Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

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[00:00:06] Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom. This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education. Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com. I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast. And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching. A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords. Only stuff that works.

[00:00:43] Gene Tavernetti: My guest today is Dr. Gabriel H. Simon. Dr. Simon is a dedicated educational leader with a distinguished career in K 12 administration. He is currently serving as the superintendent of Black Oak Mine Unified School District. He brings over two decades of experience in leadership roles, including assistant superintendent of personnel services, superintendent principal, and principal.

[00:01:09] Gene Tavernetti: With a doctorate in transformational leadership from California State University, Sacramento, Dr. Simon has a strong background in fostering student resilience, implementing strategic school initiatives, and enhancing community engagements. His contributions to education extend beyond administration through his work as an adjunct faculty member, conference presenter, And demonstrating his commitment to student success and educational excellence.

[00:01:37] Gene Tavernetti: Dr. Simon is also the author of Building Student Resilience K 8, available through Corwin Press.

[00:01:45] Gene Tavernetti: Welcome, Dr. Simon, Gabe. It is great to have you on Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works.

[00:01:52] Dr. Gabe Simon: Thanks for having me, Gene. Appreciate it.

[00:01:54] Gene Tavernetti: Well, it has been a while since we worked together and I was looking at your CV and I didn't realize it's been over 10 years. And when we met, you were a principal of a middle school.

[00:02:08] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah, that's true. It's a math work. I remember that.

[00:02:11] Gene Tavernetti: yeah, and since that time since that time that you were a principal, could you kind of let people know what you're What your road has been professional wise?

[00:02:21] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah, you bet. So principal at middle school and elementary for nine years in Placer County, and then was the superintendent principal up in a small district of 320 students in Colfax. And then spent eight years in three pretty good sized districts from 7, 000 to 16, 000 students being an assistant superintendent of human resources or personnel services.

[00:02:47] Dr. Gabe Simon: For those districts, chief negotiator employee recruiting, retention, employee, discipline, evaluations, all that.

[00:02:57] Gene Tavernetti: Well, lots of stuff there to talk about. I got lots of questions about that. question is, so you were very successful principal. You'd had one, you know, awards principal of the year in your region and that sort of thing. Superintendent principal. And then most people would go from a superintendent principal to move into a superintendency in a larger district, but you went the other direction.

[00:03:22] Gene Tavernetti: Can you tell me about that?

[00:03:25] Dr. Gabe Simon: So I had a acquaintance that was a superintendent in the same county that talked to me about having a need and having a vacancy in human resources. And talked about the positive relationships he had with the bargaining units, which isn't always the case. And it sounded like a very positive place to work.

[00:03:42] Dr. Gabe Simon: He's a charismatic leader who's since retired. And so I decided to throw my hat in the ring and was selected and was there in two other districts for a total of eight years. Doing human resources work and learn more doing that than I, I wouldn't say I learned stuff that's more applicable to what I do now as a superintendent than I did as a principal as far as the value and the emphasis I put on relationships and my conflict resolution.

[00:04:10] Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so, so you brought up a particular about relationships, conflict resolution. What else would you say were the things that you learned in HR that you didn't learn as a superintendent principal or for sure you didn't learn as a principal? Okay.

[00:04:26] Dr. Gabe Simon: I really a lot of legal stuff related to human resources. So I had to, I was the compliance and complaint kind of receiver and officer for the district. So any kind of parent community or staff complaints. I was the chief investigator. I had to learn laws about due process and make sure I was finding it.

[00:04:44] Dr. Gabe Simon: Meeting the contractual obligations with our bargaining units and had to do everything from employees, just kind of having a meeting and counseling employees to dismissing employees and having hearings at a state level for employee dismissals, and that's all stuff I had never done before.

[00:05:01] Dr. Gabe Simon: And I learned a lot about the legal aspects of humans and. You know, when you have that many humans in the district, you know, thousands of employees in the larger district, you know, people can be messy sometimes. So,

[00:05:13] Gene Tavernetti: Well, one of the, one of the things that is for sure that happens a lot in districts in HR, I think of special ed too, highly litigious that you just don't know about those things, you know, you get thrust into a role, thrust in a role, you choose to be an administrator, you choose to be a principal.

[00:05:36] Gene Tavernetti: And I know that you were an AP for a number of years before you became a principal and there's a lot you don't learn as an AP

[00:05:44] Dr. Gabe Simon: no, I think my

[00:05:46] Gene Tavernetti: And then you became a principal. When you look back when you were principal after having this extensive experience in HR, were there any things that you cringe about that you did that you go, holy cow, I'm lucky I made it out of there? Or were you pretty intuitive in how you dealt with folks?

