Episode 78: Principals' Perspectives: Professional Development for School Leaders: Conferences, Staff Culture & Leadership

Welcome And Host Introductions

Principal JL 1:21

What happens when two principals get together and talk education? Well, you're gonna have different experiences at different grade levels, at different perspectives, but one passion. We're here to help educational leaders and educators, students and schools succeed. Welcome to the principals' perspectives, where we have an authentic conversation about educational leadership, the wins, the challenges, and anything in between. I'm Principal JL, a secondary principal from Hastings, Nebraska. And my co-host is Robert Hinchliffe, an elementary principal from Las Vegas, Nevada. Whether you're a principal, assistant principal, superintendent, teacher leader, aspiring administrator, we're glad you're here. If there's a topic you'd like for us to discuss, please send us an email at the.principal.jl @gmail.com. Now let's jump into today's conversation. Welcome back, everybody, to another exciting episode of the educational leadership podcast. Today I'm really excited to bring back the principals' perspectives with Robert Hinchliffe. Now, this is an episode that we do we just just go off the cuff. We don't we don't sit here and organize, we don't sit here and come up with things, we just go off the top of our heads. Now, Robert, welcome back. What's on your mind, brother?

Robert Hinchliffe 2:55

Thank you for always having me, man. It's always fun. It's just a Saturday morning in Vegas. I believe. See, we're recording this right now, 11 o'clock Vegas time. It's 104 out already. And so being inside and getting to do a podcast is is an enjoyable uh activity currently. So I don't mind never ever talking to you, especially when it's that hot out.

Principal JL 3:16

You bet. Now it's we had some hot weather last week. We were like 105, 110 humidity. We had our feel-like temperature of 115, 117, and with that humidity on there. We're kind of cooling down. We had a nice little storm breeze through. Um, I actually got out of mow the lawn this morning. I'm in the afternoon right now. I'm like one o'clock in the afternoon, so I'm already half my day is done. So, but I had always enjoy just hooking up with you and what's going on. And I know every there's a lot of conferences going on out there in the summertime, and there's some conferences that do do carry on throughout the the fall and spring and different things like that. And and really, what are some conferences out there or what's your been your experience? Because you actually present at several different conferences. Um, you attend conferences. So, what is that like for you from your perspective?

Robert Hinchliffe 4:12

You know, it's it's always interesting. Uh, you know, I'm gonna love my job being principal, but my second favorite thing to do in my career is to inspire people with my well, my keynote that I do, but you know, conferences are interesting. And you know, you were at the one for Nebraska next week, which you'll talk about or last week, but I felt like we could talk about this because you know, as a principal, you try to send people to conferences or go. And the whole idea is to go and to learn from your colleagues and uh get some ideas. And kind of what I've seen, I think, too, is you know, there's good conferences and there's bad conferences, and well, bad's kind of relative. You can find a nugget in everything, but I think I think there's so many conferences out there. One good thing about education is that you have a myriad of places you can go for professional development or things of that nature. The things that I kind of see is that

Why Conferences Matter For Leaders

Robert Hinchliffe 5:05

essentially the vast majority of conferences are hit and miss in some form or fashion, I believe. And I think that's just because you know, when you apply to present at a conference, you're applying online, it's just words. You don't know if the person they, you know, when I apply, you can I can basically put out the best, you know, the best application ever and then be a terrible speaker, or you know, vice versa, you could be you know a great speaker, they still don't they still don't uh accept you to do a session. So it's hit and miss. You might find some good, some bad. But what I've kind of found is that every conference in some way, or every even every presentation has a nugget that you can kind of use. Another thing I kind of uh think about with conferences is when you go, by the last day, you're just wiped out. Like there's there's usually so much in your brain, and you want to come back and just do everything, and you can't. So conferences that last three or four days, those start to get really mentally exhausting, I feel like. And you gotta have some breaks and you gotta you gotta be able to just step away for a moment and not try and just cram it all in there because it's really, really hard. So those are some quick thoughts I have on conferences. But you know, what do you think? And you just went to Nebraska, talk about that, and let's get the perspective from a state conference rather than kind of a national conference.

Principal JL 6:24

Yeah, so Nebraska just had their administrator days, and I mean there's a lot of things going on. So, really starting Tuesday for that week is when things get going because we have the Nebraska Rural Administrator, they do like a golf tournament, they bring a lot of people in that day. Um, I didn't attend that this year just because I am now the incoming president-elect for our Nebraska State Association for secondary school principals. It's a long word, bigger acronym. But being a part of that, I had to do some onboarding with our umbrella organization. So Nebraska has an umbrella organization called a Nebraska Council of School Administrators. I'm actually wearing right here, bam. So, Mike Delaney, if you're listening to this, I'm wearing my NCSA. You're official.

Robert Hinchliffe 7:13

You're official now.

Principal JL 7:15

I'm hooked up thanks to the NCSA. So Mike Delaney is our executive person that kind of oversees the whole organization. But what they do is they are the umbrella and they support all the different state associations. So the Elementary Principals Association, the Secondary Principals Association, the Superintendent Association, the State School Board Association, the Special Education Association. I think there's one

