Episode 255: Angry Parents, Calm Leaders - A Framework for School Leaders

Darrin Peppard (00:00.566)

All right, everybody, welcome in to episode 255 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Today's episode is a little different and in all the best of ways. You're gonna hear a conversation that I recorded with my good friend and collaborator, Dr. Frederick Busky. Now, Frederick is the host of the Assistant Principal podcast and does a lot of the same type of leadership coaching and support that I do.

with schools and districts around the country. And because this is a topic that we felt matters so very much to leaders everywhere, we are releasing this episode on both of our podcasts to make sure it reaches as many ears as possible. This conversation was sparked by a real question from the field, a leader that Frederick supports reached out about handling angry parents and those high emotional situations.

And as soon as we started talking, we both knew this, this is not about having the perfect script in the moment. Rather, it's really about having the right approach, both before, during, and for that matter, after the conflict shows up. So in this episode, we're going to walk through a simple framework in three different phases. First, what to do before there ever is a problem. In other words, that building relationship capital.

with those around you. Second, we'll talk about what to do in the moment when a student incident occurs. So how do you separate the student from the behavior? How do you ensure you have clear documentation? And how are you making sure that you're keeping dignity intact? And then finally, we'll talk about what to do after the situation has been addressed. So what the parent conversation looks like and how to keep it from turning into a battle.

Also, what do you do when the student re-enters and ensure that they have some type of support and also that there's a plan for when they re-enter? Finally, we're gonna zoom out on the skill that makes all of this work. And that's listening. That kind of listening that de-escalates, it builds trust and it keeps you grounded when a parent tries to make something personal.

Darrin Peppard (02:29.611)

Now, before we jump into today's conversation, a quick word from both of our wonderful partners, our wonderful sponsors. Now this episode is brought to you by Digicoach. Now, if you're a school leader trying to grow instruction without turning walkthroughs into those gotcha moments, Digicoach helps you do it the right way with clarity, with consistency, and with coaching at the center of all of your work. Digicoach makes

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Darrin Peppard (06:48.959)

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HeyTutor is definitely worth a look. Head over to heytutor.com and check them out. Or even better, hit the link down in our show notes to make sure they know you heard about them here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. All right, folks, let's get into this conversation with my friend, Dr. Frederick Buskey. Let's talk about how we handle those highly charged conversations with angry parents. I'll see you on the other side.

Hey Darren, it's great to be back together again. Absolutely, man. I'm excited about this conversation. It's always fun to just sit and hang out and have some conversation with you. And just by happenstance this time we're to hit the record button. Yeah. I think this is going to be a good one, but you know, let's start with a celebration. What are you celebrating today? my goodness. That's such a good question. I'm going to say this. So yesterday and I think you know this, but I'll share this with, with our listeners, the last

week or so, I have been flexing my time and not just nose to the grindstone in the work, but nose to the grindstone in some other work. I'm doing some work here on our house here in Omaha. intent in the spring is to move back to Colorado, down to the front range, be closer to family, those kinds of things. so I'm celebrating that I've been able

to set that time aside, to really lean into that work, and that the space we're working on is going to become my new office, hopefully right at the start of the new year. It's really close to finished. So I'm hoping over the holiday break that we are able to get me moved upstairs. So that's what I'm celebrating. How about you, my friend?

I am celebrating.

Darrin Peppard (01:33.208)

Hmm. I hesitate. I'm my, just being honest, like my mental frame is not great right now. And I recorded a podcast. The people that listen regularly will already know my, my, adventure here, but I've been struggling with some pretty significant knee issues and, they'll be resolved by the time people listen to this show. But, the thing I keep trying to think about is.

to focus on what I can do and not focus on the limitations. Cause it's easy to get, you know, I'm a huge hiker and I haven't been out on a trail for two months and it's kind of driving me nuts, but I just keep trying to remember, you know, we, we were able to sit here and have this podcast and, that's a blessing. I was at a conference last week that was just phenomenal. And I got to see Julie Hasson and a lot of our other friends and it's

You know, it's sometimes I think when you're in the middle of something that's really weighing you down, it's easy when you get this, what are you celebrating question to go, I don't know. But one of the beauties of this question is I do think it encourages us to focus on those positives and to dig into what's going well. So yeah, I guess I have the conference and meeting with friends and us being able to hang out together. I've got another person I'm going to talk to today.

who I'm really gonna enjoy being with. So, that's it. That's it. So I wanna circle back to something you said and then we'll get to the topic we both wanna talk about today. But it's a celebration that I think you kinda glossed over that when people are now listening to this recording, your knee issue will have been resolved. I realize you have this stretch of time you have to go through, right, to get that taken care of. And maybe listeners for both podcasts,

If you're if you're not aware of this, Frederick and I are really good friends. We we are on a call at least once a week, frequently more than that, not just because we do work together, but but just genuinely because I consider Frederick such a great friend. So I'm certainly aware of what's going on with the knee, all of that kind of stuff. Man, when when this episode drops, you'll be on the road to recovery. And that that I think is something not to lose sight of. I will cling to that, Darren.

Darrin Peppard (04:02.542)

There you go. whatever you can get, right? When you're in pain and you're awaiting, you know, that type of, uh, you know, that type of a procedure and that kind of stuff. Yeah. You take anything you can get. Yeah. All right. I guess we should get into it. So I had a listener and reader of my daily email reach out to me a couple of weeks ago and just kind of talk about a situation that was really challenging for her around.

dealing with angry parents. And she was just asking for some input or asked me to do a show on like, how do you handle parents when they come in and they're really upset about something? So you and I kind of had a quick back and forth and mapped a couple things out. And I think just being really transparent, like if your first contact with that parent is in the middle of a really nasty situation,

that's not a great place to be in. And what you probably have to do is go back and start to think about your systems. So I think we're going to take, on the one hand, a holistic approach. Like what are the, there's three phases, right? What are we doing before there's ever a problem? What are we doing when we got the student in our office? And then what are we doing when, that part of it is over? And then we'll do kind of a, a little bit more of a deeper dive into how do we actually have that really challenging discussion?

