Ep #175: The Value of Positivity with The Modern Principal

Hello empowered principles. Welcome to episode 174.

Welcome to The Empowered Principal Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck.

Well my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited. I have not one but two very special guests to kick off this month of May. So if you are a #principalofinstagram, you for sure know these two amazing ladies. They are the brains behind the Modern Principal, which was founded with the mission to help fellow leaders face the real problems in our schools today and to redefine the role of school leadership in our nation’s schools.

So Christy Lamb is an elementary principal in a Pre-K through 5^th grade building with the district’s gifted program. Christy’s passion is education equity. She began working at Teach for America in Huston, Texas. She served in elementary and middle schools as an ELA teacher, instructional coach, reading specialist, admin intern, assistant principal, and principal. So she’s been on all the seats of the bus.

Karen Hile is an elementary principal building in a Pre-K through 4 building with the district’s behavior program and one of the district’s life skills classroom. After teaching in both the Kansas City School District and a district nearby, she felt ready to expand her impact in leadership roles. Going from teacher to instructional coach, to admin intern to principal in urban, suburban, and rural schools for the past 17 years. That would have never been possible without the incredible network of educators she learned from and beside.

Karen believes the work to reform our schools is a never ending mission. Boy isn’t that the truth? It’s the most important work that we’re called to do. So very long intro ladies, but I had to sing your praises. Welcome to the podcast.

Christy: Thank you.

Karen: Hi thank you. It was so lovely. Thank you.

Angela: Okay. I have to be really honest with the listeners. I have been stalking these ladies on Instagram forever and ever. I love them so much. When they said they were going to do a podcast, I was like this is my in. I’ve got to invite them into my world and let them know what’s up over here. And learn more about them. So this is our first time meeting face to face.

So ladies, I just wanted people to know how we connected, which was Instagram. So principals out there, if you’re not on social media or if you’re adverse to it, I just want to say. You can use social media to your benefit. It doesn’t have to be a time consuming all encompassing thing. You really can just be on there and connect with people who are like minded and who are in the same industry and find ways to feel more supported as a school leader. Because it can be isolating.

So Karen and Christy. Tell us about how you started up Instagram. Like just tell your leadership story, your journey, and how Instagram became kind of your thing and how you started Modern Principal.

Karen: I will say before we start. This is episode 100 something for you, right?

Angela: 175.

Karen: That’s really exciting because we’re on episode eight of our podcast. So it’s nice to know we can get there some day.

Angela: You’ll get there. Yeah, you’ll get there. It’s like hard in the beginning because there’s so much effort required on your brain. Then you just get in this role. Now it’s like I have so many ideas I can’t keep up with myself. And my word of the year is connection. So I’ve been really pushing myself to reach out. Because with COVID it’s wow, isolating, right?

Christy: Yeah. We worked together at a building where I was a new instructional coach. Karen as a new admin intern, and our principal was also a first year principal. So it was just a very unique situation with an entirely brand new essentially leadership team. So I think that we maybe got closer than we would have typically in those roles had it been different circumstances. So we maintained our friendship even after that position.

Actually my husband ended up babysitting Karen’s daughter during the day. He is a stay at home dad, and they needed childcare. Yeah. So our families merged. Over dinner one night I had already been thinking about I just didn’t see any other principals that I felt like looked like me or cared about some of the same things that I cared about.

Karen: Yes, right.

Christy: On social media. I think that sometimes in our heads the vision of what a principal looks like might still be an old man. Especially for people who are not in schools who don’t have maybe children in schools or who are not teachers. So I just felt like I wanted to connect with other women leaders, young women leaders. And I didn’t want to do it by myself.

Angela: Yeah, of course not. That’s why you’re reaching out, right?

Christy: Yeah. So I talked Karen into doing it with me. It was great.

Angela: That is so fun.

Christy: Yeah. We didn’t know the power of Instagram. Both of us had done Twitter a little bit. There’s a lot of educators on Twitter. That force is strong. There’s a really unique…

Angela: Vibe.

Karen: Group of us on Instagram, I think. Are searching for something authentic and real and gritty about our work. It’s nice. We’ve also been able to learn from so many different people with different backgrounds, with different life experiences. It’s been really cool. It’s been a great learning experience for us too.

