S03E18 - From the Classroom to the Boardroom | AJ Crabill

In this episode of Build Momentum, Sarah and Katie are joined by AJ Crabill. AJ is a Conservator at DeSoto ISD in DeSoto, Texas, and as a Director of Governance at the Council of the Great City Schools. The education reform advocate and public speaker also served as a Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Education Agency and as Board Chair of Kansas City Public Schools. He is the author of the best-selling book “Great on Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective.”

Some Questions We Ask:

• Tell us more about your journey in education. (01:07)
  What educational path led to where you are today? (02:31)
  What advice can you give to education leaders on how to elevate their roles? (06:15)
  Tell us more about your book. (10:13)
  As an education reformer, what are your thoughts about our system and its impact on our country? (12:06)
  What is the difference between being focused on student outcomes versus adult inputs? (16:26)
  What is your final advice for all educators? (20:18)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• About AJ’s educational journey and what he does as a student outcomes evangelist (01:18)
  About AJ’s past classroom experiences and his current leadership roles (02:50)
  AJ’s advice to education leaders (06:40)
  All about his book, Great on Their Behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How Yours Can Become Effective” (10:33)
  His thoughts about the education system and its impact (12:24)
  His thoughts on student outcomes versus adult inputs (16:40)
  The key to being a fantastic educator (20:38)

Quotes:

“It's not actually a change in what happened [in the past] that is driving my behavior, it's a change in how I see what happened and how I view it and what meaning I assigned to it—that is driving my response.”

“If there's any magic in public education, it's in the classroom—it's definitely not in the boardroom. And so the thing that matters most is the quality of instruction that students are experiencing day in and day out. If everything else is wrong and that's right, children are blessed. If everything else was right and that's wrong, children aren't going to get the blessings that they deserve.”

“The job of school boards is to represent the vision and values of the community. Their job is to constantly be listening for the community's vision of what they want students to know and be able to do, adopting goals that describe what the community expects to see out of their school system, and then monitoring progress toward those goals, constantly trying to figure out, ‘Are we actually producing the community's vision for our children?’ Nobody else in the organization has that role of saying, ‘What is the community's vision and how are we making sure that it is happening?’”

Connect with AJ:
AJ's Website
AJ’s LinkedIn
Great on Their Behalf Website
Purchase the Great on

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

Transcript

Sarah Williamson: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Build Momentum, a show where we explore thought leadership and education. I'm Sarah Williamson, the founder of SW PR Group.

Katie Lash: 0:13

And I'm Katie Lash, the director of the East Central Educational Service Center.

Sarah Williamson: 0:17

Together, we explore how to leverage key partners, your constituencies and the media 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: 0:32

All right, on today's episode, we have AJ Crabill, the conservator, you're gonna have to help me know what all that means, at DeSoto ISD, where during this guidance, the district improved from F ratings and academics, Finance and Governance to B ratings, and as the governance director at C. G. C. S. He previously served as deputy commissioner at Texas education agencies. I want to learn more about that too. And the board chair of Kansas City Public Schools. So welcome, AJ,

AJ Crabill: 1:01

Thanks to you both for having me.

Sarah Williamson: 1:03

Yes, CGCS is Council of Great City Schools. Right?

AJ Crabill: 1:07

Yeah,

Sarah Williamson: 1:07

Just spelling that up. Okay, perfect. All right, awesome. You have such an impressive resume, I would love for you to just start from the beginning interior background with our listeners about your journey and education.

AJ Crabill: 1:18

Well, essentially, I still do today, the same thing I've done for a number of years, which falls largely to two different buckets, I spend a lot of my time working with individual schools or groups of schools to deploy student led restorative practices. And I can say more about that, and working with school boards, superintendents and their cabinets to deploy a student outcomes focused approach to school board governance. And so between those two things that takes up most of my time, but working directly with schools on how do we hand over more and more accountability for behavior and discipline in a building to the students themselves, so they can create their own culture and climate and develop the skills necessary to engage in that work in how do we provide school board members and superintendents the skills necessary to be intensely focused on improving student outcomes, rather than what school boards often get caught up in, which is chasing the latest set of adult inputs? These these adults want this, those adults want that. And it's easy to get so caught up on that, that we lose track of that which matters most the reason school systems exist, which is to actually improve outcomes for students.