Nebraska Admin Days Behind The Scenes

Principal JL 7:44

more, and I can't remember off the top of my head, but all these associations work under the NCSA in Nebraska. Now that's kind of unique because not all the states do that. Some states have one organization for every administrator, but we recognize that elementary principals and secondary principals and super, we all have like even though you know maybe might have similar, you know, challenges, but we all have different challenges at the same time. And so being able to be a part of an organization, so I'm not just on the executive board for the secondary principals, I'm also going to be on the executive board for the umbrella. And that's this is gonna be a three-year commitment for me, because then I'll actually get the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. and advocate and go talk to congressmen and senators about just education and how their policies are affecting us. I'm also just this past year, I started building a relationship with my state senators in my area, invited them to the school and saying, hey, this is how what you guys are doing at the state level will affect us. So I can go off on that all day. But that's kind of like what we do on that. So being a part of that will be be interesting. So Tuesday, that was that, and then Wednesday in the Nebraska Department of Education, they have one day where they do sessions, and a lot of it is about like state stuff. Like, hey, we have this state thing, like literacy was the big one. Our keynote speaker talked all about literacy, which I'm sorry, I was I already took the Aspire training, and it was kind of like things I already knew, and I'm like, Well, yeah, I get that, and I understand why we're doing the literacy. We got a grant, we are training or elementary teachers or middle school and or high school teachers in certain content areas about the you know, just read the science of reading, because that's the big initiative now in Nebraska that was passed by the state legislation. I think not this last session, but the session before. And so that's gonna be a big so that's a lot of what that that part was on. But there's a lot of compliance issues. Nebraska has all these different rules, like Rule 10 and 13, 15, 18. We want to get into all this stuff. We have our evaluation, our classification system called Aquest. So that's changing. How does that look? And so it's a lot of like good information, a lot of it's repetitive, too, because I've been doing this now for nine years, and I'm like, well, yeah, but then I want to know what how this is going to affect us or how this little change is going to work, you know, and so that's good, but then it's kind of like almost mundane, like it's almost the same information because it's coming from state. And we all kind of joke that Wednesday's kind of like our day, you know, it's kind of like we do it, it's good information, we try to find something out of it that will we could take back. Like they rolled out the IBG tool, which is the tool we have to use to not evaluate, but to monitor the reading progress or literacy stuff that we're implementing. And so, you know, I just want to know what that tool looked like. I care less about anything else. Give me the tool because I've already been trained, I've already done all this stuff. I just want to know what it looks like so I can take it and let my staff know what it's about. And for me, I'm lucky I have a curriculum director, so they are director of learning, not really curriculum, but both. They kind of do both. But director of learning is the main title. She could help me go to those things and and stuff like that. And then Thursday is kind of like our big NCSA admin days, Thursday and Friday. We had Jimmy Casas come in and do the keynote Thursday morning. I actually got to present. I I presented the Be the Change presentation that I put together, and I kind of saw like the the sessions were really thought out because they bring in a Jimmy Casas who's big on culture and culturalization, recalibrating. You know, he's got his new thing called the drift effect, all that stuff. He does a really good job. Like if out of a keynote speakers that I've seen come to our state conference, that he's one of the better ones. We've had some really good ones, but he he he could really relate because he's actually done the job. He's actually sat in our seat as a principal. I think that's important to have at those conferences as well. And then, you know, had him, but my session aligned with what he talked about, and so it was really interesting because then I have my session, and sessions are kind of hit and missed because there's four different sessions throughout the day for that Thursday. I wasn't the first one at the gate, and I wasn't the first one after lunch, and I wasn't the last session, I was in that third session. And for us, if you're not going head to head with KSB law, you're in good shape because KSB Law is packed because they're so entertaining, they take the different federal rules and they can

Keynotes, Sessions, And Presenting Nerves

Principal JL 12:36

they just put it down into our language as principles, and and it's a lot of fun because they are very entertaining presenters and they are always packed. So I was lucky enough not to have to go head to head with KSB Law this year, but I had a full room, I would say 35, maybe 40 people in there. I didn't count them, but I was really surprised with how many were in there, and I was really you know appreciative of the ones that came. And yeah, they got all the resources that you know, if you're in my presentation, they had a link for you, and you know, you had all three different links that you could use just to help, you know, make yourself get better so you could be the change for your school. And I don't really want to go into my presentation too much because I kind of want to try to save it and use it for since now I've I've rep I've presented at the state level, I'll be eligible to represent at the national level, and then so maybe you know, kind of not getting too many nuggets off that presence presentation out there, I can maybe utilize that to try to maybe do some national conferences down the road. But I've done both state and national. I I really am, I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm really am sad to see that the national organizations cannot could not keep going together because when I started going to national conferences, always the elementary and secondary principals working together to have their conference, so that's all I knew. And then when they split off, and I'm not gonna get into the politics of it because there's some of it when it comes down to it. I just I just think it's sad that they couldn't get together, and now you have an innate SSP going in MPA, and yeah, it's causing a lot of just you know, really like what's going on. And I understand both sides of it, but at the same time, it's it's a really interesting time to be in our profession when you have national organizations kind of competing right now for each other for membership. And you know, here in Nebraska, we work so well with our elementary or secondary principals, always work well together. We actually do joint uh region sessions together all the time, so we call it the Nebraska way, and we kind of go, come on, guys, can you guys not get it together like we can? I mean, but we we I digress, I digress on that. But that's kind of been my experience. I always find presenting, like I spent some time prepping for my presentation. I mean, I prep it before, but I always have to go back through things before I actually go for go time. And so I think one of the biggest things for me when I presented at the conference was I didn't wasn't able to get to some of the sessions I would have liked to because I was so focused on my presentation and I wanted to do well at that. But then I was able to hit some presentations and get some nuggets and bring them back and and things like that. And and so that's kind of the hard part is balancing what session can I hit. Okay, I can't hit it this session because I need to prep to get ready for my own. But always finding those gold nuggets. Now, for me, I have a team of admit administrators that get to go all these other sessions, and they come back and we talk about it. So that's we use the team approach when we hit conferences. So, hey, we're not gonna double up on things, but hey, you take the golden nuggets from these things and we'll talk about what we need to know for this upcoming year. So there's kind of been my experience, and then Friday, because I don't know if because I was the new guy or they really like the fact that I have a podcast. I don't know why, but they go, hey, can you present the keynote for Friday? So Friday morning I come back and I presented the keynote, which was another fun, interesting thing because I was really nervous just because I'm like, it's one thing to be in front of my staff, it's another thing to be in front of a room of peers, right? And Friday sessions maybe not the fullest session because a lot of people have a lot of fun on our social events. You know, we have one on Tuesday night, we have one on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Only go to one of those social events myself. I usually go Thursday night, but usually Thursday night's the big one, and that's usually Friday morning. There's people there, don't get me wrong, but it's not as full as it would have been on Thursday.

Robert Hinchliffe 17:12

So you yeah, I mean you you may I had a lot of thoughts there while you were talking about Nebraska's. I always struggle. So I get let me ask you because I don't I'm gonna take the presenter standpoint and you take the attendee standpoint. I have technically I have about three or four presentations that I usually do proposals for. My favorite is motivational and inspirational. That's my keynote that I do for schools and districts. Also, I also do ones where I talk about what we do at Tyrone Thompson in Vegas and try to give ideas to admin. I'm always intrigued on what people are looking for. Do you find as an attendee you're looking for more motivational, inspirational or more nuggets, or a little both? Because I'll have I'll have like you know, there's there's people at different sessions, and then being elementary course, how you high school people, when I present elementary stuff, you really don't like it. So, you know, you kind of beat me up on that a little bit in the reviews. But but again, it's kind of one of those things when you want to present, you know, which one should if you're gonna if you can only write one proposal, you know, you want to try to get the the biggest bang for your buck. So from my standpoint, I never know. Should I try to give nuggets? Or I feel like in today's world, educators could use inspiration in a lot of ways, too.

Principal JL 18:31

I look at it this way as an attendee, I want to be inspired, but I want to have something I can take with me that's practical.