Does that sound good? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a topic that we find more and more frequent. Since you and I had that initial conversation, you reached out and mentioned this topic. I had one of the schools that I support in a slightly different way, but we sat down and had some conversations. So I've got some more to bring to the table, but I'll share their scenario a little bit.

In their particular scenario, it was high school, an athletic event, specifically a basketball game. The parent who, I guess for some reason, felt it was more important to heckle the other student section than to just simply cheer for his child, to the extent of going and actually sitting down in the student section. And when asked to leave, got

Darrin Peppard (06:28.32)

really belligerent, even got belligerent with the police. So that scenario, yeah, I was on site the day after for that conversation, which turned into a really great coaching moment. the challenge of parents who escalate, I guess, this is going to be a great conversation and this is going to bring so much value to both.

your listening audience and mine, which by the way, folks, is why Frederick and I chose to simulcast this on both of our podcasts. Because we want to make sure that we know that we have a shared audience, but we also have a non-shared audience. So if this can get into every single ear, I think that's huge. So that's my little bit of editorializing. So I'll throw it back over to you. But yeah, that was a scenario that I was greeted with last week.

All right, we're going to come back to that one. I could see you light up a little bit on that. Yeah. So well, and so are we ever going to get to the show? when I was, when I was coaching middle school girls basketball, we'd had a team, we'd started out, we lost all our games. And after the third game, the athletic director came up to me is Frederick, this is going to be a long year. We just weren't, we weren't that good, but

You know, the kids started to believe we started to turn things around and they were learning to play hard and trust each other. And we wound up stringing together like 16 straight wins and went to the conference playoff game against middle school girls. So, you know, it's not a huge deal, but it's a big deal for them. we get into the, the game and this is the semifinals and we win the game super, super close game. didn't play as many players off the bench as I usually do.

We won the game. Everybody's pumped because we're going to go into the championship, right? And after the game with the girls, we're getting on the bus and one of the parents comes up to me and he grabs my arm. I'm ready to get on the bus and he grabs my arm to stop me because he wants to complain because his daughter didn't get in the game. You know, and that's another thing, right? Should every kid playing every game in middle school, we can have that discussion, but.

Darrin Peppard (08:54.712)

Yeah, literally grabbed my arm. So I get the athletics piece of it. Yeah. It rears its head from time to time. Yeah. Yes, it does. You know, I was the head girl basketball coach, coached middle school boys basketball. Yeah, I've certainly had a couple of those moments too that they can be challenging. so, let's get back to the original, the original reach out the email that

one of your listeners, one of your readers had, had gotten into, then let's, let's kind of chase it from there. Yeah. So, and I think the, the first step that we want to hit is before a problem ever happens is building capital in advance. Non-coming. I'm bringing a lot of things to this discussion from special ed perspective. I was a county level special education coordinator. So that's a little bit unique.

But it was pretty clear to me, especially after a year or two on the job, like I knew who the parents were, who the kids were, who the families were, that I had to be more proactive and then I had to encourage my teachers to be more proactive. So I think identifying the students and families that are going to need that extra care. And, and I say that truly extra care, right? I don't think we can look at these people's problem families, right? If, you've got a parent that can be kind of volatile.

is probably because they got a lot of stuff going on in their life. so understanding that these are people that need extra care and extra attention, identifying them on the front end, and then reaching out to build those relationships and having positive contacts, I think is absolutely critical. Yeah, I would agree. And I know I appeared distracted over here looking on my bookshelf, but I was looking specifically for

a book by Crystal Frommert. We were fortunate enough to publish it a couple of years ago here at Road to Awesome. Crystal wrote a book titled When Calling Parents Isn't Your Calling. Folks will link that in the show notes for you so can go check it out. And one of the things that Crystal really goes at heavy, I use this in the course that I teach at Fort Hay State University as one of the elements. I don't use the whole book. I use a podcast that Crystal was on, but I link the book for people and

Darrin Peppard (11:20.502)

She talks very heavily about getting out in front of it, that positive connection from the beginning is so, so important. And when you're in a building or in a role like you had said as the special ed coordinator, you do get to know the parents and you know who might, as you said, need that extra care. Listening to you talk about that took me back to a moment in time. I heard

Lori Kagan, the wife of Dr. Spencer Kagan once say at a conference, the individuals that we label as troubled problems, not on board, 99 % of them just simply want to be heard. And that has always stuck with me. I think that's the truth with those parents who we label as tough problem.

the, boy, look out for this one. We've all heard those phrases, but those parents mostly, they're still the 1%. But most of them, they just simply want to be heard. And what you're talking about with getting out in front of it and building those relationships from the beginning, it's just essentially that, that making deposits, you can't make withdrawals if you haven't made deposits. And so you've got to

really lean into building those relationships. We talked about athletics a little bit. As a high school principal, certainly I was at every home basketball game, every home football game. And I know who our quote problem parents were going to be, the ones who potentially could go grab the coach, the ones who were going to complain because their kid wasn't getting all the moments or getting all the touches or scoring all the points or whatever.

whatever it is. And I leaned a lot into that philosophy. The more opportunity that I could get in their ear to give them some face time with me, then, hey, I'm willing to listen to what they're frustrated about. Again, they just want to be heard. And I'm not going to let them go get heard by the coach because that's not productive.