[00:06:04] Dr. Gabe Simon: principle ship I'm gonna be at that school for 6 years. elementary level, but it was a very seasoned staff and I was like 23 when I had my first principal ship. And so they're like, who is this kid coming in? And I really, the school was a middle average performing school in the county, but I went in like we were the lowest performing school in the state and we were just Firing off all cylinders, and I focused more on what needs to change in the relationship piece, and I did it all wrong.

[00:06:36] Dr. Gabe Simon: So, luckily I had a superintendent that knew I was new and green, and kind of gave me feedback, staff gave me feedback, and I was able to adjust and stay there, you know, six years. Have a lot of success.

[00:06:48] Gene Tavernetti: Now, when you say the staff gave you feedback, is that a euphemism for Did they really let you know what you were doing or was it pretty good? Were they okay?

[00:06:58] Dr. Gabe Simon: no, they're okay. But there's always a few teachers who have a pretty either the most vocal and or have a really good pulse on the rest of the staff who maybe don't want to be vocal, but have concerns. And so they would speak up and say, Hey, you know, you thought this would go over well, but it didn't go.

[00:07:14] Dr. Gabe Simon: It went over like a lead balloon and get some ideas on how to adjust. I also learned things were better implementation wise if I had the idea and let them figure out the how and the when and all that. I gave them the why and the idea came from research or things I thought would be effective.

[00:07:32] Dr. Gabe Simon: But if they did the implementation, they would always do it better and with more fidelity than I would ever conjure up, but I had to learn to get that stuff up. And that was a big learning, learning curve, steep learning curve for me.

[00:07:45] Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so, so implementing new programs, this is something that I wanted to talk about as well, because I think there are two things that Two paths that we have to talk about. One is what you've been talking about already. And that is the relationships, understanding how to make things happen with a group.

[00:08:05] Gene Tavernetti: And it was better if you allowed them to give you the how after you determine the what and then there's the side that legal side again, the contractual side.

[00:08:16] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah.

[00:08:17] Gene Tavernetti: And I don't know how else to ask this, but are, is there as much in those contracts as people say they are of all the things that we can't tell teachers to do?

[00:08:32] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah. It depends on the district. I've been in districts where in my current district, we have a lot of flexibility with the things that really help us move the needle like professional learning community meetings. You know, as long as you're talking about learning, we have a lot of flexibility to kind of prioritize the agenda and ask teachers to do some things and talk about things related to data in the larger district that I was in, the administrators could attend PLC, but that's about all they could do.

[00:09:04] Dr. Gabe Simon: They couldn't suggest the agenda. They couldn't suggest an agenda format. It was all teacher driven. So the teachers ended up talking about field trips and graduation and not about data and student learning. And it was really kind of counter to what PLCs are supposed to be about. So I've seen language.

[00:09:23] Dr. Gabe Simon: There's also language around evaluation that can be hindering on when you're trying to do change at a site. And the other is, you know, there's an evaluation, which is. Is usually a pretty similar process in most districts. And then there's the walk through right? The drive by when I'm just kind of going by for five minutes, four minutes to check the polls in the classroom.

[00:09:43] Dr. Gabe Simon: See how the kids are doing. See what learning is happening. I was in one district where every piece of that, every aspect of that was governed by the contract language. How long you can stay. If you could leave paper or feedback or not, and in my current district, there's no language about it. And I have a union that's pushing to totally have input on that process, which is meant to be just that a quick assessment of the climate and culture of a classroom, and maybe and the follow up conversation later on with the teacher, not a formal process, like an evaluation.

[00:10:17] Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so, very different. And I know been along, been around long enough to know that if you have money, if there's money available, then usually the contract negotiations are around money. And if you don't have money, they're usually around language.

[00:10:32] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah,

[00:10:32] Gene Tavernetti: And and I had to laugh, you know, you know, my my former partner, Randy Olson, before he became the superintendent of the district, he would always been the chief negotiator for the union.

[00:10:44] Dr. Gabe Simon: sure.

[00:10:44] Gene Tavernetti: And then said when he became superintendent, he spent the rest of his time trying to get the language out of the contract that he got in when he was representing the teachers. So, so, the contracts. So about the contracts, you negotiated contracts with teachers, with the teachers, with certificated and classified.

[00:11:04] Gene Tavernetti: And so. Were those things priorities in the districts where you were in? You know, so, for example, you were in the district where all the walkthroughs were very much scripted, prescripted, prescribed were those things that the districts that you were in, was that a priority to try to control that control those things, control the PLCs, or

[00:11:28] Dr. Gabe Simon: on the teacher side. Yeah, it was a real high, especially in the the district that was the biggest challenge I worked in was 10, 000 students and four unions three classified and one certificated. They had for one large classified union, two smaller chapters of another organization, which was classified and then the teachers union, but the teachers were definitely wanting to have some kind of rules and not regulations, but some.