Angela: Yes. That is one of the things that really drew me into you is just redefining this role. Because if you watch movies or TV, anything school related, the teachers are curmudgeons. The principal’s certainly like ancient and curmudgeon. It’s such a funny personification of the position.

I remember when I got hired. I was in my mid to late 30s. People were like, “You’re too young to be a principal.” I was by far the youngest in my district. I think I was 37. They were all much older than me. Then my girlfriend Kathy. She’s a couple years older than me. She and I were like, we were holding hands together in it, right.

Then when I moved to another school, they hired a really young—He was male, but they hired a really young principal. I was like the tides are turning. The conversations we’re having and the vibe we’re bringing, the energy we’re bringing to our schools, and the types of things were doing in our school culture was really starting to change. That was where I got that first taste of oh, I don’t have to become one of those kind of principals, right.

Karen: Just thinking about how the role is different than how the public perceives. I’ve told this story a few different times, but I had to get my life insurance updated at one point. If you’ve ever done that, you know you have to do an interview about your life and your safety. Do you skydive? Those sorts of things.

Angela: Right.

Christy: I remember being on the phone and the interviewer said, “Okay. So what’s your occupation?” I said I’m a school principal. She said, “Oh okay. So you probably do mostly deskwork, right?” I just like laughed in her face. I said no. It’s a pretty physical position actually.

Angela: I’ve been to the ER on more than one occasion in that job.

Karen: Right. You know and also like getting our position took a lot of work. I think sometimes that’s not conveyed in the media either. My husband and I were watching New Girl, which was a really funny show. The main character Zooey Deschanel, is that her name?

Angela: Yeah, that’s her.

Karen: She fell into an assistant principal role. Like the guy quit and they were like, “Hey, you’re a substitute teacher. You seem nice. You’d be the assistant principal.”

Angela: Right.

Karen: So like. It’s really hard to move from teacher to principal. So we also want to support leaders that are thinking about that that might feel like I’m too young or I don’t have enough experience. I haven’t hit year 15 in my career. I can’t do that. Like just empower them like there’s nothing about years that makes you a great principal or not. We do both have to be a good instructor and know what good instruction looks like, but we don’t think that’s defined by a number of years.

Angela: Exactly. No, I do totally agree with you. I think that one of the things that I love seeing is younger and younger people being exposed to the role. It isn’t the number of years. In my experience, it’s more about your self-concept of what you’re capable of doing. Because it is a massive jump.

When you think about brand new teachers, right, they are afraid to death when they first step foot in that classroom. It takes that time and experience to believe that you’re capable. Then that big jump happens again. Like I see you guys were instructional coaches. Were both of you instructional coaches?

Christy: Yes.

Karen: Yes.

Angela: That seems to be like a steppingstone because I was too. That’s where you get the flavor of like oh. I could possibly do that one day. That’s where your belief system grows. It’s like wait. Maybe this is available to me. Then it’s a matter of how quickly you believe that you’re capable of taking on the role. It’s not easy.

I think this is the other thing people think is that we sit in our office and suspend kids all day. I don’t know what people think, but it kind of has that feeling of like the principal’s in the office all day disciplining kids, or I don’t know paperwork. That is the opposite of what at least my experience was.

Christy: Yes. The paperwork is all after hours.

Angela: Right. It’s like grading, right. It happens after the school day, right. So if there’s anybody. I know we have a lot of aspiring principals who listen to this podcast. So tell them your journey and what made you decide to get into school leadership.

I know on Instagram it can look like it’s very easy and simple and polished and pulled together, but we know that’s not always the case, right. Actually it’s rarely the case. So how do you keep your life feeling like positive and aligned to who you are as leaders? Just tell the listeners. I want them to really understand what your thoughts are. Like what you think about the job, what you think about yourself, and how you show up and how that impacts your energy.

Karen: Yeah. We’ll tell about our journey, but before we do that, it’s funny. So a lot of times I’ll load our posts like a week ahead on Instagram. So there was one week that I loaded everyday on Sunday. I was feeling super positive on Sunday. Like I was like okay, this week’s going to be great. So every post was about your positive mindset and you make your own weather and oh my gosh, cheers. Then like day two of the week I was texting Christy like, we’re both texting each other like, “I feel dead inside.” And our posts were like, “Hey sunshine life is great.”

