How to Use PLCs to Support Culture and Change with Dr. Jason Andrews, ep. 207

How to Use PLCs to Support Culture and Change with Dr. Jason Andrews, ep. 207, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

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Chrissy Beltran  01:23

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Chrissy Beltran  02:36

Hey coach and welcome to episode 207. How to Use PLCs to support culture and change. This is part of our theme of relationships, resistance and rookies. And the reason, I think PLCs are such an important part of this component is going to become very clear in just a few minutes, when our PLCs aren’t working together, it is such a struggle, and I have personally dreaded working with the teams who are the most dysfunctional and who seem to enjoy their work together the least, but PLCs can be a really powerful tool for change and for supporting the culture of learning and growing, especially in our new teachers. So today, we’re going to talk to Jason Andrews a solution tree, all about how we can use PLCs to support culture and change. So let’s welcome Dr. Jason Andrews to the podcast. Welcome today. Jason,

Dr. Jason Andrews  03:23

great. Good morning. It’s great to be here.

Chrissy Beltran  03:25

Thank you so much for being here. I’m really excited to talk to you about PLCs and how we can use them as a vehicle to support culture and growth. But before we get to that, I want to know a couple of things about you. I want to know who do you help and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Dr. Jason Andrews  03:41

Yeah, so that’s a great question, and I think, I think it’s evolved over time in terms of of that. Who do I help? I think it sort of depends on the day. I spend a lot of my time, of course, working with administrators. But what I find a lot of my time, and now I’ve become sort of the old guy. This is my 19th year as a superintendent and and I’ve been in the district now for 27 years. I get a lot of calls from from people outside of the district, and sort of the you know, can I pick your brain and I will try to tell them, Well, that’s slim pickings, but I’m happy to share, you know, my my perspective. You know, a lot of times, in terms of leaders, I spend a lot of time. I’m not even sure, necessarily helping, but just listening and lit and having them talk through their situations, their issues. What I think I’ve learned over time is what I thought help used to be and what I think it is now. You know, I thought that my job, in terms of help was you asked. Think I answer. And I think what I’ve learned over time is that you ask, I ask and and help you to get to that answer. I think you know, having helping people where a lot of my energy is helping them either affirm that their thinking is right on or to consider a different perspective. Has has been something I will tell you. You know, I’ve, I’ve gotten some scars and bruises along the way from that, because people often will say, Well, I’m, I’m calling you for the answer. If I knew the answer, then I and so there can be some, a bit of of a growth piece with that. So that’s a lot of the energy. I think for me, I spent a lot more of my energy on things I never would have thought I’d spend my energy on. And that is really that I spent a ton of time on mission, vision, values goals, like things. Talk constantly, talking about, what are we trying to do here? Right now, our state budget proposal from the govern governor is not positive, and so we’re trying to figure out, all right, so one, how do we make sure we maintain and continue to we? We don’t. We’re not a district that wants to be status quo. How do we continue to move forward and thrive? But also, where’s the opportunity in this and and, you know, we can spend all of our time talking about, oh, this is terrible, and this is awful. And I had a sort of a tough reminder last week working with our leadership team. But it’s been a similar thing that I’ve had as I’ve worked with leaders in other districts and saying, Well, we’ve been through this before. We’ve, you know, and and what they reminded me as we haven’t I have. And so how do you sort of bring people in that this does not have to be negative, this does not have to be awful and traumatic, and it is a way for us to force us to say, is there a way to do this differently? And, you know, trying to make sure, like, you know, we one of the phrases that I learned was told a long, long time ago, is that for there to be a cut, there has to be blood. You have to see blood, otherwise it’s a scratch. And so yes, we can do a whole bunch of scratches, but maybe the opportunity is actually to to cut. So how, what does that look like? So that’s, that’s right now what I’m spending a lot of of my time doing. I’m also, it is budget season, but I’m, I’m our, the president of our State Superintendents Association. So right now, a lot of energy around kind of that advocacy work and the statewide piece of it. So that’s great. Lots of, lots of kind of different and dynamic things that just sort of depends on

