Episode 273: Why Most School Plans Fail (And What to Do Instead)

Darrin Peppard (00:00)

All right, my friends, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast, episode 273.

As you know, throughout the month of April, we've been focused on one thing. How do we build a plan for next year that doesn't just look good on paper, but instead is a plan that actually gets executed in your building? Because the reality is this, a lot of leaders have plans. Not nearly as many see those plans truly come to life in classrooms. So today, I want to take that conversation a little bit further. I brought in

my friends from Digicoach, Kathy, Molly, and Brandon, for a panel style conversation around what it really looks like and what it really takes to build a high quality plan to stay focused on the right priorities and to actually move the needle on classroom instruction. Here's why this conversation matters. Even the best plan will fall short if the people doing the work

aren't supported. That's what our topic is going to be today. And it's also a place where I want to pause for just a moment and take a second to talk about our friends, our sponsor for today's episode, HeyTutor. You know, one of the biggest challenges that leaders are facing right now is this. How do we improve student outcomes while also supporting teachers who are already stretched in? HeyTutor helps you solve that. They provide high impact tutoring,

in math and English language arts, aligned to your state standards with trained tutors who push into the classrooms or pull out in small groups before school, after school, they're there to support you. So as you are building your plan for next year, think about this. What systems am I going to put in place to both support my students and also support my staff? Hey, tutor is a solution that helps you do both.

make sure you check them out at heytutor.com or go down and hit the show notes link for Hey Tutor because that would let them know you heard about them right here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. All right folks, let's get into this panel style conversation with my friends from Digicoach. I'll see you on the other side.

Darrin Peppard (00:00)

All right, everybody, welcome back into the show. As you're well aware, here in the month of April, we've been talking a lot about how, as a school or district leader, you lean into developing the best possible plan, and not just the plan that looks good on paper, but the plan that actually can be executed by the members of your team to set yourself up for success in the coming school year. Today, I've got a real treat for you.

You've heard me talk about our friends at Digicoach for quite some time. Well, today I've brought three of my friends from Digicoach in to have a conversation with us specifically around planning and no, not necessarily about, hey, you got to bring in Digicoach, although you should. Rather, let's talk about kind of that more global space of how do we as school leaders, and especially when we're working with an outside partner,

like Digicoach, how do we develop a plan that is really going to ultimately lead to success? So with that, I'm going to welcome Kathy and Molly and Brandon into the show, and we'll go around the horn very quickly with just some quick introductions. Kathy, I'm going to start with you.

Kathleen Beckham (01:12)

Well, I am a serial educator. Everything from kindergarten to community college, administration, I have a district director, fourth, fifth grade, three types of special ed, I even have a driver's ed credential. So I mean, I have reinvented myself many times in this educational journey and been all over the South and now California, but I live at the beach.

between Ventura and Oxnard and I've been with Digicoach about 11 and a half years, almost 12 years now. So that I came here when I retired after being a super fan and user of the tool and I just enjoy mostly curriculum and instruction, really working with students, helping maximize their potential and helping people understand that the relationships.

between the kids and the teachers and their administrators is paramount.

Darrin Peppard (02:08)

I love that. That's awesome. Molly.

Molly Dexter (02:10)

Hi, I'm our client success manager and I'm a former teacher. I worked in both early ed and secondary classrooms and I was that teacher that always really wanted feedback. I always wanted to know how I could improve my instruction for my students. So I left the classroom and I joined Digicoach to support classroom coaching and for me here I

really want to make sure that the tool is utilized and that we are able to connect with our teachers and show them that we are there to support them. I do a lot of like looking at data for our districts that use Digicoach and making sure that we're taking something and doing something with that data.

Darrin Peppard (02:48)

Excellent. All right. And Brandon.

Brandon Mawhorter (02:51)

Hey, thanks, Kurt. Yeah, so I'm Brandon. I'm more of the tech side of things here. My educational career, I used to work in San Bernardino City School District as an IT guy at a number of school sites over the years. My mom's an educator as well. She was an assistant principal for 19 years at the same school, which is kind of crazy for how often some educators will move from campus to campus and a specialized teacher though before that.