[00:11:56] Dr. Gabe Simon: Modus operandi for how we did walkthroughs and also for what how much administrators could dictate what the conversations were like in a professional learning community meeting. which when you look at the PLC, the birth of that in the process, you really should be talking about kids and data. And that's what you should be talking about it.

[00:12:18] Dr. Gabe Simon: And who's getting the best results out of kids? And what are they doing? So I can replicate those practices. But we tend to have that. Meaning to be more about housekeeping stuff, which doesn't help the kids.

[00:12:30] Gene Tavernetti: So, so in your new role, in your new role as soup in, in this district. What are the things that, that you are focused on? Is it different than in any other districts that you've been in?

[00:12:41] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah, I would say this district had a really strong manager as a leader in the past. And I didn't have maybe somebody with a strong instructional background that I have. And so our focus is just kind of my phrase is we need to be better for kids. Kind of a very middle to lower performing district.

[00:13:00] Dr. Gabe Simon: That was pretty flat with achievement. And so our goal has been, we have work with something called no excuses University for staff development this year, which is basically focusing on the six systems, which are things that are really common sense in teaching and learning. But we tend to stray away from is.

[00:13:16] Dr. Gabe Simon: Do we believe all kids can and will learn culture of universal achievement? Do we collaborate effectively and what do we collaborate about? Do we have, do we hold each other mutually accountable for what we're supposed to be all about as a school or as a district? Do we have assessments and standards that are aligned to the most important things we learn?

[00:13:36] Dr. Gabe Simon: And then do we have interventions or supports for kids when they're not learning and are they urgent and are they Fluid and all that fun stuff. So we've been focusing a lot on slowly developing those systems that will take three to five years to develop here. But one of the biggest things we've been focusing on is having kids.

[00:13:54] Dr. Gabe Simon: Self monitor their own progress all the way down to kindergarten. So basing goal setting academic goal setting for kids off of district level benchmark type of assessments and having kids start talking the language of learning. So being able to communicate. What the goal of the benchmark is and then being able to self assess where they are related to that benchmark.

[00:14:14] Dr. Gabe Simon: And that work came from one of the most powerful visits I've ever done as a principal. I went to a district called Estacada in Portland, Oregon, beginning of last year. The county office invited us to go. We went with our two of our principals. And they had this whole plan, do study act cycle. They did with kids all the way down to kindergarten.

[00:14:34] Dr. Gabe Simon: I had kindergartners talking, working together and they were able to communicate in a really powerful way, what they were taught. The learning target was what their strategies were they were using to reach that target and then what their current level of achievement was and what their goal was all the way at kindergarten, all the way up through high school chemistry.

[00:14:52] Dr. Gabe Simon: So it's pretty spectacular to see about three or four years into that process what they were able to get kids to do as far as owning and personalizing the learning, which, as you know, in the research, that's kind of the number one thing that gets you the biggest results. And we tend to wait till the trimester of the mid of the six weeks in to give kids feedback and they need feedback like every day.

[00:15:15] Dr. Gabe Simon: So we've been focusing on feedback and having kids. Set academic goals based on our district benchmark assessments. And being able to talk that language with kids a lot.

[00:15:28] Gene Tavernetti: So what does that process look like? You said 3 to 5 years. What is the implementation look like in, in the yearly early years and also, as we're talking about the teachers, getting the teachers. On board, well, first we need the administration on board because they're the ones that are going to have to continue to sell it.

[00:15:45] Gene Tavernetti: So what does that look like? Or what did it look like? If this is the way that you're headed?

[00:15:51] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah, so I just started my second year, so I was hired in February of last year. But first it looked like building the capacity, so overviewing what those systems are of effective schools and districts. And getting them to kind of self assess where they are on those systems. And then really spending a lot of time on the first two systems is getting them to collaborate effectively about the right things about learning and not the housekeeping stuff and then getting them to truly believe that all kids can and will learn no matter what level they're at.

[00:16:20] Dr. Gabe Simon: And that looks like giving them a lot of templates and models for goal setting with kids. Giving them videos and templates and things that we were able to gather through the company. We worked with the consultant and just from other best practices in other districts and showing them that it's possible.

[00:16:37] Dr. Gabe Simon: They didn't believe it was possible with kinder for second TK kids, but When you show them what's possible and they actually see it happening, they get excited about it. We have implemented something I call, it's a newsletter that I do every month, every two months, called the Achievers Anthem. And the focus of that is to celebrate academic growth based on students goals.

