In this special episode, Sarah and Katie attend the Institute of Education Innovation Fall Summit 2022. They are joined by 16 superintendents and other leaders who dive into trends and challenges in education and how IEI helps them navigate.
Guests we interviewed:
Some Questions We Ask:
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
Quote:
“It was very humbling to hear my fellow superintendents dealing with the same challenges all over this country.”
Connect with us:
Doug Roberts | Sara Croll | Tiffany Law | Dr. Melvin J. Brown | Christy Scott | Dr. Jeff Dillon | Dr. Kelley Galtt | Dr. Matthew Hicks | Dr. Tahira Dupree Chase | Shanna Downs | Joachim Horn | Brett Roer | Michael Lee | Piper Bognar | Dr. Ann Levett | Dr. Alena
Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
Free Case Study Guide
SWPR GROUP Website
LinkedIn
Stay in touch with Chad Bolser:
LinkedIn
About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook
In this special episode, Sarah and Katie attend the Institute of Education Innovation Fall Summit 2022. They are joined by 16 superintendents and other leaders who dive into trends and challenges in education and how IEI helps them navigate.
Guests we interviewed:
Some Questions We Ask:
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
Quote:
“It was very humbling to hear my fellow superintendents dealing with the same challenges all over this country.”
Connect with us:
Doug Roberts | Sara Croll | Tiffany Law | Dr. Melvin J. Brown | Christy Scott | Dr. Jeff Dillon | Dr. Kelley Galtt | Dr. Matthew Hicks | Dr. Tahira Dupree Chase | Shanna Downs | Joachim Horn | Brett Roer | Michael Lee | Piper Bognar | Dr. Ann Levett | Dr. Alena
Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
Free Case Study Guide
SWPR GROUP Website
LinkedIn
Stay in touch with Chad Bolser:
LinkedIn
About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook
Hello, and welcome to build momentum, a show where we explore thought leadership and education. I'm Sarah Williamson, the founder of SWPR Group.
Katie Lash:And I'm Katie Lash, the Director of the East Central Educational Service Center.
Sarah Williamson:Together, we explore how to leverage key partners, your constituencies, and immediate to authentically impact your organizations and the leaders who champion them. We can't wait to get started. So let's dive into today's show.
Katie Lash:Hi, Sara so good that we get to spend time in person
Sarah Williamson:So much fun to see you, Katie.
Katie Lash:Yes. And so we are excited wrapping up the event at IEI. I don't know about you. But I've met a lot of really neat people, both Education Solutions, and superintendents. And for me, I love meeting Service Centers. It's like there's not very many places for us to hang out.
Sarah Williamson:Yes. So we're here today at the Fall Summit of IEI on the final day, just kind of sharing our thoughts about the trends in education and what we're hearing from everyone. And some of the challenges, opportunities and super exciting. We're going to chat with a bunch of people today about all of their takeaways from this Fall Summit. Love IEI. I love coming here. And one of the things I learned is a lot of superintendents want to write books.
Katie Lash:But isn't that like the epitome of thought leadership? Right, like their books?
Sarah Williamson:Pretty much, yep. Yes, that's exactly right.
Katie Lash:But genuinely, I think I mean, Sara Croll teases me, you know, like, I'm always like, ooh, feedback for that company. Because I think that's me. It's thought leadership from me too.
Sarah Williamson:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so in a few minutes, you're going to hear from several people. And we look forward to hearing your thoughts on this unique spin in an episode today.