Sarah Williamson: 2:31

Yeah,

Katie Lash: 2:31

That's fantastic. I think so now you're more like consulting. So that path to did you start the classroom first, and then building level administration? What was that story? Then you're at the state. Tell me more about your, what did you even teach re Elementary, I got to know,

AJ Crabill: 2:50

actually, my classroom experience was middle school, computer programming is actually studied computer programming, and was given an opportunity to go into one of the middle schools and teach sixth, seventh and eighth graders, how to make websites essentially, and so HTML, JavaScript basic things, and just really, really enjoy that experience. And then sometime later, was given opportunity to work with students in a more of an interventionist capacity and really working with students who are struggling through various things, in terms of just how do we be with others in the same space and have it all work out? And so my particular passion has always been for working with what I call the little Aj's the students out there who have made a bunch of the decisions that maybe didn't want them to make, but trying to help schools figure out how do we turn those into learning opportunities? How do we take that and see it for what it could be a chance for a little AJ to learn something, to develop a skill set that's really going to help them be successful later on in life. And then later on, after that, just trying to be a conscientious parent and trying to figure out how to make sure that the children in my household were getting access to the education they deserve while serving on my local school board. And then some time after that was asked to come to Texas to help lead the state education agency. And here we are now.

Sarah Williamson: 4:22

Yeah, that's an impressive resume. For sure. It sounds like I could use some of your help at home with my

AJ Crabill: 4:27

Well, you know, it's funny you say that because my three boys. work around restorative practices in large part began as a personal journey of trying to figure out how to be less awful.

Sarah Williamson: 4:39

I know. I know. I feel like I'm screwing up every day. But I always tell myself at least I apologize, which my parents never apologize. Sorry Mom and Dad if you're listening to this pod. I don't think you are but if you did this, saying sorry, is so important. Like hey, I'm sorry, I snapped at you about this. And that's the starting point.

AJ Crabill: 4:58

Well that's where I was. I really was disappointed with myself and how I would respond to some of the things that just made me want to"Arrrrgh". And instead of responding out of frustration, instead of responding out of anger, just like that's not actually who I want to be, that's not helpful to him. Like, what is going on? Like, this isn't who I am, or at least it's not who I thought it was. But I think this is part of the journey of parenting is for at least for me, it revealed just how selfish and self centered I truly become, that even the smallest behavior that was aberrant was enough to send me in a tailspin. And, and really, it was realizing that I and my frustration will become so focused on retribution, you know, here's what you did wrong. And we're going to get the right punishment. And we're going to give you what for as opposed to what I feel like should be in my heart with any child is how do we create opportunity for for restoration? How do we create the space in which you do in fact, have to be fully responsible for your choices and the impact of those choices? And you have to repair whatever harm you created? These are non negotiables. But how can that be the focus rather than retribution be the focus. And so it was that journey, in part that really grounded me in this work, as I brought it into serving schools and that way as well,

Sarah Williamson: 6:15

yeah, that kind of is a good segue to for the next question, which I'd love to learn more about some of your biggest lessons learned, you just shared some of them. But when it comes to sharing your story, and leveraging your role as a thought leader in this space, because this is a podcast, obviously about thought leaders in education. And so we want to give advice about what others can do, how they can look to elevate their role. And clearly you've done an excellent job with that.

