Episode 75: Building a High School From the Ground Up: Leadership Lessons with Kendall Terry (Part 1)

Welcome And Smoky Mountain Stories

Principal JL 0:00

Have you ever wanted to design a high school from the ground up or any school from the ground up? Well, that is what today's guest got to do. His name is Kendall Terry. He's an educator, school leader, author, and educational consultant with more than 20 years of experience. Kendall currently serves as the assistant director at Clayton Bradley Academy in Tennessee, where he helps lead school operations, faculty development, curriculum design, strategic planning, accreditation, and learning center innovation. Before becoming an administrator, Kendall served as a high school science teacher, science department chair, STEM coordinator, and coach. He's also the founder of Terry Leadership Group, supporting schools through leadership strategy, instructional coaching, professional learning, engagement, and thoughtful AI integration. Now, this was an exciting episode to do. We actually have to take this episode and split it into two parts because it went way long when we did the recording. So I hope you guys enjoy this two-part series with Kendall Terry. Now we're going to go ahead and get to the conversation of part one with Kendall Terry. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast. I am so excited to be back. I just got off vacation. I got my Smoky Mountain hat. I got my Bigfoot t-shirt going on right here. I spent about five days, almost about a week, in East Tennessee. And then, matter of fact, our next guest is from Tennessee, Kendall Terry. Kendall, welcome to the show.

Kendall Terry 1:53

Yeah, great to be here. And East Tennessee is home. So yeah, you were just right over the mountain here in the Smoky Mountains. I hope you had a great time. I know you got the shirt and the Bigfoot uh stuff, but yeah, it's it's a great area. Love it. Love being here. Moved here about 20 some years ago, and and it's been home since.

Principal JL 2:12

We really enjoy our time in East Tennessee. I know we've been through Tennessee before, but we never really stayed and did anything. And so we did, of course, the touristy stuff with pigeonforge in Gatlinburg. We did get to see a black bear, which that you know, that doesn't happen to tourists all the time. Uh but it was kind of funny because we saw it as we're leaving the parking lot in downtown Gatlinburg, and it was just poking around looking for easy food. So yeah, it was a lot of fun and did some white water rafting, did the Dollywood experience, just had a great time. But you know, right now I'm kind of in my summer break, and so getting away, getting out of Nebraska and going somewhere we haven't been before was a lot of fun. And so thank you for sharing East Tennessee with me.

Kendall Terry 2:59

Yeah, fun story there. My my parents came into town several years ago, and and we were driving through that area and we were hoping to see bear. You know, everybody wants to see black bear when they come here. And and my dad is setting up in the front of the car, and he's like, Oh, there's a bear right there in the mountains. It's it's right there. Everybody had slowed down. That's when you know to look, all the traffic slows down, you know. And he pulls out his camera and he he's filming and he's like, Oh, I got it, I got it. And he goes to look. And this shows you how old it was. When you go to look at the camera, he had never taken the lens cap off of the camera. It wasn't a phone. And I was like, it was just a black screen. And I was like, Dad, how close did you zoom in on that black bear? That seems really you really got in there, and it was we had a good time with it. But yeah, you everybody that drives through the smokies, you got to see a black bear, hopefully. So I'm glad that you were able to see it in a weird spot being in downtown Gatlinburg as opposed to up in the mountains. But glad that you were able to take part in that.