Chrissy Beltran  08:06

the day. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, though. While I do think that we need to advocate, advocate for schools in your and you are doing that clearly around your superintendency work, but everybody needs to advocate for schools, I think you’re right, that in the moment, you’re like, Okay, well, we have to look at this as an opportunity to figure something out, because there’s really not other options there, right? You got to make it work, yeah. And

Dr. Jason Andrews  08:29

I think especially, again, having been in the spot so long, we it’s, it’s really interesting when you from a leadership standpoint, but really in the classroom too. When you’re newer and you’re there, it’s almost invigorating and rewarding to clean up someone else’s problem that you’re, you know, the you know, I’m, I’m taking care of the mess that was left for me. It’s much less fun to clean up your own mess, you know? It’s sort of like cooking at home, right? And so and so when you’re thinking about all right? Well, the things that we may have to consider are things that, you know, during my time, we built together, and that’s that’s hard and and trying to do it in such a way that we say, well, you know, we may have to look at this differently and and it doesn’t necessarily feel good when it is something you created, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s sort of like at home right now, we’re doing some some renovations, and the contractor is saying, Well, I don’t know who the idiot that did this was. And I’m thinking, Well, I know who the idiot was, you know. So it’s which is different from, you know, all the old owner and right, think that’s, it’s, it just is an interesting piece. And I also just think, you. You can be upset. You can be, you know, feel like it’s or victims, or whatever I mean. And that doesn’t really accomplish a whole lot. So, you know, the whole choose your attitude thing, I just think is so important.

Chrissy Beltran  10:15

Mm, hmm, yeah. We were big fish philosophy people. Whenever I was a new teacher, I remember, sure, yeah, for sure. So now my second question to get to know you a little bit more is, what is a movie that you could watch every single day? Yeah,

Dr. Jason Andrews  10:28

you know, that’s actually a tough question. So I’m not a big movie person, okay? And in fact, just last week, I said to my wife, do you want to go to the movies? And she was like, is everything okay? She loves the movies. I don’t, but I just recently flipping through, saw Shawshank Redemption, and I could, I’ve probably seen it 150 times, and I could see it 150 times more that, and Forrest Gump. And I think with either of them, no matter, you don’t have to start them at the beginning. Yeah, in the last month, I’ve seen portions of both of them, you know, multiple times and and really can’t get enough of either of them.

Chrissy Beltran  11:18

Yeah, those are good ones. I can’t watch them too often. They’re a little emotional for me, and I tend to dwell, so avoid it when I can. But yeah, those are fantastic. Um, so Okay, so I want to talk with you a little bit, actually, about some of the things you already kind of mentioned that so many schools are experiencing a lot of struggle and a lot of change right now. They’re seeing a lot of things shift. We’ve got a lot of brand new people to the field, some people who are uncertified and really have not had classroom experience in any way. We have a lot of veteran teachers leaving. We have a lot of new curriculum people who are implementing new things. It’s struggle bus, right for a lot of schools. So when that happens, how does that affect our PLC, our school PLC?