Robert Hinchliffe 18:39

Right.

Principal JL 18:40

So I want both, right? I want it all, baby. And that's kind of like as a presenter, what I try to do. I want to get you excited and motivated, but I also want to be real with you. Like, hey, this is a reality, we got to do better at some of this stuff. You don't know where to start, here's a resource. So I was really intentional

Motivation Plus Practical Takeaways

Principal JL 18:58

on my resources when I did that, especially like when you're trying to be the change for your school. And I talk about being that rural school principal, because I used to be one. I used to be out in the middle of a cornfield running a 712 secondary school. And you don't have you have your people with you, but being able to get you know those podcasts and those different resources, reading books, but you don't know where to start, you know, meet for myself being able to provide that resource to those people that came to my presentation. Because if you came to my presentation, you'll know the resources are there. If you didn't come, you you'll go right by them because you won't know where the links are at. So I didn't purposely, I didn't like hide the links, they're there, you can see the links. But if you came to my presentation, you'll know, like, oh, I want to go back and remember what he said about the books that he read or the podcasts he recommends, or you know, the different things, and there there they go, they have that that thing. So for me, it's you know, I like to be motivated, but I also like to have something I could take that give me something I could use outside of this conference, something I can always follow up with. And that's where I kind of talked about my podcast a little bit, but I didn't want to like overdo that because I want to say there's a lot of other great people out there doing a lot of great things that you can get like good resources off of as well. And so that's kind of where I'm at. And as an attendee, if I got me and my team, we're splitting off when we're dividing and conquering. Oh, I really like to go to this one, or you know, like we know, kind of like my assistant principals are passionate about this topic, they'll go to that one, they'll report, we'll report back to each other. I really like this one, I'll bring this back. I've also learned that conferences have an overarching theme, right? And I think the reason why I was able to present at my state conference this year is because and not knowing it, I didn't know the theme before I put in a presentation because I actually put in two for my state, and the one I thought I was the one that was gonna be selected wasn't, it was the other one, and it was all because it aligned to the theme of the conference, and I didn't realize that until I saw A who the keynotes were, and then B were who got selected for their sex, their their sessions, and so I think that's where there's always a theme of some sort at a conference, and so being selective on your sessions is important as well, and getting to as many as possible, you can't get to them all, but if you have a team of ad admin together at a conference, divide and conquer it, I think is really important as well.

Robert Hinchliffe 21:38

You make a good point, and I don't know with you being in the you know in the executive board now how much influence or advice you get to provide into next year's conference, but you know, when presenting, you're 100% right. I never know what's gonna get accepted, I never know which one they're gonna choose. And my favorite, of course, is you know, when I talk about the educators that are inspiring, but I might not get to do my favorite one. So you if you really want to get into presenting, you kind of got to have a few options there because, like you said, the one you thought was gonna get chosen wasn't. And I've been denied many times. I mean, I don't know how many times you've been denied, probably less than me. But you're so right, like the theme matters, and and you know, I get a little lazy sometimes, honestly, for anybody out there that wants to get into this. Um, I get a little lazy sometimes with reading the requirements or the theme that they want. And I usually cut and paste some stuff into the proposal, and basically, you know, I'm kind of just hurting myself by doing that. So you you remind me a good piece of advice to check what they're looking for and tailor your proposal towards that if you really want to present. So I appreciate you bringing that up again.

Principal JL 22:47

Yeah, no, I mean that's just something I just picked up on because I have put in proposals. I actually put in for a proposal for the school leadership conference powered by NAESP. Got denied there. I okay, no big deal. But my put in, I've been denied once by my state, I've been selected twice by my state. So I preserved presented at the state principal conference and then of course at admin days as well. So yeah, I mean I haven't put out a lot. I've only put out four four four attempts and been uh been accepted twice. So I have a 50% ratio. But like I said, I haven't been really I haven't really like put out like like all over the place. Because if I do that, if I cast a wide net, I guarantee you I'm gonna have my I'm gonna get Denied a lot. You know, I think it's just persistence on that. So when you go to conferences, I'm going to flip it on you, brother. When you go to conferences, like what are you looking for? Do you bring your team? You know, what does that look like? What's your guys' focus? Like, I talk a little bit about dividing and conquering with my team. But what does that look like for you on your end?

Robert Hinchliffe 23:57

It's really interesting. So we went to the the NASA conference in Tahoe this year. Uh Adam Wayne was presenting. You know, Adam. So we of course we of course went to that. I think, you know, depending on who goes, whether it's just just the leaders or teachers or however you said it, I give them a lot of flexibility. Like it's your conference, go find what you want. But again, I think bringing it back to I learned a long time ago that you know you kind of will have something that will stick out to you. And and that's your that's your thing to go with. Again, I kind of brought it back at the beginning. If you if you try to get a hundred ideas, you're gonna just be overloaded. So for me, I'm just looking for one thing that I can implement now and make it work for Tyrone Thompson Elementary School, and and then kind of the vision of where I want to go. I have found, most respectfully to everybody that's listening, that Thompson in a lot of ways is way ahead of other schools because what I see when I present, and I do one called Start on the Sidewalk, which goes with one of my books, and it's just ideas to engage people from the sidewalk into the building. And basically, you know, you just start on the sidewalk, and I'll say something simple like stick a speaker out front and put on some music and change the vibe of your school. And it's like this biggest light bulb goes off to people, like, holy cow, what a great idea! Now that's a very simplistic example, but for some people, and sometimes myself included, is something light bulb will just happen, and you'll think, yes, that's what I needed, and then just run with it. But again, I think it's just so easy when you go to a conference that has

Pick One Nugget, Avoid Overload

Robert Hinchliffe 25:44

so many good people to really get bogged down. The best conference, quote unquote, best conference that I ever attended, I took a bunch of math, a bunch of teachers, uh, elementary base to a math conference in Boston many years ago. And there were so many great presenters that had ideas for math strategies and engagement strategies, and it was like, oh my gosh, there was just so much. You can find conferences like that where there's lots of good, lots of tiny little nuggets that you can just spread. But for me as an admin, I just usually look for one big nugget that will help us move forward or help the majority of the teachers move forward. It just kind of depends. But there's again, there's so much out there, and so how do you pick or where do you you know, where do you want to go? It just again, I think it's just one of those things where as a principal, I look at the school and think, what do we need? And then try to find a conference, so to speak, that will help. You know, a lot of people also they'll go to Ron Clark Academy. You know, Ron Clark, one of the most famous educators possible, done so many good things. When I went there many years ago, I don't know if you have you been there. I don't know if you've been there. No, I have not. Okay. You go there and you're standing outside the gates, and then all of a sudden you're ushered into the gates and you turn into the building and there's music, and you see Ron Clark dancing with the kids, and you're like, holy cow, this place is like the vibe, man. Like, you're just like, they're here for kids. This is what you want to feel. And I always thought, well, that's exactly what I needed. So that's what I try to create at our school, where you know, when the kids enter the building, it's like a it's like an experience, and we want to have them excited. That's what I found there. I also found the house system. So you'll find things at at places if you're looking for them. But again, I think the main thing is divide and conquer, and then think what's going to work for our school, what what can we implement now, or what can we kind of plan to implement in the future?

