A Day in the Life of an Administrator Who Coaches with Jodi Wilson, ep. 236

A Day in the Life of an Administrator Who Coaches with Jodi Wilson, ep. 236, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:00

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Chrissy Beltran  00:38

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Chrissy Beltran  01:57

Welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked. Now I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran  02:24

Hey coach and welcome to episode 236, a day in the life of an assistant principal who also coaches with Jody Wilson. So many of you have said that you are in this dual role, maybe whether it’s formalized or not. Some are part time assistant principal, slash coaches. Sometimes some of you are just kind of principals who have to do the coaching work because you don’t have an instructional coach or, you know, for different reasons. And so I wanted to make sure that I covered this in my special role. I’ve been doing special roles over the summer of this podcast for years, but I have not spoken to an assistant principal who also coaches. So I can’t wait to share this episode with you. I’m speaking with my guest, Jody Wilson, who is currently in the trenches. Before we get started, I want to remind you that it’s summertime. We’re starting, if you’re listening in real time, we’re starting to think about the following school year, what’s coming. And so if you need some help framing your new school year, thinking about what it could be like. And maybe you’re a new coach, or maybe you’re an experienced coach who would like to set things up a little differently. Head to my free jumpstart mini course that’s at buzzing with Miss b.com/jumpstart you can grab it for free. It comes right to your inbox, and it will walk you through what to do for five days to set yourself up with your three by three vision, a really thorough understanding of what your job will be and so many of the questions that you have about coaching, hopefully you will have answered by the end of those five days. So definitely check that out. You can also get a free coupon. No excuse. Free coupon doesn’t make sense. A coupon towards my startup course that’s going to open in a few weeks at buzzing with Miss b.com/startup just go there. Sign up for the wait list, and you’ll get a coupon for whenever the startup course opens, and you can use that towards a course I think you’re really going to love it. Going to help you get started this year. So without further ado, let’s talk to our guest, Jodi. So welcome to the podcast, Jodi, and thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m really excited. As a quick way to introduce yourself. We would love to hear about a few things. Who do you help and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Jodi Wilson  04:25

So I am in a building of 370 students that range from junior kindergarten to sixth grade, and I have 82 staff members I help in every single way you could imagine. I, of course, deal with administrative things. I deal with behaviors. I have, you know, staff communications. I participate as much as possible in every committee. As much as possible. I help students learn positive. Behaviors. I try to go to lunch every single day with my students, so that I can be in the lunchroom and they can see my face. I also greet them in the mornings and greet them when the when they leave, just so they know that I’m here and I’m trying to, you know, help grow them to be positive members of society. Most of my energy at work. Oh, my goodness. I don’t even know how that could narrow that down to one thing, because I do so many different things. I don’t have an assistant principal. I am a sole principal, and then I have my instructional facilitator. So I try to make it to our PLT meetings with grade levels. I probably do that, you know, that might be like 25% of my time. 25% of my time is probably behaviors, just in some of those behaviors, you know, aren’t even negative behaviors. They’re just, we need a little reinforcement of a positive behavior. It’s not crazy off the wall things, 25% of my time is visiting classrooms, being in the classroom, just being seen. I like to go to specials and connectors as much as possible, because they don’t expect me to be in PE so I try to show up there. And then, you know that other 25% is probably those administrative things. I try to do those in the morning so that I’m not taking away from Kid time while they’re in the building. But my energy is spread in several different ways, and I try to help my staff and my students alike.

Chrissy Beltran  06:32

Awesome. Thank you. And now I’m asking about maybe it surprised your question. I would love to hear about a hobby that you love, that you enjoy, because I feel like so many people dedicate so much of their lives to school that they don’t always grow the rest of themselves. So what is a hobby that you love?

Jodi Wilson  06:47

I actually love building Legos. Oh, fun, yes. So I might have a little bit of a problem with it, because I don’t even allow my personal children to build Mama’s Legos, yep. So over the last couple of years, every Christmas, Valentine’s Day, birthday, I get one of the nice, big sets, you know? So I have them disperse about my office. I also have them at home. I just something about the rhythm, the clicking. It’s almost like a sensory response that I have. It calms me. It’s soothing to read the instructions that someone else wrote and I didn’t. So I love building

Chrissy Beltran  07:28

Legos. Yeah, I can totally see that my daughter loves Legos, and I love to do them with her, because it is so it’s, like, so relaxing, because you’re like, it’s, it feels purposeful without it being really complicated

Jodi Wilson  07:41

and methodical, you know, yeah, method, yeah, yeah. You don’t have to

Chrissy Beltran  07:44

figure it all out. It’s all right there. And you just snap ’em together, and then you start to see things coming together, and it’s super satisfying,

Jodi Wilson  07:50

yep. And you create this beautiful masterpiece out of these little, tiny bricks, you know.

