

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wins along the way and kind of stacking those things up as we go. And so where we wanted to take today and to create a workshop for school leaders to take a

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moment to step back and say, okay, what are these opportunities and all the all the places and all the things I do in my role? How can I maybe stack up little

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wins in each of those? And of course, there are so many different things that a school leader does and that you have responsibility for, but what we built

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today around is two tracks and 10 practices that are uh that align to kind of the two tracks that you'll align to

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today with within the agenda. So, so 10 practices and we'll touch on this a little bit more here just shortly with Karen in her keynote. But how we've

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divided up the agenda today is into these 10 areas with a with an expert in each. So, one-on-one management,

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performance management, decision-m, conflict resolution, and professional learning kind of all in that leadership

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and management track. and then focusing on meetings and gatherings, how to make those amazing employee well-being,

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presence and visibility, recognition and reward, and then communications in that culture and staff experience track.

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And really importantly, and Karen will touch on this here shortly, but all of the work of the workshop today and how we've developed it is really backed by

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what teachers have said and backed by 500,000 plus teacher sentiments on words that they use to describe work that then

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kind of fold up into these leadership practices that then hopefully create this amazing place to work as a school.

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We'll we'll get to we'll get to more of that here in just a second, but let me introduce you to kind of your three guides for today. Um, I'm Kimberly

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Bailey. I'm the VP of marketing here at Alpaca.

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Who you see in one of your tracks today, the culture staff experience track.

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She'll be guiding you and and her energy, please try to match it, uh, is Jessica Johnson Myers, our chief sales officer. And then in the leadership uh,

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and management track is Alyssa Christensen, our head of customer success and a former educator. So, we'll be your three guides today. You'll be

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jumping between the keynote stage, which I will be guiding you here, and then you will see Jessica and Alyssa as friendly faces in the other two tracks, and they'll be welcoming in the speakers as

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we go. Um, and and kind of guiding you through each of those.

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So, who do we have in the room, and what are some of the kind of areas that we're all finding ourselves in? Uh, the school

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leaders here. Um, in that onboarding survey that you took, uh, there was some kind of confidence levels and this is really just to show that you're not in

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this alone and maybe you have areas that you feel really confident in that you can share some experience in and some of those breakouts and collaboration times.

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Um, but also that we have again those speakers that are going to going to really guide you through and hope hope to see all those confidence scores go up

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by the end of today. Um, and and really try to get you a toolkit going into next year. So just wanted to say uh if you have experience in these places or

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you're doing something amazing, please share it in in those track sessions.

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Please share kind of your expertise. The collab it's always tough on a virtual webinar to really encourage collaboration, but we're we're really

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trying to hope to do that at the end of each session. So please please share as we go.

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And so in those areas and where we're confident or maybe need a little assistance, that's what we've set today up for. And so this is this is in a

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handful of emails for you. You'll be guided throughout the day on what sessions are next, but this is the morning and how it'll go. So we've already checked off that that opening

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coffee hour. Um a welcome from me and just some some logistics here in a second. Um and then Karen will will be getting through the keynote at 9

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starting at 9:40 and then we'll go through three sessions this morning.

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Have a lunch break um where there'll be a 30-minute keynote with Michael Bennett.

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He's amazing. Um, and then two sessions this afternoon. Uh, and then the closing keynote with Jen Gonzalez from the Cult

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of Pedagogy and a a Q&A uh, with the team at the end. So again, in your workbook, there's a page that looks something like this. Having that handy

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and having that flipped open will be will be kind of your your guide for today. And back to the Little Winds

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workbook. If you have not downloaded this yet, um maybe one of our alpaca team members can drop the link in the chat, but I've seen many of you downloading it already. So, I think

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you're ready to go. This is really meant to be a playbook and a guide for you to get through the day. There are there are pages ready to go with each session that can guide you through these things.

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We've even asked the speakers for questions that we could put into this ahead of time, so it can really feel like you're walking through it with

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them. Um, and then some planning ahead and kind of ways to guide your learning as takeaways at the end of today. So,

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hoping hoping to help you with learning today and kind of collecting it all and then also what to do with it afterwards.