While I've worked on the IT side, I've seen firsthand just how busy school leaders are. And so my work with Digicoach and everything is to really just make your processes more efficient and effective. We know how time poor everybody can be in education. And so I really aim to just make those processes more efficient and make sure that things are going well. And love technology. I can talk to your ear off about anything Mac related or.

in the AI world that we're going into these days and have plenty of thoughts on there that we'll save for another show.

Darrin Peppard (03:44)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've definitely got me on the Mac side, that is for sure. I'm 100 % a Mac guy. So for the three of you, and we were talking about this before we hit the record button, so for our listeners and our viewers on YouTube, the whole goal here is not to just simply roll through a script of questions and just have this very scripted conversation. I really wanna treat this almost like a panel discussion where

Kathleen Beckham (04:02)

question.

Darrin Peppard (04:10)

We talk a little bit about some of the different pieces that go into really developing that high quality plan. So I'll throw out this first question and then from there we'll just kind of let it flow and go where it wants to go. But we've been working this entire month of April here with the podcast and actually a lot with the blog as well around giving insight, suggestions, and even some things to think about.

for school leaders, both veteran and early career school leaders, on planning and executing that plan for the coming year. So what might be some recommendations that you guys would have, just based a lot on a lot of different experiences that you guys bring to the table, for setting up a good quality plan for improving classroom instruction in the coming year?

Brandon Mawhorter (05:00)

I'll go first. For me, think trying to resist the urge of just focusing on too, too many things. There's a lot on the plate and maybe taking some of those things off the plate is OK to do as you're looking for what are those biggest priorities? What are you looking for? What are you focused on at your school or at your district that you want to put to the forefront of everybody's minds all year long?

know, Cathy often says you can only focus on how many things, Cathy. You you can only do two things at once, right? Like anything more than that starts to become noise or distract you from that. So I think that's my thought is really just like resist the urge of trying to focus on everything and instead, you know, try to bring in some early priorities so that you can move towards those things first.

Kathleen Beckham (05:47)

I think that one of the things that helped me the most in the beginning and becoming organized as a supervisor, I had some very good coaching. I have the ability and a lot of people do to see the big picture, but also I'm very attuned to details. And sometimes that's more of a curse than a blessing, but you have to decide what you're going to focus on and realize you can't do everything at once. That it's just.

It's number one, it's not possible. Number two, it's not efficient. And number three, then you're not going to accomplish anything. So I think that looking at your schedule, your backwards mapping, your two things that are the most important to you that year and then scheduling that time and honoring it. That's the hardest thing because your days are not planned. It's always a different show.

every day. And so you might want to try and put aside something

That's a little bit different because always being out and being in the classrooms is a paradigm shift for administrators. If they're really going to go out and help, I don't know how you lead if you're not out there all the time. I mean, how do you lead a group if you don't really know what's going on? Then it's just kind of an exercise in management. It's not really, you're not moving forward, you're not helping growth. But if you get out there and you decide and you have these missions, you stick with it and you go ahead and you focus on and you help people.

and you grow and then you reassess. But you can't do that unless you've been putting in the time and you really have some data to back up what you're doing. We're not in an I think I feel world.

Darrin Peppard (07:24)

Yeah.

Molly Dexter (07:24)

Yeah, I think being really intentional is the way to go. I think we see a lot of times we have great intentions, but it's really easy for those to get lost, you know, in how your day goes and also even just choosing what you're going to focus on being really intentional with that. there are common things that we see people focus on, but ultimately like talking to your teachers and administrators and noting knowing what you know your

school specifically needs is probably the most important.

Darrin Peppard (07:54)

Yeah, I think that's really, really insightful. All three of those are really great. I wanna come back to Kathy with two things. Specifically the, you can't focus on more than two things. And maybe let's try to help, especially our early career leaders. I know when I was early in my principal career, I struggled with really being sharp and.

really clear on specifically what is it that I wanna look for. It's one thing to say, hey, we need to improve classroom instruction. Okay, but what does that really mean? Like the questions I ask leaders when I'm working with them, it always begins with number one, what do you wanna see in every classroom every day? Like what is that absolute bare minimum I have to see this? Not the thing that blows you away or like, my God, that's the greatest lesson I've ever seen.

every classroom, gotta have at least this, right? So with that said, and you guys can go in any direction, but I've already kind of hinted at wanting to come to Kathy first, how do we help leaders or what maybe should be things leaders are thinking about to sharpen that focus from I want to improve classroom instruction to here are one or two things I really want to lean into.