Chrissy Beltran  07:56

Yeah, I like that, all right. So I think you already kind of described your role somewhat whenever you introduce who you were and the kind of work that you do. But is there anything that you want to add to that role of a principal, like how you see it in your school?

Jodi Wilson  08:10

Okay, so I my whole premise of becoming a leader was teacher support. When I grew up as a teacher in the classroom, I never really felt as if my administrators, they weren’t not supported. It just felt like they didn’t really know what I was doing. You know, they didn’t understand the standards I was teaching. They didn’t understand they couldn’t have a conversation with me about CFAs and learning cycles. You know, that’s not something that we talked about. So when I decided that I wanted to make the transition from the classroom, I really had this idea that I wanted to be support for teachers. I wanted to be an instructional leader, not just an administrator. I wanted to be able to sit down and say, Well, let’s look at that standard, you know, is it really? Is it really a priority. Oh, well, let’s make an activity that’s more engaging. I wanted to be the kind of leader that could support that in the role. It just is different, because so many other things pop up and then, you know, there’s a little bit of frustration that you don’t get to do the things that you really want to do, because you’re doing things that you really have to do in the elementary world. You don’t even know what’s going to pop up until it’s in your face, you know? So I really, really strive to be an instructional leader and work closely with the grade level teams and with my instructional facilitator. And that’s really what I want to do. That’s what I want my role to be. And so I’ve been learning I’m still, I’m still a baby principal, but I’ve been learning how to be a better time manager so that I can spend my time being that instructional leader and less of a micromanager, or, you know, standing behind my computer. So I. That is really, that’s really the role that I strive to be. And I hope that as I’m growing as a leader, that I’m getting closer to that role.

Chrissy Beltran  10:07

Yeah, I love that, because I think that many, um, administrators don’t always have that mindset whenever they start their jobs, and they are so caught up everybody does with the day to day and all the necessary things that fall into administration, and then it can feel like that is the job if you’re not striving to be that instructional leader. And somebody needs to be an instructional leader on campus, somebody needs to steer the ship instructionally. And if you can’t have those conversations, you know, I remember my first principal whenever, no, my second principal whenever I was a teacher. I had had had another principal for one year, and she was very knowledgeable instructionally. And then the principal that we got, who I ended up loving, but the first thing he said to us was, No, I don’t know how to teach a child how to read. Well. He says, that’s your expertise. But not all of us had it right. We didn’t all have the expertise, right in terms of, you know, how to teach a child how to read, or anything that was expected of that level. So he didn’t really know when he walked into a classroom. He didn’t know what he was looking at. And I can see that as a teacher, he could see certain things, like engagement. He could see, you know, are you doing things that are hands on or not? You know, are you prepared? He could see those kinds of like in those quadrants, but he couldn’t see, are you actually using practices that are benefiting students? He couldn’t he didn’t know the difference. And so I think over time, he grew into that a little bit, but it took some time, and in the meantime, you know what was happening.

Jodi Wilson  11:36

So I think probably being Bulldog a little bit, because teachers understood that he didn’t know. He wasn’t looking for high leverage practices. He wasn’t looking for those things because he didn’t know to look for them, or for whatever reason. But I bet there was a little of you know, you don’t see it. It’s not here. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  11:55

yeah. There was. There were lots of conversations, I do know, over time, lots of conversations happened that were like, teachers would would get away with things like, they would say, Well, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that instead of whatever school initiative we have going on. And he’d say, Well, you do what you need to do, because he didn’t know the difference, right? So, you know? And but the thing is, you know, some of us grow into these roles. You might have taught in elementary and now you’re a coach in high school, right? I mean, it happens, right? And we, all we can do is really take the time to become more knowledgeable in those areas and spend time in great classrooms so we can learn from those great classrooms. Yes, because nobody’s going to know all the things you know. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Jodi Wilson  12:36

And as an administrator, you have to know who your best teachers are, because when you don’t know something, those are the be going to be the people that you can trust, and you can go to and you say, like, hey, is this a best practice? Is this a good strategy? You know, like, I saw this, or I read about this. Have you used this before? You know, those are the people that you really have to have in your back pocket, because you you have to be able to trust those areas in your building. And not every building is made up of all star teachers. You know, we can build them, yes, but they don’t all start out that way.

