March 2, 2026
Episode 64: How to Build a Real PLC Culture: Dr. Chad Dumas on Collaboration, the 4 PLC Questions, and Guaranteed Learning
Send a text What if the reason your PLCs feel flat is because they’re treated like a calendar event, not a culture? We sit down with Dr. Chad Dumas, former music teacher, principal, director of learning, author, and Solution Tree PLC at Work associate, to unpack how schools move from working hard to getting results. Chad’s story arcs from the band room to building leadership to district systems and national consulting, and along the way he reveals the practices that turn collaboration into gu...
What if the reason your PLCs feel flat is because they’re treated like a calendar event, not a culture? We sit down with Dr. Chad Dumas, former music teacher, principal, director of learning, author, and Solution Tree PLC at Work associate, to unpack how schools move from working hard to getting results. Chad’s story arcs from the band room to building leadership to district systems and national consulting, and along the way he reveals the practices that turn collaboration into guaranteed learning for every student.
We dig into the mindset shift that changes everything: from “what do we want students to learn?” to “what will we guarantee every student learns in this unit?” That single promise forces clarity on power essentials, tightens common assessments, shortens feedback cycles, and demands targeted interventions and extensions. Chad explains why the most effective PLC work is owned at the building level, supported by the district but driven by course-alike teams close to the kids. He shares how Hastings Public Schools flipped district-led meetings into school-based collaboration and how distributed leadership made the work endure beyond any one person.
You’ll hear practical moves you can use this week: crafting unit guarantees, aligning quick common checks, grouping students by target for interventions, and keeping agendas focused on the four questions. For aspiring leaders, Chad offers candid advice on scaling your impact, building trust, and leaving a legacy measured by how many leaders you grow. The conversation is hopeful and grounded, celebrating the daily excellence of educators while giving you concrete steps to make your PLCs more than a time slot.
If this conversation helps you see leadership and collaboration in a new light, share it with a teammate, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one thing your PLC will guarantee next unit.
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00:00 - Opening And Guest Introduction
04:15 - Early Career And Music Education Path
07:21 - Lessons From The Classroom
10:38 - Why Step Into Administration
14:26 - First Principalship And Leading A Move
18:31 - Becoming Director Of Learning In Hastings
21:15 - Making PLCs Truly Building Led
25:26 - Consulting Journey And Writing The Books
30:13 - PLC Misconceptions And Culture Shift
32:41 - From Meetings To Collaboration That Gets Results
36:37 - Advice For Aspiring Leaders
38:56 - What Gives Hope In Education
40:25 - How To Connect And Closing Call
WEBVTT
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Today's conversation is one I'm especially excited about because it hits right at the heart of continuous improvement, collaboration, and leading with purpose.
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My guest today is a former Tiger himself, Dr.
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Chad Dumas.
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He is an international consultant, author, researcher, and solution tree, PLC at work and assessment and priority schools associate.
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Dr.
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Chad Dumas has spent more than 25 years helping schools move from good intentions to real results by building the capacity of teams and leaders.
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He's the author of Amazon Best Selling Books.
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Let's put the C and PLC, an action guide to put in the C and PLC, and the Teacher Team Leader Handbook.
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If you've ever wondered how to make PLC truly collaborative, not just compliant, this episode is for you.
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Now let's get to the conversation with Dr.
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Chad Dumas.
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Welcome back, everybody, to another exciting episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast.
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Today I'm super excited to bring in former Tiger himself, Dr.
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Chad Dumas.
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Yes, sir, everyone.
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Thanks so much.
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Everyone, a tiger, right?
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There you go.
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Now that's a connection we have, right?
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Like I'm here in the seat as the Hastings High principal.
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At one time, you were part of the Hastings Public School District.
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We've never worked together, but through the power of social media, here we are.
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Here we are.
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Yeah.
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I was with Hastings Public Schools, Hastings, Nebraska.
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Not Minnesota, Hastings, Nebraska.
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But yeah, I was there for almost a decade.
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Yeah.
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But we still get phone calls for Hastings, Minnesota at the high school sometimes.
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We go, hey, you got the right high school?
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We've done that a few times.
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So that's happened more than you guys realize out there.
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There's other Hastings besides Hastings, Nebraska.
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So I'm going to go ahead.
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I'm going to start you off with the same question I ask everybody.
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What inspired you to become an educator?
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Well, my story kind of is a little bit aroundabout because I actually, education wasn't what I was going to originally go into.
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I wanted to do music, and but I knew that I probably wasn't good enough to be a performance major.
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Like you've got to be really good, like really, really, really good to make a career fly as a musician.