AJ Crabill: 6:40

Oh, no, not that I go that far. What I would say in terms of things that I'm working on, one of the things is I'm supporting education leaders in my own district or across the country that has been a lot of time on is this idea of mindset that how the world occurs, for me has this powerful impact on how I wind up responding to things that are occurring, that it's not actually a change in what happened, that is driving my behavior, it's a change in how I see what happened and how I view it and what meaning I assigned to it, that is driving my response to it. The example I often give is, I had teachers, my senior year of high school, who, upon realizing that I was homeless at the time, about recognizing a lot of the trouble that I had caused in previous classes or previous schools really looked at me and say, You know what, little Aj is just trouble, he doesn't want to learn, he's just trouble. And in that mindset, anything that I would do, whether intentionally or not to be disruptive, was seen through the lens of Look, I told you, he's just trying to create trouble. And it inspires one particular set of adult behaviors. But at the exact same time, I had some other teachers who the mindset that they took it was whatever I behaved whatever way I behaved, and say, You know what he really wants to learn, he really wants to get this material. But this is where he's at, that is where he wants to be. And there's just this gap. And he doesn't know how to bridge that gap. And it's my responsibilities as teacher to get them over that gap. And that is a view of my behavior inspired a very different set of responses from those teachers, my behavior was the exact same in both situations, how I was showing up was the same, my knowledge and skills are the same, the knowledge and skills of the teacher was the same. But what caused me to flounder in one class and thrive in the other was nothing other than the mindset of the teacher, in one case, looking for an exit from relationship with me another case looking for an entree into relationship with me. And that's the view that I see as women, whether that's in the classroom, or in the boardroom, a board that says, You know what, we can't do anything to make things better in the school system. You know, we don't have enough money, we don't have the right kids. I guess that's a mindset. It's a way of viewing the world. You take those exact same folks and invite them into viewing it in a different way instead of the deficit perspective. So you know, what we have the resources that we have, we have the students that we need. All this required is for me to make changes in how I'm showing me to make changes to my adult behavior. But that begins with a mindset shift to looking for what is it that I can do, what's alive in my behavior that is I shifted, can make a difference in the lives of our students. And again, that shift I've found to be incredibly powerful whether it's in the classroom or in the boardroom.

Katie Lash: 9:38

That's fantastic. Sarah was reflecting at the beginning he was talking about he helps little AJs and like for you might be in the literal sense.

Sarah Williamson: 9:46

Yeah,

Katie Lash: 9:47

Sarah does have a son AJ, in case y'all were

Sarah Williamson: 9:51

It was a good joke

AJ Crabill: 9:52

I pray for you that your Aj is not nearly as troublesome is I was

Sarah Williamson: 9:57

no I have two brothers that are much worse than my AJ, my youngest right now? Yeah, much worse.

AJ Crabill: 10:04

I've heard the joy of twins is that they can conspire?

Katie Lash: 10:08

Yeah, that's true.

Sarah Williamson: 10:11

Yeah, we both know about that for sure.

Katie Lash: 10:13

Twin life. So AJ, we know that you recently released a book called Great on their behalf: Why School Boards Fail, How's yours can be effective? So tell us more about the impetus of that book. You talked a little bit about, like your consulting work now. But was it your work first that led to the book? Or did the book inform your consulting or all of the above?

AJ Crabill: 10:33

So really, what happened with the book is, I've been working with folks for quite some time, and I've collected a bunch of stories. And so on one hand, the book was a great place to store a lot of those. Don't worry, the names were changed, protect the guilty. So it's not like a tale all memoir or something. But what really happened was, is I've been working with folks, you know, my personality can be a little bit prickly at times to people say, hey, look, we love what you're saying, Is there a way we can get access to it without having to talk to you? And I said, Yeah, you know, I could write it all down. And then you could have it in the book, and you don't need to interact with me anymore. If he was like, that's a good plan. Make that so. So it is now available for folks. And they can they can have the cake and eat it too.

Sarah Williamson: 11:12

What's your feedback about the book so far?

AJ Crabill: 11:15

Actually, that's been surprising. Probably the most common question I get is, hey, this story on page 76. Is that my school board because it sounds like my school board is like, hey, look, I can neither confirm nor deny my friends. You have to use your own judgment. In fact, I recently there was a news article that came out a few weeks ago it the reporter mentions my book, it says, Oh, well and AJ Crable on this page of the book clearly is telling a story about our school board is like, Oh, wait, how do you know it's about your school board? But you know what, maybe Art imitates life. I don't know, all the stories are true. But I definitely omit the names. And so it's been fun to see people fill in the blanks with their own school system.

Katie Lash: 11:57

I think it just reveals that there clearly are some patterns, right? Like, if it resonates with so many people. There's probably some pattern there. Yeah,

AJ Crabill: 12:05

No doubt.