Principal JL 28:26

Yeah. I think one thing out and I'll I'll speak from experience a couple, well, it might have been three or four years ago now. It's been a while, but we're we have a situation that was basically, you know, looking at, you know, you know, getting kids to class, and but also it was about like kids not going to class and you know what kind of structure because we ended up redoing our attendance policy based off of going to a conference. There was a session on attendance, and we're like going, that's something we've been talking about. We want to like as we got to find a solution because all the different attendance sessions we've been to, we have not found a solution. Well, it just happened to be my assistant principal was at that session and going, Hey Jeff, I think we've found a solution to something we've been talking about for the last year or two. I'm like, great, let's talk about it. So it actually was another school in our conference that was, you know, they implemented this a particular attendance policy. And we started talking to them. And then what we did is adopted a lot of what they did and then made it our own. And so we were able to take something out of our out of a conference and utilize it and actually create change for our building to a problem that was there before I even showed up. And it was like one of so we kind of do that intentionally. Like, here's some things we've been wanting to find solutions to. And so we will try to find the sessions that will help us with that. And so that's kind of something that we do as well. And that's just something I thought of like, you know, as you attend conferences and you talked about what do my my teachers need? Let's send them to those conferences as well. And I'm really big on that, but I do know that budgets are getting tighter on those things, and not a lot of schools can afford to send their teachers to a lot of PD or send, you know, admin themselves can't go because they they have budget restraints and things like that. So I think that's where, you know, maybe what could people do that maybe they can't go to a conference? And I that's part of my presentation, right? Listen to podcasts, read books. There's a lot of great information. And if you can get to a conference, go. I would say go if you can get to them. But at the same time, I also understand PD budgets are getting getting shrunk. And so not everybody's got that ability. So I think now the world of podcasts and books are going to be huge,

Turning Conference Ideas Into Policy

Principal JL 31:04

as well as bringing in the right people to present those ideas.

Robert Hinchliffe 31:08

Yeah, I think you make a good point. You know, with budgets being small, as an admin, you have to, you know, you have to prioritize that if that's something you want to do. Just a little piece of advice, I guess, to principals out there is you're like, don't send people to a conference trying to fix the people. I don't believe that they're gonna go and find something and come back. It depends on their personality. Send your leaders if you're sending a teacher, because they'll take stuff and they'll use it. You know, you don't want to you don't want to waste $2,000 sending a stick in the mud across the country to a conference because they're gonna come back and they're still just gonna keep doing what they're doing. Another thing I think too, I'm sure you're fine with this, is you know, like when I'm speaking afterwards, after my my keynote, the people will come up and they'll want to tell me their stories. And that's great. I would say don't be afraid to go talk to the presenters afterwards if you want to. Because again, we we're we're there to help. We're there to if you know, if you see someone that's inspiring, go up and ask them later or reach out to them. You know, like with your presentation, I can only imagine you probably said, hey, if you need help, reach out to me, let me know. And then, like with mine, people always want to come up and tell me about their favorite teacher, because that's kind of my part of my whole inspirational thing. They'll want to tell me their stories. Last uh two weeks ago in in uh Nashville, I had a great thing with uh with a young lady who told me about a student and a tattoo. We want that feedback, we want to hear those great stories. And if you if you get an idea or you need more information, I would say, you paid for the conference, we signed up to be there. Go talk to us, go get more information. I don't I don't see any problem with that. I'm sure you agree with that.

Principal JL 32:57

Yeah, I do. I think, like we talked about, if there's something that we know we could use, we're gonna we're gonna reach out and we're gonna try to pick their brain and get more information. And how did you how did this work? How did you get buy-in? Things like that. And it's kind of interesting because when we rolled out what we do and we were able to do it, we did it in a particular way with collaboration and teachers helped with the whole process and rolled it out. That's where our buy-in is. And this would be something that's really interesting. That district that we kind of you know modeled our attendance policy on where was in our our external visit this past year, and they they they knew that we did it, they knew it was there, but they started asking us questions. Well, what about this? Well, we don't have that problem. Like, well, we do. What about this? I'm like, because

Tight Budgets And PD Workarounds

Principal JL 33:46

we did it this way, this is this deterred some of that. They're like, holy crap, because it's almost like we took what they were doing and we were able to almost implement it a little bit better than they did because they still have some, you know, some resistance to it, you know, different things like that. Community members may not like it as much, things like that. But we just basically said, this is the issue, this is the reason why. We all agree that this is good for us. We know people aren't gonna care for it at times, but at the same time, just know we're good, we're expecting big things from you, and we want to raise that level expectation, raise that bar. Because in my experience as an educator, it doesn't matter if I'm a teacher in the classroom, if I'm a coach, or I'm a principal, we have to continue to raise the bar and get better. And if we don't do that, we're just gonna become mediocre. And so, what can we do this year to raise that bar, right? And so for us, we just raised the bar. We ended up implementing our graduates have to get 250 credits uh to graduate from our high school, which is 25 more credits than it used to be, used to be 225. And so, to understand, we require all our kids. Oh, if you want to be honest, you can get 320 credits if you get 80 hours a year, four years in a row. All right, means you have no no steady hall, you have no breaks, nothing like that. So we require you to register for 250 hours. We're just saying get them. Why it didn't make sense to us if we required you to be in class for 250 credits, that you only needed 225 to graduate. Well, what was happening is kids are like going, well, I don't need that class to graduate. What happened? Didn't show up, you know. That frustrated teachers, it dropped our daily average attendance rate and also increased their chronic apteism. That was one loophole that we closed. And honestly, the community is really supportive of it because they're like going, wow, like when they talk about like the national narrative at times how public education is you know bringing things down, they don't have high expectations. But here we are, as a public high school raising the bar every year for our kids. Our public's going like, oh, they're doing opposite of what people are telling us they're doing. And I'm like, and so they appreciate that the accountability piece is is is in there, and so I'm like going, well, yeah, it makes sense to me. It's time to raise the bar and get the expectations up because if we don't, the government's gonna try to do it for you. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm trying to stay away from that.