We even had to reference that in our stories. Of like, “Hey guys. Yes, we posted this. This is where we want it to get to, but the real is sometimes you just don’t want to go to work the next day and that’s real too.”

Angela: Yes.

Christy: We struggle with sharing the reality of the job while also maintaining the dignity of all of our staff and students and families. Because obviously some of the hardest stuff we can’t go into detail on a public forum.

Angela: No.

Karen: Yeah. We also don’t want to make light of some of the hard things that our staff or students are going through. We would never present them in that way. But we also want to make sure that when we share some stuff that we have consent from those people to be able to share their experiences and their stories.

Angela: Right.

Karen: So sometimes we don’t get into the micro minutia.

Angela: No you can’t. I mean you’re still in the position whereas I’m like out. So I speak to it in general, but I will use those examples. You’re in it in real time. So no. That’s totally respectable. You are walking a fine balance in terms of the reality of the job and how to kind of maintain that energy. I call it holding space for people, right. Like when someone at work is having a really hard time, you have to be that person who holds that space for them.

Karen: Yeah.

Angela: I just want you guys to talk. Just tell me all the things.

Christy: Okay. Well we could share a little bit about how we decided to go into this role.

Angela: Yeah.

Christy: You go first. She’s younger than me. So she’s coughing.

Karen: I don’t remember a specific moment of when I decided to be a principal. I was kind of at a turning point in my personal life where I was deciding whether or not I wanted to stay in education as a teacher. I just switched districts. It was a good switch for me, but I just I don’t know. I was at a point where I was like is this where I want to invest the rest of my career? So I decided like I think I do.

I always knew I wanted to be in a profession where I’m helping people. Yeah. Then I stumbled upon like the principal preparation program that was like a cohort where you learned together. I really enjoy programs like that where you can learn from each other’s experiences and listen to each other. I mean, of course, you’re growing from the books and the authors that you’re reading and the research, but I just find a lot of power in growing from other educators. So I started that program. I was like oh. I think this is where I want to go. I like challenges, and this felt like quite a challenge.

Angela: Yes.

Karen: Yeah. So then somewhere along the line I just was like okay. I’m ready to start looking for ways to work with a district. That was the next kind of piece of the puzzle I needed to figure out how to do. So I was lucky enough to have a—We didn’t have assistant principals or interns at the time in my district, but we had coaches. So I was able to get that role. That was amazing. We try to encourage everyone that’s thinking about leadership.

Christy: If you can do an instructional coach position do that.

Karen: If you can do that, yeah. I mean that’s our main job is to be instructional coaches for our teachers.

Angela: Yes.

Karen: Really good practice. Then they opened admin intern roles, and I was lucky to get one of those. That was great.

Angela: That’s really cool. I actually haven’t heard of many districts having an intern. So tell me more about that position. I haven’t heard of that.

Christy: It’s a hard one, at least our experience.

Karen: You get a teacher’s salary.

Angela: Oh that’s fun.

Karen: But you’re doing administrative work. So the only thing that you don’t do is you evaluate staff.

Christy: But there are some districts around us that they do.

Karen: They do, yeah. So it’s mostly behavior, but it was honestly the best preparation to work with students in crisis and to figure out how to guide staff in that planning. It was really good for that.

Christy: I agree. Yeah.

Angela: So kind of an AP ish role, but you’re not getting paid.

Karen: Like our administrator treats us like an assistant principal. The parents do, the staff does. It’s just not by pay.

Angela: Is that like a one year stint or is it just as long as…?

Karen: In this particular district that we were in, you could choose to stay in it as long as you wanted. Obviously, they would want you to apply if you’re interested in becoming a head principal, but yeah.

Angela: I mean that’s a nice opportunity for people to try it out and see is this for me or not.

Karen: Yes, it really is.

Christy: Yeah. If you weren’t totally certified or something, it’s a nice steppingstone to figure it out.

Karen: I think what a lot of districts do is they use their instructional coach position as that kind of taster.

Christy: Yes. But we both believe that on the elementary side at least that student crisis and student behavior. I mean if you can’t get a really good hold on that, it’s very difficult to be an instructional leader. So making sure that you have that experience, especially on the elementary side.