[00:16:57] Dr. Gabe Simon: Students that make short term wins or gains, they don't have to reach the goal, but if they make forward progress, we recognize them in this And then it goes out to the whole community. And then I go around and personally give students certificates, explain to them in person, what academic tasks they're getting recognized for.

[00:17:13] Dr. Gabe Simon: And then they get put in a raffle for ice cream at a local establishment. And they like, like, and appreciate that all the way through high school. And that's just becoming a part of our culture where we talk about learning and we celebrate kids. And that wasn't happening. It was the honor roll kids and the top 20 percent were getting all the recognition, right?

[00:17:32] Dr. Gabe Simon: Perfect attendance. You know what you see in a lot of schools, but we were missing 80 percent of our kids. We weren't acknowledging any forward progress.

[00:17:39] Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so let's bring it back for a moment to HR and contracts and things. Were there any issues? You mentioned earlier that. That your district was the language was a little bit more broad with respect to what you could do with the teachers and ask them to do it. PLC's and stuff.

[00:17:55] Gene Tavernetti: Was there any conflict with the contract or anything like that to do this program?

[00:18:02] Dr. Gabe Simon: The conflict has been recent and it has been regarding giving teachers specific feedback on certain instructional strategies. Through, during walkthroughs we call 'em instructional walkthroughs or instructional rounds. And the teachers and the teaching union wanted to get that, actually get that language in the contract.

[00:18:24] Dr. Gabe Simon: And so we're currently negotiating language around what that looks like. But we're not gonna sacrifice, you know, allowing, ensuring teachers. Learn and grow as a result. So, it's, they kind of, we kind of have it like a cease and desist level for certain parts of those practices, which is fine, but with the goal of, with the goal of getting better in the classroom, what time we're done,

[00:18:48] Gene Tavernetti: well, I think, you know, the fact that you just said. It's fine. That shows me the what you got to receive as experience of working with issues that were probably much tougher. You have a way, you know, you could take a look at that, say, okay, I know how to handle this. We can handle this. This is reasonable.

[00:19:09] Gene Tavernetti: This is a reasonable thing to bring up. We can work through this. And that's why I think, you know, that HR. Is so valuable. You know, and knowing, you know, just like the teachers had to know what's possible. The administration has to know what's possible. You know, this is possible.

[00:19:25] Gene Tavernetti: We can get through this. I've seen this. I've worked you know, With a lot tougher issues,

[00:19:31] Dr. Gabe Simon: the other thing, the HR experience taught me was how important it is to give people at all levels of the organization feedback, not just the kids. And so what I found like here, evaluations, they have documents and processes, they just weren't using them. People weren't being evaluated for, you know, the last five, eight years.

[00:19:53] Dr. Gabe Simon: And whether it's whether it's validation or things they need to work on or corrections they need to make, they weren't getting feedback from the adults. And that has an impact on the organization and takes a toll on the organization. So every level from me down to our administrators down to our crossing guards, they all get feedback.

[00:20:14] Dr. Gabe Simon: And that was. Something they admitted that needed to happen that just kind of fell off because people didn't, the leadership didn't prioritize it. So I'm working with them on that too this year.

[00:20:27] Gene Tavernetti: you know, this is, I wanted to do this, not to bash anybody, but to understand and to understand, because I just don't have that experience and I'll give you a personal experience that I had that when I was doing my administrative credential, you know, you go through all these processes, like a sampling, like you had an HR class, but you don't get into anything that, You know, that's gonna help you get into special ed.

[00:20:54] Gene Tavernetti: I was so lucky when I was in my class for special ed. I was sitting next to a a woman who was getting her administrative credential, but had been a school psychologist and was a school psychologist. So the professor would say something about the process and she'd poke me, she'd say, that's not right.

[00:21:13] Gene Tavernetti: That's not right. And she would school me on what the real issues were and how to deal with it. And that saved me so much trouble when I became a principal because if you're ignorant, you're going to get into trouble. So, having said all that, given my little speech, you know, what people are, like to say, people like to blame teachers unions.

[00:21:37] Gene Tavernetti: And one more thing about me and teachers unions. I worked at a school that did not have a union, and I went in for my annual evaluation. One of the questions was, well, well, what do you think we should pay you? And I told him what I thought. Why should we pay you that? We can get somebody off the street.

[00:21:58] Gene Tavernetti: And I said, you know what? This is why we have unions. This is exactly why we have unions. So, people think the whole problem with education in the United States is that we have unions. What's your thought about that? I mean, I'm going not to put you on the spot but in general, your thought

[00:22:15] Dr. Gabe Simon: I think the problem is people haven't developed the relationships to make the union meet their objectives and work in harmony with administration. If you don't have the relationship, it's going to be an us versus them administration versus unions or teachers or. Classified staff or whoever that's why the HR work was so important because it taught me, hey, if I don't have those relationships, past administration didn't have good relationships with the union, we can recover from that, we can develop that.