Robert Hinchliffe 36:33

You you brought up something though. You said you uh just kind of paraphrased, you you got a nugget from a conference about attendance, and so you put that in. I think too, you know, we're talking about the cost of everything. And you know, hypothetically, if I went to your session and you had all these great ideas and I wanted to implement them in my school, I would say, Jeff, will you come out here? Well, let's think about this. If it costs me, if I came to if I came to the admin days in Nebraska, it would cost about $2,000, probably all told, for me to come to Nebraska and stay in and food and everything. Now, if I brought four people, now I'm up to $10,000, right? I just a hunch, I'm gonna bet I could get you to come to Vegas for less than $10,000 to present on that stuff. So I think that's another another thing for people kind of understand is if you're taking five people to a conference and you watch Jeff Lyndon or Robert, and you're like, wow, that person's great. Why don't we come and train our whole staff? Well, if you have a staff of 100 and you'll do it for, I'm just gonna make easy numbers, right? $5,000. Well, all of a sudden, rather than $2,000 a person to go to a conference, it's $50 for every staff member. When you start thinking of numbers like that and the use of money, it gets a little bit easier to invite people to come and train your whole staff rather than spending a whole bunch of money to have five people get an income and train your staff. So as an admin, you can kind of think like that also. If you watch my session of yours or you know, anybody, and they're willing to come and train your whole staff, you're getting a much better return on your investment, so to speak. Now, like some people, the big wigs, like Jimmy, I don't know how much Jimmy is, but but I'm gonna guess that five five thousand dollars probably won't work.

Principal JL 39:11

No, you're probably

Better ROI By Hosting Speakers

Principal JL 39:12

looking more 12, 15, maybe 12. Right.

Robert Hinchliffe 39:15

Now he's earned it. Jimmy's been around for a long time. Oh, yeah. But you know, like you know, people like us who are just trying to make an impact and start out and and can't quite be as choosy as Jimmy Costas, you know, you can get a much better return on your investment, whether it's us or or Dr. Chris Gulver, who's a great guy, or Adam Lane or whoever, you know, there's great people out there that will come and train your staff for you know much cheaper than you can send people to a conference. So kind of thinking about that too, if you go to a conference and you find someone that's really, really good and you think my whole staff could use this, don't be afraid to ask them because they might be willing to come and help you out, and then and then you just get a better return on it.

Principal JL 39:58

No, no doubt that that's actually happened when we've gone. I've been to the PLC Institute, you know, in the past, and we found something we really like, so we brought the guy in because we're talking about like at winners at Southern Valley, we're talking about PLC. And well, how do you PLC a small rural school when you have teachers that don't have like a common you know subject, you know, to talk about? And so we call them singleton. And so we brought out Aaron Hansen, who wrote the singleton book, and that was really interesting to bring them out and really train our staff on how we have to look at PLC differently. Now, now I'm in a more traditional PLC school model, uh, just because we do have some response teams and we have the staff to do that, where before we didn't. And so learning how to rethink a system or something that works well to fit your school is also like something to think about too, because I think bringing in you want to bring in the right people for the things that you're looking to get better at. And I really do like for me, I really do. I'm gonna put I'm gonna plug you real quick here, Robert. Um what I like about you is you have that series, the more than just principals, teachers, support staff, assistant principal, where you have a series of books, and you showed me a TikTok where a guy's like, dude, I bought it all of them for my principals. I bought these for my assistant principals. You know, all of my people have a book and that relates to them. And I think that's really powerful because then you can come in and talk to a school district about how they're all more than just something, and you can use that, those ideas to really drive home how important everybody is. And as a principal, I'm really supportive of that process because I want my staff to know how much they are appreciative and being able to have professional development for everybody, I think is important. I mean, not just for teachers, not just for principals, but for your support staff and the people that do the work on the ground day by day. Yeah, so I think that's important. I said, check out Robert's books and get them, get them in if you need them.

Robert Hinchliffe 42:10

Thanks, thanks for the plug. You didn't tell me you're gonna do that. I appreciate that. But you know, like you it you're right, like that's that's the thing too. I'm thinking about, you know, I'm from a small town in Washington State, tiny, 1100 people. They don't have the budget to to fly five people to a conference, but you know, like I on when this drops, I think next Tuesday, I'll be in Leonard, Texas, a tiny little town in Texas, doing my keynote to kick off their school year. They don't have the budget to go to big conferences, but yet they can find a way because for me it's all about impact. I don't, you know, as long as I'm not losing money and I get a little bit for my time, I'm gonna make an impact. And being from a small town, I'm quite partial to those individuals making a difference. But there's people out there who will come to rural Nebraska or rural Montana, and and you can get them there if it's right for your school. I might not be right, Jeff might not be right. There's someone out there that and and I think too, I often wonder, you know, and you can speak to this, when you're in a tiny town in Nebraska and you have no budget from that, are teachers excited when someone comes in to see them and and meet them where they're at? Now, some I'm just a just a heads up presenters, you're never gonna get them all. You just they and I all I often find that it's like the people in the the men, no offense, men in their late 40s, early 50s, that those are the hard ones to get. But if I can get them, I got everybody. But you know, if a small town can get a person to come in there and inspire them, that's that's a huge morale boost for your campus if they're good. And and so again, as a leader, you got to think like that. What can I do to inspire the people who are in the trenches in this tiny town or in this big town or in this urban area or suburban area, all the things as a leader? There's so many people out there that want to make an impact, and you and you can meet them at conferences or find them online or whatever. But ultimately, I think either through conferences or through social media, you just have to think, okay, what does my school need? Let's go find it and let's make it happen.

Principal JL 44:26

Yeah, and I think that's kind of where I think when you're bringing, and I'm always thinking like professional development, right? Um, I got my pre-service schedule ready. What's the most important things I need to make sure my staff have? I have to make sure the training is what they need because I don't want to waste their time with stuff. And you're bringing in somebody that fits your needs, then you're on the right track. Don't bring someone in just to bring them in, but bring somebody in to make an impact for your school and your building, for the situation that you're in at the time.