Doug Roberts:I am Doug Roberts, the founder, CEO of the Institute for Education Innovation, IEI. And what I'm coming away from this event, reflecting on is that two and a half years ago, we had a summit that was focused on safety and security. And the big message out of that one was, we have to think about the whole child, the whole community, we got to think about the social emotional responses to crises, we have to think about making sure that the school is a safe space, everyone feels included, and welcome. And while at this event, that was also the theme this is posts, that was the event right before the pandemic event, you know that this year coming out of the pandemic was a much stronger focus on the safety and security of the physical plant. And I think Uvalde has something to do with that. I think they're happy about this, I think there's a great deal of fear in IEI members minds about these random, cruel and horrible tragedies that keep happening in schools. And I think everybody now is thinking through the next generation of lockdown drill, and training protocols, because the big takeaway for me at this event was that we got to have really good protocols in place, and everyone needs to practice them. But we need to practice them when the kids aren't on site, because some of the protocols are going to be scary things for kids to witness. So if they're ever in that situation, we want to really know what to do. And I don't know it's a heavy thing. This wasn't a heavy event, I think people came away with lots of good vibes and good things to think about. And this is going to be on my mind for a while that the districts were really focused on making sure each other could hear all of the different things they're doing to make sure that the buildings are airtight, and security. And I think I was surprised and glad to hear Ramona' s people were sharing various strategies, or devices or things they've put in place that people around the room are kind of nodding and taking notes, like, oh, that's something else we can do. You know, I think everybody here wants kids to feel safe in every way. And I think maybe the half glass full look at it is we've put a lot of time and energy during the pandemic, and afterwards into the social emotional well being of our kids, and making sure that we have mental health protocols in place and all that. And now we need to go back and re double on the physical plant security issues and make sure that it's beyond reproach. So I think that's my big takeaway here. In general, what we do at IEI is we facilitate conversations we help people get together, and chat and learn from each other. We ask tough questions, we challenge each other, we're in a safe space where we can be wrong, where we can share the things that we need to get better at share the things we're trying to grow, share the areas in which we're trying to grow. And we listen, who said the big circle, and we want to understand how what we're doing fits in our context, and understand other people's contexts and see what kinds of things they're doing that are effective. And it's a community conversation that involves partners, and district leaders kind of on an even playing field, where partner ideas are as much part of the conversation as district leaders, which it's hard to kind of explain that to people if they're not here. And to some they're going to hear me say that they're gonna say, Oh, sounds like pitch by vendors the whole time, which is not what we do. Instead, we curate the experience with the partners so that our members come here with a learning goal, and then they leverage the partners to be part of accomplishing that learning goal. And that's what we do at our summit, then we go on the road to other events like ASU-GSV, and AASA. And others, what we're doing is we're trying to help our members be thought leaders, and share their work and their ideas, either with industry leaders, with investors with philanthropists, so that the next time somebody wants to spend a bunch of money, either donating to a potential solution to help kids or building a company, that's going to build a thing that's going to help kids that they will have the voice of some of the nation's leading District Superintendent innovators in their thoughts and in their planning. And we're always here, if anybody, you know, have we said that, if we're successful, then when somebody wants to do something new in education, or spend a bunch of money on schools, they're going to call us and ask what do you guys think that's what we want. That's what we want to do, we want to be the voice of district leaders, and we want to be thought leaders around really good work in schools, and what's not working currently. And how we can improve on it is what we spend most of our time talking about. Last thing I'll say, too, we had a really successful and engaging and fun roleplay session here, where everyone got to kind of practice their press conference and public speaking chops. And I think that was just one of the most fun, but also most engaging activities, we've had an IEI because you're never ready for when it happens. So here everybody in a safe space could practice how they would handle that some of the crises that are facilitated came up with were silly. And you know, it wasn't actually triggering real emotional stuff, like one of them was they were spending too much money on organic milk, right. But the press will decide what they're going to get up in arms about and what they're going to try to make a story out of. And that roleplay I think that was a really effective exercise for all of us, whether we're a district leader or not, just to understand how we communicate. And the tone we use when we communicate is really important. And that's something I'm always trying to get better at, particularly in my emails. I know that like, since my career started, people told me like, you gotta watch your tone in your emails. And I was just thinking about that throughout that session. And I think everybody came away with lots of things that they're gonna try to get better at. So.
Sara Croll:Hi, my name is Sara Croll. I'm the Vice President at IEI. At IEI, we really work to bring people together to talk about solutions to common challenges that people are having in their school districts. We host events similar to the one we just had here on Hilton Head Island, where we did just that we talked a lot about school safety. Another thing that we do, in addition to our events is we have thought leaders, which are our superintendents, who we bring to different panels around to different conferences around the United States, we write papers, we visit them at their school districts to showcase the work they do to celebrate who they are, but also to continue to support them with some of these tough challenges, including school safety, teacher retention, all of the things that are happening in their everyday lives, that they just need to lean on some peer support. That's kind of what we offer them. We're a network group of people that lean on each other and have become kind of an IEI family.