Dr. Jason Andrews  11:59

Yeah, you know, I think, I think this is a critical area that we need to focus on. And I think it goes back to some of the things that I said, you know, we, we kicked this work off in, in with Rick and Becky defor In 2006 in our school and and when I look at the number of people who are here now and who were here, then it’s just a completely different group. And I, I think, I think again, going to the opportunity is really trying to take a very different look at how we approach new teacher induction and support, and I’ll tell you. So again, I’ve been in the district a long time. I was was hired. I’m this brand new. I was a certified teacher and went through the teacher prep program. I was a I was a history teacher, but I don’t have a degree in history, and I was a political science major, and that first year, even though I had I had student taught, I had done all those things, and I was a coach in the district as well. So I had sort of the I built some of those relationships even before school started. But I will tell you, it was a tough road, and I had to learn the content, I had to learn the instructional strategies and the pedagogy. I had to, you know, I was only a few years older than the kids I was trying to teach and try to learn that whole boundary and, and, and some of of that. And I worked with great people, but I felt like, more like I was pledging a fraternity than I was joining a profession. And I think that whole no one did it for me. You’ve got to do it yourself. You’ve got to figure it out is a real problem. And, and I think at the end of the day, you know, not only was it hard on me when I still, I’ll see now and again, they’re not that much younger than me, some of my first year students and and I think they should probably like take me to court for educational malpractice, like it was bad, and the support that I got was more like when the principal comes in to observe and he’ll come in once this is what he wants to see. It wasn’t, you know, really that support so. So I think then when we look at people who are have not, who are going through alternate certification programs, we need to do even more to support them. And I think that’s really. Really one of the great gifts of the PLC process is that you have a team and and if we truly mean a team, I was in a department, we were nothing like a team. And when we get to the, you know, the interdependence and the mutual accountability pieces of that, then it’s no longer look figure it out. Kid, you’re on your own, and and, and if you fall down, good for you. I had to do that too, right? So to really being I need to do the very highest level of support for someone on my team, because I depend on them. I can’t, can’t have individual success without them. And so I think there’s a great opportunity. I think one of the tricky parts is the the terminology. So people like, oh, yeah, I know PLCs. Well, do you really and, and, and so how do you onboard people in such a way that you get to some of the depth about the PLC process and remembering that it’s a process, not a program. And so how do you really try to bring people up to speed and at the same time, not stop everything you’re doing and start over? Likewise? So if you have a new team member, you have a new team. So now we have to do some norming, and we have to talk about norm accountability protocols, and we need to do some of that work. But we also aren’t saying, well, new team member, so we start over. So I think there’s a there’s some natural conflict with some of that. But what I’ll tell you, you know, covid was an interesting, again, opportunity with some of that, and during that time that we were closed, I checked in with every member of our instructional staff, individually at some point and almost to a person, they said something To the effect of, I don’t know what I would have done without my team, and I think about that, you know, what are some of the stress points in life? And you know, there are births and there are deaths, and there are weddings and there are divorces, and there are moves, and there are fires, and they’re all these things. Or I think I have not, I think I know in our district what I have seen and in all the other districts, you know, I’ve worked in many, many districts around the country. Now, the team is really that cog that holds it together. You know, we recently had a teacher and her her mother and had passed away very suddenly, and and and her team said, Don’t worry, we’ve got it. And they did. And I think those new staff members, as they’re trying to go through all of the tricky parts that I tried to figure out, if they have a team that says, Don’t worry, we’ve got you. I have a one year old granddaughter. She just turned one last week, and she’s about the greatest gift that we’ve ever had. And and we know she’s actually exceptional. She’s gifted. We know that already, but it fell right away, of course, yeah, we can, we can see it, but it’s interesting to watch her, and I it, you know, with our own kids, I just didn’t pay so much attention to some of those things. But watching her as she’s now learning to walk, and it’s okay if she falls down, because somebody’s right there, we’re making sure that that, you know she’s going to fall down. That’s part of learning to walk. But she’s not alone. We’re right there, and I think that you know, as as new teachers are joining the profession and recognizing they’re going to fall down, and it’s going to sometimes hurt, but they’ve got people there to pick them up because they care about them. And ultimately, we need her to walk, because she can’t be carried around for the for her whole life, right? So we need our new teachers to be able to do the same thing. So I think, I think that times are tough, and I think they’ve always been tough to a degree. I, you know, I, I, I think there’s some validity to it’s harder than it’s ever been. I do think that kids are coming with greater needs and, and, and, you know, there’s, I think, some of the just societal discontent that spills over into schools. Um. But I think if we, if we try to hold each other up and we truly know what a team is, and truly collaborate, not pretend, then I think we’re going to be okay.