Robert Hinchliffe 44:57

You're yeah, you're you're so right. Like when I'm when I read stuff online, there's people that just hate when districts spend money on speakers and things like that. And I can get on board with that because if you bring in some, I have sat through this is a true story. I won't say when or where, but I sat through a speaker that was brought in and he he was talking all about engagement. And within five minutes, all of us were checked out. There was nothing there, and it was so funny because you're trying to engage us and talk about engaging students, but you lost every adult in the room. So, of course, when it came time to rate that individual on engagement, it was like a one out of five. I understand why people don't want to bring people in, it's expensive in most cases. Some cases, if you get the really, really big, big people, it's definitely expensive. But again, if you're gonna do that, make sure it's worth it. I have I've had Dr. Brad Johnson here, you know, a great colleague of mine. We've seen Hamish Brewer. We had to combine three schools to afford him, but you know, Hamish, Hamish will come to places. I had Hal Bowman again. These people have built it up to where they're expensive. But like for Hal's for example, our theme was be the one. Well, guess who does a whole speaking session on being the one and telling about how you can be amazing for teachers? Well, Hal Bowman. So again, make sure it's tailored to what you're trying to do because if you bring in someone from a conference and they don't mesh with your crowd, it's a it's it's it's hard on morale, and then they're also looking at budgets and thinking, why did you spend this money? All the things. So again, as a leader, you know, you have to be a good steward and and make sure that the ship's going the right way. And it goes back to conferences too, which is kind of the idea. Don't don't waste money if you if you go to a conference, just just be knowledgeable and just have a have a purpose, I would say.

Principal JL 47:00

Man, we've done quite a bit of time just about conferences and what to do, maybe things to think about. I really enjoy just the thought of just, you know, bringing people in, you know, to you when when if you can't get to them on those ends, because there's somebody for everybody out there. I think you just have to look at, you know, what's out there. And the one way to do that is listen to this podcast and listen to some of the people that are on here because they will come to you. They will come and help your your school, depending on what your needs are, you know, when it comes to that. And so hopefully some of you guys are able to reach out to some of the guests that have been on this show that are that are out there doing the work. So I think that's really important. And kind of interesting is uh a fellow principal in the area reached out to me and said, Hey, I noticed that you presented, you know, hope it went well. I saw that basically they saw my social media with my picture with Jimmy Cassus, right? And he's like, I got I want to know if you think it'd be a good idea to try to get him here, but I can't afford it with just my school. Would you guys be willing? So we're gonna be talking about that back and forth and see what happens there, kind of what what the thought process is on what he's thinking on that. But just you know, that that that kind of happens that networking when you go to conferences and when and I talk about networking a lot, you know, in my in my presentation. And so it was really interesting that I had somebody that was, you know, hey, you know, I'm gonna try networking with Hastings High on something that I've that I think would be valuable, not just for us, but for everybody in our area and for our region when it comes down to it. So I mean, there's there's those things too that happen.

Robert Hinchliffe 48:46

But that person did exactly kind of what we're saying is they saw you with someone that they're interested in and they took the time to reach out, which again, it's great. You know, like if you if you came and you watched me and you're like, hey, that was great. Do you know anybody that has any high school knowledge that could help my school? Well, yeah, I know these people. You know, we have to help each other in this in this profession because there's so much going on. And that's when you do a great job, Jeff. Honestly, you have so many great guests, and you know so many people that can help others. And that's what it's all about. We're not, I think I've said this on on our on the podcast before, we're not here just to be principals, we're here to make an impact to be more than just principals. It's like my whole shtick, you know, that in perspective. But we're not here just to be status quo, like you were saying, raise the bar, help each other out. Let's move this profession forward, man.

Principal JL 49:38

Yeah, you bet. And I think as educators, the best people to to talk about education are people actually doing the work. And I think that's that's something I I'm very big on. Like we got to tell our stories, we got to be the ones out there leading the charge. And if if people are talking negative, well, how are you combating it? How are you out there talking about the positive things that happen within your school? And you know, how are you combating that negativity? Because they say it takes like seven positive things to erase a negative, and so the more positive things you can put out there, you know, the less those those negative things can impact you. Because if all they see is negative things, that's what people are gonna remember. But if they can see the positive things, I think that's important as well. And I think how are you being a steward of education? How do you present yourself in public? I mean, all those things are really important because people are gonna draw a conclusion or a narrative based off of their interactions with you. And as educators, we gotta kind of lean into people are gonna, you know, we it we're in the public eye if we like it or not, and our in our positions, and we gotta let people know that you know we're here, what's the best interest of our kids? But I also look at it as if for me as a principal to do what's best for our kids, I gotta do what's best for my adult staff. Because when they are taken care of, my kids will get in taken care of, and everybody's gonna be all right. So I'm really big on that too, and I think that's a a mindset because I hear this a lot, and maybe you hear it a lot. We all do it for the kids, we're all here for the kids, we all do this for the kids, no matter if you're a superintendent, and I go, Yes, but but the only way I can do what's best for our kids is if I take care of the adults that take care of them. That is where that's my mind shift, that's where I'm at right now. Because when I hear like superintendents go, we all do this for the kids, I'm like, nah, I mean, yes, but what are you doing to grow your adults for the kids? Because that's where that impact comes, really.

Robert Hinchliffe 51:42

Yeah, it's Richard Branson. If you take care of the employees, they'll take care of the clients. And you know, I Sean and I, the AP at Thompson, our job is to get the people on campus what they need to be able to do their job. That's our job. Support them. If they know what they're doing, ask them, how are you? Do you need anything? No, I got this. Are you sure? No, I'm good, and get the hell out of the way. Yeah, people that are great will tell you if they need something and they'll dominate. So, again, if we take care of the if you're losing half your staff every year, you gotta look in the mirror. That's just my belief. If someone leaves my school to go to another elementary school that's within a short amount of time, that's on me. I didn't take good enough care, or they made a good business decision for themselves, one or the other. But again, you as leaders, whether you send them to conferences or you're getting people or you're or you're showing them clips online of amazing strategies, or you're just finding a way to get them lunch or breakfast. Our job as leaders is to take care of the people in the trenches, and they will take care of the kids.

Principal JL 52:49

Yes, and then the result they take care of you. You know, I I subscribe to that. I subscribe to that. I really think that's that kind of what I talk about with with people in our position, with with other principals, is like, yeah, you're there for the kids, but really to impact that the best, the most, is to make sure your adults are taken care of, making sure they're trained properly, making

Take Care Of Adults First

Principal JL 53:12

sure they have the resources, making sure they have all the things. Like let me give it one. Like that, I would uh drive that home because I'm gonna drive that. I think that's something that that people for people like don't understand that, and it just blows my mind.

Robert Hinchliffe 53:25

One of my things, and and one of my perspectives, I got many of them, of course, as people who listen learn. But I'm gonna tell you right now, admin, you need the teachers and support staff a lot more than they need you. When you're off campus, the school runs. If they all call out, you're in trouble. So you might want to think about that. If you don't have teachers on campus, that's a problem. If you have a meeting off campus, kids still learn. It's an amazing phenomenon. You need them more than they need you.