Darrin Peppard (13:48.312)

But if they feel like they need to be heard, hey, as the building principle, I was in the perfect role for that. I didn't even want that to be my AD. I wanted that to be me. Again, same thing with my AD. That's not going to be productive. Talk to the principal, build that relationship, give them that opportunity to share what their concerns and what their frustrations are. And that's fine. They're not looking for you to agree with them, but they certainly want to be heard. Darren, I think another thing that's happening now

maybe more than in the past is we're kind of a society that with the social media is thriving on conflict, right? And all the media is trying to bait emotion. So they're always showing you the stuff that's gonna get you angry. So I can imagine that a lot of people right now are kind of living in a world that is full of conflict. And in that environment, it's really easy for parents to forget that we're on the same team.

And again, that's not a dig at them. It's just kind of the way things are. And so they come in the school, they've had conflict everywhere else. So they come into school prepared for conflict. it's important. Not to interrupt you, Frederick, but it's important to remember that we as the educators sometimes forget that we're all on the same team. It's not a one way street. It's a two way street, man. Sorry to interrupt. No, you're 100 % on with that. And the number of times that

I've heard teachers say we're a team, but then in the same breath, but I want you to do it my way and listen to me. Right. We, is a two way street. Hey, we're going to, you're going to put the, we'll have the link to that podcast in the show notes with crystal from her. And then I've got another episode I did with Jamie Brown, where we actually talked about how you teach a teacher to make that positive phone call home, because that's another thing I think we sometimes lose sight of. There.

I've never seen a teacher education program that taught teachers how to call home. correct. So it is not a skill that people just automatically have. And I think sometimes we can get frustrated as administrators that teachers aren't reaching out to parents and being proactive, but we have to remember if they're not doing it, then we need to take some ownership for that and go down and teach them and encourage them. Absolutely. And I would add we need to model it too.

Darrin Peppard (16:18.248)

I had this conversation yesterday with one of my administrators and frustrated that teachers aren't making those initial calls home like they had expected them to. And I just asked, what has your team done? Has your team done any of that? What are you doing to model that? Because if you're not willing to do it yourself, don't expect them to do it. So I know we don't want to stay on this part of the topic forever. So I'll stop there. But I think it's important that we think about as the leaders.

how we show up every day, it's going to make a big difference on what others do too. Yeah. Okay. Spoiler alert. I do, we do, you do. Bring them in the office. I make the call, have a script, then we do it together and then you do it. All right. We'll move on. So have we wrapped up that piece about building capital in advance? I mean, it's really about that contact. And I think it's about finding the strengths in the student and being, you you've got to be sincere.

in that, but every kid has bright spots. So find the bright spots and just reach out and share with the family. Great if it comes from the teacher, but you probably also want to figure out a way to make that contact if you know this is somebody that you're probably going to have to have a tough conversation with at some point. Yeah, absolutely. That is such an essential element. And I think that leads us into the next piece really, really well. And that is

how do we actually have the meeting with the student? Or the parent, like in the athletic situation that I mentioned. But how do we begin that conversation? And we'll focus specifically on the student. And when you and I talked about how we wanted to put this particular podcast together, this piece really resonated with me.

And I had the opportunity, somebody I've known for a long time, Dr. Keith Bell, who is a professor at Ohio State University, former principal superintendent. I know him through, through Jocelyn's Renaissance. I've known Keith for 20 years. He's a Jocelyn's Renaissance Hall of Fame member. But I heard him speak one time specifically about separating the behavior of the student from the student themselves. And the way Keith

Darrin Peppard (18:42.338)

did this. He did this on a big stage, 3,000 people in the audience. And he sat a chair down. He sat two chairs across from himself. And he put a backpack in the other chair. And he was very intentional to model. had somebody come up on stage and be the student who had done whatever the behavior was. And when he spoke about the behavior, he spoke to the backpack. And he told the student very intentionally.

this is your behavior over here. Your behavior isn't you. So when I want to talk to you, I'm going to talk to you. When I want to talk about the behavior, I'm going talk to your backpack because you've got to know that while I'm disappointed in the behavior, there's no way in the world I'm disappointed in you. And that has resonated for, this probably was 10 years ago that I saw Keith do this, separating the behavior

from the kid. And I know our good friends, Josh Stamper and Charlie Peck would say that behavior is communication, and that's very true. But a lot of times, I think educators, whether it's the administrator or the teacher, they connect the two, and the anger about the behavior becomes anger at the student, and it becomes a conflict. So that's kind of where I wanted to open this, and then I want to let you run from there.

When I think related to that is that kids can't use the skills they don't have. And so a lot of times kids just don't have that skill. Now it can also be there. We back up with the causation. A kid may cuss a teacher out in class that might actually the conflict with the teacher might not be the issue that set the kid off. Right.

Maybe it was that in second period things started getting spread around on social media and then it cooked even more at lunchtime and they came in they were already feeling really angry and anxious and didn't know what was going to happen when they got home and their Instagram was going nuts and then they get in the class and the teacher says you know hey pull out your pencil or whatever it is and the kid just

Darrin Peppard (21:06.306)

goes off. So I think it's that goes back to that idea of the behavior versus the student is really important and understanding the skills. Darren, when it when a kid comes in the office, if you're the administrator and you know, okay, this is not just a routine thing, right? This is something serious. And I know there's going to be some consequences. And I know that that's going to be hard for the parents as well as the student that student comes in the office.

How do you begin that conversation? Well, I would tell you there's two versions of me in that specifically. The before discovering the road awesome and the after the before it was, you know, okay, you know, write your version. Okay, that's five days out. Go see the SRO, get your ticket and you're gone for five days. It was just cookie cutter discipline. The after version, which is what I really want to focus on.