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What's hitting your doorstep is a little wind swag pack. So, many of you have probably already uh received this. If you have not yet, it will be on its way.

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The key to that is uh is filling out that onboarding survey that is that has been in the emails. If you haven't done that yet, feel free to do that sometime

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today. And then there is a Door Dash um gift card in your inbox as well.

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And my last little parting partying moment here is just jump in after each session. There'll be a 10-minute breakout to debrief together. And so, uh

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our session leaders will put you into breakouts small enough that you can create conversation. Um there will be a five minute survey to take plus where to

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go next and then five minutes or so to switch rooms. The day is really kind of meant to keep the energy up but make sure that you have a little bit of flexibility in there as you go as well.

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And please stick around till the very end of the day if you please can. Uh we will have some winners at the end of the day. um those surveys at the end of the

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sessions. We will be picking 10 winners and those names will be on the very last slide of these presentation slides today. Um and we'll we'll be announcing

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the giveaways. So really really really we do want your feedback on those sessions um and to share kind of your key takeaways and then so we can share

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that back to both the speaker um but then also to be able to kind of see how how we can make these uh better double down for next time but also have a few giveaways right at the end of the day.

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I'm one minute behind, but I really wanted to see that chat light up. So, um I'm going to hand it over to Karen. Uh Karen is the CEO and founder of Alpaca.

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I will let her do her full introduction here in just a second. Um but she'll be with us for uh for the next 15 minutes

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um from until about 9:55 and then we'll be able to transition to to the next into the next

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the first session I guess the next session but the first one of the day. Um Karen I'll stop sharing and if you can

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then pop up and in I believe you're ready to go. Okay. It looks like you're good. You're good. Okay. Great. All righty.

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Hi everybody.

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Awesome. Um hi everybody. I am so so so excited uh to see so many people here.

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Um if you don't know, this is our very first time with the Little Winds Workshop. Uh and so it's a really exciting thing to see um to see everybody uh gathered here and hear from

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so many amazing leaders. Um if you don't know me yet, uh my name is Karen Borchert and I'm the founder and CEO of uh Alpaca

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and uh part of the part of the part of the growing team uh here and part of the the Little Winds crew. So, uh, just to

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give you a really quick overview in case you aren't familiar with Alpaca, I'm just going to let you know who we are in the world. Um, so you so you know where

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this is coming from. Uh, we are a company really focused on making school the happiest place to work. So, we provide um products, services, uh,

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software and tools, uh, and resources to leaders uh, school leaders and district leaders all over the country um, to help

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support uh, teachers in feeling their best at work. Uh that can be anything from uh check-ins with their teams to recognition and reward. Uh we've been

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around for a few years and we work with about 400 schools um across the country in about 40 states. So uh love to love

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to meet you if we haven't yet. Uh we are we're really focused um as a as a leadership platform um on the idea of of

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teacher voice. So everything that we do is helps leaders understand their teams clearly, helps you act with confidence and helps you build strong and healthy

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schools. Uh and that's we do that through some real-time feedback tools, actionable insights, um and some recognition tools as well. Uh so just to

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give you a really quick overview, you know, you're going to see a whole bunch of information from our school culture report and across these leadership practices today. Um and if you're

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wondering where does all that data come from, I thought I would just give you a quick share of that. So um we use uh something called Alpaca Pulse uh to

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check in with teachers uh who use real words to talk about their experience at work and then we turn those into insights for principles and leaders to

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be able to know what to do um with those words that their teachers are using to describe work uh and have some

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resources um as well to know um what to do and take action with those things. Um so all of that together um really

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culminated this year in something called the school culture report. And the school culture report um took all of the data uh that we have gathered from

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teachers as well as um more than 150 surveys from school and district leaders across the country uh to to really take

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a look and say hey what is going on in school culture and what is going on across 10 key leadership practices. And that's those that's the leadership

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practices that we saw um that you're going to see today. So, I wanted to share with you a little bit of information from that national report. I thought it would be kind of fun to show

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you um a little bit of that so you have some context um about that. So, starting with the teachers, um here's what teachers said when we asked how are you

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doing at work. So, across 35,000 surveys um submitted by teachers across the country this year, these are the words

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that were the top words um that they use. So, um if you if you are, you know, any comments or ideas, surprises, um any

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any sort of um thoughts on that, please feel free to drop those into the chat.