Principal JL 53:56

Yeah, very good perspective. I I could can get on board with that one for sure. We got a new uh school year coming. Education is unique, and let's think about other professions that get this opportunity because there's not very many of them out there. Every year, uh students, teachers, admin, communities, they all get a reboot, they all get their start over, the school year starts fresh and anew. We're getting ready to hit that season where we have the excitement of coming back. Now, I did see some TikToks where they're like, I'm not really wanting to come back. I mean, I ignore those and say you probably should not be in the profession if you're if you're negatively thinking about coming back. I know some people work over the summer and they do different things, great, but there's always that anticipation that kickoff. And one of my things is to get people excited about the school year and get rocking and rolling. And so, what other professions out there get a restart every year? Well, there's only one profession I can think of as professional athletes. Yeah, they get a reboot every year, every season, right? So we're like professional athletes in a way.

Robert Hinchliffe 55:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, instantly everybody's like, Well, I wish I got paid like a professional athlete. You know, instantly everybody's thinking that. You know what's interesting though is I did a TikTok, well, two things. I did a TikTok about the people that are stealing everybody's joy, and I basically said, like, hey, don't let them steal your joy, you know, we should be excited to come back. I did a I did a podcast many years ago, back when I had my podcast, and I asked the basic question to teachers if you got paid millions of dollars like professional athletes, but every time that you walked to your car, people were heckling you or telling you that you stumped today, everybody got to watch all your lessons online, like you get to watch the games, all of your data and stats are in the paper on the internet. Would you want to get paid like a professional athlete? And overwhelmingly, they said no. Fascinating when you think about it. You know, like many, many teachers want to be paid more, and many should, not all. I this is a little controversial take. You can know this or not, but oh we're gonna roll with it. Some okay, boy, I might get in trouble. So some teachers, some some principals, oh, I should be paid more. Okay. All right. I am of the belief that some should, but there are some out there that we could give a million dollars to. I really don't think they would work harder. I really don't think they would study more. This is a fascinating topic. Maybe we should talk about this sometime. Oh, it's all right, it's really good because let me ask you a question, Jeff. Would you if I if I paid you a million dollars a year, is that gonna make you work harder?

Principal JL 57:05

Well, my thing is, is I would take the money, but I'm gonna still be who I am. Like I am growth mindset. I'm gonna go out and make myself better because I know that's what's best for my profession. I know that's what's best for me, and I know that's what's best for my staff, and that's what's best for my students and my community. I know that, I get that. So it doesn't matter what I get paid, I'm gonna continue to do that regardless. I'm very lucky that I get paid what I get paid. I'll be honest. I agree, I get paid pretty

New Year Reset And Public Ed Story

Principal JL 57:36

well to do my job. I am a 12-month contract employee, I do work year-round, I do have lose it or use it pay, you know, you know, vacation and things like that. But I do work very hard for my my pay. At the same time, I think, yeah, you I'm thinking like structuring a contract, like if you hit, you know, kind of like a performance contract for athletes, you know, what if there was like performance athletes for educators? But the problem with that is is there's not really good metrics to say what is a good. I mean, yeah, we have things out there that says this is what good teachers do, and these are the effect sides of it. If you follow John Hattie's research on it, we do have some things, but there's so many variables in education that makes good teachers great and always say good is the enemy of great, right? To where I'm looking to be great. I'm not looking to be good, I'm looking to be great, but not everybody out there has that mindset. I think that's the mindset we got to shift because the thing is, is people are talking down education. We have national pundits, we have national congress and senators out there saying the public education system is garbage, and they've been trying to fix it for years with privatization, charter schools trying to do vouchers, and guess what? The results are in, it's not working. You're basically closing down public schools, opening charter schools. Now, some of your best charter schools out there are doing well, and that's what they that's what they talk about, but they don't talk about the charter schools that close down because they they're not they're not cutting it, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. The thing is, is you're trying to fix a system that you know really what will help it is how do we look at it, how do we approach the solution. I'm a big believer in public education. Public education in Nebraska is not broken. We do not have vouchers in our state, we do not have charter schools in our state. Do we have private schools? Yes, we do. And people talk about school choice all the time. And I'm like, in Nebraska, you have school choice. You can go to the public school you live in, or you can go to a private school down the street if you have one, or you can move town and go to the other public school if you don't like the public school you're in. You you can do that, like that's fine. Like, there's always been school choice. So saying let's take money from public education and throw it in privatize it because they can do it better has not worked, and it won't work because they've they've shown that. So there is there is you know, people out there that are saying that we need to show that how great it is to be in public education, because in Nebraska, rural schools, and you're from a small town, rural school, and you know that public school is the lifeblood of that community, and if that public school closes down, that community goes down, they're done. Yeah, they're done. And that's where like consolidations and things like that, when schools start losing, the only thing I can think of is like rural schools when they consolidate and they close down a school in that small town, that small town's population drops. Drops because that public school is their hub.

Robert Hinchliffe 1:00:54

I think you know, and bringing it back to kind of the million-dollar salary, I think the vast majority of teachers, vast majority, have that intrinsic pride to do well. That's what we're, you know, we went into it knowing we're not going to ever be rich, rich, rich. We have the intrinsic pride to do it. I think, you know, if you were to pay teachers a million dollars a year, hypothetically, the two areas that it would really help is that you get a much better pool of candidates over time because people would be going into education that are knowledgeable or in certain things, they would make a better choice rather than trying to be an influencer or a podcaster, they might think about being a teacher. But also, too, educators that earn more money, it would take stress off of home life and things of that, so that it open them up on the other side. But that being said, you're so right. I would love this to kind of go back to what we're saying, take care of the people. If we put more money into taking care of the people in the trenches, I really think that would give you a much bigger bang for your buck than buying them a new program or you know, all this stuff. I just think we kind of lost our way. And when it comes to money, I I would love to see a school. This would be fascinating. Maybe some governor out there is listening. Find a public ed school and do a pilot where you pay teachers a significant amount, and let's see the results and see. Yeah, Hastings High. Pay those people a significant amount more, maybe double their salary. I don't know. And see if the results are better. It has to be a public school, though. It's gotta be, you know, this is a public school, and this is our zone, and the kids in our zone are the ones that are coming here. We can't kick them out, we can't say no, no privatization. It would be a fascinating study, a three-year study. If you could look at the quality of applicants and you could look at the results of a school that paid their teachers and staff double what they're making now, I would love to see how that would play out because I really believe if you take care of the people, they'll take care of the clients.