That first question is, are you OK? There's a story that resonates in my mind that I got told years later, a fight that I had handled when I was building principle. I didn't typically deal with discipline. That particular day, this fight happened right in front of the office. Myself, one of my assistant principals, we took the two girls separate directions. Many years later, the girl who I took out of the fight

She's a teacher now connected with me at a conference when I was a superintendent. But she told me, I'll never forget that day. She said, you took me in the office and you didn't yell at me. You asked me if I was okay. You went and got the nurse. You got ice for my hand. You got me a bottle of water out of your fridge. And yes, there were consequences, but she said, the last thing that you said to me when you left the office was, you know, just make good choices. And that will always.

with me. I don't remember that situation because I dealt with so many of those. But that young lady never forgot it. And I think that's the lesson here is while it may be routine for you as the administrator, it's not routine for that kid. even in that moment, and God, I'm so grateful that I handled it the way I did.

Darrin Peppard (23:35.136)

It's a teachable moment. It is a teachable moment. So checking in to make sure the kid's okay. You know, if it was a physical altercation, get the nurse, get him some ice, you know, take care of the kid first. You'll get to the discipline. It's not going anywhere. It's not like they're running back to class right now. Focus on that student, their wellbeing.

and focus on the relationship you have with that student. And if you don't yet have a relationship with that student, here's a great opportunity to start the right way.

Darrin Peppard (24:13.592)

think we, when we're mindful that the people are our purpose, it's much easier to focus on the person and the kid and then deal with the task, right? So that's another critical thing for especially assistant principals when you're running from fire to fire, but you've got to slow down because if you're just worried about the fires, you're going to focus on the task. You're going to focus on the behavior. And the first thing to do is to focus on the kid and

Yeah, we're in schools, our goals to grow kids and kids aren't always at the place that we want them to be. So I think in, in a discipline situation, we're just meeting them where they are. We'd, they wouldn't want to be there. We don't want to be there, but we're meeting the kid where they are. And, and so I think taking stock of that. And I think part of the process to Darren is, figuring out what's really going on here.

So what's the root cause? Was this about the teacher? Was this about something else? And then thinking about, does the kid have the skills to actually deal with this situation? Right? Is this kind of a one-off? Yeah. Just a, a combination of things that created a bad event, which makes it a little bit cleaner, or is there something that we need to know? We don't want this to happen again. So we're going to need to teach the kids some skills and work with them. And it's not just about the discipline.

consequence of it. You talked about having them write things down. I've always worked from a framework that it is really good to have the student write down what happened because then you have that when the because what happens is you have the conversation and there's one version of things that happen, but then the kid goes home. They're worried about getting in trouble. So they kind of reframe the events and now they back themselves into the corner because the parents angry at you.

and things have been misrepresented. So what's the value in having students write down their version of things? I think it's twofold. First and foremost, from a legal perspective, that student is entitled to due process. And the number one way to be able to prove, to document that you gave that child their right to due process, because if you ever go to a hearing,

Darrin Peppard (26:40.674)

the number one question is going to be, was the child deprived of due process? So whether they handwrite it or one of my assistant principals when I was a principal would just give them a laptop, let them type it out. But he also then printed it and had them sign it.

Okay. And the second thing, Darren. Yeah, and the second thing. The second thing is you now have this third point reference. And I'm a real big believer in

The third point, very similar to what I talked about with Keith Bell in the backpack. Now this becomes kind of an archive of the behavior. And you can use that with the student when you're going back to it and just reading through it. You can say, hey, will you tell me a little more about this? Or what did you mean here when you said this happened? Because what you really want to get to, and you've talked about this, so I won't belabor it, but

You want to get to the core of the issue. It may not have anything to do with what actually happened. The fight, that story I told about the girl with the fight, that was the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more behind why that happened that day. Also, this is now a third point. This is a document. This is an archive for the parent because then when the parent says,

Maybe this has never happened in any other school, but it happened in mine, both of mine. My child would never do that. Okay, here's what your child wrote. This is their handwriting. This is their signature. I didn't coerce this. This is what they wrote. And I think that just gives you that documentation of...

just because your kid came home and told you a different story, because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble at home, doesn't mean that what they told you is what actually happened. Yeah. Darren, do you just send that document automatically, or do you kind of hold it, and then if there's some kind of a challenge or parents upset, then you share that document? So what we always said was it just became a part of the permanent record. So let's say it was a fight, the kid gets suspended.

Darrin Peppard (02:24.578)

There was a suspension letter that went home, a copy of the discipline referral, provided it didn't list the other student's name. Certainly the kid can go home and tell the person, right? But there is still that student privacy piece, so you're not going to say the other person. The kid can do it, but you're not going to. And then we always kept originals of the statements in the folder in the office. If the parent wanted them, happy to send it home.

but usually it was not an addendum that went home because most of the time the parent's not gonna question that. But when the parent does, you wanna have that archive that you're able to say, hey, I'm happy to share statements with you. And you can even share the other student's statement, you just have to redact names.

Yeah. Okay. And, and so what then what's your experience in terms of the number of times or the percentage of time that when you're done with the student, they may not like the outcome, but they're like, yeah, I did that. And I understand this is the outcome and you're not getting the pushback from them, right? It comes back later from the parent. So I imagine the vast majority of times

When you work through that process, kid's like, yeah, I understand. yeah. Yeah, it's very rarely the kid who is like, well, that's not fair. I don't deserve a consequence for filling the.

Usually if they do, it's because they're trying to work their way out of it because they know they're going to be an even bigger, even bigger situation. Perhaps they're, they're a kid who's on probation and maybe like in the situation where I was assistant principal and then principal, we worked with a juvenile justice system that our, our primary juvenile judge led the state and out of, out of area placements, she sent kids to the boys and girls school.

Darrin Peppard (04:26.294)

at the drop of a hat. And so there were times where kids, you know, they were going to do everything they could to not face that particular judge because they knew they were probably headed to the boys school or the girls school. certainly that, that came up, but by far and away when pushback came, it came from parents and you know, the parents would say things that I go, I grow right to fights. Those are the ones that seem to stand out.