Dr. Melvin J. Brown:Hi, I'm Melvin J. Brown, I'm Superintendent at Montgomery Public Schools in Montgomery, Alabama, in terms of leveraging the things we have to be able to attack in our district, we're looking at equity across our entire district, and how we can better suit every student every day. We know we have some challenges that have been artificial, created by us. And those barriers can easily be broken down if we're able to tackle those and be brave about it. And I think our team is ready to do that our team has discussed all the types of things we can do to better serve kids in the way that they're supposed to be served. And I think our community is behind us as well. Being a part of IEI gives us an opportunity to discuss those things in a venue that lets us float ideas back and forth and trade things that will benefit all of us in the long run. And fortunately, I have a circle of folks who can tell me if an idea doesn't make any sense, or if it's something we should go forward with. So I'm happy to be a part of that this opportunity and taking on challenges that 21st Century learners deserve in all of our schools.
Christy Scott:Well, good morning, I'm Christy Scott. And I'm the executive director at an organization called Uncharted learning. And we provide on engaging entrepreneurial education programs and training for schools and districts. So I'm here at IEI. It's actually one of my first. First time at IEI. It was a great conference, really enjoyed meeting education leaders, I think there is a really strong intersection to education leaders that are here really trying to do new and different things in schools for students. And one of the needs we have seen since we have started, the work we do 10 years ago at our net for profit is the lack of entrepreneurial skills and capacities in students and youth today, and preparing them for the future workforce. So this group of really dedicated educators are looking at opportunities for improving student outcomes in a number of ways. So glad to be here. It's really been engaging and learning one of the things that has come up a number of times as well what is the role of entrepreneurial education in schools, right, so where does it fit? And I guess the answer is in many places, right? So it can be an after school it can be in the Genius Hour. What we have found is in order to provide access to all and to have it be, I think the most impactful is when it's, you know, truly a dedicated space and time, whether that be an elementary, middle or high school, but the robustness and the rigor of allowing students, the agency and the excitement of picking a problem to solve, coming up with solutions, learning the entrepreneurial skills of testing and iterating. And actually making mistakes, which is a hard thing to do in education or allowing our students to make mistakes, which is learning from that. And then really learning problem solving skills, communication, and it is entrepreneurial. So they are taking an idea and learning how to commit and communicate and pitch that at the end. So thought leadership. Yeah, so, you know, how do we get the word out? And what do we do talk about thought leadership and education. When we began 10 years ago, we were leaning on thought leaders in the entrepreneurial space, to be honest, so lean startup is at the core of what we do and what we teach students, you know, there is a method and practices that belong, that are more than just a mindset, right? So an entrepreneur mindset is key. But it's also about what are the methods and practices and lean startup and Eric Ries and Ash Maurya and Steve Blank are some of the original thought leaders, and we've taken over the work they did in industry, and entrepreneurship or in higher ed. So some of them were at Stanford and other schools and brought that into high school. And so, you know, we use Lean Startup principles in doing that, and working with great people. And being on podcasts, which is nice to share, what we do is also a really important thing, but um, you know, convenient and great circles and education, the leaders are really strong about sharing what's working for them, and how they can implement it in a sometimes customized ways that are going to meet their student population, their community population, I think that's really the key.
Tiffany Law:Hi there. I'm Tiffany Law, the director of partner relations at IEI, I am lucky to have been around since the beginning of IUI, and have sort of moved up with the company. And I get the pleasure of listening every day to some of the most cutting edge solution providers out there as they are trying to get an audience with our members and guests and share the amazing things that they're creating. We have such an amazing array of partnerships now that are all over the place, from tutoring companies to lots of different types of SEL, our tutoring companies have really separated out even though there are many, they all serve a different purpose, which really helps our members right now, because that's really what they're looking for in COVID recovery, we have a really good option of bringing to our superintendents, the folks that they're looking for. And we can go out and find that to get those solutions into the classroom as quickly as we can, and give them as many different choices as possible. I get to mentor many different companies as they're starting up and listen to their pitches and work with them. As they tried to really break into the EdTech space and find where their place is one of the favorite parts of what I do is IEI hosts a women and leadership forum every year and we have grown this exponentially from what we hoped would just be a few seats full in a room to what last year was the entire room full and not a dry eye in the house this year, many of our members are going to be joining us and celebrating not just women, but also the people that support them. As this started, I really thought that it was going to be a bringing together of education leaders as women. And what I really feel like it has grown into is offering a seat at the table to maybe some of the women who aren't quite sure if they belong at that table and reaching out and sharing a sister circle with them and reminding them that they do have that seat at the table.