Principal JL 1:03:00

Nope. I think that's a really great thing. Hey, any billionaires are out there, Hastings Public is open for that steady. I'm not the superintendent, but I think we might be able to work something out. Yeah, you could, you know, you guys can, you know, pay if you pay my teachers, you know, if you pay double, then we'll you know, we have some teachers that get paid okay. But yeah, I'm I'm saying, like, if teachers are paid or in my mind, people want to reduce education as not a profession. It is a profession, it is something we should value the educators like we value you know our doctors, we value the people that are you know in their separate professions, like the firefighters, the police officers, things like that. Police officers and firefighters don't get paid very well either. But at the same time, it when it comes down to it, if you would you know invest into the teachers, they would a this is what I see, this is just my projection of that. You'll probably have people that wouldn't have to work two jobs, they wouldn't be burned out because they're going home and having to do a side hustle because of you know, being paid what they're getting paid, they're able to survive and being able to pay their bills and do all their things. You're probably gonna have happier people, they're probably gonna work harder, they're gonna want to like, you know, hey, you know, I'm getting paid well. I'm gonna really invest myself into my work. I think that's really important, and then they're gonna be happier, but at the same time, we're gonna be able to recruit people into our profession because the pay is good. But I think, yeah, but going along with that, though, and we're talking about not just paying teachers, but let's pay our support staff a better wage because my support staff can walk across the street to McDonald's and make almost more money than coming to me and working in my school and doing a much more difficult. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Like I gotta be able to invest at the state level into our teachers and our in our prepared professionals and our administrative assistants. Like, I'm lucky that I have people that love what they do, they stay, it's not because of the pay, but my God, they can go work at a bank and make $24, $25 an hour.

Robert Hinchliffe 1:05:24

You're so right. You know, there's there's two points to that though. Is one is you know, you we have we really should have to pay support staff more because as I put in the book, more than just support staff, some of the lowest paid people do some of the work that none of us would want to do. It's hard to be an aide in an autism classroom with students who you know are non-verbal and need toileting all the time. That's a difficult job, and you're right. Well, I'd rather work at McDonald's or do that. The the individuals that are uh support staff at a school, they're doing God's work, man. It's it's uh it's a low-paying job, and they're very much needed in a school, like I said earlier. And then also, educators, we have to be careful what we put out there, what you were saying earlier. We cannot run down the profession on TikTok all the time and want to be treated like professionals. It's really, really puts a bad taste in people's mouths when people complain about working less than half a year and they're not making much money. When someone who's working at a different job maybe gets a week paid vacation, maybe. So you got to be careful on that. You can't say, oh my gosh, it's 49 days till summer break. Well, some people don't even get anything like that. So, again, it's it's a balance. We want to be treated professionally, but at the same point in time, we got to act that way as well and be thankful for what we have.

Principal JL 1:06:52

And someone that didn't come straight into education. I was not an educator when I started. I worked in a factory, I was in the military. I know how the world works outside of education. Education got a pretty good gig. Now, should we get paid more? You bet there should be more pay on that. But at the same time, when you pay people more, I think the expectations go up. And I think that's what people gotta understand. Like you deserve more money, but at the same time, you know, presenting education in a positive light is essential because I think a lot of people see like all the negatives about it, and when they don't see enough positives, I think they hang on to those negatives way more than the positives, and it's not until you're in it, seeing it and doing it, that you see all the value and education and all the positivity that does go on that people just don't talk about. I think that's our next step is like what goes on in our schools that are great, and how do we share those stories? And I think that's a a huge thing that a lot of schools don't take advantage of. It's right there for them. You have social media platforms to take advantage of that, and so that's that's my biggest takeaway on that is promote positive stories out about the profession and don't talk it down. And when you talk it down, I mean, people that's what people are gonna see. And unfortunately, our algorithms are ran by negative things, and so that's what you see. I've seen some of them, I've get I just kind of ignore them. I give them the down. Like I say, this is this is this is uh not a good post. I don't like this post, so my algorithm will change it. But I like to see the positive ones where it's like I can't wait to go back to school, or I can't wait to get there's there's moments, I'll be honest, there's moments where I'm like going, oh man, are we really ready? You know, we're ready for this, but it's gonna come. And just because we had our state principals conference this past week, I am more energized and ready to go now than I was before I walked into that. I think you need to have that just to be re-energized somehow before you get going going in in the school year.

Robert Hinchliffe 1:09:06

Yeah, you're right. You know, I can like you said, the only other professions are probably athletes. And I feel like too, schools are the same way. Hopefully, you're like every NFL team or college football team right now, where you believe that you can win the championship, and this is our year, and we can do this. That's how schools I think every year start over. Like, we can do this, we can win the championship, we can be the best high school in Nebraska, we can be number one in Nevada. If you don't have that belief and that mindset, then it could be a long year. But every school,

Support Staff Value And Professionalism

Robert Hinchliffe 1:09:38

every admin, they should have that belief right now, just like professional athletes when they go to training camp. This is our year, this is our year. We got this. So again, it's the positive. And at Thompson this year, one of our goals is it's all about team, but the team isn't together, everyone achieves more. It's teammates elevating amazing moments. So we're gonna try to put it out and be the model for elementary schools and be positive. There's hard times, there's always gonna be hard times. But how do you rise above that? How do you show how you get through it and uh and promote the profession? It's a great profession, man. It's the it's it's the best job in the world 98% of the time.

Principal JL 1:10:18

Just like just like Josh Tavar, greatest profession in the world out there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure, man. And you bet, you bet. Well, Robert, this was a great conversation. I really enjoyed having you on. I just love doing these with the perspectives that you bring, and we're able to bounce these different things that are going on in education. You know, do you have any last thing you'd like to say before we go?

Robert Hinchliffe 1:10:41

No, but if you need if you need an inspirational speaker, reach out to myself. Or if you need someone that's uh a rising star, reach out to principal JL. He'll come to your he'll come to your school also. But no matter what, you know, just think about your school. What do you need? And and you have to be the leader. You have to be the person out in front pulling the wagon. Don't be the person in the back, you know, telling people where to go. What that looks like for your school, that's that's why they pay you to be the principal. So find your find your stride, know where you're going, have a vision, and go achieve it.

Principal JL 1:11:14

Awesome. With that, we'll see you guys on the flip side and have a great start to your guys' school year. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Principals' Perspectives. We hope today's conversation challenged your thinking, affirmed your leadership, and gave you ideas you can put into practice in your own school. Remember, no matter where you lead, from the elementary to the high school, we're all working together for the same goals, which is helping our educators and students succeed. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another educational leader. If you have a topic you'd like for us to discuss, please email us at the.principal.jl @gmail.com. Until next time, always be curious and one percent better.