Katie Lash: 12:06

I'm curious. Your thoughts? Again, I feel like I might know how you answer this based on the beginning of this conversation, but singularly What do you think is our system is an education reform? What I phrase that very poorly, but I think I'm going to know what you say it education reform, what do you think will make the biggest impact in our country,

AJ Crabill: 12:24

actually is pretty far away from school board. So obviously, I just wrote a book about school boards, but it's actually not possible to be within the school system, and any farther away from children than on the school board. Like they're literally from a organizational perspective, they are the furthest away from the classroom, the furthest away from children as you can possibly get, and still be within the school system. And so there are valuable things a boards can contribute. And I would certainly want to see more boards do that, because even though they have a kind of a very small impact on each individual student, and this large impact on the system overall. But that being said, That's not actually a question, what makes the most impact? Well, the only thing that matters is, are we actually improving what students don't are able to do for that we have to go to the other end of the organization to the classroom, that what happened in the boardroom echoes in the classroom. But what happened in the classroom, that's where all happens, if there's any magic in public education, it's in the classroom, it's definitely not in the boardroom. And so the thing that matters most is what's the quality of instruction that students are experiencing day in and day out, if everything else is wrong, and that's right, children are blessed if everything else was right, and that's wrong, children aren't going to get the blessings that they deserve. And so we've constantly got to be figuring out whether it's through my restorative practices work, or through my governance work constantly trying to identify what is it that we can be doing? How are we making sure that in all these other parts of the organization, that they're contributing to students experiencing a higher quality of instruction tomorrow than they did yesterday? And so one of the things that frustrates me the profession, and then I think could make a really huge difference is, the Esteem with which we hold teachers is significantly less than what is warranted than that. I feel like there's a time in at least my lifetime, where teachers were definitely on a bit of a pedestal. And if the teacher said, This is what we're doing, this is what we're doing. And people were arguing with it and say, Well, we're going to trust the educator, and that sense of trusting the educator, it feels like in a lot of parts of our country that his died away. In fact, I sometimes seen school board meetings across the country and feel like there's almost it's all out attack on educators is it that we're not willing to trust their wisdom and their guidance? And so if I could wave a magic wand, I'd be looking for what our policies are, what are strategies that we can engage in that really begin to restore the esteem of the profession to elevate to the status of the profession. I want us to get to the point where when young people are graduating and put was like, Hey, what are you going to do after high school is like, well, you know, my test scores, were only good enough to get into med school or law school, but they weren't good enough to get me into teacher school. And so I guess I'm gonna be a doctor or lawyer, what are you going to do? Well, I, my scores were only good enough to get me into engineering or get me into rocketry. So I'm going to try to be a rocket engineer, but I wasn't good enough to get into the Teachers College. Like when we get to this point where that is the level of esteem with which the professionals out I think that has a meaningful a meaningful impact on all of our children.

Sarah Williamson: 15:34

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 we 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. What will your success story be? Let me know when you're ready to get started. Reach out at Sarah with an sarah@swpr-group.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Alright. That's fantastic. AJ, I've heard you say something before I wanted to dig into it a little bit more today. What do you consider is the difference between being focused on student outcomes versus adult inputs?

AJ Crabill: 16:40

Yeah, this is a really important distinction for school boards to make. And that's where it can be easy to get tripped up. Because this is a really critical governance distinction, and less critical at the managerial level or at the school level, the classroom level. But it's a really important distinction for school boards to make. So the basic idea here is that the job of the school boards is to represent the vision and values of the community. But their job is to constantly be listening for the community's vision of what we want students to know and be able to do adopting goals that describe here's what the community expects to see out of our school system, and then monitoring progress toward those goals, constantly trying to figure out, are we actually producing the thing? That is the community's vision for our children? And that is the board's role, the board's role alone, nobody else in the organization has that role of saying, what is the community's vision? And how are we making sure that at the totality of the organization, that that is happening, because that's the unique role of the board. It is incredibly dangerous for the board, to begin substituting the idea of outcomes for students what it is that students know and are able to do at the end of their journey with inputs by adults, what are the things that adults are doing, or the resources or the strategies applied? So the difference here is imagine a school board is worried about the well being of its African American students and says, we noticed that not nearly enough of African American students are earning AP credit. And so the board says, Okay, well, we know what we'll do, we will have a goal that says we want to increase the number of AP seats that are available to African American students. On its surface, it sounds great. But even if you increase the number of seats for African American students in AP, what does that not tell you?