Dr. Jeff Dillon:Good morning. My name is Dr. Jeff Dillon. I'm the superintendent of the Wilder School District in Wilder Idaho for a very rural school district. We are population is set free reduced population of high Hipabnic population, high ELL population. We are very unique school district that leaned into a future focused education model. Attending and joining IEI has been a blessing to our system. Because I know what I attend, I am able to reach and touch and get in contact with dynamic companies that are leading education in a very, very future focused pathway. And I need that for my district. We were looking for tools, gaps to fill for our students and can't find those very often in our local area. So you reach out and what's nice about this I get to be in touch with many organizations on the eastern side of the United States. So it's a great opportunity to be involved with IEI.
Dr. Kelley Gallt:Hi, I'm Kelley Gallt. I am from Lake Zurich District 95 a suburb of the Chicagoland area, top fail challenges facing our schools today, I would say staffing issues that ranges from finding quality, best drivers, teaching assistants, special education staff, math teachers, bilingual teachers. So that's a really critical challenge that we are facing right now to make sure that our students are getting what they need, and that they're leaving us the way that we have intended for them to leave us. I would also say trauma our kids and our staff have been faced with a lot of trauma to deal with over the last three years. And whether that be from the pandemic or from other situations where it might be that they now come from a situation where their families have lost jobs, being able to support our students in the way that we would like to has become a major challenge for our staff as well as for our leaders. And then how do you leverage thought leadership to solve problems and to become better, one of the areas that we're really focusing on in our district and our Board of Education is really quite adamant about is making sure that we're taking into consideration the thoughts and the voices of all of the stakeholders we serve. So for example, our students, they're a part of an advisory team at the high school and middle school levels, we meet with them on a regular basis, we want to understand what they're thinking what we can do better, and they have a seat at the table as we're making decisions for them. And then our parents, we've involved them most recently in our curriculum development process. And so we're giving them a voice as we're selecting resources, while our teachers are the ones who are truly making those selections, our parents are telling us what do those resources, what might they be missing? And so that helps us to decide what types of supplemental resources we need in place to support the home environment. And then how do events like IEI help, gosh, in several ways, I love learning about different cultures so that it helps me to create greater perspective and decision making. But additionally, I would say just getting to understand all of the different resources and tools that are available to our district so that we can best support our students and our staff is critical to me.
Dr. Matthew Hicks:Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Hicks, and I am the superintendent at Northeastern Wayne schools, rural school district, about 35 minutes west of Dayton, Ohio, and about an hour and 20 minutes east of Indianapolis. And the top challenges facing my school right now is we still as a result of the pandemic have students who are struggling with some mental health issues that are a result of being at home in their home environments for longer than normal. You know, we take it for granted that kids get to go to school. And for a lot of kids school is a safe haven. And they had to live through a time where that wasn't the case. And so we're still working on helping right the ship for a lot of kids. And that's really the top challenge that we're facing as a school. And we hope to tidy that up as soon as possible. I feel really fortunate when it comes to thought leadership, I have a great group of superintendents in my region, the director of our service center, Katie Lash is a great thought partner as well. And I also have a great team of administrators in my district. And so I like to get thoughts from inside the organization and thoughts from outside of the organization before we make large decisions. And obviously, my board are tremendous thought partners when it comes to major decisions. So I feel very fortunate that every direction I turn, there's help. And, really lucky! IEI, This is my first IEI events, I didn't know what to expect. It's been a lot of learning and a lot of fun. And the part that is really great for me is meeting people from different parts of the country who are trying to solve the same challenges that we are in rural Indiana and finding out what they leverage in their location that maybe we could attempt where we are. And so it's been great. And superintendents, by nature have pretty interesting personalities, we tend to work really hard at our jobs, and then we try to have a lot of fun when we can.