Kathleen Beckham (09:10)

I think that if you're looking at and analyzing not only your dashboard, your data, your student data, you have a feel for the climate at your school. And what is it that you want to promote? I wanted to promote collegiality and collaboration and not only that within the staff, but within the students, hearing the student voice, having that.

deciding what you're going to, we get so wrapped up in speaking in generalities that we don't help the people with specifics. So just like you were talking about, I want to improve instruction. Well, what does that mean? What does that look like to you? And I think one of the things we help people with the most is dialing down into that layer after layer after layer. What is it that you really want to see and how can you help that occur?

What could be your role in helping that occur? How are you going to do that? And so I think that when you start looking at that, it's definitely a time of reflection, talking to people, and not just going with the first thing, boom, out of your mouth. Talk about it, dial in on it, and then really settle. But you've got, it's quite open for discussion and...

People need that sink time just like kids do. Let it settle in a little bit and think, you know, be reflective instead of just reactive.

Darrin Peppard (10:38)

So I want to piggyback on that. And actually, I want to ask this one really directly of Molly. As the one who probably was most recent in the classroom, working with an administrator as a classroom teacher, going into the coming year and being told, here's what we're going to focus on. If there's an ideal world, what would a classroom teacher want from their administrator in terms of learning?

what should we really focus on? Because I really believe the teacher voice is so critical and so often overlooked here. So not to put you on the spot, but I want to come to you with that question.

Molly Dexter (11:12)

I don't mind at all. Yeah, I think the biggest thing and we talk about this all the time is like that collaboration and really being partners. I mean, I can only really speak for myself, but like I know that I'm very reflective of, you know, what I'm good at and how I'm doing. And so I feel like I have really good insight to to share on like, hey, I know that this is an area that I just struggle in and I don't quite.

I like I know enough to grow in this area. And so I think that conversation is really helpful. And just seeing other teachers and, you know, I've seen plenty of teachers who are not necessarily as reflective, but I'd seen what they did in the classroom and I can be hey, I think they could improve in this way. And so having that open dialogue and asking, like, what are some things that you feel like we need to work on? Because no one just wants to be told what to do.

You know, you really want to feel like at end of the day, your goal is to help us grow. And a lot of times it can feel like a, you know, evaluation when someone walks into your classroom. So I think changing that into much more partnership based and showing that we're here to work together for the benefit of our students and having that conversation and hopefully.

really opening up that classroom that it's not weird when an administrator walks into the classroom and your kids aren't all panicking or anything. So having that collaboration just from planning all the way into like coming into the classroom, I think really changes teachers attitudes about it too.

Darrin Peppard (12:46)

I love that you said that and I still continue to be amazed and I know it's true. When I first started doing walkthroughs as an assistant principal, exactly what you just mentioned, know, the administrator walks in the room and everybody freezes and know, kids are like, I'm still amazed that at this juncture, 2026, that there are still classrooms that that happens because the administrators aren't getting into the classrooms enough.

So I would imagine that there are times that you guys get requests or somebody's like, let's have a discovery call with Digicoach and you might even be asking, how frequently are you getting into classrooms now? And this is for all of you, but I have a feeling this is gonna be a Brandon question. What do you see in terms of that range of administrators who are being in the room or...

being in the rooms and then those who maybe aren't and what are some suggestions you give administrators who say, and then they all will, I wanna be in classrooms more, but this is what's holding me back.

Brandon Mawhorter (13:43)

What gets calendared gets done, right? I mean, if we don't dedicate some time to make sure that those things actually happen and then protect that time, then we don't get them done, whether it's a walkthrough or any other activity on your to-do list for the day. It's interesting, working with our partner districts across country, we've seen places to where principals aren't able to get into the classrooms because they're in too many IEP meetings.