Principal JL 3:55

Yeah, no, and we had some ideas of like maybe doing a hike or just trying to go out in nature and see one, and but we didn't have to do that. We're just one of those days we're in Gatlinburg, and you know, we've seen a lot of TikToks where they were coming into Gatlinburg a lot before we got there, so we're going, yeah, there's a chance. And lo and behold, there was one as we're driving out of the parking lot. It was like, all right, our experience in East Tennessee is complete. We got to do everything we wanted to do. Check, check, check. So yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, just really some place we'll probably go back to. Maybe next time we'll get a cabin up in the mountains instead of driving my my RV 16 hours. So that was that was another experience too. I got to experience Buckey's for the first time. If you haven't been to a Bucky's, I encourage you to go. It's amazing. I was just like, their three meat sandwich was like amazing, their beef jerky is amazing, the whole place is amazing. And my t-shirt here, believe in yourself when no one else believes in you. My little big sweat t-shirt. I saw that, I was like, I gotta get that. So that's gonna be that's gonna be my theme for next year for everybody. Believe in you when no one else believes in you. All right. Now, Kendall, it's really great to have you on the show. I'm gonna get you kick-started with the same question I ask everybody on the show. What inspired you to become an educator?

Kendall Terry 5:24

That is a great question because it was one of those that it was about midway through my

Choosing Teaching Over Pre-Med

Kendall Terry 5:30

college experience. I'd started out in pre-med, loved science, and always had a great time in my science classes. And it was about halfway through my freshman year of college that, you know, I just started having those like, what do I really want to do? And I was doing volunteer work at a hospital to kind of get uh different areas of medicine. And and it was like I just didn't enjoy that whole experience. And so it was, it was, well, what do I really want to do? And I went back to conversations I'd had in high school as well with my science teachers of like, I really think I want to be a science teacher. I really think I want to be in education. At the time, they were encouraging me to go make money and do something else. They said you you can go make a lot more money in science doing something other than teaching. And I said, Well, you know, it you kind of hit that space of do I want to enjoy going to work every day? And I loved everything about my high school experience, to be honest. I mean, it was I I was involved in a lot of different things. I loved the classroom. I, you know, I just I enjoyed my time there. And so it was, it was a I really wanted to have that opportunity, you know. And I thought back to science teachers I had like Miss Davis, and and she was inspiring. I had several of her classes and and have even gotten to talk to her as an educator of like, man, you you inspired me to really do some some cool things in life because of what I experienced in your class. And so switched majors and actually switched universities at the time, and you know, and started this idea of I want to, I really want to be in a spot that I can inspire kids the way Miss Davis inspired me. And then once I got into college, uh uh those science teachers like Dr. Freak, great name for a scientist, by the way, but mentor of mine when I was at Lee University, and and he just he was able to bring science to a whole nother level and really get you out in the field and get you doing science, not just talking about it in the classroom. And I wanted to be able to do that for kids. I wanted to be able to take a class and a lot of kids end up in a science class and go, don't like science. And my thing is typically they don't like science because they have been in a science class that was all about just memorizing facts. And so when I look back to people like Miss Davis, like Dr. Freak, it was, yeah, there's some knowledge here that we need to have, but it's let's do something today in science. Let's do labs, let's dissect, let's take nature walks, let's get out in this thing and experience it for real. And and it just opened up my worldview of of what all was out there. And so I wanted to help inspire the next generation of of uh adults, and I enjoyed that opportunity to speak into teenagers. And so it was kind of an easy thing when I when I was like, what do I really want to do with my life? I want to go be a science teacher, and and so that's what I did.

Principal JL 8:21

Awesome. Yeah, I was I mean, I was a former math teacher at one point. I taught math, and everybody's like, ah, math, you know, it's one of the one of the subjects people don't really like to take, but they have to take it. And you know, you know, why are we learning this? At least in science, you have cool things like labs and things like that to do, and I have to try to like do some cross-curriculum stuff in math to try to bring some like lab type stuff into the classroom. Yeah, no, I'm there with you. I think math and science, there's a lot of connections um in the classroom when you're teaching that. So, as a science teacher, what grade levels did you teach? And could you talk about some experiences you have as a science teacher that informed your leadership today?