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And I was okay.
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I mean, I can tinkle those ivories as fairly decently, or I could, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it in that realm.
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And so I had a band director in high school who was really impactful on me and a whole heck of a lot of people, Virgil French.
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And I also had a math teacher, Mr.
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Ollman, uh, who was also pretty impactful.
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And so when I was looking at career paths, I knew I wanted to do something with music, but I knew I couldn't be a performance major.
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And so the combination of love of music and the impact of those two teachers on my life sent me down the music ed path.
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Awesome.
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So when you got into teaching, what did you teach?
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Like music, of course.
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Yep, yep.
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Yeah.
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I so I was a middle school vocal music teacher.
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And that's a whole nother story itself.
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Like I wasn't a vocalist.
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I minored in vocal only because I knew that um I was more hireable if I was certified in both vocal and instrumental.
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But I was instrumentalist, I was a pianist, I played the saxophone, trumpet, baritone, horn.
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And but then when it came time to choose student teaching, the way it worked in the vocal instrumental world is that if whatever you did your pre-student teaching in, you did the opposite in your student teaching.
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And I thought, you know, I really need to strengthen my vocal music side.
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And so I want to do the full-time student teaching vocally so that I can get better at that.
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And uh, what nobody told me was that if you do your student teaching on the vocal side, you're probably going to get hired on the vocal side.
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And that it turns out I loved it.
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It was fantastic, it worked out really well.
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I think I was a better teacher because I wasn't actually a vocalist, and I could connect with and help people sing better because I like had to think through what are the processes to help be able to sing well.
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So so yeah, so I was a vocal music teacher at middle school in Lincoln.
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Awesome.
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Uh Lincoln, middle school?
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Lincoln, Nebraska.
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Lincoln, Nebraska.
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All right, awesome.
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Now, with that said, you know, what lessons did you learn as a teacher that, you know, helped you when you became an administrator down the road?
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What lessons did you learn that you could take into that job?
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So many lessons.
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And I think back on those.
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So I was in the classroom for five years, and then I was an intermediate at an ESU intermediate service agency for four, uh, which I also consider a teaching time.
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It was not not administrative.
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And so some of the lessons I took away from that is first of all, that when we are united together with a goal of what we want to do, we can really accomplish great things.
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I was at Mickle Middle School in Lincoln, and one of the first things that happened as a teacher is the school improvement committee said, Hey Chad, we want you and and uh Jody to be the co-chairs of our school improvement team.
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And as co-chairs, we led the school towards improving writing achievement.
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And that was the first years of the state writing test.
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And we had incredible growth.
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I don't remember the statistics exactly, but by us as a school focused on writing and then systematically planning for how to help us as staff become better instructors in the area of writing, we were able to really move the dial by working together.
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So those are a couple of things, you know, unity, a focus, and systematic support of staff to get better at practice.
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You can you can really do some incredible things for kids.
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Yep.
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I think you said something that really important.
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You talked about having a systematic approach because I don't think you can do this job as an educational leader of any capacity without having systems in place.
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And, you know, how they work together and how they support each other is really important.
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So I really appreciate you bringing that out, um, just talking about hey, we learned systematic approaches as teachers.
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As for me, I did too.
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One thing I had to figure out was my system to grade papers to get them back to people on time being a math teacher.
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That also had to figure out how to do all my you know practice plans for being a football coach and a wrestling coach and juggling all those things.
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So I had to figure out a system for that.
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So I think it's really important.
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That's something that I hear a lot is principals or administrators or people have done this job, you know, learn about systems early enough to where when they get in this job, they they know that they have to have some sort of systematic approach to different things that you may be working on.
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So, you know, you've been teaching for a while.
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You did the teaching, then the ESU, and you know, your next step into administration.
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What was the reasoning to step into an administrative role?
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What was it?
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What polled you?
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Is there a story behind it?
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Inspired someone inspired you to do it.
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Did you know it was time?
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Like, what was it that got you to become an administrator?
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So there's the official story, and then there's the unofficial off-the-record story.
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So I'm assuming unofficial one.
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There's the unofficial one that I don't share with many folks.
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I think I've shared it on maybe one or two other podcasts.
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But so the official story is and they're both true.
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They're like, it's not like one's a lie and the other's true.
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They're both absolutely factual.
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The the for the the official version is I want I saw the impact that our principal had.
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John Neal, I served with Dick Spearman and then John Neal.
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Some people might know John Neal's name because he was the uh one of the assistant superintendents in Lincoln Public Schools for the last 15 years or so.
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I retired a couple years ago.
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Now he does work at DONE for their, I think their master's program.