Sarah Williamson:Are you looking to build brand awareness and expand your impact as an organization. But maybe you're struggling to find the ROI with your general marketing and PR efforts, it could be time to try something a little different. At SWPR Group, we approach every organization through the lens of how you can help them add the most value to the conversations that are happening in education today for one of our clients, the Institute for Education innovation. This led to the launch of Supe's choice, an award that we co created to build incredible brand awareness and his firmly established organization as an industry leader driving impact, growth and awareness on every level for EdMentum. This meant the launch of thought leadership panels at education conferences, and a new webinar series featuring influencers and partners that are making a dent for instant education, what will your success story be? Let me know when you're ready to get started. Reach out at Sarah with an H at sarah@swpr-group.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Tahira Dupree Chase:My name is Tahira Dupree Chase and I am the proud Superintendent of the Westbury Union Free school district located Long Island, New York school districts today are facing many challenges. Like most school districts, every school district, including mine, are looking for solutions to enhance and improve safety and security. For scholars for staff and for families who visit right now many school districts are having courageous conversations with your leadership team, my school district in particular doing just that, not only are we having courageous conversations with our leadership team, we've included members of Homeland Security, our local police department, school board members, and of course, our scholars, our end users, we find these conversations to be extremely useful, extremely helpful, and to hear a variety of perspectives from different folk. Using those conversations, we've devised several plans, some we can share, and some we cannot because of safety and security reasons, we've made enhancements. And we've also enlisted our Homeland Security to do all the training in our school district, we find that helpful, because if there's ever an emergency, we will reach out to Homeland Security. And this ensures that we are in lockstep in an emergency situation. I found this full summit extremely helpful, because what I found is that the superintendents who participated, we all share the same challenges. And we were able to come together to discuss share ideas, and learn from one another. And it was very humbling to hear my fellow superintendents dealing with the same challenges all over this country. But it was also fantastic to hear their solutions and incorporate possibly some of their solutions, even network with them to continue to plan.
Shanna Downs:I'm Shanna Downs from West Georgia Regional Education Service Agency. And I have been a member of IEI since the beginning. And I absolutely love the time that I get with fellow superintendents from across the United States, where we can talk, share, and learn from one another on a regular basis several times a year. One of the top challenges facing schools in Georgia is teacher shortages, not just teacher shortages, but staff shortages, overall, teachers paraprofessionals, and bus drivers, and a very recent regional IEI event, I was able to collaborate with other superintendents from across my state, and discuss how they were working to solve this issue. At this current IEI national event, I have been able to have deep conversation with superintendents from across the nation to discuss ideas of how to solve this problem. And it's been very interesting to realize that it is a problem across our country, not just in my region.
Joachim Horn:My name is Joe, I'm from SAM Labs, we serve older districts STEAM and coding leads for K8, we're seeing huge challenges in engagement and literacy across schools and across the nation. We believe that allowing to show students were what the learning applies in the real world changes their mindset changes, how they interact with what's being told to them and what they learn. And we've seen that this increases science scores, increase engagement and also gender parity, and stem electives at high school level. We feel like events like IEI allow us to not only share what we do, but also learn and improve how we're going about it and able to come at each IEI with improvements and things that solve the needs of the districts better and better.
Brett Roer:Hi, my name is Brett Roer from outlier.org. I'm on the High School Strategic partnerships team. And Outlier is on a mission to reduce student debt and increase access to high quality education by providing online dual enrollment courses accredited by the University of Pittsburgh, a top 16 engineering school, and providing introductory level college courses that transfer anywhere at a fraction of the price. What I love about AI is getting a chance to interact with leaders both formally and informally. I love the one on one sessions where you're able to share what we think is an amazing educational solution here honest feedback about how it could work in their district, or partner districts in their networks. What I also love about the I events is the fact that you can sit down and have an honest conversation about the challenges school leaders are facing. You can listen and learn from them. And they're always willing to provide feedback and support not only on your solutions, but others that could be beneficial to your network and environment. I love IEI.