And we've seen districts actually hire an additional assistant principal so that that can kind of be offloaded. And then other things show up and we may not see an increase in walkthroughs, you know, or time spent in classrooms, even though we've now hired another person to take that off of the plate. Other priorities keep popping up. And again, I think it really comes down to that idea of just, hey, you need to really protect this time. You know, for like breakthrough coaching and things like that, like

have your assistant protect that window. Don't page me when a parent comes in, tell them, hey, our principal's in classrooms doing what they need to do right now, can you wait 20 minutes? You don't need to be in the classroom for all day. We recognize that you still gotta run a school and everything. But yeah, I think just protecting that time is really a key thing.

Kathleen Beckham (14:58)

And we have data to back up the people that are out there more, their scores are better. So we have that longitudinal data now that we can show and, but it's also a shift for those principals who are used to just being in their office all day long. That feels comfortable even when it's crazy and insane. They're developing a new

shift to, they're developing a new attitude too about what their role is and how they can help. To me, my whole thing was that I'm here to help. I wanna help you with instruction and curriculum to reach the students. You can't do that if you're not out there. So it's one of those things that if you had a standing meeting with the superintendent,

you protect that time. That time is protected. You have to think of this as, I thought of it as my most important job. So you have to protect that time. And you have to go and say, I'm committed to this. This isn't something I can shift to this afternoon. I won't hit those, the classes I need to see.

Unless I go now. So that's why this time is protected and you have to train your Office staff the same way like this is protected time. So it all comes down to what You see is important and your and if and when you develop that time to be honored

Molly Dexter (16:23)

I think too adding to that is that making it something more than just something on your checklist, like something you're trying to get done, but going back and using your data and actually doing something with that, you know, going back in and talking to your teachers again, because if you do a bunch of walkthroughs and then you're like, well, I didn't like get really anything out of that. I, you know, I sent a couple of emails, but we don't have a coaching cycle. We don't have all these things built up. It really easily isn't going to

stay a priority because you didn't really see a lot of change from that little chunk that you did really focus on it. So I think going back again to the data and analyzing what do we need to do now? Where are we going with this?

Kathleen Beckham (17:04)

Good point, mum.

Brandon Mawhorter (17:04)

That cycle

is really important to follow through and start with a baseline and figure out what's happening in your classrooms, especially when you have places where administrators do move and you have somebody that's at a new campus for the first time. You're green, right? So get out there and meet your team and see what's going on in their classrooms and reflect. To kind of go back to a point a moment ago too about meeting with teachers to what Bolly was talking about,

It's great that you're in classrooms. Hopefully there's some feedback happening through those things. Not just the thumbs up as you exit the room, but when you unpack data, it's the teacher's data. You are in their classrooms. They're the ones closest to that. So that should really be something that we want brought back into that team and questions asked to those teachers around, hey, fourth grade team, this is something that we've seen. Does this reflect in your own analysis of what's happening in your classrooms or?

I was only in there for 10 minutes, maybe I missed something that happened later. Those types of conversations are important too, I think.

Darrin Peppard (17:58)

Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think I think you guys are really you're hitting on the importance of the presence of the administrator being intentional with their time and actually being out. You know, that's a huge part of your plan. You can develop a plan for next year. But if you're not

there in the classrooms, eyes on, to be able to support, collect data, to analyze the data, all of those types of things, then your plan isn't necessarily going to move forward. You Brandon, you said, you know, if it's not calendared, it's not going to happen. Well, the same thing is true. If you don't go and observe it, it's not necessarily going to happen. So you've got to make sure you're building that into your plan and that you're being really intentional. And I'm curious too, since I have

you guys here, sometimes we'll develop plans on our own and we'll think, know, hey I can do this on my own as an administrator. You guys have all hinted at it. I lived it. So many of the leaders I support right now, they're living it. You can't do it on your own. So not specific to Digicoach, but in general when you reach out to

to somebody else as a potential partner in the work, whatever your plan may involve. In this case, we're talking about improving classroom instruction. What are some things that that outside entity can provide that maybe administrators don't think about? Sometimes the first thing we think about is, that's gonna cost money and I don't know if I can afford that, but.