[00:22:43] Dr. Gabe Simon: So that's really been a focus is communicating, making sure that certain union leadership aren't surprised with things that are happening in the district, they're informed, they know how to problem solve at the lower levels, so little things don't become big things. At a board meeting or, you know, whatever and that stuff's going to happen eventually.

[00:23:02] Dr. Gabe Simon: But that relationship with the union, even if it's fractured, it can be repaired. I've been in districts where when I got there, there wasn't a great relationship between administration and the union, and we were able to repair a lot of those fences.

[00:23:17] Gene Tavernetti: much work. Did you have to do with side administration and district administration to lead them in how to develop those relationships or repair them? Maintain them. Was that a lot of work in some places? Yeah,

[00:23:33] Dr. Gabe Simon: the written communication they do through email, because, you know, the tone gets misunderstood. Just trying to get the coach them. I coach them more on the written communication than I did the in person because you know, when they stepped back and read how that came across like, wow, that was rough.

[00:23:51] Dr. Gabe Simon: And I was really trying to say, Hey, but I made them feel, you know, this certain, this is a certain kind of way. So, the written is important. And then the other thing is really, I learned a lot. I went to the big, one of the best trainings I ever went to when I was a principal was cognitive coaching, you know, that whole how to talk to adults.

[00:24:10] Dr. Gabe Simon: Through and how to work through conflict and work and problem solve. Those questions stems I still have them in my head and I use them to this day To make sure somebody feels heard before you get to the problem solving Stage of the conversations, (Ad Spot)

[00:24:28] Gene Tavernetti: you know, I became an assistant principal. I always told people the two things that were most beneficial to me in my background and in my training was that I had been a counselor. So some of those communication skills that you had talked about, but the other thing that I was, I had refereed basketball and when you're a referee, you need to deal with really upset people in the moment and it takes all the skill you have to get back to the point where you can communicate.

[00:25:01] Gene Tavernetti: So, so I, I hear you. There's always something in our past. If we're able to do that, there's something in our past that we either had the training or some sort of experiences that allowed us to do that. You know, another thing that I remember working with UK is that, that you were different from many of the principles with whom I worked and I had a chance to work with a lot of principles is you had no problem.

[00:25:25] Gene Tavernetti: Being direct with teachers, you know, there were some, you know, folks that I had worked with, you know, they want to dance around everything and then, you know, you have a meeting with somebody and they leave and they don't even know what the meeting was about. Where did you learn that?

[00:25:41] Gene Tavernetti: Or is that just who you are?

[00:25:43] Dr. Gabe Simon: I think it was when I was in my first hr position the superintendent there. I've been he says retirement I've been in leadership for over 20 years and taught me that change is not often comfortable so if you're trying to get somebody to reframe something or Change their behavior or what they do in the classroom.

[00:25:59] Dr. Gabe Simon: You have to get them to think outside of what they're comfortable with outside their comfort level to get them to the point where they actually change their behavior. It's one thing to get them to be compliant and listen to what you're saying, but to get them to change the behavior, they've got to somewhat buy into what you're asking them to do.

[00:26:17] Dr. Gabe Simon: So you when you focus on the impact the new strategy or skill or lesson design will have with the students. And you have you can show evidence that's a thing and that's tangible and it can happen most all teachers will not choose to fail students. Right. So, at least consciously I think the direct approach direct, but communicating in a way where, hey, you can choose not to do this and I'll support you with that.

[00:26:44] Dr. Gabe Simon: But here's what that's good. So being really clear on what's optional and what isn't. So a lot of times it's not optional to do the, whatever the change is, but how you get there is maybe where your options come in, right?

[00:26:59] Gene Tavernetti: Oh, and I think. You know, again, going back to something you said earlier to getting the teachers to believe that something is going to work. It's a lot easier. My work became a lot easier working with teachers and being more direct with teachers is because I knew it would work. You know, I had confidence in it.

[00:27:19] Gene Tavernetti: And there are times when you work in a district at the site level where you know, you get a directive and you're not really sure whether this is going to work and you're not sold on it. So it's very difficult to now stand in front of your staff or one on one and try to be that representative and tell them how good this is.

[00:27:38] Gene Tavernetti: If you don't believe it.

[00:27:40] Dr. Gabe Simon: Right. Yeah.

[00:27:41] Gene Tavernetti: So,

[00:27:42] Dr. Gabe Simon: And we do know what works for kids. I mean, the, you know, once that the Hannity study came out and that meta analysis and all the research behind what works for construction, we know what moves the needle for learning. It just requires us to do things different than we're doing now. And that's been hard for a lot of people.