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Um it's uh you know, as you can see, it's a a a mixture of positive and negative words. Some might surprise you and some might be really familiar to you as a leader.

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Uh and I'd be curious to know uh which one of these areas um kind of are the are the places that that where teachers

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scored the highest. Uh and also which one do you think uh teachers scored the lowest? You can drop those in the chat

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if you want to. Uh and we'll and then I'll show you. Uh so the strongest themes across all of our all of our areas were in the areas of growth and

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belonging and purpose. Um so the things that teachers felt most positive about were those and the things that the ones that was

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the least positive theme for educators, I know that this might not surprise very many people um was in the area of health. So you can see up here that

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overall positivity level across our entire network um was you know ranked right up here. If you look at health

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alone it's much much lower. So you're going to see and hear a lot today um about how different leaders are are

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addressing ideas of health um well-being and uh helping teachers feel great at work. You can see that uh across the year there's a very predictable trend.

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Uh so you know raise your hand or drop a note in chat if uh November is a a challenging month uh at your school and then if it dips again in February or

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March. Um that's what we saw across the data overall. Uh and what we saw is that that was a really that was a really

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noted uh you know kind of item for for everyone. Oops. Let me see if I can still click.

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Hold on. I'm having a little bit of clicking trouble. Uh okay there we go.

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Uh and then on the other side on the from that's that's kind of what teachers are feeling. Um we also looked at how leaders are feeling and where they felt

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confident um and where they felt uh challenged by in in their jobs. Uh so things that were changing in school

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culture leaders what leaders said uh the things that they said that are changing the most are staffing needs and shortages, student behavior challenges,

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expanding responsibilities and workload and staff burnout and well-being decline.

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Things that are getting harder included things like leadership transition and change fatigue, student behavior challenges, increasing student needs

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outside of learning, staffing shortages and coverage, and an increased scope of responsibility.

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The things that are getting better though, uh, which is always great to see, um, are things like connection and collaboration, uh, communication and

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culture. And I know I'm going through these pretty quickly, not expecting everybody to have them all memorized by the by the end of this session. Um, you can get all of this data um in the

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school culture report as well, and we'll send that out um as part of the follow-up to to the webinar today. Um, and then and then from there, what we

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know, um, we, you know, what are the things that move the culture the most?

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So we started looking at these kind of 10 leadership practices um the ones that you'll see across your workbook and across the entire day uh to understand

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uh what are the things that that where there is confidence in which things really help move culture. Uh so leadership confidence at the glance uh

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so on those practices we saw a lot of high confidence in the area of presence and visibility communications and meetings and gatherings but a little bit

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lower confidence in the area in areas like performance management recognition and reward and employee well-being.

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So I wanted to really just quickly pop through each of our each of our practices that you're going to see today and tell you a little bit about the

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leaders um that you're going to hear from. So, um, in the area of one-on-one management, you're going to hear today from Mark Schultd, who's chief of elementary schools at Council Bluff's

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Community School District, who has a really interesting and fun way, um, of talking to leaders and really spending,

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um, a lot of time digging into data one-on-one with his leaders every single week. You're going to love hearing from him. Uh you're going to get um if you're

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on the other track um in session one, you're going to hear about the value of warm-ups from Kate Canales, who's a professor of practice and design at UT

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Austin uh and also just an extraordinary human uh and and friend of of alpacas who has some really amazing ideas uh for

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how to help your meetings and gatherings really build connection and um really and and a lot of fun. Actually in the second session in the area of prof

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professional growth and learning um you're going to hear from our friend Mike Smith um who's founder of an extraordinary organization called the

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Bay um about about in innovation by design and about how uh professional growth and learning can look a little bit different. If you are on the culture

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side of of session two you're going to hear um about presence and visibility from our friends at Saginaw Intermediate

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School District uh Dr. Collier and Coty Kushinsky. Um you're going to hear about how visible visible leadership can really change a district.