Chrissy Beltran  13:12

Yeah. And I think as an instructional coach, it’s the same thing. You need to be in a place where you can say, I can see this is a strong classroom, so I can go and learn from this person. Yeah, yes. Identifying those strengths are is a good place to start when you’re a new coach. So what I would love to hear about is, what are the day in the life look for you, and I know your days are, they’re going to look different, right? Coaches, days are different. You know, everybody’s days looks different, but yeah, what is like just an average day? What happens from the beginning of your day to the end of your day, and how coaching is kind of embedded throughout that day.

Jodi Wilson  13:42

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So our day are we welcome kids into the building at 821 of our initiatives this year has been behavioral leadership. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about Scott run the kid whisperer. So we read the book. We’re doing behavioral leadership. So every morning at 820 we have ESPN greeting. So that’s eye contact, smile, physical touch and name. So by the time a child gets to their classroom, they have at least had an ESPN greeting from five adults. So someone has smiled at them, said their name, put their hand on their shoulder, gave them a high five, gave them a fist bump, and just, you know, I’m glad that you’re here. So that starts at 820 we do that from 820 to 845, that’s one of the best part of the days. Kids now expect for an adult to talk to them. You know, they’re they come by you and they’re waiting for high five or something. The best part of my day. This gonna sound crazy. I should have been a radio host. I think I might have been in my other life. Is morning announcements. I love the morning announcements so much. So 845 is our morning announcements. And I have hired kids to do the Pledge of Allegiance and to do our Tiger chant. We’re the Tigers, so we have a tiger chant also. So I get to do a. Little mingling with those kids that I have hired, and that is a coaching role, because they not only get to see me do the announcements and to see how I have to read through after I have to follow a script, but they can be fired. So if they don’t show up for their job, if they don’t let me know that they’re not going to be here if they are doing a bad job consistently. I have fired a couple of kids this year, and I think that that has been awakening for some of them, because they’re like, holy cow, I’m only in the fourth grade. How are you going to fire me from this job? Oh, well, that’s what happens in real life. You know, when you don’t do your job like you’re supposed to, they also get to see me interact with the office staff. So they’re watching how we speak to each other. They’re watching our body language. You know, they’re they are literally, we are literally modeling positive behaviors for them. So that’s one of my favorite parts of the day. After that, the day really gets going. I try to start my every morning with a walk through of the building. So I walk into every single classroom the first part of the day. So I try to visit, even if I’m just in there for 30 seconds. I just walk in, walk through, give some waves. The kids are pretty much used to it now, so I don’t get as many run ups, but still, occasionally I disrupt the class, and they don’t mean to, but that happens, and then the PLT start. So we have our Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Schedule allows for teachers to have 90 minutes of planning time. So that is when they have their team time, where we have I attend one PLT per grade level per week, along with my instructional facilitator. So I try to attend as many of those as possible. I try to I attend them as long as something else is happening in the, you know, principal world I go to. I if they have read something because they’re learning together, I try to read that ahead of time. If they’re working with a new protocol, because they’re doing data analysis or writing a CFA, I will have tried to look at that ahead of time. My instructional facilitator and I are extremely close professionally and relationshipally, but we visit about everything. You know. We talk about this happened in our fourth grade. PLT today, what do you think about that? Digest that with me. So we have a very close working relationship. So throughout my day, there are spots that I visit with her so that we can talk about how we’re moving forward. What did data look like? Have you gone over that screen? Or do they know which diagnostic to use next? Stuff like that. Normally about, you know, I’ll meet with about two teams per day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, as long as nothing else comes up. I do try to go to lunch every day. So I’m in the lunch room for about 90 minutes, which is from we start at 1130 to 105, and I do these challenges with kids. We call them the monthly challenge. And we have these little blocks. It’s a block challenge, and every month it’s instructionally based. So like this week, this month has been mathematical March. So kids can say, Hey, Dr Wilson, I want to challenge you. And I’ll say, Okay, so what’s three times three, and if they get it right, they get a block from me. They don’t get it right, they don’t get a block. That has been challenging for some because they expect to win all the time. So three times three, they say 12. And I say, Oh man, see you later. And I just, you know, I don’t give them a second chance. That was it. That was your one challenge. And so I’ve had to model how you work through not winning every time. So I’ll have, you know, a couple of times I’ve had a little fella, same little fellow, gets it wrong, and then he sits and cries. So then we have to have a learning opportunity on what do we do when we don’t get something right? Could we try again tomorrow. Oh, what can I do to do better on that? Could I maybe practice my math facts at home so that I can learn and do better for mathematical March? So that’s been cool that has also been modeling for teachers, because I’m really doing a quick check on kids, and I never give them something that they shouldn’t know. All of my challenges are based on their grade level. So if I have like my JK students, they’re obviously not going to know multiplication table. So I this month, I’ve had cards that just have the numbers on them, and I’ll say What number is this? And they just identify it, you know. So it’s it’s shown teachers that you can really do a quick check in five minutes as they’re walking out to recess. I have noticed that some teachers have kind of picked up the challenge thing. And I’ll see them doing it when they come in from recess to go back into their classroom. Oh, it’s good. I’ll see them doing it when they’re going to specials or connectors. That’s how they’ll release. Kids to go into the line, you know. So that’s been super cool to see it kind of grow within the building. The afternoons can either be super laid back or really, really busy. So I try to do another walk through at the end of the day, well maybe between like the two and three o’clock time, just so they can see my face again. In the afternoon is generally when like, parents come out, you know? So I do a lot of parent stuff in the afternoon, phone calls, returning phone calls. I’d say that most of my administrative stuff falls towards the afternoon. I also attend every IEP meeting. I try to attend every pre IEP meeting, just so the teacher and the sped teacher can talk, just so I know everything that’s happening within our building with all of the kids that has been powerful for many of the staff members. I guess I can’t speak to this, but I the they weren’t used to that happening. They weren’t used to the principal being at every single IEP meeting, and I’m actively involved, so I request an IEP draft so that I can follow along and take notes. I ask questions, and sometimes I will purposely ask questions that I think the parent should ask, but they didn’t ask because they didn’t know to ask. So I think that that has been modeling for some of my staff members to recognize when our parents don’t really know what they don’t know, and we kind of just have to spoon feed them, especially in the special education process. That’s really my day. I mean, throw in some random things here and there, and that’s what it looks like. But I I try to get out of my office as much as possible. I have a rolling cart, so it’s Dr Wilson on wheels, so I can go to any hallway, and if I actually really have work that I need to get done, I can take my cart and I can still live on the hallway so that the kids can see me when they’re going to the bathroom, when they’re going to specials and connectors, when they’re transitioning between locations, and they still know, oh, like she really cares enough to be where they are. The cart was a big deal for my staff members, also, because I think they recognize that I don’t want to live in my office and that I want to be part of the building. I want to be part of their classrooms. I want to be part of their instructional cycle planning and CFA writing and data analysis, you know, I want to be part of all of that. So I think that the cart, the introduction of the cart, kind of was like, Oh, she doesn’t just say it like she really wants to do that. And so I feel like some of the things that I have just tried to do, because that’s my person, and that’s what I want to do, has kind of been culture rejuvenating for the building to see that she’s not just our principal, like she wants to be part of the team.