Kendall Terry 9:06

Yeah, I so my first teaching job was seventh grade science, and it was one of those that I learned that middle school wasn't really my thing. I love middle schoolers, and I think the middle school teachers that just embrace middle school for what it is and have a blast with them, you know, that's awesome. But for me, it just wasn't the area that I felt most comfortable. And and so I did a year in a in a middle school in North Carolina and then moved to Maryville in East Tennessee and eventually got back into teaching. I took a little bit of time off after the middle school experience and and then got back into it and from there went into high school. And so I've taught 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th is this the main part of my teaching experience and and looking at everything from biology, environmental science, biology to AP biology, scientific research, just more of the life science side. And I love taking kids that don't really want to be in class or they're in there because everybody has to have a biology credit, and being able to help them see like there, there's some really cool things in this thing that we call life science and biology in the world. And so seeing a kid go from this, like, I don't really want to be in here to I kind of want to be in here, but I don't really get it, or I don't understand, to wow, this is really cool. Like, I want to know more. And then those light bulb moments of they truly get like the processes that they're watching. That that is a something that you, you know, as a teacher, when you see that happen, it's like a drug, you know, it's addictive to see kids actually embracing that learning process

Making Science More Than Facts

Kendall Terry 10:40

and and getting to know something that they didn't know before. And so even as I've moved into administration, it's trying to keep that same focus because, you know, in administration, there's teachers that show up in professional development. They don't really want to be there, they're there because they have to be. And so it's trying to help say, okay, let's not let make this a boring class. Like nobody wants to go in and sit in that teacher's room where they just lecture all day and you take notes. Let's make this interactive, let's get up and do things. So we're constantly looking at doing that as well in in school of let's let's educate teachers the way we say we want to educate students. So we want this to be engaging, we want this to be interactive, we want this to have real world connection. And that's that's another area that when you start seeing that real world in what I'm learning, it helps answer that question. The brain has like, why am I learning this? Am I ever going to use this again? We take this real world concept, bring it into the classroom, and it's not just everybody's done that, okay, it turns blue or mine turned green and it wasn't supposed to. I don't know what happened, but actually taking that and saying, okay, why is why are we learning this? What are we doing? And so trying to help answer that question, bringing in experts into the classroom or taking the kids to that experience, it's always great to see that in kids. And we do the same thing with our teachers. I was part of an initiative to give teachers a day where they can go shadow somebody in the real world. You know, as teachers, a lot of us are in the profession, and this is the only thing we've done. And so when we're telling kids about something they can use in like science this way or math this way or English this way, for a lot of teachers, the only way they've used that content is in the classroom. And so we want to give our teachers a chance to go out and shadow somebody. We had one of our preschool teachers that actually went and shadowed a brain surgeon, and she got to see uh uh brain surgery from you know the safe viewing area and and watching what they were doing. And it's like, well, why is a preschool teacher learning that? Well, one of the things we push here is brain-based learning and figuring out how the brain learns and saying, how can we use that in the classroom to help kids learn and master content and not just memorize facts? And so she was able to go and and spend a day with this brain surgeon and see brain scans and hear them talk about how the brain is connected and lighting up certain regions when this was going on and that was going on. It was a great experience. She was able to come back and talk to the staff about it, talk to her colleagues about it, and then look for ways to like help put this now in the classroom, even in preschool. And so we it's big on let's get out there and do, let's experience, let's have these real life situations and then figure out how we can use that in the classroom to help kids get engaged and get to learning content and not just memorizing facts that as soon as they can get rid of those facts, they're dumping them and moving on.

Principal JL 13:27

Hey, now that's a lot to digest in there, Kendall. And I really appreciate what you you know, everything that you just said. And one thing that I kind of picked up there is you talked about how you know you strive to engage the students in the content, and then how as an administrator you strive to engage the teachers into the content too. And I think that's one thing people don't realize when you get into being a principal or an administrator at some level. Your job is now not to students, but to help the adults learn and grow and provide professional development. My biggest thing is I'm not going to waste your time with professional development that you don't actually need. Like we have professional development, there's gonna be a purpose behind it. I'm gonna tell you the purpose, and we're gonna focus in and get that done so we can get off to doing the other things we need to be able to do with our with our time. Because I I really hated professional development as a teacher sometimes when it was like, why are we doing this like again? Or you know, I know that like I've taught for so many years now. And so with that, I tried to keep that in mind as an as an administrator when I put my professional development days together. You know, how am I gonna engage my staff? But then am I giving them something they need, or is this something I can send in an email that they can still get, you know? And so I really try to make sure that when I do have these professional developments, they're engaged or locked in and know how much time we got and to focus in on what we gotta do on it. So I really like that connection between the classroom and then becoming an administrator there when you talk about engaging people into the work. Now, you were also a department chair and a STEM coordinator. How did that prepare you when you became an administrator?