Sarah Williamson: 18:29

how well they're doing? Why

AJ Crabill: 18:31

will do nothing about how well they're doing? It is super easy to move adult inputs was like, Hey, we made more seats available, it is something else to actually cause improvements in what students known are able to do. The board that mistakingly focuses its time on the adult input. We'll make those happen. Great, yeah, we created a bunch of seats now more black kids around, you know, victory in declaring that victory. It will be a moment when adults say, Hey, we got the job done, when the reality for children might not have actually changed at all. This is why it's absolutely essential for the board not to get super excited about the adult inputs not to get super excited about oh, well, now we have the right book. So we're done here or now we have the right building. So we're done here. Now we have the right teachers that were done here, and not be satisfied with any of the inputs or any of the resources that are applied at the beginning of the cycle. The board's unique role in the organization is it has to keep its eye on the prize. What are the results at the end of the cycle? What are the things that children actually know and unable to do when they leave our school system? This is why boards when they arrogantly get focused on adult inputs. children suffer from that because then the goalpost is did adults try hard and when the answer is yes, then we waive the victory flag. Even if little AJ hasn't learned anything. It's critical that boards instead we focus on the student outcomes. What is the evidence of what little AJ has learned, knows and is able to do And only when that has improved, can we declare any measure of victory. This is a difference between an A board being intensely focused on adult inputs, which unfortunately is the status quo across the nation, as opposed to being focused on student outcomes, which is what we coach and what the book is all about.

Katie Lash: 20:18

Oh, AJ, I have so many more questions about that topic that I want to pick your brain about. But as we leave off here, if you had one piece of advice for all educators, tell us the key to being a fantastic teacher.

AJ Crabill: 20:32

If there's any coaching that I'd offer, it's the thing that teachers automatically do better than almost everybody else, certainly better than superintendents and school board members, which is they remember to be reflective in their practice, they're constantly going back, think of the coach after the game, they go back, and they replay the footage of the game to figure out okay, how did we do and where can we improve, like teachers just naturally gravitate to this work. And the teachers I know, are just pros and going back and replaying the video, but I would assign that particular task to everybody would assign it to not only all of our teachers, but all of our principals, not only our principals, but our superintendents, and our school board members never be satisfied with the level of performance that I've brought to bear for children today are constantly looking at what in the video, is I replayed? Where can I constantly be improving. And it's through that constant focus on continual improvement, that we actually get a little bit more and a little bit more opportunity for our children every single day, it's when we as adults start to get super satisfied, the what's possible for children gets a little bit less and a little bit less. And so this constant commitment to I've got to be replaying the video of my leadership and figuring out what can I do to have my behavior more aligned with improvements in student outcomes tomorrow than it was yesterday?

Sarah Williamson: 21:46

Amazing how it also add parents to that mix. As parents, we also need to be thinking about how we can improve.

AJ Crabill: 21:52

Yeah, that's what we mentioned earlier is when I was thinking about, you know, my discipline practices. Yeah, I would certainly hope that my parenting by the time my last kid left the house was much better than my parenting. The beginning of yeah, continuous improvement. This is what our children deserve, regardless of what our role is in their lives.

Sarah Williamson: 22:12

Yeah. Amazing. AJ, it's been such a pleasure talking with you.

AJ Crabill: 22:16

Thanks for having me

Sarah Williamson: 22:17

Yes, where can our listeners learn more about you and also buy your book, Thank you so much. Appreciate it. If you're

AJ Crabill: 22:21

If people are curious about the book, it's available wherever you buy books, it's everywhere. You can looking for more of this thought, leadership goodness for learn more about it on the website, great on their behalf.com or if people just want to chat it up or reflect on some of the things that we've talked about or some of the other issues around leadership that you have discussed. Feel free to shoot me an email just AJ@crabill.com Just AJ at AJ C R A B I L L .com 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.