[00:27:58] Dr. Gabe Simon: It still is hard for us. It's hard for some of my teachers to doesn't mean we stop trying.

[00:28:02] Gene Tavernetti: so knowing what works let's shift gears a little bit here. Knowing what works. I know that you were you know, an adjunct professor and you were teaching research methods. Is that

[00:28:12] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah. To undergrads in child development.

[00:28:15] Gene Tavernetti: Oh, Okay. One of the things that We hear a lot in education and you've referred to a lot of research is that the teachers just don't know the research or they don't understand the research. What has been your experience with that and how much of the research when you are bringing in these programs do you share with, do you share with teachers?

[00:28:39] Dr. Gabe Simon: I mean, I just share a real quick. Reader's Digest version of the actual study or the research, really share with them is the impact on the student, the numbers behind, how did it move, how did it move the needle, how did it improve their learning? What's the effect size of the impact on them over a year?

[00:28:57] Dr. Gabe Simon: How do we know that this works for kids? And then another thing I focused on is because of video and YouTube and all the different media platforms we have, there's always examples of somebody doing that correctly and really well. And they will typically want to replicate that behavior if they feel like it's doable.

[00:29:17] Dr. Gabe Simon: Once you convince them of the impact, you provide evidence of the impact, really have to work to show them that it's possible in my kinder classroom. It's possible in my, or my kids can't do that because it's. Right. Or it's sixth grade and they're, you know, after recess, they're really hard showing them that's possible.

[00:29:35] Dr. Gabe Simon: So how do I have the classroom management part of it has a big impact on the learning, too. And that's not something that a lot of teachers come in and be real effective at all the time.

[00:29:47] Gene Tavernetti: so you have your you're the superintendent, are you the supervisor of the principles or somebody else supervising principles in your district?

[00:29:55] Dr. Gabe Simon: I supervise all the principals and all the directors and all the coordinators because we're twelve hundred students, six smaller schools. But and our district office is literally seven people. So that's okay.

[00:30:05] Gene Tavernetti: Okay. so as you are supervising them and, I'm going to use on this podcast. We don't use cliches or buzzwords, but I'm going to say instructional leadership. It's pretty nebulous. What do you expect from your principles with respect to being in classrooms, observing classrooms knowing what's going on and knowing that you're, you know, talking about contract language about boxers.

[00:30:31] Gene Tavernetti: What's your expectation of the principles and How much do they expect to see the principles?

[00:30:35] Dr. Gabe Simon: Well, they, I mean, I think whether they admit it or not, I don't know, but they expect to see the principles of daily to take a pulse of the campus culture of the classroom cultures, provide feedback and follow up to teachers when they see things that they want to celebrate and when they see things that they want to ask questions and have the teachers rethink, Okay.

[00:30:56] Dr. Gabe Simon: And then my conversations with them have always been having them set specific measurable goals around what we're implementing. So ours is the six systems to support students. I want them to tell me what their plan is to implement those six systems. At the high school, which is going to look different than the elementary school and I'll support them with what they need to do.

[00:31:17] Dr. Gabe Simon: But what we're focusing on is and they bought into that through leadership trainings and retreats. We did when I first got here, they were, they said we need something different. We need more focus. We need more organization. We need to rally around something. And this is really good for us to rally around because it just makes sense for kids.

[00:31:36] Dr. Gabe Simon: And so they are required to set goals. And we just had our mid year checks a couple weeks ago about, hey, how's that going? What have you gotten to? What have you not gotten to? How is it? How does it impact student learning? How do you know? They've got to provide you some evidence of the learning improving.

[00:31:53] Dr. Gabe Simon: And it always cycles back to how much do the kids, the students understand about what they've learned and what they need to learn to be successful. So really focusing on that self monitoring of progress and grades. We're doing some really good work with that at the high school right now. Now it's trickling down to the

[00:32:15] Gene Tavernetti: This is kind of random, but it's random to our conversation, but not to what's going on in education. Technology, use of technology. You have a cell phone ban at your, any of your sites?

[00:32:26] Dr. Gabe Simon: we do. We just implemented it per board direction. And January of this year. So we the pouches. We have those.

[00:32:37] Gene Tavernetti: And so what's the feedback from from staff and parents and students, whomever?

[00:32:44] Dr. Gabe Simon: The feedback is initially there was some pushback from parents and students about, you know, that's a right or that's a freedom or I get to do this parents were upset because they worry about being able to locate or get a hold of their students and reassure them. There's other ways. Teachers still have phones, classrooms still have analog phones, If they put it in airplane mode, they can still locate where their child is.