Those are the ones that the parents want to push back on. And I would hear frequently that, well, you know, the other kid threw the first punch, so my kid shouldn't get in any trouble. If your kid threw 22 punches, that's no self-defense. That's engaging in a fight, right? I mean, you know, there's a standard there and people don't understand the standard. So that's where we'd get a lot of pushback or, you know,

Sometimes it was, you know, that teacher has been out to get our, you know, our kid. And then certainly you need to have the conversation with the teacher and the parent. But more often than not, it's a behavior the student has done that is a policy violation that's going to lead to a suspension. And it's probably going to be an inconvenience for the parent because now it's, what do I do? I'm supposed to be at work. and, and honestly, Frederick, a lot of it leads to frustration from the parent, you know,

I mean, yeah, they're going to be mad at me because I'm the one on the phone calling and saying, you know, hey, Frederick got this third fight this this year and we're to be recommending expulsion. And they're just thinking, how in the world am I even going to go to work? mean, I can't stay home and be with him 24 seven. So I think there's a lot of reasons for frustrations and I'm jumping ahead. I don't even know if that was where you were going to go with your question. Yeah, no, I think that's that's really important. And and what that.

does, I think for listeners to remember that this event, this thing may have much further reaching consequences than just what's happening in terms of the school. So I think that's a really important thing to remember. So we've talked about building capital in advance and now we've gone through where we've met with the students. So we've got that done. We've documented, we've had the conversation, the students like, yeah, I get it. And now we have to have

Darrin Peppard (06:50.018)

the initial contact with the parent, letting them know what went happened. So can you walk us through what that process should look like? Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways for you to go about this. And I've seen people do it many different ways. Certainly you can have the student be the one to make the phone call. You can make the phone call yourself at a point.

I had an assistant principal who was having his administrative assistant make the call. I shut that down because I don't think that's appropriate for an assistant, know, an admin assistant to be calling and discussing disciplinary actions with a student. If it's, hey, they skipped, you know, if they skipped their, you know, after school detention three times, fine. But the, you know,

Hey, Frederick got in a fight today and here's the consequence. And it should not be the secretary. So you can make the phone call or you can have the kid. I would recommend that you are at least the initial voice on the phone. If you've done what we've talked about in this podcast and built the relationship from the front, you can begin the conversation with, I really wish I was calling with better news, but

Unfortunately, we had a little bit of a situation and I'm to put your son or daughter on the phone and let them tell you what happened. Then I'll come back on the phone and we can discuss kind of where we go from here. I think that's a really good way to handle it. and again, I know this happened in the situation that, that sparked this particular podcast. This eliminates the kid going and telling

the parent a different story when they get home. You if just you tell them and that's just it. I don't know, man. I think, I think there's you're setting yourself up for failure. If you don't dot the I's and cross the T's, I guess is kind of what I'm Well, and let's all be on the same page working with the same set of facts, right? Which is what this, this process does. So that's a pretty straightforward.

Darrin Peppard (09:10.36)

conversation, I think we'd make the call, we touch base with the parent, we put the kid on, they work through the situation. And then at that point, how are we going to wrap up that, that call? Cause that's, that's probably not going to be the most volatile. If it blows up, it's probably not blowing up at that moment. Most likely not. I mean, it could later on, but I think, I think it actually goes back to even before you pick up the phone.

Having a mindset, and I know you've had the opportunity to be in the room when I teach my eight-step process for difficult conversations, but those first couple pieces happen before you even dial the phone. And that's number one, what is it that I want to have come out of this conversation? And again, thinking about the relationship you have with that parent. If you've not yet had the opportunity to build a relationship with that parent.

then what steps might you take? And then the second piece is, know, what, do I want to see happen as a result of this conversation? I don't want, know, do you want it to just simply be a, you know, Hey, here are the facts. Here's what happened. See you later. Or do you want this to be a conversation where you at least open the door to, you know, I want, I want to support you.

I want to support your kid. really like your kid. We're going to separate the behavior from the kid, those kinds of things. So frame first in your mind, what do I want this conversation to be? Because that will, I think, frame how you show up in the conversation. As if you go into the conversation with, and I'm going to follow my sword here, I went into quite a few early, early.

in my career as I was in charge of discipline and sentence those first two years as an assistant principal. And, you know, there were a handful of them that I just, it was like, was angry at the parent too. you know, there was, I had a, a, a set of three daughters that, went through this quick bird walk, but the first two were there at the same time. And man, they both loved to get in fights. One time they even got in a fight with each other.

Darrin Peppard (11:36.896)

In the hallway and yeah, you can't make these things up right and that phone call was just said I called mom. I mean at that point I knew mom's number by heart and called her from my cell phone in the hallway right after I wrapped it up and just said just come get these two and. You've got to go in with the right mindset. You know, are you? Are you just simply you know, gonna come at the parent and attach the child and the behavior to the parent too?

Or are you going to come in as an ally? So I would say that's a big part of it. then to, to the core of your question, how do you wrap that up? I think a lot of, I just interject because you triggered something for me, you know, just, just like we begin the conversation with the student, are you okay? Before we begin that conversation with the teacher, I think you said this, but I want to draw people's attention. You better check in with yourself. Right.

What emotions are you feeling? And hey, you may have had all kinds of stuff that you had to do and now this kid got in this fight and they're blowing up your whole afternoon and it's frustrating and you know, mom or dad's gonna be upset. So you may be carrying all that emotion. And then also think about the story you're telling yourself about the parent. And I remember when I was a special ed coordinator, something had happened. I went into my superintendent's office and I was just complaining about the parent.

And he said, Frederick, do you think that they got up in the morning and thought I'm going to be a terrible parent today?