Chrissy Beltran  22:54

Well, yeah, that’s interesting to hear about, because I think that it does become, even as a coach. Obviously, most of the work of coaching you can’t do if you’re not in classroom, but there are so many other things that you can do that you could fill up your whole day with in your office. If that is not your priority, to force yourself out into room, especially if you’re a little bit nervous or uncomfortable in those classrooms. Yes, because it can be, you know, if people are unused to having visitors in their classroom, it can feel really uncomfortable to walk into a classroom for the first time and have the person be like, Can I help you right now? Yeah,

Jodi Wilson  23:33

you have to really make effort. Honestly, there are still some classrooms that I’m a little bit uncomfortable in, you know, I don’t feel, you know, like, not that I’m not welcome, but I don’t feel like, I do feel like the walls come up as soon as I, you know, they’re thinking, What is she here to do? Does she have her laptop? You know, they’re looking for my laptop to see if I’m doing a spur of the moment evaluation or something. So honestly, there are still rooms that I’m uncomfortable going into, but I have recognized that, and so I try to go there more, because I realize, you know, like I have to get better at going into these classrooms even when I feel uncomfortable, because I don’t want, I don’t want anybody to think that, oh well, she doesn’t come to my classroom, you know. So no, I do even when whatever’s going on, I’m still going to come because the kids are first, and I want them to know that I am there and I am here. So,

Chrissy Beltran  24:29

yeah, it’s a good point. It’s not always for a bad reason that that you’re not comfortable in a classroom. You know, there’s a teacher I worked with, and she was wonderful, such a good teacher and a good heart. But every time I walked into her room, I could see she was immediately flustered. Just immediately started tripping over her words and not sure where her things were. And it’s just like her brain reverted to her reptilian brain, you know, like the door. And she told me at some point she was like, Miss Christie, I just I get so it took me a long time to be comfortable for you. To come into my room, you know? And she was now, I’m just fine, but now I’m nervous whenever so and so comes into my room. Yeah, people, it takes time, that comfort level takes time, and that’s okay, yeah, but if we stop, then we we give up the opportunity to help that person grow, you know?