Kendall Terry 15:20

Yeah. So, you know, I I was able to take on the real role and responsibility of the science department chair at a the high school here in town, and and I didn't know what I was getting into. I'll be honest. Like I I enjoyed the opportunity, and there was like a, I think the the way the school did, if I remember correctly, was like a science, it was every department voted, you know, for a for a person. And and so they'd talk about you know who wants to do it. And and some of we had a couple people retiring, and we had some that were, you know, at different points in their career. And and so several of them would come to me and said, Hey, you should think about being the science department chair. And so I I thought, why not? Like I, you know, I was I was still young and and somewhat uh stars in their eyes of, yeah, this is a great opportunity to have some leadership. And so I was able to step into that and learn a lot about how to deal with scheduling. You know, you have to be part now of developing a master schedule, how to regulate, making sure that we at least have one teacher on planning in the science department at every block and all of this stuff, and and who's gonna be at what planning period, and realizing that some teachers are very, very opinionated about which planning period they get. And so trying to meet people's needs and that sort of thing is the science department chair. And then as I was the science department chair, the principal came to me and said, Hey, we're putting together this initiative to make a STEM program at the high school. That was back in the days when STEM was kind of this new buzzword that people were trying to figure out and and schools were trying to figure out. And they said, We're putting together a little task force at the county with the other high school in the county too, and we're gonna, you know, kind of talk through what are we able to do. And and so the the high school I was a part of really just embraced this. We had a great guidance counselor that joined the team, we had a great assistant principal that joined the team. We had a couple of department chairs that that joined this task force, and and our high school decided we were gonna make the STEM branch, the STEM arm of of the high school. And the other high school kind of looked at some ideas and kind of let it go and said they weren't really that interested. And so we were kind of on our own at that point. And the the Board of Education gave us the the go-ahead to say, well, develop what