Chrissy Beltran  20:13

So you’re talking, I like what you’re talking about, like using these teams to support our new teachers, to create a safety net, to help on board, for sure. So using PLCs to do all these things, what is the culture that we’re trying to build? And how can school leadership use the PLC, you know, to build this culture? Yeah,

Dr. Jason Andrews  20:33

and I let me just I, I would say yes, it’s about support, but it’s also about that accountability, you know. So, I mean, I started out teaching us history, and what I was given was the textbook. Part of it is, and I chose these are what I think are important. So part of the PLC process for the team to say, yes. So these are the things that we’ve agreed are the essential standards that we’re going to guarantee here. So I think it’s not just the support, but it’s also that accountability. We’re going to have that mutual accountability and, and, yes, I’m going to, I’m going to pick you up when you fall down, but I’m also going to say, we agreed we’re going to be at this point. Yeah, this time. So I think there’s that. It’s both. And, you know, if you think about it, you know, whenever I have an I don’t know when it’s been a long time, whenever I have been good about exercising is when I’ve had someone to hold me accountable, that accountability partner. So I think it’s both. I think it’s support, but support. You know, sometimes I’ll say to my wife, as I’m trying to to lose weight. Support doesn’t always feel good. Mm hmm. You know when, when she’ll she’ll ask me, Are you sure you want to eat that? So, yeah. So I don’t always support. I don’t always like to be supported. And I think that’s part of that piece too, is it’s not there there. So I think part of that culture, then, is that, that mutual accountability, we’re accountable to each other to ensure kids learn. And I think, I think that when we think about the PLC process, that one of the big things that I learned the hard way. So we got really excited, and we said, Yes, this makes sense, so we need to do this, then we need to do this, and we need to do this and and I love the analogy that Dr Anthony Muhammad uses about culture versus those technical changes, because I think what we often do is jump in a whole lot, and we say, All right, we need to get our common formative assessments, and what’s our data protocol going to look like. And All right, let’s change the schedule. And now we need to talk about grading. I was with a school yesterday, but you know, what are we doing with our grading? All absolutely true, but what he uses as the analogy is, he describes all those things as seeds. And if we plant those seeds in infertile soil, then nothing will grow. And then what he describes, this the school culture, as is the soil. And so I think there’s this interesting balance, and that is, you, you can’t have infertile soil, but you also can’t just be fertilizing the soil, either. At some point you have to plant a seed. And so, and I think we sometimes, not only do we have infertile soil, but we will overseed. We will over plant. And so trying to say, Okay, here’s our soil, and our soil is really digging into, you know, what are our core beliefs? What do we believe about kids? And what that really means, because I can’t see anyone’s beliefs, is that? What it really means is our culture, is our behaviors? Yes, you know, how will we behave and and one of Dr Muhammad’s really powerful quotes, to me is that the culture of your school is only as good as the worst adult behavior you’re willing to tolerate. And that, to me, was a bit of a gut punch, because I think sometimes, you know, we’ll talk soil. We our soil, our culture is so great. We love kids so much. I also think that we will often misunderstand culture, the soil, for climate. And so culture is how we behave, climate is how we feel. They’re related, but they’re not the same thing. And so I think sometimes, just because we feel good about something, you. Or bad about something, then that doesn’t mean we have a good or bad culture, right? And so, you know, I think again that lesson that I learned, I spend a lot more time on soil than seeds and and being really clear, especially with new staff. Do you think about a traditional, you know, new staff orientation, new teacher induction? It’s, let me show you this seed, this seed, this seed, this seed, this plant, this plant, this plant. But we don’t talk a lot about what our our soil is. What do we believe about kids. You know, we just recently had an interesting situation where there was a conversation about someone made a statement, not within the district, about a teacher should never be alone with a student said, Well, let’s talk about that. Because I don’t think that’s our belief. You know, that we, we have people that are, that are doing one on one, work with kids all the time, right? So now let’s talk about line of sight and and, you know, being careful about, you know, not putting yourself in a bad situation and so on, right? But, but but to say, you know, well, our belief here is that there are going to be times that we’re going to need to work individually with students to ensure that they’re, you know, in our case, our, our mission, our, that shared mission is to ensure each learners future ready. So if we’re going to have every kid future ready, then then we have to do that. So I think being clear about, well, what do we believe about kids? We what are those behaviors going to be and so I think that’s a really important piece. And I think for people to be successful, they need to know the soil of the organization they’re joining. And if you’re in a school that that can’t describe your soil, you know, so you have to do some soil testing too, right? So, I mean, our kids in our ag program and our environmental science are out doing soil testing to see what needs to be done. And sometimes you don’t like what you see with that and and so we have to spend some some more time really determining what is our culture. And so I think that’s a really important part.