Jodi Wilson  25:15

Agreed, well, it does help too, though, that I was the instructional facilitator in this building before I moved into the principal role, and that has, honestly, it has had some really great, amazing things come from that. But then there’s been some hurdles that I had to jump over, you know. So I do, I have realized that I used to be invited into classrooms more, you know, like when I was the instructional facilitator, they wanted me to come in and do an activity with them, or they wanted me to come in and teach a lesson. And I don’t get many of those invites anymore. You know, now it’s it’s more like the occasional team will be like, Hey, we’re doing this really cool thing. You should come see it, and I will make every point to go see it. But I don’t get as many of those invitations anymore, and that transition has almost been like gut wrenching, because those are the best parts, yeah, being the instructional facilitator or the administrator, you know that is, those are the best parts, the kid time, the teaching lessons, the co teaching with classroom teachers, that that’s the best part. So that’s been one of one of those hurdles.

Chrissy Beltran  26:20

What are some of the other shifts that you’ve had to make in terms of your coaching, support that you’ve provided? What? How did that look different in this role?

Jodi Wilson  26:27

Yeah, well, it looks completely different just because of time. You know, there are so many tasks within the day. You know, you wouldn’t even want to see my Google Calendar, because it’s literally just things stacked on top of the day. If people see it, they’re like, oh, Jody, what is going on? But I purposely knew that. So even if, you know, even if I have four things stacked on one, I can maybe go to all, or I can pick one, you know, I can prioritize, yeah, um, but the time part has been the biggest hurdle, because I have to time manage much more. When I was the instructional facilitator, that was my role, you know, I was their coach. I was in their classroom, I was at their team meetings. I was helping with the learning, or we were learning together, either way or both, you know. So it looks different, and also the evaluative piece, yeah, there’s not that. There’s untrusting. There’s not an untrusting, because we continued the relationships from when I was the instructional facilitator to the principal. I would still say that I have strong relationships with the majority of teachers in the building, but there’s still that in the back of their heads, I believe there’s like that, oh, my goodness. Will she use this evaluative if I say the wrong thing, if I don’t answer this correctly, if my kids are not performing well, you know, like I do think that there’s that little piece in the back of their mind where they’re thinking, Can I trust this moment. Is this a sincere moment, you know? So that’s been, that’s that that’s been a hurdle. I strongly desire to be part of the coaching cycles. So this year, actually, I adopted one team that we could, that I coach, and so I work with our sixth grade group once a week, and they are mine during that time, and I get to get that little bit of coaching. We started out by reading a book together that we learned we learned about a different type of instructional cycle planning. Now we’ve been working through standards and writing CFAs so our instructional facility, my instructional facilitator does attend those but she doesn’t. She’s not the lead coach. So that has worked twofold for me. I have been modeling for her my coaching style so she can pick up things if she if she likes them, you know, if they work, if she sees that it happens. I’ve also been because we learned together, I’ve been using different protocols that she might not be using with teams where she works with them. So I’ve not only been modeling for the coach or coaching the coach, I’ve also been able to work with the sixth grade team in that coach role. So what I would love to happen is to continue that and maybe adopt a grade level, maybe like one per semester that I do get to devote that time to, so that I can not lose that part, yeah, classroom, but also to help my instructional facilitator to continue to grow as well, because she also doesn’t have a mentor within our building. So if we can work closely together, and we can have that mentorship relationship, then she’s growing alongside the grade level team.

Chrissy Beltran  29:50

Yeah, that’s really good. I was going to ask about that, actually, about the changes that you’ve seen in your relationships. You know, trust, confidential. What that looks like, because that is usually the one of the biggest distinguishers between administration and instructional coaches, that that evaluation right, that coaches are non evaluative, and admin obviously is evaluative. And so I’m sure that that does, that is in the back of their minds, and over time, you know as they see that, but you know how your relationship continues to work. They might not be as concerned about it, but I’m sure that that has been a big adjustment for you as well, because how are you juggling that in your mind? How are you like? What are you how are you thinking about it in terms of your relationships? You’re like, well, I have to hold this person accountable. But this is a person that I would like, a colleague, you know, pretty parallel to not long ago?