[00:33:11] Dr. Gabe Simon: find my phone or wherever these apps are. But when they first experienced it and we did a different lot of schools just say, have it away during class, but they can have them out during before and after school during transitions during lunch. We tried that and we still had the bullying and the kids were not engaging socially and not practicing social skills and they were just The kids can become mean and awful sometimes on phones to each other, especially in middle high school.

[00:33:39] Dr. Gabe Simon: And so our band is they moment they walk in the classroom first period. They turn off their phone or put it in airplane mode and silence it and put it in this lockable pouch, then they can't unlock it and get it out until the end of the school day. And so during transitions, the teachers are reporting staff supporting that they're talking to each other, that they're they're interacting socially a lot more because they don't have their addiction or their phone right there and it's less bullying and peer issue to start because.

[00:34:11] Dr. Gabe Simon: They're not able to shoot that stuff across the different social media platforms during the day. So that's been great. I think it's helped out.

[00:34:19] Gene Tavernetti: you know, I agree. I, you know, we just walked through a school district classrooms. I don't know. It's a couple hundred classrooms in a school district and there was one school that was very strict with regard to their policy of no, no phones and what was weird about it we went and observed the class first period.

[00:34:39] Gene Tavernetti: We debriefed it. We with with a team that we were walking through and then we came out second period and it just kind of dawned on us. Wow. There were no phones in there. You know, the absence of the phones. Yeah. was not a big deal. It was the phones, you know, if that makes sense what I'm trying to say, it took a moment to realize what was different about it.

[00:35:00] Gene Tavernetti: And there was no phones and you could just tell it was just much more attention. It was calmer. And so kudos to you and your district and your board, because I think that's going to be everywhere,

[00:35:12] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah. It was just really hard to enforce it. Without totally getting rid of like visually and the kids still have the agency, right? They saw the phones on their person on their backpack, but they can't get them out. And there's consequences laid out really specifically. And then we actually have a kind of like a feeder program at the elementary, the fourth, fifth and sixth graders at the elementary and most of them, I'd say about half of them don't even bring them, but the ones that bring them, they have to put them in a lockable cabinet in the teacher's classroom in the morning and they get them back in the afternoon.

[00:35:42] Dr. Gabe Simon: And so that gets them ready for high school. So we kind of plan that all at the same time. And it was an expense off the bat, but I believe It's helped short term but it'll help long term too with just them being able to socialize and have good skills they can use in college or career when they're done.

[00:35:58] Gene Tavernetti: Yeah no, absolutely. I agree. Well, Gabe, let me ask you this. Have a lot of folks who listen to this, who are different levels of administration site, district, et cetera and a lot of aspiring people. There's always people aspiring to move into administration. What advice do you have for them on how to gain the knowledge and experience that would help?

[00:36:20] Gene Tavernetti: Make their jobs a lot easier with respect to HR.

[00:36:25] Dr. Gabe Simon: With respect to HR,

[00:36:27] Gene Tavernetti: Yeah

[00:36:27] Dr. Gabe Simon: and going into HR administration you think?

[00:36:30] Gene Tavernetti: no just how, I'm going to say how to stay out of trouble.

[00:36:34] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah,

[00:36:35] Gene Tavernetti: You know, what's kind of, what do you really need to know, kind of like HR for dummies for

[00:36:40] Dr. Gabe Simon: yeah. Don't offer a solution right off the bat. If you're not telling somebody you're going to circle back with them, then you're probably making the decision too quickly. Make sure you get input on most decisions. And if there's no input on decision, make sure you're clear with everybody that this is a no input decision.

[00:36:58] Dr. Gabe Simon: This is a half due because of a district mandate or state mandate or something. You got to be really crystal clear on that because if you're not they would assume rightly so that they should be able to have some say in something, right? Cause it's a school community, but we're always real gray about that.

[00:37:15] Dr. Gabe Simon: It gets into trouble as leaders. And you gotta be, you can't say you know what's happening with learn, teaching and learning unless you're in the classrooms every day, unless you're, you don't know what's happening with your kids, unless you're at passing and you're in the lunchroom with the kids. And there's time before and after school to do the management part of the job, but during the school day is when you should be doing the job of being present for the staff and the kids.

[00:37:42] Dr. Gabe Simon: And that's hard to do. You have to really force yourself to do that to carve out that time that's protected, except for an emergency or an evacuation. Like, you're not getting pulled away. Your staff knows that's your time. Your calendar is public. And that's another thing.

[00:38:00] Dr. Gabe Simon: You don't have to make all your event titles public, but people know how to access you. They know you have a process if they can't catch you. You have somebody, your secretary, whoever, who can find availability for you. Because when you're not reachable. People make, may make decisions or assume things that aren't necessarily in the best interest of kids.