Chrissy Beltran  27:30

Yeah, I so glad that you’re talking about this, because just the other day, I was talking to a teacher who has a new administrator this year, you know, it’s been almost a whole school year, right? And I said, Well, some of the concerns, you know, I’m hearing these different concerns. And I said, Well, what are some of the things that are important to this administrator? What are the values? What are their priorities? And she paused, and she said, You know what? I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. And that was like, oh, you know, it’s been almost a year, and the teacher still doesn’t know what the administrator values. She goes, Well, it’s not this, it’s not this, it’s not this. Because these are all concerns we brought to them, and they have not addressed them. So I couldn’t, I don’t know what it is. I’m not seeing any. There’s no new and she goes, usually, I’m used to like, well, this is our big thing, and we’re all going to get behind it. We’re going to work together, and we’re going to help each other, and we’re going to do it. I don’t, I haven’t seen any of that this year, because it feels very like we’re just kind of like floating along, you know? So that, and that was huge indicator to me, of lacking school culture for sure,

Dr. Jason Andrews  28:27

which I think again, I go back to my own experience. They teachers could tell me what they wanted to see in my class, in an observation, but not what their core values were.

Chrissy Beltran  28:39

Exactly follow the curriculum. This is the curriculum, but not this is why we think this is important, or these are the pieces that are essential, or any of that, yeah,

Dr. Jason Andrews  28:47

the, you know, the four pillars of a PLC, mission, vision, values, which then influence our collective commitments and goals. That is, you know, that’s the foundation of this work, and our teams rest on, on those four pillars, and, and, and trying to make the distinction, I spend so much time talking about mission and I never would have thought. I would have said, Oh, you, you know what? I’m going to punch you in the face if you talk about that that much. But it’s not about let’s wordsmith a mission statement. Is if we’re, if we’re really going to be collaborative, if our culture, our soil, is going to be collaborative? Well, first of all, the root word of collaboration isn’t talk and isn’t me and isn’t even share labor. It’s work. Well, if we’re not working toward the same thing, how can we collaborate? It doesn’t it’s not possible. So that mission, what, that shared mission, of what is it we’re trying to do here? You know, why do we exist? Is really important. And then, you know, and as you share that new teacher piece, so the part of the leadership, but then for all, for teachers as well, is then that vision piece, you know? The is that aspirational? What question, what do we want to become? What do we want to be known for? What do we want to build? And you know, I always use the analogy and to say to people, Look, you want to go on a trip with me. Your first question is, where are we going? And I think in a lot of schools, we have not spent time on where are we going. We say we’re driving. We’re going for a drive. Yeah, I’m not interested. I think there are a lot of schools that are driving, but they haven’t put a destination in their GPS to say, this is where we’re going. And so, you know, as you think about that, so the I’m clear on the purpose, I’m clear on the destination, that vision. Well, then, you know, because I travel a lot and I use GPS, I have to then follow the directions. I have to have a destination, by the way. I also have to have where I am. And sometimes I think we are current reality adverse. We don’t want to talk about where we are, because it doesn’t always feel good climate. But here’s where we are, here’s where we’re going. Then I can’t just say while I drive, I have to follow the turn by turn directions. That’s that, that values, that behaviors piece. And then you know, if you use your GPS, it tells you your estimated time of arrival, and if you stop, well, it’s gonna, gonna change it if you, if you get off at the wrong exit, well, what does it do? It recalculates. But we’re it didn’t change the destination. It recalculates. It may take us a little longer to get there. Or, you know, if I drive a little too fast, or I, you know, take chances, run some red lights, I might get there a little sooner. And I think that that, that that foundational piece of those pillars, is so important, and if you don’t articulate that as a leader, and you know, so the key to leadership is followership. And so for that teacher to say, I don’t know, I’m not really following anything. Mm,