Darrin Peppard (13:18.678)

No? Do you think they're doing the best they can?

Yeah. So are you going to meet them where you think they should be? Or are you going to meet them where they are? And that's been transformative for me understanding even with the most difficult parents, they're doing the best they can. And so my job is to meet them with dignity and to do what I can to help them do a little bit better, but it's not to judge them.

No, I agree with that 100%. And I think, I think even, you know, that, that check in with the kid that we talked about, if you can find a way to do that check in with the parent at the, you know, early part of that conversation, even just a, I know the answer is probably no, but is this an okay time for us to talk? Just, you know, but if you just dive right in with, you know,

Hey, is this, you know, is this Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so, and then you just rifle right in. I mean, maybe they're, maybe they're in traffic. Maybe they're, you know, they're sitting in front of their boss, you know, or, you know, they're having a hard day at work or whatever. Right. I mean, there's so many things that scenarios that could be going on. Just that pause that, Hey, is this, is this an okay time?

Because again, the kids not going anywhere, you know, if, especially if it's a situation where the kid is, you know, going to be suspended or something like that, they're safe. They're with you. If it's, Hey, can you call me back in 10 minutes? Absolutely. I have no problem with that. You know, you take care of what you need and then, here's, know, here's my work cell phone number. You shoot me a text when you're ready and I'll give you a call. Just that courtesy, just that meeting them.

Darrin Peppard (15:20.782)

Like you said, where they are and man, just understanding that they're a human being, that in and of itself takes their temperature back down, allows their shoulders to come down. And now they can actually hear what you have to say and what the kid has to say rather than be in this defensive, angry, frustrated space.

because I mean, maybe you took them out of a really critical meeting or something like that. And they're frustrated with that. No, it's not your fault, but give them the grace that they deserve as a human being. And odds are strong, they may repay that. Yeah. Okay. So, so we make that contact with the parent. We check in with ourselves first.

We know what we want to achieve. We have the call, the student explains what happened. We kind of inform next steps, here's where we're headed and then what.

I think we want to offer help. Even if it's just what simply can I do to support you? Remind them we're all on the same team. Remind them this doesn't make me happy that I had to make this call.

but something that can extend the relationship, that it isn't about conflict, that it isn't about us versus you, that, again, if you've done a good job of separating the kid from the behavior, then, hey, here's how I'd like to help you. Here's what we'd like to offer. We'd wanna help grow the skills that your kid needs that...

Darrin Peppard (17:19.948)

You know when these situations happen again that maybe they handle a little bit better and that we can support them. I think when you offer those types of supports and they're not always going to accept those. Another leader that I support just started supporting here not long ago, just went through a similar situation and the parent. Refused any extra support that I genuinely think the kid probably needs, but that's fine.

parent gets to make the choice. But at least if you're offering those elements, those opportunities, then you're at least extending the, hey, we're on the same team together versus you're just going to do it my way. Like you said earlier. Well, yeah, I think ending that with that optimism and I think making sure that you affirm the value and the dignity of the student. And, and we can always be

hopeful and we should be taking the steps that are going to encourage success. when the kid does come back or whenever the, the, whatever the consequences and whatever the next steps are that we're supporting that child and that we can be optimistic about, yes, we think we can make progress here. Right. Right. Well, then I think too, there there's an element there where, depending on the time of year, depending on what's happening, like, you know, we're recording this in what is for

basically everybody the last week leading into the holiday break. So if something were to happen today, the kid might miss final exams or they might miss some important content in the classroom. If it's an elementary school kid, they might miss the Christmas party or something like that. I think being open to and offering

some type of, you know, let's work together for, you know, helping your kid reenter the right way. Whether that's, let's have a meeting together and talk about what you need, or it's, you know what, we're gonna have a plan before this week closes out so that your kid knows how they're gonna be able to take their final exams. You know, we'll give them an incomplete, we're gonna give them time. That way, that extra burden of,

Darrin Peppard (19:45.762)

What about the work they missed? What about the content, the time in the classroom? We can find the best way possible. Now, certainly with Google Classroom and some of those kinds of things, it's a little bit easier. But in the case of an elementary school kid, if they're missing the holiday party or something like that, you're not going to get that on Zoom. That's just not going to happen.

or Google meets or whatever. So I think it's really important to talk about the missed instruction, missed assignments. Here's how we're going to do that. Rather than just, I was guilty of this one, hey, we'll gather up their assignments. And some teachers were really good about that. Some weren't. So let's make sure we have a really good wraparound plan so that, again, the student has the opportunity to continue to develop.

the behavior is set aside, consequences are served, whatever, but let's continue to have this child have an opportunity to be successful in our school, because that's ultimately what our goal is, and that should be what the parent's goal is. More than likely it is.

Darrin Peppard (21:00.97)

Okay. So we wrap up our parent conversation. Let's kind of transition to just the ways in which we might be exposed to parents that are really angry. So it could be that we finished the conversation and we think everything's good and then they go home and something else happens and then they get really mad. And so they're going to call us up. They're going to come in, whatever. it could be a situation where we're trying to close this call out or we're getting the point.

We've shared this stuff and they blow while we're still on the phone. It could also be a situation that we actually aren't aware of where something happened in a class and teacher said something to a student and the student took that a certain way. And, and, so there's all kinds of stuff going on behind the scenes. When you come in contact with that angry person, what, like what's our kind of frontline response?

to dealing with somebody that's really agitated. This is something I learned when I moved from the assistant principal role into the principal role. And I learned it in a couple of ways. One is amazing. The difference with how parents speak to you when you're an assistant principal versus the building principal. And I don't know what it is, but there's just a difference in terms of how.