There's so much more to it than that. Let's talk about what are some of the things that an outside group or consultant or business can do to help in the development and the execution, and for that matter, the evaluation of the plan.

Kathleen Beckham (19:49)

think that first you have to look at the fact that sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. And sometimes people, I would say definitely, you bring in an objective viewpoint from someone that hopefully you look for someone with experience, someone that's done a lot of the things you've done or has other outside experience that bring a richness to their...

consulting, but and you're looking for someone that can help you with your mission, with what you want to happen at your school, your district, whatever, that person can bring in a different type of expertise than you have. And I think that a lot of different ideas are very helpful in developing your own plan down the road.

Brandon Mawhorter (20:39)

We were chatting with a partner that works with California Collaborative Excellence Corps. It's a consortium that the state is supporting out here in California. And she was sharing that when it started in cohort one, there was like 80 people in the room and it's grown now to like 1500 voices for this year. And they're only in their second cohort of doing this. whether it's

working with an outside vendor or contacting your friends in other districts, it's, I think, really nice to get that perspective that's outside of your bubble. Because if you've been in your district for a while, you know what's going on well, but maybe there's things that you haven't tried that others have that can work well. So having those folks that are seeing trends from a little bit higher level, whether that's your county partners or other organizations, I think is a nice.

Nice play to be able to get some of those extra voices in the room.

Molly Dexter (21:39)

I think execution wise for with my experience is you you have somebody that's like checking in with you all the time you kind of have a little you know mini accountability buddy and assistant in a way of of checking in like how's it going and it's it's a lot harder to just you know let it slide because someone's constantly checking in on you and also we see a lot of like not people aren't able to look at the data or don't really understand really what to do with it.

or anything like that where you have somebody who that is their expertise and they're able to look at it from an outside lens too where they're not involved or they don't have no stakes in what is happening. So you kind of get to look at what you've been told and ask questions and give opportunities for them to reflect on how should we go about this? What direction do we need to change in? are we even?

Even lot of times we see like, we even communicating these things to our staff? Because a lot of times we hear one thing and then the data is saying it really says something else. So kind of getting to also have somebody check in on you and kind of take that bias out of it.

Darrin Peppard (22:49)

Yeah, I think that's an important piece right there. You get rolling into your school year and often the phrase is you get lost in the weeds, you get stuck in the day to day to day and maybe you do forget or lose sight of maybe what were those top priorities. so when I was a building administrator, I had a leadership coach, but then obviously with a few different vendors.

We had some different types of check-ins and it was good to kind of pull me out of the weeds and get me up on the balcony and like, okay, take a breath. Where are you? Get refocused. Don't lose sight of what's important because of the urgent that just keeps coming at you nonstop right there. So I definitely appreciate that a lot. So let's talk specifically about Ditch a Coach. So folks.

You guys have heard me talk about Digicoach like crazy over the last handful of months, and it wasn't just me saying it. I genuinely believe in the work these guys are doing. just tell our listeners for a few minutes, our watchers on YouTube, specifically how does Digicoach help school leaders improve that pedagogical performance that they're looking for?

Kathleen Beckham (24:00)

Go ahead, Brandon.

Brandon Mawhorter (24:01)

I'll go first.

All right. I was going to say, like, if you hopped in the elevator with me, right, in a nutshell, it's a tool to help support, of course, classroom walkthroughs, but it is so much more than that. It helps communicate, you know, what are those instructional priorities? Our team helps, whether you're a school site or a district type implementation, you know, we want to help you bring some clarity to that. And we're going to be there to remind you to get these on your calendars. And then, you know, beyond that,

It's a tool to make sure that when principals are in classrooms or coaches or whoever's doing that walkthrough today, that teachers actually hear from you, that there's a feedback loop that's going on so that those tools are there. And ultimately, we want to make sure that there's coaching happening from walkthroughs. It's not just a compliance piece or they're not just the once or twice a year evaluations. There's a lot of research out there that teachers just don't get feedback. Molly's was a thumbs up from her administrator lots of times.