Chrissy Beltran  32:11

hmm. Yeah, exactly. They’re just checking some some boxes of things that they’ve been asked to do. So then in in thinking about change and how, like you’re talking about navigating towards a destination. How can school leadership use like PLCs, in terms of, you know, grade level teams and things like that, as a vehicle for their for change? And then, what are some things that that maybe leaders are using PLCs that are harmful to change? So like, quick example, when I was we were new to the PLC process. Like you mentioned back in oh six, we were getting trained in this as well as teachers. I was a teacher at the time, and I can remember spending all of our faculty meetings and all of our grade level meetings talking about PLCs and learning about PLCs. But then we didn’t do the work of PLCs. My grade level was, you know, we worked together really well, aside from that, but the school didn’t really support us in working together. It was more like, let’s learn about how to work together, and then we didn’t. If you did, you did, and if you didn’t, you didn’t. And there was no real change there, you know. So, so what are your thoughts on that? How can we support grade level teams or vertical alignment teams, or, you know, content area teams, and use PLCs to support change in those areas. And what are maybe some mistakes we make?

Dr. Jason Andrews  33:26

Yeah, sure, so I think so one I want. And so change for change sake, I think is, is a problem. So I think we want to be clear of, you know, go back to I was a high school teacher and a middle school principal, and by my nature, I am skeptical. Some people, you know, might call other things, but I’m I, you know, nicely, I’m a skeptic, and I and I think that too often, we don’t have a clear answer of why, and I think we need to before, before you ask me to change, you have to have a compelling reason of why you know and and that you know, if you, if you look at Cotters, change model, for example, you know the the we have to create a sense of urgency. There has to be a reason why, why we’re doing that? Because I think that too often, and that’s one of the things why I think the PLC process is so important that we get so in education into what’s the shiny rock, what’s the new thing that we can can chase. And I think you know that where you get people, where that, here we go again. The pendulum will swing. I’ll wait it out, etc, and that’s the case often with programs. Again, this is not a program, it’s a process. So So I think where, where it can help for changes. Go back to our pillars. So, mission, vision, values and goals. So when we started out, you know, our graduate. Innovation rate was 78% we that’s not okay. We have to change what we’re doing in order to achieve what we all would say is, is, is our, you know, not only our mission of all, but also our our goal. So I think that you know, having that compelling mission, vision, values and goals can help with that change and recognize that. All right. Well, our mission isn’t most, unless, unless that’s let’s talk about that is most what we want to do. You know, let’s talk through that if we’re okay with with exclusions, then then fine. So I think part of that, where the PLC process is, is important, is, is in those pillars. I also think, you know, at the end of the day, where what this is all about is empowerment. This is about empowering individuals and teams of teachers to impact their professional practice. You know, I think our district does a really good job with professional development, and I hope that our teachers learn more in their professional learning teams than they do in our conference days that we do throughout the year. That job embedded learning. That’s how we’re going to change. Because I think, you know, one of the underlying assumptions that I have is this, and again, I’ve worked in, you know, many, many schools, and I think it’s not just the case in mind, but in other schools, schools are filled with incredibly hardworking, well intentioned people, and the underlying assumption that I do my work based on is people are doing the best work they can. They’re not holding back their good strategies, and despite best efforts to give feedback and to evaluate and to provide professional development leaders cannot have that daily impact of so I did it the best way I knew how. Mm, hmm, it didn’t meet the needs of all kids. What can I do differently? There’s where I need my team that the team together that job embedded learning. And by the way, maybe no one on our team knows this idea of collective inquiry. Are we gonna we need to learn this together. And I, and I see that so often across our district right now, as people are grappling a bit with AI, what does that look like? How look etc? Well, I don’t know. We could bring in some experts. What? What do we have? We have members of our staff that have said, yeah, so let me show you what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been learning with it, etc. So I think the PLC process and the collaborative culture, but also to the four critical questions going through that piece, if we’re going to ensure all kids learn, you can’t do that alone. So how do we intervene while we have a group response? You help me get better. I help you get better. You take my kids. I take your kids. There are kids all of those things. I think going to the second part, what are some mistakes? Well, I think compliance. I think, you know, again, the checking off of of the boxes. I think the settling for PLC light. I think the collaboration by invitation, the again, the culture of your school is only as good as the worst adult behavior willing to tolerate. Well, you know, Chrissy doesn’t like to collaborate, so she doesn’t have to