Professional Learning That Respects Time

Kendall Terry 17:30

you can, you'll come back and report to us on what you can what you've come up with. And and once again, you know, we needed somebody now to help direct that group at the high school. And and they came to me and said, Would you be interested in taking over as a STEM coordinator and and helping make this happen? And and so I I jumped at that opportunity to to build and create something that was not there. And in education, you just don't get a whole lot of those opportunities come your way. Many times we walk into systems that are already created and we're trying to figure out how we work in that system. And so I was given this opportunity to help build something new, and that kind of started me on a journey that I didn't know about that I was on at the time. And so learning how to talk to teachers, try to integrate. You know, when you're a science teacher going to a math teacher and saying, hey, let's try to get together and develop some stuff together. And, you know, sometimes those math teachers were embracing that, and sometimes they were like, you know, go back to the science hallway. You know, you had to figure that out. You had to figure out how to get the right people in the room to develop some really creative things. I learned that I was able to do a lot of integration with our CTE program. And so, you know, in in a public high school, a lot of times the CTE side and the academic side don't really do a whole lot of communicating. And so I was able to go out and get with our engineering person and our health science person. That was the two things that connected most easily with what I was doing in biology. And so we started saying, how can we integrate some of our content? I've got a lot of your kids in health science and engineering. I've got them over here in the academics and in biology and AP biology. And so, what can we do together? And so we were able to really create some fun, interactive things. We were able to bring in the stats class from one of the math teachers. We did this whole crime scene investigation with the 911 center in town and brought in a forensics person that was showing them how the care how to take camera footage of the crime scene and how to document evidence. And then we did this whole scenario with the kids, and they were looking at the stats side, they were doing the engineering side, trying to figure out some stuff with that. And then in the biology side, they were you know tracking DNA and trying to collect DNA and all this stuff. So it was just this really cool opportunity to develop something new, learn how to get people all on the same team. And that is part of, you know, in my leadership journey that I go back to is remembering how to have those conversations. How do we get people integrating? How do we get people creating? If you can get that ball rolling, then people get in that that mindset of like, this is exciting, this is fun. It's overwhelming and it's tiring, it's exhausting, but at the same time, you can really get in there and see like this is why we went into education because when the kids come into that, you know, whenever they came into the assembly that we were doing this whole crime scene, we've got a crime scene set up and the crime scene texts are there. And we had a the 911 center had us do a 911 call. And so we were able to play this 911 call of what had happened and and all of this. Like it didn't at that point, we didn't have to do anything to engage kids. Like they were fully engaged in what they were doing. They wanted to solve this situation, this case. And it was just this really cool opportunity. And so we went back to the board of education with these things that we'd created, and we said, we want to be able to put a stamp on their diploma if they go through this process with us. And and we had to set it up and show the classes and what classes were integrating and what what ones were able to cross curricular and and the board of education approved it. And so then we had kids that if they did the the process that we were we were putting them through, they could get this extra stamp on their diploma that talked about STEM and the STEM program. And it was just it was an opportunity for me to see something on a from a side that I had never been a part of. In education, you know, I'd been part of the classroom side, but being part of the department chair side and then being part of the STEM coordinator side, it really opened my mind to outside of what I can do with teenagers to what I can do with adults.

Principal JL 21:33

Awesome. Well, that's all you know, a lot of really great opportunities for your kids. I really like the crime scene investigation, how you got everybody together and how everything relates to this situation, how science belongs, how engineering, how does, you know, all the different things that come together on the CTE side and and the and the content core area. There's a lot of people Forget that you know CTE and content for content integrate, they actually come together for a lot of different things, and so that's why we try to have a well balanced education for our students. So I really like the idea of you know coming up with those different scenarios and I guarantee you you you engage kids. I mean, I would I'm sitting here, man, I wish I would have had that. That's pretty cool. And and what you're talking about, like with like a pathway for your students. We do

Building A STEM Program That Sticks

Principal JL 22:30

a lot of like career pathways here in Nebraska. So if you complete certain pathways, you can get a certain certificate or a verification that you got it. And so those are things that we've been developing over the years. I would say pathways in Nebraska, probably over the last eight to ten years, obviously. We've been really trying to develop these different ways to you know help engage kids, but to get them some sort of certification or some sort of um you know acknowledgement that they've completed something in that pathway. So that's something that we're trying to combine your CD and your cores and all that stuff as well. Well, you you've been teaching your STEM coordinator, you know, department head. What was it that made you go, hmm, it's time to become an administrator? What is that story for you? How what got you to become an administrator and what position are you in now when it comes to that? And and what have you learned so far as an administrator?