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So I saw the impact that Dick Spearman and then John Neal had on the school in helping us to all move forward.
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And I thought, you know, that's really cool to be able to help move that work forward.
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You know, in the classroom, you can have an impact on those 25 kids at a time, five times a day, right?
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125, 150 kids.
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When you're at the school building level, you can have that impact on the case of you know a mickle middle school where I was, you know, eight or nine hundred kids.
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You know, in a district level, when I was in Hastings, almost 4,000 kids.
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Now, consulting all over the country, I'm able to impact tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids.
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So you're able to have that trigger impact.
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So that was a real pull.
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The the unofficial story, also equally true, is I think it was my second year of teaching.
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My wife and I had two mouths to feed, well, two little mouths to feed, and then our own two mouths to feed.
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And we weren't we weren't getting by.
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We were every month short on pay.
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And one night I was at Burger King and they had a sign on the door saying, we're hiring assistant managers and managers $60,000 a year.
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And at the time I was making well, my first year was $20,950.
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So whatever the second year bump was, somewhere around $22,000, $23,000.
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So I looked at that and I thought I could make three times the amount of money working at Burger King.
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And I said to my wife, I said, you know what, why don't I just why don't I go work at Burger King?
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And she looked at me straight in the eye and she said, You are not coming home smelling like a whopper every night.
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Go and get your master's degree.
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And so that that that really kind of led towards the master's degree.
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So both of those things happened.
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Oh, real.
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Well, the thing is, is what people got to realize is there's things in your life that spur you on to that next thing.
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Because if you weren't going through that, you know, if you were just, you know, living high on the hog, you might have not have decided to take those next steps, right?
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And so I think there's always those stories that spur us along.
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Like for me, I didn't get into administration right away.
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I didn't think becoming a principal was anything I wanted to do when I got into education.
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It was something that was kind of someone just pulled me aside.
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It was my wife's grandpa pulled me aside, who was a longtime administrator, long time educator.
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He said, Hey, you could probably become an administrator and be pretty good at it.
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And I was just like, Yeah, no.
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But it did inspire me to go get my master's in educational administration.
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And then I thought, you know what?
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If I'm going to be a good principal, I got to be good at curriculum and instruction.
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So I got a master's in that too.
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And so I think those two things really helped me, you know.
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You know, once I became a principal, I had that background.
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And there's other things that I had that I did before becoming a principal, but I sat in the classroom for 11 years because I always felt like I needed to have that experience so I could speak to those things with my staff and say, I've been in your shoes, I've been through that.
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Let me help you.
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And I think that's really important for them to hear those things as you're able to heat, you know, attest to the things that they're they're going through at their level so you can help them.
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So, you know, now what did you come at AP or principal?
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What administrator role did you get when you got in to become an administrator?
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Yeah, I was the principal at Gibbon High School, seven, seven.
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Gibbon High School.
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All right.
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So when were you at Gibbon?
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Let's see.
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Not the Bills, the Buffalo, the Buffaloes, Gibbon Buffaloes.
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Yeah, the Buffalo.
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The Buffalo Bills because the logo is very much like the the Buffalo Bills.
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Uh, let's see.
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I was hired there in 2008 as uh principal.
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Awesome, awesome.
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So you're at Gibbon High School, you're the principal there.
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What I mean, I know you probably got some stories.
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What are some things that really help you really help your leadership define your leadership today?
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It's something that you learn like, hey, this helped develop me.
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What are some stories that impacted you when you're at Gibbon High School?
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So I was really blessed at Gibbon.
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I was just the principal for two years, but one year was in the old building, and then one year was in the brand new building.
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And so part of that work was facilitating the move to the new building.
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And in that process, I really learned about how important it is to engage other people in the leadership.
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You know, before this call, you and I were talking about that a little bit before you you push record, right?
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How you have to have people around you and leverage each other's strengths.
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So that like that just really became really clear to me.
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And one of the things we did as a school staff was clarify what were the expectations we had for students for arrival on site and then after school.
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Brand new building, you have to relook at everything.
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Where do kids park?
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What are the traffic patterns for entry and dismissal, buzzing in, not buzzing in, parking permits, travel, you know, walking to lunch, everything that you can imagine about a school day, we had to think about.
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And so I if if I would have just sat in my office thinking about on my own, I would have missed things.
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So when you leverage the expertise of others and facilitate those conversations, then we can make sure that number one, we don't miss things, but number two, we're getting a variety of perspectives to be able to make the best decisions possible.
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Awesome.
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So Gibbon for two years.
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Then what was your next step after Gibbon?
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Then I was a tiger.