Chrissy Beltran  38:53

right the

Dr. Jason Andrews  38:57

I thought I was heroic as a teacher that I was here early and I would give up my lunch to work with kids. That’s not systematic interventions to say I’m available. You know, my treadmill was available to me this morning too. I didn’t use it, but it was there, right? You know, though, to really to say we do this, oh, we’ve been doing PLCs for years, but to pick and choose, we like this part. We don’t like that part, you know, the whole fidelity piece, I think is important and versus the compliance. I’m going to collect your agendas. I want to see your minutes, but I don’t really know what you’re doing,

Chrissy Beltran  39:46

right? Yeah, boxes, check

Dr. Jason Andrews  39:48

in the boxes. And I think that’s that’s easy to do. It’s also you might be surprised. You might not be surprised how often I will go places and they’ll say, Listen, we want you. To, you know, we need, we’ve been doing the PLC work for a long time. We just need a quick little refresher. But it has a really bad name, yeah? So, so don’t use the term at all.

Chrissy Beltran  40:15

Yes, I’ve heard people say that, yeah. Be like, what? Right? I’ll

Dr. Jason Andrews  40:19

try. But, you know, and so I think trying to get back to, what is it that we’re talking about, or, you know, oh, my like, yeah, the district isn’t, but my team, we have been for. Well, now let’s talk about that. Have you really? You know, I in my trainings, often I do a distinction, try to make a distinction between being cooperative and being collaborative. And I think often we settle for being cooperative being groups. They we get along great, yeah. We share some things, yeah. So that’s not the PLC process, you know that and and recognizing that we are not necessarily equipped to collaborate when we start looking at the distinctions of being collaborative and trust vulnerability those that takes some time to build and a skill set I can go into any meeting and be cooperative and be collegial, easy being collaborative. So now I’m going to challenge you right poke at things. Now that’s a that’s a different, higher bar, and I think that, what I think the big mistake is, is settling,

Chrissy Beltran  41:43

getting stuck there and just saying, Well, this is fine. This is the way it is, yep, yeah, because that’s a normal people move through, right? It’s a normal part of the process to move through that. But then there need to be those conversations that push it beyond just, Okay, well, sure, yeah, that sounds good, but I’m gonna go back and do whatever I’m gonna do

Dr. Jason Andrews  42:00

absolutely and in some where, where the culture isn’t so good, it’s even, oh yeah, yeah. I’ve been doing it that way also for years, a little bit better though, you know, this culture of competition, yes. And I think that’s another mistake that people will make is, you know. So we’re going to use formative assessments to, you know, rank and compare teachers. Well, if you’re if, if you’re going to compare me and now evaluate me in that way, why would I possibly give my competitor my best suggestions, my my best tools, wouldn’t do that, but if we’re a team with mutual accountability, we have shared results, collective results. Well now, yeah, I’m going to do whatever I can so that you have success, because your success is my success. Yeah, I

Chrissy Beltran  42:59

told I love that. Yeah, go team. That’s what we what we’re trying to build, right? Is a group of people that rely on each other, support each other and challenge each other, yeah? And

Dr. Jason Andrews  43:08

I think so. I’m a huge Buffalo Bills fan. Have Okay, long suffering Buffalo Bills fan, for many, many years. And of course, we continue to suffer and get punished. I don’t know. You know what God is punishing us. For example, my husband