Michael Lee:Hello everyone. My name is Michael Lee. I am from ERDI Canada. We run conferences across the country where we bring the superintedents/ directors across the country to meet with corporations that do business in the kindergarten to grade 12. Market. I am here at attending IEI. Today, for this week, and it's been a great experience, Doug, and I have a great relationship where he usually comes up to my conferences, and I come down to here. And I meet some interesting corporations that are here at IEI, and we foster great relationships, and we foster a great discussion with respect to what they are doing in the schools, and how they could probably make a difference up in Canada, as well as I've seen some of my Canadian companies down your eyes, and they're doing a great job and well done. I think iei events like this really help organizations get a better understanding of what's happening in the American school districts to understand what their problems and issues are. And this is an opportunity for corporations to make changes to their products or services to better help the school boards across the country.
Piper Bognar:I'm Piper Bognar, I am the superintendent of Van Dyke public schools just outside of Detroit, Michigan, I believe some of our top challenges are transiency and providing a wide range of resources for our students, while keeping our academic programs strong. We have amazing teachers who are also facing some challenges and stressors, the wonderful resource that IEI provides is being able to talk to superintendents from outside of the state as well as a few from inside, and learning about what they're doing. Talking to other vendors and resources about what else we might be able to bring into the district that's innovative. Many, many innovators are part of IEI. And really, it is education innovation. So when I leave IEI, I'm refreshed, I'm rejuvenated. And I've got several ideas that I can take back and use right away, I have new thought partners that I can bring into our work in the district, with my cabinet, with my administrators, and with my teachers and other staff. And we can talk about different ways we might be able to do things and really, you know, the old adage of work smarter, not harder. And I think that's a wonderful thing about IEI. This is only my second conference with IEI. And it's just a must do for me whenever I'm able to be here.
Dr. M. Ann Levette:Hello, I'm Ann Levette, Superintendent of Savannah, Chatham County Public Schools and beautiful Savannah, Georgia. And I'm delighted to share with you just a few thoughts. One of the things that we are constantly thinking about is how we recovering from them, from the pandemic. And certainly making sure we're accelerating construction in academics and make sure our students are feeling safe as well such that families helping them through this recovery. We're heading in that direction, feeling really good about the progress that we're making, when we are tackling these issues. And particularly during this time, we're also looking at safety, safety is a big part of our challenge and making sure that we're able to accelerate, remembering that in this case, always the month safety makes it easier for us to accelerate, and helping our families and children recover. When we are looking at these issues. We're relying on our colleagues, both those who are the experts in those particular areas, but also our colleagues who are facing the same challenges. And having opportunities like IEI. We can all come together feel vulnerable share both our challenges and our triumphs and makes it so much easier to come back and face those challenges in our workplaces next day. We have had incredible exchanges of information, we've had an opportunity to ask for assistance and to them with and makes us feel comfortable. Also, we've had an opportunity to share here things that work for us, tell me what works, and then coming away with some new ideas, maybe some enhancements that allow us all to function better. Our job is to make sure that children, staff, families feel safe. While we're continuing to move on to the next stage of this environment. I'm excited always with my IEI thoughts because they give me an opportunity to be reinforced to affirm what I'm doing well, some thinking, I can learn something that everyone could do it.
Dr. Alena Zachery-Ross:I am Dr. Alina Zachery-Ross, superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The challenges that schools are facing really are around teacher shortages, employee shortages, shortages all around along with student achievement really, it continues to really face us. And so really, what we're doing is really trying to equip teachers for these challenges right now. And so events like IEI really help us because they give us solutions to these problems. And they really connect us with vendors that connect us with other superintents. Those who are facing the same challenges. And so we were able to connect with other superintendents who are facing the same similar challenges and how they're approaching these same challenges. It helps us to go back to our districts and navigate and implement some of the solutions. And it really is assuring to us as superintendents.
Sarah Williamson:If you're looking for more of this thought, leadership goodness for your organization, you're in the right place. Visit us at swpr-group.com To learn more about how we work with education organizations, and their leaders, superintendents and influencers to increase your impact. Again, that's swpr-group.com. Thanks for tuning in today and we will see you next time on Build Momentum.