Kendall Terry 23:32

Yeah, so it was shortly after that. I had a person reach out to me about a new school that had been started in our area, and they were wanting to start a high school because when they originally came to me, they didn't have a high school, and I was like, you know, I'm a high school teacher. I've learned that I enjoy high school. And so they said, no, we're trying to start a high school. We're gonna put a team together to actually build this thing from the ground up. Once again, I was given this opportunity to kind of create something that that didn't exist. And so I was put on a team with an amazing math teacher in Dr. Bruce, a great English teacher in Mr. Hussey. And then we were partnered with an administrator and a guidance counselor and said, All right, let's start creating what a high school should look like if one doesn't exist right now. And then how can we get kids on board? And so I did that for a couple of years with them to kind of get this thing rolling. And then our executive director at the time, Pat Bradley, came to me and she said, Hey, I don't know if you've ever thought about the administration side of things, but I'm looking for an assistant director to step in and help run the whole school, not just the high school, but the whole school. And and I was like, man, I have never thought about that side of things. You know, like even in the I enjoyed the science department chair, I enjoyed the STEM coordinator, but but that's a whole nother level, you know, that's completely out of the classroom then. And I was like, I gotta, I gotta talk to my wife about this, I gotta pray about it. And came back to her and said, you know, listen, I I took a risk in coming over here because I believe in what you're talking about with brain research. I believe in what you're talking about with with doing school different. And if you're willing to take that risk with me, I'm willing to learn. And so stepped into a position that I had no clue what I was getting into in reality. And and, you know, once again, stars in my eyes and thought, oh yeah, I got all this, I can do it, but knew I needed to learn a lot a whole lot. And so I was able to set under an amazing mentor in Pat. And she had been in education, had been in the classroom as well at the elementary level, had been a principal at two different schools, and then now was the the executive director. And so it was just an amazing space. And and for the first, we joke about as we were building some things here, for the first like three years of me doing that job, my my desk was literally in the same office as her desk. So, like I had my boss watching me do everything I was doing all day all day long, it felt like. But it was just that space of I also had that ear to say, hey, I don't understand this, or hey, can you give me some thoughts on that? And she just leaned into mentoring me and teaching me how to do this thing in administration. And so she gave me space to make mistakes and and not crucify me when I made them, and to be able to sit down then afterwards and say, okay, hey, here's here's what went down, here's what happened, here's how you handled it, and here's how you should have handled it. And so here's how we're gonna fix it now, and here's what we're gonna do. And so we just had a great back and forth, and and so we have been building ever since then. This year was a little bit of a sad year because she retired, and so we had to go through that, which was a process I had also never been through of having someone that had mentored me now for about 10 years, taking those steps of retiring and and and transitioning that to somebody else now. And and it's been a it's been a journey, but just this opportunity to realize what it means to truly lead, because I think a lot of times when people look at leadership, they think about control. And what I've learned is leadership is less about control and it's more about clarity, it's more about trust, building relationships, supporting the people that I need to support, and then consistency, showing up. You know, that that's a huge thing to just show up every day and and show people that you know you you not only care about them, but you're gonna be there for them and cheer them on whenever they do great things and then support them through whenever they they have a failure. And so that's just been a huge part for me is realizing that. And then I think another thing in leadership that you've got to learn that I've had to learn through 10 years in this position is leadership is not about being the smartest person in the room, and it's not about proving that you're the smartest person in the room, but it's actually about becoming a really good listener and learning how to help everybody be better. If the room is better because of the way I'm leading, then that's the that's the goal. If everybody walks out just saying, man, that guy's great, well, then that only goes as far as I'm in the room, right? So we want to be in in environments where everybody has voice. Everybody is able to listen and and figure out how we can do this thing better with everybody here at the table. And so I love having those conversations where you're you're able to get the the voice from teachers and get the voice from from principals and directors and and different positions in the school and say, okay, now how can we actually all come together and make this thing something amazing? It could be good with just one of us, but how can we make it amazing?

Principal JL 28:48

You bet. Hey, man, that's that's really awesome story. And I mean, sounds like you like to build the plane as you're flying it a lot of the times, especially with the STEM program and now the Clayton Bradley Academy bringing in a high school side of things. So, what makes like Clayton Bradley Academy different from other schools? What what is how did you guys rethink school differently in a way that makes Clayton Bradley Academy what it is?