Jodi Wilson  30:43

Yeah, I’ll probably I should have added that to the biggest hurdle that accountability piece, I actually had a conversation with a teacher not long ago, and in a guiding coalition meeting, we had homework, and probably half of the guiding coalition members came back without having done the homework for me. And so I then became the principal, yeah, and detached myself from the member of the team, and I said, you know, whatever I said about we said, we’re gonna do this homework. I look forward to hearing from you next week that you have completed this homework, you know. So this teacher came to me later, and she said, I’m really impressed that you said that, that you were able to detach yourself from the member of the team to hold everyone accountable. She said, I just want you to know that she was one of the ones that had not done the homework. She said, I wasn’t not doing the homework because I was being disrespectful, she said, but seeing that you will hold me accountable empowered me big move. And she said, it’s been, it’s been a struggle for us. And she said, us, for us to see you transfer this role. Yeah, you know, how were you going to hold us accountable? How were you going to move from our colleague to our supervisor, you know, and that it that has been a struggle. It really has, you know, because I developed these relationships with them as the instructional facilitator, where we could sit on the couch and cry together, where we sometimes had to complain about things together, you know, because you just sometimes you need that vet session, and the instructional coach becomes that sometimes, you know, so finding that, and I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve shed some tears about it, you know, like, that’s not my role anymore, but I have to pull up my big girl panties, and this is where I am now, and so this is what I’m going to do, and I’m going to make the Best of it. So that has been seeing some of those relationships change has been a has been a struggle, has been a hurdle, not a struggle, a hurdle to jump over. You know, I’m growing in that way to see how I can still be an instructional leader and hold people accountable. Even though I’m not their instructional facilitator, we can still be members of the same team, and I can still say, oh, man, you know, maybe we should have done that better,

Chrissy Beltran  33:07

right? Yeah, I like that. I can relate to that teacher who didn’t do the homework and and didn’t intend any disrespect by it, because that that was me, because most of the time that homework was not referenced. You know what I mean? You do all this work, you show up. That’s not even what we’re going to talk about today. So I’m very much like, I will follow the rules as long as the rules seem like reasonable and important, and if they are not real, reasonable and important, I’m not a rule follower. Like, I’m not. I don’t have an extreme view on this. I’m like, is there a reason for this? Am I actually going to benefit? Is somebody going to benefit? Then I will do it. And if not, I’m not. If not, I’m not going to do it. And so, like, I’m that person that would show up in college classes on time, unless the professor always started 10 minutes late, and then I’m showing up nine minutes late. Because what is the benefit of me being there nine minutes early? You know? Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Jodi Wilson  33:56

But you were, you were doing the behavior that was modeled for you. That’s right, you know. So if it wasn’t valuable, it wasn’t valuable for you. If, if tardiness was okay, then you’re going to be tardy. Because, right, you do we act, is what’s modeled for us, you know. So that conversation that we had that was super powerful for me, because it was uncomfortable for me in that moment to say, hey guys, we said we were going to do this homework, and we didn’t do this homework. I did my homework, and I’m real busy. I know you all are busy, but we said we were going to do it. This was important to us last week, to say that it was homework. So if it was important to us last week, it’s important to us this week. And so that was a tough thing for me to do, you know. And so her like, validating it, I guess, yeah, yeah, because we need validation too. Hey, we don’t know everything. We don’t know what we don’t know until we don’t know it, you know, it slaps us in the face. So that was really powerful for me, too,

Chrissy Beltran  34:57

yeah, and I’ve had to have as a coach, I’ve had to have many of those com. Conversations, actually, whenever you’re like, Okay, we’re all planning for this unit, and we all said we were going to bring whatever materials. And as a coach, you have to figure out, what am I going to do when three of the people show up with nothing, even though they were, they were responsible for bringing the materials to analyze for the assessment, or whatever. You were going to bring read aloud texts. You’ve got nothing, you know. And I can remember one time people showed up and at without a grade level with it was very split situation. Three had, you know, okay, we can do it. We’re on board. And three were like, I’m gonna push back and see what happens. And and the three who showed up with nothing, I said, Okay, so. And so you and I knew they had nothing. This was I had already been clear to me that nothing was in their possession when they arrived. And so I said, okay, so and so you were going to bring such and such. Do you want to share about what you brought with us today? And she said, Oh, I you know what? I complete. I didn’t grab that. I must. I completely forgot. And I said, Okay, well, we’ll wait for you to run and get it. And wasn’t trying to make a power play, but I had it with, yeah, if we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it and like your team is looking at you, yes, yes. You are gonna bring read alouds I plan for my piece. You’re gonna benefit from what I did, but you don’t have your stuff, that’s not okay. So we sat there and waited the three who brought their things, like,