It doesn't mean they don't still yell at you or use inappropriate language. I I got F bombed a couple of times as a superintendent. So that doesn't necessarily change. But a lot of it, I think, had to do with how I approached it. And I learned this from the principal I worked under as an AP, who I thought was just a master at these conversations. What I learned from him was talk a whole lot less.

and listen a whole lot more. I said it earlier, they want to be heard. I think even in the situation with the angry basketball parent, just give him an opportunity to be heard. There were several times at athletic contests where we had a parent get really riled up and Dr. Wemling would just go over and sit with them.

Darrin Peppard (23:21.966)

And, and he didn't go over and scold him. He didn't go over and say, you you behave or you're going to be thrown out or, you know, he would just tell me what's going on. You know, what's and man, he was so good at that. And I never reached his level, but I think I got better and better and better at being the one to just listen. I think, I think of situations like you probably dealt with a lot.

that would be contentious IEP meetings where, you know, the parent brings a lot of baggage into the meeting multiple years. And again, I was a high school principal. So for me, this is kind of my primary frame of reference. But the parent who would come in with seven or eight years of baggage of just being told this is what we will do and not being given an opportunity and not being heard and

then the next thing you know, they're bringing an advocate to the meeting and people are like, my gosh, they're bringing an advocate. Whose fault is that? It's probably ours. Maybe we should be listening to them a little bit more. So I think, I think the most important thing is you got to give them a chance to be heard. Don't, don't just cut them off. Don't just, you know, no, that's not how it's going to be. If their language is inappropriate,

invite them to speak with you in a different space that the angry basketball parent can we just go out here in the hallway? Every gymnasium in the world has two different ways in and out of the gym. Don't go out where the snack bar is. Go out the other door. At my school, those other set of doors went to where our pool was. Rarely did we have a swim and basketball event at the same time. But find a place where you can just go.

and listen to them. That's all. I think if you just start there, it's not always going to work. But again, they just want to be heard. so that was the number one thing that I learned is just talk a whole lot less and just listen a whole lot more. And I'll add this. I know I'm talking a lot here, but listen so well that you can paraphrase what they said.

Darrin Peppard (25:47.988)

Ask them, am I hearing you correctly? Here's what I heard you say. Oftentimes, if you do that, they might be like, well, no, that's that's that's that one event. OK, but that's what I heard you say. And that might make them go. OK, well, I need to cool my own jets here. Perfectly fine. You are kind of that. Mediator, if you will. Whenever possible, so that's that's my thoughts on that.

Yeah. Well, and the calmer that you can stay the more likely of deescalation, right? Cause if we're getting tense and we're getting angry and we're getting big and, and communicating that frustration, that just ratchets, ratchets things up. You know,

You talked about special education and it's an area where we think a lot about litigation. my superintendent told me something that has always stuck with me. He said, Frederick, parents don't sue you because you broke the law. They sue you because they feel disrespected and you could do everything a hundred percent right in all of the special ed process. You can still get sued.

I mean, you may win, people can bring lawsuits anytime they want. So the way to not get sued is, not to do everything by the letter and dot your eyes, cross your T's. Yes, that's important. But the way to not get sued is to respect the parents, listen to them and figure out what their concerns are and then address their concerns. absolutely. I think that's, and that is really wise advice folks. If you didn't catch that,

hit the back 15 seconds button twice and listen to it again and write down that quote. That is really, really powerful. I think again, it's, back to the listening. It's get to the core of what is it that they want? You know, a lot of times when, the parent calls and they're angry, they may not even necessarily expect you to, you know, change the decision that was made in the IP meeting, change the outcome of the disciplinary action.

Darrin Peppard (28:01.262)

The pair, the basketball parent the other day was like yelling at the AD, like, you know, you have to get better referees. Come on. Okay. Now know what you want, but I can't do that. It's not like he's got this laundry list of, you know, these two guys aren't refereeing in the NBA tomorrow night. can grab them. It doesn't work that way. Right. But I think it's important to get to the core of what they want. Now, sometimes it's just not that easy.

And sometimes they go into attack mode and they try to make it personal. And they'll say things specifically about you that are going to get your dander up. I'm curious, Frederick, I'm certain you face this. mean, there's no way that you were a sped coordinator and did not have somebody make it personal, not asking you to tell the story.

How do you respond? What advice do you give leaders when that angry individual wants to make it personal?

Darrin Peppard (29:11.086)

Well, about 50 million thoughts jumped to mind. Taking it to Facebook, by the way, is not an acceptable answer. The first thing is taking the deep breath and realizing, hey, this is not about me, right? This is not about me. So that would be my first response. I've not been in that situation many times there. And thankfully, you're a lucky man. Yeah. I don't think I necessarily had a bunch. Yeah.

I think I only had a few that it got really personal. one of them, was my own fault. I made the mistake of having a listed home phone number. Didn't have a listed home phone number the entire time I was a teacher. Then I get an assistant principal job and have a listed home phone number. That was dumb. But I think you're right. Take the deep breath. Take the high road.

don't allow it to be personal. other words, don't then go back at them. Don't turn it into a battle because I guarantee you'll lose. Even if you walk away from the argument thinking you won, you lost. I guarantee it. So you've got to make sure that you never lose sight of when it's that situation, you are expected

Not even that, that's not the right word. You absolutely have to be the professional because you are being paid to be in that situation. Whether you think about that at the time or not, you are a professional and you are paid to be in that situation. So act like a professional. And when you do, as hard as that will be.

that's going to pay off in the long run for you. But man, it's tough. I've told the story on my own podcast, I think at least once, of the grandmother that came in my office when I was a superintendent. And before she even had sat in the chair, had dropped probably four F bombs and called me several names. I just simply reopened the door and told her you can leave now. And I didn't raise my voice. I didn't get angry.