Kendall Terry 29:21

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the things we do is we look at how the brain learns. And so that's that's where we start as the foundation is how does the brain learn? And then how can we teach in that way? And so it's not about the curriculum, it's not about a textbook, it's not about you know the PowerPoint or whatever. It's looking at how does the brain learn? And we use a model called Learning Centered Schools. I've helped write the book, the most recent book for that. I've got it here on my desk. I was thinking about that. I've got it here, is Exceeding Expectations 2. And it goes into how that model of instruction works, but it's looking at how does the brain learn at every level. So this isn't saying, well, this is the way they, you know, it our elementary works, even breaking that down to say, what do they need at K-12? What do they need at 3, 4, 5, what do they need at middle school? And then let's design something that's there for them. We're not about teaching a kid to get ready for sixth grade, we're about teaching a kid to be really good at fifth grade. And if we do a really good job at fifth grade when they go to our middle school and sixth grade, then the sixth, sixth and seventh grade teachers can take them and and educate them and be really good at sixth and seventh grade. And so we want to look at how the brain learns. How can we teach to that? And then we want kids to master content. So we don't, we don't want it to just be a let's work towards a test. We we, yes, we have to do high-stakes testing because everybody does, but we're not teaching to that test. We're teaching to how the brain learns. We want kids to be able to master content where they know what they know. And when they get in situations that they don't know something, they

Moving Into Administration Through Mentorship

Kendall Terry 31:00

have skills of how to figure that out. So the backbone to the learning center school model is we call them life skills and lifelong guidelines. And so there are five lifelong guidelines, and then there are 19 life skills that we teach that are kind of the soft skills in life. It's what if you go out and read reports like the McKinsey study, I don't know if you've looked at that, but most recent McKinsey study, it talks about what do businesses want in employees. They want people that can do, like I said, we call them life life skills, lifelong guidelines, but it's it's they want employees that are curious. They want employees that have a sense of humor, they want employees that have responsibility, can be organized. And so that's our backbone to everything we do from preschool all the way up through 12th grade. We teach life skills, lifelong guidelines. And so it's one of those that that if we can figure out how to create really good humans, that's one of the goals we have. When they walk across that stage as a senior, they're going to have the skills they need to know how to get the content that they need to get and to know how to connect that content to the real world and figure out how to process it in a way that they can learn it. And that's what we want to teach them as they're here. And then whenever they walk across that graduation stage, wherever they may find themselves next, they'll have those skills there for them to be good employees or good service members or good college students or good PhDs or whatever may be the case.

Principal JL 32:25

Awesome. That's really cool. It kind of like taken your base foundation is how's the brain, you know, learn and how's it work, and you basically apply that all the way from are you guys a K-12 or pre-K-12?

Kendall Terry 32:39

Yeah, pre-K. So we have three-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and four and five. You know, it's uh that preschool mix. We do a mixed grade level, we don't have ages, so it's three, four, and five are all all kind of in there together. Most of them at five then are going into kindergarten, you know. So uh we start at three-year-old and go all the way through twelfth grade.

Principal JL 32:59

Awesome. So you kind of get this group of kids, you know, utilizing that that model all the way through. And so what kind of successes have you guys had from this model? Kind of brag on yourself a little bit.