Chrissy Beltran  43:21

is a Cowboys fan, so he can, yeah, right, right. Well,

Dr. Jason Andrews  43:25

I have a friend who’s a Cowboys fan, and last week, when the the AT and T outage happened and and I saw this thing that said that I sent to my friend that said, I now know why. You know, in Dallas, it’s AT and T Stadium. You just can’t count on them. You know, it’s great. But so Josh Allen has been this super exciting, you know, young quarterback to join the team. And so the whole bills mafia group, what they will tend to do is say, but look at Josh Allen’s stats and and I it’s, it’s laughable to me, because they will. They love to compare Josh Allen to Patrick mahomes, and they say, well, but look at Josh Allen stats. They’re better than Patrick mahomes, which is true. The difference is, Patrick mahomes has a Super Bowl ring, and Josh Allen doesn’t, you know, because the individual results don’t matter, right? If

Chrissy Beltran  44:27

you’re playing fantasy football, right? Fine, but Right,

Dr. Jason Andrews  44:31

but we’re a team, right? So, you know that’s, that’s like saying, Oh yeah, Josh Allen won the Super Bowl this year. I mean, it’s, it’s ridiculous, but we do that a lot in schools, and so instead, look the the team score is what matters. Look great. Chrissy knocked this out of the park. Good for her. But if Jason didn’t, yeah, that matters as much to Chrissy as not. Now it may be and it’s again. Going back to my bills thing, it’s been all this, you know, it’s like watching a soap opera. Everybody talking about Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs. Do they like each other? Do they not like whatever? And they get all worked up about it. You know, there has been time where you would see a little bit of conflict, where you would see, I think, Stefan Diggs saying, Hey, I was open. Throw me the ball. That’s okay. We should have that, because there it’s a team. And so I if, Chrissy, if you’re knocking it out of the park and I’m not, then you should be able to come and say, Jason, you got to step it up, because our team needs you. And so I think that’s a really important part of that is but there’s too much work to do in schools, to play a game with this, to pretend I don’t have time, to pretend we’ve got too many things and too many families. The majority of our kids live in poverty, and they don’t have the luxury of waiting for us to play a game and pretend that we’re doing this work. They need us to get serious about it. That’s right.

Chrissy Beltran  46:14

Excuse me, yeah, I totally agree. Thank you so much for everything that you shared with us today, and I love the way that you’re approaching full culture. I’m sure that some coaches are going to walk away with some really good ideas from this, like, kind of thinking about, where is my school falling? And so if they want to keep learning from you, how can they do that? Where can they

Dr. Jason Andrews  46:31

sure? Well, absolutely. So, you know, happy to to connect with people and and they can find me on the solution tree website to to contact me in that way. In addition, my email address is leadership advisors. It’s advisors with an E leadership A, D, V, I S, E, R, s@gmail.com,

Chrissy Beltran  47:02

all right, thank you so much. That’s perfect. I really appreciate you being here today. Great. Thank you. All right, coach. I’m so glad that Dr Andrews was able to join us here, as you can see, as a wealth of knowledge about how we can use PLCs to create culture in our campuses. And I hope you look them up and continue learning from him there at solution tree. I wanted to remind you about my free email course coaching resistant teachers. It comes straight into your inbox. So if you have teachers that you’re working with and you’re not getting good return, you’re feeling like they don’t love working with you, they’re kind of hiding out from you. Definitely check that out, because it is free and it has helped so many coaches change the trajectory of that coaching relationship. You can grab it at buzzing with Miss b.com/resistance next week we’re going to continue our series of resistance rookies, and what is my other R word, relationships, relationships, resistance and rookies by us with a special episode about coaching new teachers. We’ve got a lot of new people in the field, a lot of people who don’t have a lot of experience in the classroom, and we got to provide special support to those people. So I will see you back here to talk about that next week in episode 208. And until then, happy coaching. Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with missbee.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIBee and check out the podcast. Show Notes. Happy coaching!