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In the third session, if you're on the leadership track, um we're going to talk a little bit about conflict resolutions uh back with me uh and about how to make

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hard conversations much easier. And if you're on the uh culture side of the track, in session three, you're going to hear from Jamie Bell, chief marketing

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officer at Workshop, which is an internal communications uh company, uh about five small ways to make a big impact with your internal

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communications. And she's got some really great ideas.

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If you're in session four later today, you're going to hear about performance management um with one of our wonderful customers, Mitch Holmgren, uh who's a

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high school principal at Deer Creek Mackinaw and um we're going to he's going to talk a little bit about the power and impact of connected leadership

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and how that relates to performance management. And if you're on the culture side of the track, um you're going to be on um on the topic of employee

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well-being where you're going to learn a lot about creating a culture of care uh with small leadership moves that transform well-being. you're going to

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hear about that um from Karyn Richmond um of Sun Prairie Area School District and some of the extraordinary things they're doing there um around employee

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well-being. So uh and then finally um in the fifth and final track of the day um you are going to get a treat if you're

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on the leadership uh track side uh to hear from Genevive Core and Sue Toohey um who have uh really created a shared

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leadership model for their school. And if you are on track B on the culture side, you're also going to get a huge treat um to listen and talk to Eric

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Filardi um who is a school principal uh up in Alaska um who actually traveled to Omaha, Nebraska to be with us today u

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and with our team um on the topic of recognition and reward. Um so it is altogether just an extraordinary lineup

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today. Um, I would have a hard time choosing uh between all of these sessions, but worry not because they will all be recorded. Um, but we really

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hope that you can learn, share, and give us feed feedback on the day today. Um, and that you really and truly find um

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some insights and some usable tools that you can take with you into the school year ahead. Um we did we placed this um

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this day um right where we did on purpose uh so that it would come at a time that where you're getting ready to plan for your year and and we hope that

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that workbook will be something of a culture planner for you um and for and for your work. Uh so thank you so much

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again. I just want to thank you um from uh truly the bottom of my heart for being here and for um working with us and for bringing us your feedback and

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your ideas. Um, and I will turn it back over to Kimberly to send us all on our way.

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Oops, you're muted, Kimberly.

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Unmute. Hello. Um, thank you so much, Karen. Um, everyone, we are so so so excited and I saw a few I few mentions

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in the chat. Uh, we're so glad that it's a little bit hard to decide which session to go to. Um, but as Karen said, and to reiterate again, um, you'll pick

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five sessions today. You will get replay access to all of them. Uh, by in the next few weeks, by the end of this

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month, you will have access, um, so then you can go back to them, re-watch the ones that you attended, watch the ones that you weren't able to, uh, and then

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and then share them with your team and kind of share in the learnings as as as you go throughout your summer time. So

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that is what we'll what we'll be able to deliver afterwards and then it's just time to go pick those sessions everyone.

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Um so what's next and first this morning uh is the 10 to 10:30 session. Um you have Mark Schult and Kate Canales the

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leadership development one conversation at a time or the value of warm-ups at that and then a again reminder after

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each of these sessions you'll be prompted by your host to enter a breakout um where then you can collaborate with some of your peers for about 5 to 10 minutes um just kind of

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talk about what you what the takeaways were what you learned if you are an expert in this area and kind of just be able to have a minute to digest the

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information have a small transition and then on to the next one. So then the next one, the second session this morning will be around um professional

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learning and growth and then that presence and visibility.

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And then the last block this morning will be conflict resolution and communications.

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And then you'll find us back here uh for the lunch keynote with Michael Bennett.

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He's the deputy commissioner for um operational support uh the New York State Education Department. um and he'll be talking through healthy leaders,

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healthy schools, prior prioritizing adult well-being. And so that's what I'll give you to now. Uh we should see all of you kind of start to shift off

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out of this keynote and mainstage area into one of the two tracks. And a reminder, you don't have to stay in one track all day. You can flip between

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both. Um and we're right on time. It's 9:55 everyone. You have 5 minutes to transition. Um and we will see you in

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those rooms. I will see you back here as your guide for lunch for the lunch keynote, but then Alyssa and Jessica will take it from here.

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Thank you.

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I'll keep the webinar going and monitor the chat for the next five minutes, but then we'll restart it at lunch.