Kendall Terry 33:12

Yeah. So we've seen kids go on to do some amazing things because that's always what people want to, you know, well, what are your graduates doing? And we we have had kids that have done everything from Ivy League. Uh, we've got one right now that he he had a full ride to Columbia, and then after Columbia, he went into law school. He's got a full ride now at Yale Law. And he I think he would show that some of the things he learned here was what helped him to have that success. But we've got graduates that are, they they took gap years, and and in that gap year decided, you know, I'm really not filling the the university route. And instead, I like this idea of entrepreneurship and they're they're opening their own businesses, starting their own companies. We've got kids that have gone into the militaries and and had a great time in their military experience and service. And so for us, it we've had we've had students that have gone to col uh to community college and either got an associate's degree or or you know got the certificates they needed to go and do the the job they needed to do. So we're not just worried about which four-year institution did they go to next. We want them to be able to take that next step on on their terms. And it's we we we use a lot of different analogies there, but we want our kids that they're in control of that next step. And life is not just they're a passenger on this thing, but they're actually in the in the driver's seat. And so we we've had kids that are currently in med school, we've had kids that are currently you know opening own companies and and being very successful there. And so it's it's that's exciting to see that that side of it. And then on the education side, we have we've we've had kids, so a couple years ago, we had some some girls that ended up in an engineering class at the high school. Okay, you know how high school works. Sometimes you end up with a block that you got to have something there, right? And like the only option for them was this engineering class. They went in this engineering class, they didn't really want to be in this engineering class. And the pr the the teacher, Dr. Lucas, he sat down with them and just said, Hey, we've got to figure out something to do here. Let's let's let's figure out something that you can buy into because I want you to be successful. And they ended up finding this website called Enable, Enable, and it connects up kids that are born that need prosthetics with student groups that can build those prosthetics using 3D printers because a prosthetic, I don't know if you're aware of this, they're expensive. And so to get a professional prosthetic for a child that's going to grow out of it, it's expensive, and then they're gonna grow out of that prosthetic. And so you can 3D print these prosthetics in a way that they can learn some of the way prosthetics work and and and how you can use them. And these girls just love this idea. So they they started researching what they could do. They ended up building two different prosthetics in their time. They ended up making this more than one year. So they built two different prosthetics. And we had one girl that joined later into that group that ended up going on to Maryland and and pursuing some of this as a profession in her career. But it's seeing those light bulb moments. And we actually had one of the kids come to the campus to get the prosthetic. They went to to where the kid was for the first one, then the second one, the kid actually came to our campus and and seeing this kid put this prosthetic on for the first time and

Designing Clayton Bradley Around The Brain

Kendall Terry 36:30

learn how to open and close the hand. And it was like, man, alive. That's amazing. And and then just giving the space for our teachers to create. We had we've had uh a teacher this year that was up for national, national history teacher in the National History Teacher Day competition. I don't know exactly how to say it all correctly there, but she's worked with our kids in this program called National History Day, and it's all about you know learning about something in history, and then they can present this in multiple ways, either through a website or through a documentary or through acting out a skit. And we've had a lot of successes of school here in this competition. We've had kids go all the way to nationals. We've even had uh some of our kid groups have gotten free trips to one of them got a free trip to Poland because their project was on Poland and the a contact in Poland heard about this project and brought them over at at free, you know, free for the student to be able to show their project off in Poland. We've had a couple other groups that have have been able to have their documentaries played in museums, and so the kids just love this. Well, this year, the teacher that's been really part of this almost from the very beginning was recognized as the Tennessee Teacher of the Year for the National History Day and got to go and and represent us and be in line for that competition there at the national level and spend a week in Washington, D.C. with kids and and and we had a kid coming fourth this year in one of the competitions. It's really hard to get to that level, but we've had a couple of national finalists and stuff. And so seeing that, but giving our teachers that space where they can create that and show off what kids are able to do. And so that's what we love doing as a school. And and as far as bragging, like I want to brag on the kids that have gone on and won these, or the teachers that have created these amazing environments for our students to be able to do that. So that teacher, her name is Nicole Whitecotton. I've I've mentioned other teachers' names. I don't want to miss one there with her, but she's just been a great asset to the school. And so it's it's invite those environments when the brain starts to be lit up, you know, where it's learning and it's engaging multiple areas, and and then kids start to get creative and our staff starts to get creative, and we get to see and do things that that you would go, man, I don't even know how that was possible. We've got a green power racing team that is built a car, they're racing in competitions. They were fifth last year. This most recent year, they were in like the top 10. They'd upped the category, so they went up to a harder category and and almost broke into that top five. They were in the top ten, maybe in like seventh. But just watching kids that when you give them that environment, they just lean into it and they can really do some amazing things.

Principal JL 39:12

Oh man, that's a lot of cool things that are going on for you guys, and not just for your students, for your teachers, and you know, and being able to give them that space to be able to do that work is pretty incredible. What a great conversation with Kendall Terry. I hope you guys really enjoyed part one of this two-part series. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with somebody who needs to hear it. Please subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss another exciting episode like this one. Until next time, always be curious and one percent better.