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Everyone, a tiger, baby.
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Hastings, Hastings Public Schools.
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And I was the uh when I first started, it was called the director of CIA, curriculum instruction and assessment.
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And then my last few years, Craig Couts was superintendent, best best boss anyone could ever have.
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And the last few years, as we talked about it, we we thought, you know, curriculum instruction and assessment are what we do, but the reason why we do it is for learning.
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And so we actually changed the title from director of curriculum instruction assessment to director of learning.
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And so I was uh director of learning with Hastings.
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There you go.
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And we still call it that today, but we know it's CIA too.
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So, you know, it hasn't really, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of stayed that in that title there.
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And I know Craig, he's come in and said hi to me, and we've had some conversations, so he's around, he's still kicking around here, and good old Hastings comes in and says hi.
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He's a hoot, though, that's for sure.
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One of the one of the dearest souls, best mentors have had.
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So, you know, you're the director of learning here at Hastings Public Schools.
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What are some things that you were able to help facilitate and help Hastings become the public school district that they are today?
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Because there's some some things that I know you've done here that are still kind of intact.
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And I want to I want to hear from you, like how what was that process like?
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And you know, and and how did how did you work through that and get things going?
00:17:26.019 --> 00:17:28.579
The big thing I think of is PLC.
00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:32.659
That's something that you know I understand that you were a part of as well.
00:17:32.659 --> 00:17:38.740
And how did that all, how did you work that all together and get things going here at ACS Public School?
00:17:39.139 --> 00:17:40.019
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:40.019 --> 00:17:47.220
So, first of all, one of the things I I think about with leaders, and it's a blow to the ego, but it's a really important thing to keep in mind.
00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.220
And I think it comes from Michael Fullen.
00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:58.659
He says something to the fact that the success of leaders does not depend on themselves, but it depends on how many leaders they leave behind.
00:17:58.659 --> 00:18:07.059
And in my mind, part of what that means is that when you leave, people don't miss you.
00:18:07.059 --> 00:18:08.819
Right?
00:18:08.819 --> 00:18:17.059
Like they miss you on a personal relationship level, but they don't miss you in terms of like they're they were indispensable.
00:18:17.059 --> 00:18:31.139
And so that's the goal that I was working toward was to be able to be able to leave, and there's other people who step in, the systems are in place, and things carry forward with without you having to be the force behind them, so to speak.
00:18:31.139 --> 00:18:34.579
And so I I think PLCs is one of those things.
00:18:34.579 --> 00:18:42.979
The district had started before I came on, had started early releases on Wednesdays for teams to meet throughout the district.
00:18:42.979 --> 00:18:46.899
And it's actually interesting reflecting back on the time when I was hired.
00:18:46.899 --> 00:18:55.299
I remember my wife and I having a conversation about, I think it was during the interview process, you know, in the evening reflecting.
00:18:55.299 --> 00:19:07.139
And one of the things that I've always felt about leaders is how important it is to do something that helps folks develop trust in you.
00:19:07.139 --> 00:19:22.819
Somebody once called it like the silverback theory that in the wild, the new silverback, the head of a tribe of gorillas, when they first become a silverback, they have to do something to establish trust.
00:19:22.819 --> 00:19:26.339
And that something is usually finding the water hole first, right?
00:19:26.339 --> 00:19:27.619
Finding a new water hole.
00:19:27.619 --> 00:19:29.539
And so that's really important to establish.
00:19:29.539 --> 00:19:35.299
And so when we were interviewing, my wife was saying, you know, what what's going to be the water hole?
00:19:35.299 --> 00:19:42.499
And I said, you know, I don't know that, you know, Hastings already has been doing PLC work.
00:19:42.499 --> 00:19:46.099
There's has a reputation even for doing the PLC work.
00:19:46.099 --> 00:19:51.139
I don't know what that stamp will be or that uh watering hole will be.
00:19:51.139 --> 00:20:00.499
And turns out that we had been doing some PLC things in the district, and it was really driven by the district.
00:20:00.499 --> 00:20:18.259
And those people who are really familiar with the PLC uh work process, the PLC process is really a building level process, supported by monitored, guided by a district, but it's really a building level process.
00:20:18.259 --> 00:20:21.699
And so so that was kind of the big shift, if you will.
00:20:21.699 --> 00:20:37.539
That's the watering hole that I think I tried to help move the district toward was to, so for example, when I arrived on the Wednesday afternoons, four, you know, in a month, there's four Wednesdays, three of those were district meetings.
00:20:37.539 --> 00:20:40.899
So all the fourth grade teachers from all the buildings got together.
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