[00:38:25] Dr. Gabe Simon: So you got to make sure you're super accessible and that you're transparent, like I said, in what decisions are most decisions are collaborative, but some aren't, you just got to be honest about it. So that's

[00:38:36] Gene Tavernetti: you know, I think that is really important advice because it can head off a lot of things. It's like, no, this is not my decision. It's not your decision. This is the law or whatever, because then they know if you if they know that you're going to be honest about that, then they know the things that we can talk about that are more negotiable and I think it just saves you a bunch of time and a bunch of heartache.

[00:39:01] Gene Tavernetti: So, gosh

[00:39:02] Dr. Gabe Simon: big too, because you have to, if you say you have an open door policy. Well, your door better be mostly open and you better be available and be engaged when they come on that 10 minute recess and they need you. You better be ready to just give them all your attention. And walk the walk and talk to talk about being.

[00:39:21] Dr. Gabe Simon: Accessible because we can say we're accessible, but then if I'm, if I can't access you, then I'm just going to have to be an independent contractor. And we have too many of

[00:39:31] Gene Tavernetti: Yeah. Well, Gabe do you have a question for me?

[00:39:35] Dr. Gabe Simon: I would say the question is around in your work in, and I know it doesn't work with you in lesson design and in the classroom and your staff development, you've done a great job of supporting districts all over the state with, what do you think are a few things that teachers can and should do with kids?

[00:39:54] Dr. Gabe Simon: That are maybe small adjustments that really. Really have a big impact on learning that we tend to overthink

[00:40:01] Gene Tavernetti: well, I think one of the things I think, boy, I have a, I get this question a lot in a similar forms. I think the big thing is understanding explicit instruction, understanding teacher directed instruction, because everything stems off of that. If you are gonna do, if you are going to adapt a lesson for somebody, what are you adapting it from, you know?

[00:40:30] Gene Tavernetti: And then that's one thing, just being competent in, in being able to deliver a real, streamlined lesson and I said I say streamlined because so much so many lessons we see there's just a lot of like this answer. I'm going on and on versus getting very specific and the more specific we can be.

[00:40:50] Gene Tavernetti: The more precise we can be with our language. The easier it is for the students to understand and. And having said that, and then being able to do having that structure that would allow you to do continuous formative assessment, so that you are asking questions so that you are absolutely sure your kids.

[00:41:13] Gene Tavernetti: Getting what you're teaching. They're understanding what you're teaching and how important is that well because they're going to be asked at the end of the lesson and you're, you know, in your district, you know, what did you learn? How did you do? You know, they're going to they're going to self assess. So that's type of clarity that type of clarity that type of precision with that the https: TheBusinessProfessor.

[00:41:34] Gene Tavernetti: com to not only who knows it, but who doesn't know it and what don't they know so that they can do that reteach in the moment. I just think that's a baseline everything else. If you don't have that, there are too many variables left unknown as you move on to, you know, many districts, they'll have a, they'll have an issue with a particular content area.

[00:41:58] Gene Tavernetti: Oh, we need a new program. Oh, we need a new intervention. Oh, we need it. Well, wait a second. Let's go back to basics. How was that tier one instruction? You know, let's go back to that. So that's what I think I can't think of. I can't enumerate them, but that's what that's where I would. That's where I would go.

[00:42:18] Dr. Gabe Simon: Well, if we learn that when I work with you in math They were both they were doing the direct instruction fine and the kids were doing the independent practice But they forgot to do it together a lot of the time. So that was like a big aha for them. They're like Oh yeah, this is important, right? And teaching the steps of the different operations and all that stuff was critical for that while I was there.

[00:42:39] Dr. Gabe Simon: And hopefully they're still doing some of that.

[00:42:41] Gene Tavernetti: Well, and I think what that does, you know, call back to what you said earlier when the teacher see it when the teacher see that the kids when you do something differently and the kids are able to get it, then they believe it. But it's not until you believe it. That you're going to, that you're going to implement it with the passion that, you know, that it will work.

[00:43:03] Dr. Gabe Simon: Yeah, for sure.

[00:43:05] Gene Tavernetti: Gabe, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it andhope that it's not another eight years before I see you again.

[00:43:12] Dr. Gabe Simon: No, I might be talking to you about some math stuff, so we'll talk. All

[00:43:15] Gene Tavernetti: All right. Sounds good. Thank you so much, Gabe.

[00:43:18] Dr. Gabe Simon: right. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much.

[00:43:24] Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend. Also, please leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky. Tesscg. com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.

[00:44:01] Gene Tavernetti: Talk to you soon