Jodi Wilson  36:16

yeah, yeah, big eyes, yeah. How can we be, how can we call ourselves a collaborative team when we don’t hold to the commitments that we say, that we commit to, you know, if I say that I’m going to do it, well, by golly, I should do it. And it should be that way across the building. We should be able to trust that our colleagues are going to do what has been asked of them, or what they have agreed to do, you know? And that’s not just, that’s not administrator, that’s not instructional facilitator, that’s across the board, you know, that’s para, that’s custodian, oh, yeah, I do think that in the instructional coach role, it was easier to not hold them accountable because I was their peer, you know, it was easier to say, Okay, well, I guess we could look at that next time. I guess we could push this back another week, you know. So I think that is one shift because, but now I feel like this urgency, you know, like, oh, we have to get these things done. We have to be prepared. We have to do this, this, this, this and this. So with that urgency comes this need to call it what it is and say, you said you’re going to do it, you didn’t do it. Go do it.

Chrissy Beltran  37:32

Because honestly, the buck stops with you, and your instructional coach is going, well, I can’t always hold them accountable for all these things. I am not the boss, but the boss can do it, and if you don’t do it, nobody does it, and things don’t get better. And so that’s so frustrating for a teacher who is working really hard to see other people not being held accountable.

Jodi Wilson  37:51

Oh yes, oh yes. That’s one of the biggest culture killers to let those things I heard it. I don’t even know who said this to me, or if I read it in a book, but something about, if you’re if you’re not going to say anything about it, then you’re accepting it, uh huh, yeah? So, like, I’m okay with it, because I didn’t say anything with it, even though I’m not really okay with it, I didn’t have the gumption to say something about

Chrissy Beltran  38:16

being a bystander, or something along those lines, like you’re just permitting it, yeah? Like your silence is acceptance, or something like,

Jodi Wilson  38:22

yes, yes, something like that, yeah. And I did not rephrase it very well, but yeah, that that is so true though, you know, if, if I never say anything about the person who misses bus duty every Thursday, yeah, then everybody can just not come

Chrissy Beltran  38:36

to bust it. That’s right, that’s right. And I think that on the flip side of that. It’s an it’s a responsibility of leadership, regardless of your title, just any school leader to ask people only to do those things that are important and necessary. Because if we’re asking them to do all this stuff, to come to meetings and prepare and then we don’t actually use it, what is the point of accountability? You’re right for those things if we’re not going to really use like whenever people have, you know, my teachers used to have to turn in lesson plans to my administrator, but my administrator would look through those lesson plans, right? He would provide some feedback. And I was amazed by that, because as a teacher, I had to turn in lesson plans, and nobody looked at them ever, right? Maybe, like

Jodi Wilson  39:15

you can do what I mean, it’d be unopened files.

Chrissy Beltran  39:19

Yeah, exactly. And, and I get they don’t have enough time to look at everybody. Everybody’s plans, but, you know, we submitted grade level plans as an instructional coach, my team’s planned as grade level, so it wasn’t as many things to look at, but still, yeah, a lot. So she would provide feedback on things. You know, I’m noticing this is the same as last week. Is there like a reason for this? Are you having to repeat these? You know, did you just not get to it? I mean, you know, she was not unreasonable about it, but she did provide some questioning and and at least they were looked at, if you’re going to turn them in, at least somebody’s looking at it. And so I appreciate that, yep,

Jodi Wilson  39:48

of course, of course. I can also understand, you know, time gets away from you, and before you know it, it’s Wednesday afternoon, you know, and you’re thinking, holy cow, wanted to do all these things. Yeah. So time management really comes into play. If you’re going to ask people to do something and expect that they do it, then I have to make time to acknowledge it and hold

Chrissy Beltran  40:11

them accountable if they didn’t do it right. And you can really only prioritize so many things. Yes, that’s exactly right. Yeah, you can. But my principle that I love you should always say, what, what, what you expect you must inspect, and you can’t inspect everything, right? So you have to be reasonable about, okay, I can actually, like, consider these things important, because everything can’t be equally important, or you’re not really going to be able to hold anybody accountable for all of that. And if everything’s equally important, then everything’s equally unimportant. Yeah, right. So