If you look at that research around, how often are we supporting teachers, both new and seasoned, it's not enough. And so with something like Digicoach, you you can take it out, support that process, get the data out of it, get that data back into conversations and really focus on those cycles so that you can move the needle and not just keep doing what you think needs to happen.

Kathleen Beckham (25:13)

Thank you.

I'll tell you what, I'm going to tell you straight from a person that used it. I was looking for something to help me manage my time. I wanted to be better at my job, I wanted to get out there, I wanted to help, but it was not my only job and you know that. It's nuts how much you have to be able to do. So what I wanted...

was a communication tool with my teachers that was easy for me. I'm a digital immigrant. I'm not a digital native. I came in kicking and screaming to this and I needed something that helped me be able to really communicate but disaggregated the data for me in a way that I could utilize it. could present the data to the teachers, get them more comfortable and talking about it rather than just be this something over here data.

you know, that they didn't use, they didn't know, really understand how to use. Digicoach made that easy. And there lot of different ways we have to help you utilize that, to infuse that data and that collaboration amongst the teachers.

with ease that helped them. And that was something, changed everything about the way we operated in our district. was teachers were now talking about how to help kids and what the data was saying because many times as Brandon was saying or Molly was saying, that was such a good point. They thought they were doing something really well and the data was showing.

Absolutely the opposite. So how do we, you know, marry that to make it a good relationship and move forward with suggestions, kudos, observations? That's what Digicoach does. But it keeps it all in one place and makes it easy for administrators and coaches and teachers, peers. We even have districts that have students walk and do walkthroughs and do that and give them feedback. It's all about wanting to have

good feedback and being able to discuss like Molly was saying that everybody has a chance to talk about their strengths and weaknesses or glows and grows or whatever you want to call it and that is Digicoach gives that to you and it gave it to me and it made things it made things easier for me.

Molly Dexter (27:31)

I think also something we do better than anyone else who does the same thing as us, we have built up a library of feedback where things that Cathy, myself, teachers, educators have written and written in a way that is going to help you create that partnership with your teachers, that it comes across as we're here to build you up and kind of help, you know.

We're not all great writers, we're not all great at delivering feedback, so we've done a lot of that work to help make that happen, even providing specific feedback, maybe math or something that you as a principal might not even know enough about to really provide coaching. And we've done that work to be able to provide that. And I think our results have been that teachers really feel that and they've really changed their culture because of those specific pieces that we've been able to provide.

Darrin Peppard (28:21)

Yeah, I love that. You know, certainly, you know, having used, you know, a handful of different walkthrough tools, that kind of thing.

One thing that I really like about the work you guys are doing is that it is something that is more than just, here's just this data collection tool. I mean, even so much so, like you say, Molly, with here's some different ways to give feedback, here's even some suggested phrasing that you can use all the way to, I know you guys can actually customize a template for a school. It's not like you have to.

use this particular professional development in order to use this tool, it's you'll build it to fit whatever it is they're working on.

Kathleen Beckham (29:03)

And Darren, think that another thing that's really important that was important to me and it's important to teachers and coaches and administrators is you're in control of that feedback. I mean, you're in control of the email. Nothing you click inserts something automatically. Nothing that you have decided is inserted without your permission or, you know, that's important to me. I've used things that if I touched it, it was going to insert this thing over here and I didn't want to say that. You know, this, that's the kind

of thing that impressed me the most about Digicoach, even though there's all this support in it, you're still in charge of what you're doing. You're the one that sends that email to the teacher that is your communication with them. And I didn't want somebody else in control of that. I wanted myself in control of that. So I think that's really important and it's different than other places.

Darrin Peppard (29:56)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, folks, you've heard me talk about them before. Now you got a chance to hear directly from them. Certainly, you know, go visit them at digicoach.com. Tell them you heard about them here on Leaning Into Leadership too while you're at it. Maybe I'll just leave one final thought for you guys here. Maybe we'll go around the horn. Just one final, you know, think about this as you are preparing to put your plan together.

I'm not gonna choose who goes first, I'll let you guys decide that, but just share with our listeners that final thought that maybe you have.