Darrin Peppard (31:32.878)

And she just looked at me and I said, you don't get to speak to me or anybody in this organization in that matter. When you're ready to have a respectful conversation, please come back. I would love to help you. I'd love to hear what you have to say, but you're not going to talk to me that way.

came back later that day, she apologized, worked through the situation. The situation had nothing to do with me, but she just decided to make it personal. Interestingly, a few months later, we ended up hiring her in our cafeteria. It was amazing when they came to me and said, Darren, we probably would never bring to you a cafeteria aid hire, but-

And in the interview, she said, I treated the superintendent poorly and he didn't allow it. I want to work somewhere where nobody's allowed to be treated that way. How about that? She was a great worker too. Wonderful lady. Just I caught her. She caught me, but I caught her on a really bad day and she needed someone to say, yeah, that's not okay. And fortunately it worked out well for us. Yeah.

I appreciate you sharing that. I think the final thing that I have is to remember that a lot of parents have had very negative experiences in school, maybe as students, but also maybe with previous administrators. So you may be coming at this with fresh eyes and feeling good about building a relationship with the parent, but they could be coming in with all kinds of previous triggers.

that you don't have insight into and that just goes back to listening, right? Because those triggers may come up and they're gonna tell you about how the last principal did this, this, this, and this. Again, listen. And the other thing is, think, avoid, you mentioned this, but try to avoid defending. You don't wanna throw your teachers under the bus, but when the teacher, when the...

Darrin Peppard (33:46.04)

parent is complaining and angry, that is not the time to push back on everything because that's communicating. I don't hear you, right? I'm listening, but I don't, I don't hear your frustration. Let them get that stuff out without getting defensive. Right. Well, and think it gets back to you. I love that you said that it gets back to something I mentioned earlier too, just listen so well that you can paraphrase because

When you use that particular skill, by the way, think one of the most overlooked skill for any leader in any walk of life is the ability to paraphrase because it requires deep listening. It's the opportunity one to acknowledge, I hear you. And two, to make sure you heard them correctly and that they said what it was that they really wanted to say. So I think that's a really, really important element.

And you bring up such an important part. Everybody has had different experiences in schools. a lot of times, and we joke about this in education all the time, that just because you went to school doesn't mean you know how to run a school. It's like you or I getting on an airplane and telling the pilot, I got this. 119 flights for me, by the way, in 2025.

I was on a plane enough. I got this. No, no, I don't. I don't know how to fly plane. I don't have first clue, right? I know how to sit comfortably and stream Netflix. So I think listening for those cues, those past experiences, and don't just leap to, well, I'm not the previous principal. You can say whatever you want. You got to prove it with your actions.

and you prove it first and foremost, but really listening to them and offering the opportunity, they may or may not accept it, but offer the opportunity to joint problem solve. You don't have to have all the answers. A lot of times we don't give parents enough credit. A lot of times, I mean, they may have a really good idea for how to handle a situation, but if we just think, you know, well, we're the professional and we know what we're doing and you don't, so

Darrin Peppard (36:08.418)

Go back there and sit and coach. I'll fly this plane. That's not very helpful either. you make some extremely important points there. So yeah, be a great listener and understand they're going to bring baggage to the conversation. And if you can find ways to unpack that baggage with them, that's when you start to an ally with that parent instead of building an adversary.

Darren, I think that is a great place to wrap this up. Right. think I would agree. Yeah. Work for the work on the partnership and carry it forward. Oh, all right, my friend, thanks for coming on and helping us dive into any of this. Um, what I guess is kind of the one big takeaway from this show, do you think for listeners? Oh, man, I would say, I would say that.

As a leader, your role begins with being a listener and the more that you can really lean into that. Don't don't get so caught up in, know, hurry up, process the IEP, the discipline issue, the whatever it is. Focus on being a listener and building relationships. I think those are my big takeaways and thank you for coming on.

Yeah, because we're pushing this on both shows. Thank you for coming on and having this conversation. I guess is extremely valuable. What is your biggest takeaway from this episode? It's not about you. It's just not about you. And I think that leads to what you just said. The most important thing is listening. But when you can remember it's not about you, makes it a lot easier to listen. Yes, 100 percent. Man, this has been awesome. I love it. All right. Thank you so much, my friend.

All right, man, that was such a great conversation with Dr. Buskey. I was really glad that Frederick reached out and said, hey, Darren, let's jump on a podcast and have a conversation about this. And very quickly, we both decided, look, this has to go out on both of our shows. We have to make sure that as many ears as possible can hear this particular conversation. If you don't already follow the Assistant Principal podcast, please, please click on the show notes and get down there and make sure you're following Frederick as well. And now it's time for a pep talk.

So earlier this week, I had a conversation with a leader that I support. And one of the things he talked about was how we tend to slow play movement, how we tend to slow play driving change in our schools. He shared with me a story of a district he had worked with previously to the district he is currently in where I'm supporting him. And he said very much so that in that particular district,

there was a change that was made that in his own words was a shock to the system. In essence, that district used the change they were they were making and essentially cut off any access to what had been done previously. So people had no choice but to simply figure it out and move forward. Now they gave them plenty of support, plenty of training, but they didn't allow them.

Darrin Peppard (09:18.72)

to sit back and rest on the way it's always been. Now I'm not advocating for us to use the shock to the system for literally every change that we make, but it made me sit back and think, how often did I slow play a change when I simply could have said, hey, you know what, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna just simply jump in and we're gonna go forward and we're gonna burn the boats, if you will, on what we've done in the past.

when it relates to this one specific thing. Sometimes that might be the very necessary step to actually making change sustainable. That's what I've got for you this week, folk. Just kind of think about this one. Maybe there's a change you've been slow playing and it's time for you to say, hey, let's go shock the system. Again, as always, I appreciate you joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Get out there.

Have a road to awesome week.