40:43

we have to prioritize things. Yes, yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  40:45

So my last question, and you’ve already kind of, you know, answered some things in this vein, but how can school leaders, including administration and coaches, really serve instructional leaders and coaches for their teachers? And this is just kind of a broad question, any thoughts you have about it? Okay? So

Jodi Wilson  41:01

I have really large opinions about administrators who are not instructional leaders. I you know, it happens every single day, but people who weren’t great teachers become administrators. You know, they didn’t plan standards based lessons, they didn’t check for understanding. They didn’t intervene and extend, you know, they didn’t do those things, and then they became administrators. So yes, I get sour about that, but I believe wholeheartedly in the modeling aspect. So if I want my staff to be instructional leaders, which they should be, every teacher should be an instructional leader. I have to be an instructional leader. My if she has to be an instructional leader, you know she has to be constantly asking questions and using strategies within her team time that teachers can take back to their classrooms, because it’s so important we’re not here so that teachers can have a job, right? We’re here so that students can learn. So that means that every person in this building needs to be an instructional leader, because they need to lead the instruction that they expect to happen within their classrooms. I also think it’s really important to breed those instructional leaders so that we can build strong teachers, because they come to us, you know, they have their four year degree, they know a lot, they have a great, lot of great ideas, but you don’t know until that first day when you’re alone in the classroom with 25 screaming kindergarteners, right? You don’t know. So for us to build strong educators that are going to stay in the profession, we have to have instructional leaders who are going to take them in and say, let me help you. Let me show you how to do this. So we have to breed within our building the leaders that are going to help our profession stay strong and to help our students achieve high levels of learning, you know, so I really have strong opinions about instructional leaders. I want to be an instructional leader in my building. I want to know all the things that are happening. I want to know all the resources that we have in the building. I want to be part of your lesson planning. It doesn’t always happen because I have a million torches in the fire, you know, but I want them to see that I value, that I want my instructional facilitator to be able to come to me and us to have conversations that are not revolved around administrative tasks, you know. I want us to have conversations about books and conferences and strategies and just practices that grow educators so administrators, in my opinion, should be the top instructional leader in their building. They should model what that looks like for everyone below them. I believe that administrators should not give their instructional coach more than what an instructional coach should be. I don’t believe, like in my position, it would be easy for me to make her my assistant principal. It would be easy for me to say, I need you to do this. I need you to do this, but that’s not what I value. I would rather her be able to be in classrooms and working with teams to build our instructional practices within our building. Would it benefit me for her to be my AP, yeah, it would, but it wouldn’t benefit the building. Okay, so I think that’s one of those modeling practices that everybody has to see the importance that the administrator puts on instructional leadership, and then building those, building the capacity within the different grade level teams so that they can lead themselves, so that then they can bring in the new people who. To be taught all the things over again. So I did I answer that question.

Chrissy Beltran  45:05

I think it was great. Good. You’re good. All right. Well, thank you so much. And if you wouldn’t mind, is there a way that people can keep learning from you if they have any questions they want to follow

Jodi Wilson  45:16

up? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m not cool. I don’t have a blog or anything, but if you did want to follow me, you can always email me. My email address is really simple. It’s just J, Wilson, J, W, I, L, L, S, o, n, and then it’s at C, C, S, d1, schools.net, all right, thank you. That sounds really simple. Thanks for having me. This was such a pleasure, awesome. I just

Chrissy Beltran  45:41

really enjoyed that conversation. With Jodi, because I think it was so honest and so realistic. You know, administrators have so many challenges, and moving from a coach to administration at your same campus, it’s a big shift in your relationships and your focus. And so if any of you are considering that move, if you were thinking about applying for administration, if you are considering changing your role at your school, there are some things for you to think about. But, you know, just think about the great things that you can do too from that position. I mean, there’s, there’s plenty of work to go around in all the positions at school, and if you keep the instructional leader as your focus for the work no matter what your position is, I think that you can make great things happen at your school. Remember, you can grab that buzzing with Miss b.com/jump Start free course, and that will help you identify your vision and your mission and some really great actions you could take some strategies you can use this year for your instructional coaching support. Next week, we are talking to my guest, Leah rethink, and she is going to share with us a little bit about the feeling that instructional coaches go through. We’re talking about your coaching identity. That’s going to be the first episode in that series, and until then, happy coaching. Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIBee and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!