Kathleen Beckham (30:29)

I think with the budget cuts that are coming up, that have come up and the things that we're having going on right now with a lot of the uncertainty.

Brandon Mawhorter (30:30)

Welcome to-

Kathleen Beckham (30:38)

that surrounding education at this point, it's more critical that you're out in the classrooms now than ever before supporting teachers. their class size is raising, if there's all kinds, you need to be supporting and giving them support. And this really helps you have a purpose for that support and a great resource to start those communications with all of your staff.

Brandon Mawhorter (31:03)

I'll add on to that as well. As you're looking at what you're spending your money on, as our budgets get tighter, what are you doing to make sure that those things are moving the needle? Are we adopting AI to just say, we expect folks to use it? Or are we adopting AIs in ways that we expect it to improve literacy scores or things to that? in the same thought, regardless of what your expenditures are on, how are you tracking that those things are actually happening? If it's a big focus on

district provided materials. One of our district partners, that was the first look for in their walkthrough tool. They did 15,000 walkthroughs and scored our teachers using the curriculum that's been provided to them. If that's your focus and you wanna make sure those things are happening, let's get in there and have that type of data, have those sessions taking place so that you can ultimately say, let's keep spending money on these things or let's divert funds and put them in other places. And I think.

bringing those types of things into a tool like Digicoach or whatever, whether you're doing a pen and paper or digitizing it, we'd be more than happy to support that process and help folks make sure they're getting value out of everything that they're doing.

Molly Dexter (32:09)

I think just going back to being intentional and really starting small. If you haven't been doing much, don't bite off more than you can chew. Kind of start small and build off of it. I think we see a lot of times that our most successful implementations just started small. They started with a couple things to focus on and grew from there and had success in many ways with teacher buy-in and everything like that.

Brandon Mawhorter (32:34)

I would say be a VIP school leader. Be visible across your campus, be intentional with what you're looking for, and be purposeful with your feedback that you share with teachers.

Darrin Peppard (32:43)

That's outstanding stuff. love that guys. Thank you so much. This has been such a fun conversation I'm glad I got to spend some time with you and share this with all of our listeners and our viewers on YouTube with the leaning into leadership podcast So thank you guys again for joining me here on the show

Brandon Mawhorter (32:58)

Thank you so much for having us.

Kathleen Beckham (32:58)

Thank you, Darren.

All right, once again, cannot thank Cathy and Molly and Brandon enough for coming and having that conversation with us.

My thinking behind that conversation honestly was not just to promote Digicoach, right? They've been a sponsor of the podcast before. Really, I wanted to give you an opportunity to hear about thinking with an outside partner who may or may not work with you, but just how do we frame that and how do we get support from somebody else as we're putting our plan together?

Once again, thanks to my friends at Digicoach. Go check them out, by the way, at digicoach.com. Now, it's time for a pep talk. So today's pep talk, I've been thinking about this one a lot. And this is a piece that not only ties into leadership, but ties into life. And definitely for me, ties into life. I wanna talk about patience. I wanna talk about timing. know, early in my leadership career, I think I struggled

with feeling like I had to do everything right now. If there was a conversation that needed to be had, I was going to charge out the door and go have that conversation. If there was a phone call that needed to be made, if there was a decision that needed to be made, I was going to do it right now. What I learned over time, and I continue to have this reinforced in me, is that patience and timing make all the difference.

I learned over my years as a school leader, especially with those difficult conversations or a conversation you know you need to have, but you just find the right timing for it. Typically, that's when it works best. Patience is something I learned as a leader, that not everything is gonna happen overnight. Not everything is going to come to me immediately. Sometimes I have to just be willing to wait.

I'll be honest with you, even in my business now, I continue to have that reinforced. Patience is so important. Not everybody needs what I do right this moment, but maybe at some point down the road they will. And being patient and continuing to pour into people and continue to support people helps me achieve when the timing is right. So.

Take that for what it's worth today, folks. That's what I've got for you. Thank you so much for joining me here on episode 273 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Make sure you rate, review, and subscribe because that drives that algorithm, gets more people listening and watching the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. As always, get out there, have a road to awesome week.