Angela: Definitely. No I spent a great deal of time. Actually that’s really where I started using the coaching tools with kids.

Christy: Yes.

Angela: Because they’re much more receptive than adults, right. They’re like, “Oh, my thoughts create my feelings? Okay. Didn’t know that.” You’re like wow, that was amazing. Yeah, yeah. So it was pretty cool.

Let’s talk about the grit of the job. Because I know principals hear, I even see it in Facebook groups all the time. Like, “Keep your chin up. Tomorrow’s a new day.” The truth behind this work is there can be some soul crushing days, right. Where you question your capacity to get through a crisis or you’re wondering are you cut out to be a leader. You’re doubting yourself because new situations are always coming up. Just when you thought you’ve heard it all, something new comes.

I mean my family and I would sit around the dinner table and everybody would tell about their day. They’re like, “Mom, go last because your stories are always the best.”

Karen: That’s awesome.

Angela: Yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about like what are the challenges that you’re seeing today. In this new like redefining your role as a modern principal and bringing this kind of new energy and flavor to the position. What do you see as the challenges that you’re facing because you’re in it right now?

Christy: We both believe that one of the biggest things that is a challenge for public ed, at least in our area, is funding. While it doesn’t seem like funding would be directly tied to the work that we do every day, we’re just continually asked to do more with less. So previously maybe a principal was literally just sitting in an office doing paperwork.

Now we feel like we are in classrooms or we’re trying to be every single day. We are giving feedback to teachers and monitoring data of every single student in our schools. Either one of us could probably tell you where most of our kids were on reading levels. Then also that student behavior piece and helping them to build skills.

So I think that we just get stretched really thin. Neither one of us has assistant principals. So I think that it’s just a really, really big job. Because we haven’t even mentioned all of the buildings and grounds and facilities pieces. Evaluations, classified staff, nutrition services.

Angela: Right.

Karen:  Yeah. Like in the private sector, most of our roles would be handled by seven, eight, nine positions. You know there would be a CFO, a CEO, HR. Like all of those things would be handled. I think one of the biggest challenges that makes us feel drained is kind of summing up what Christy said. I think we’re constantly in a tug of war with ourselves of like there’s really high accountability from the state, from our district, from our communities.

Christy: And ourselves.

Karen: And ourselves.

Angela: Of course.

Karen: And sometimes that looks like data, which can feel like we’re reducing kids to numbers. So then we have this tug of war of creating a culture where kids feel like they belong, that they can learn at their own pace, that adults feel like they have the freedom to make the choices. We respect the intelligence that the adults bring to the table.

So I think that both of us are constantly in that tug of war of like are there so many behaviors in elementary because we’re asking these kids to move too fast? How do we slow it down? If we bring in more play, which both of us are trying to do. So then what does that mean for are they going to hit the benchmark?

So it’s just that philosophical drain, I think, is the work that people don’t really talk about how draining it is because you’re just constantly second guessing the path your building’s on. Are you doing best for adults and kids? Yeah. Just that part is really challenging.

Angela: I actually love that you just brought this up because I’ve not heard somebody describe it this way before, but that’s exactly I think what’s happening. We know in our hearts what we would want to do with our kids or what some kids need. Yet the system isn’t designed to serve in that way. So there’s like this reality of the system and the knowingness of what we as just humans and people, adults like want to do for kids. That equilibrium is happening in our brains every day.

Karen: Yes, that’s exactly it. The system’s getting the results it’s intended to get, but we don’t like those results. So we’re trying to work really hard to break the system, but we don’t have that power at a building level. At a district level to be honest.

Angela: Right, exactly. So let’s do this. If you could wave a magic wand. Like if nothing were an obstacle, what would you guys want to do for your school? I mean you can’t do it all, but really truly. If someone gave you a wand and said, “This is how I want my school to be, or this is how I want education to look like.” What would it look like for you guys?

Karen: Well, I know I’ve been living a lot in the idea of grade, like not grades like A, B, C, D. But like first grade, second grade seem like kind of a really asinine way of moving kids along and not really supported by their developmental timelines. So I would love some fluidity within my building to let kids move up and down and around with different staff, different adults. I don’t know how we could ever do that, but that’s where I’ve been dreaming lately.

COVID’s really brought that to the forefront because we’ve reached the end of this year, and a lot of my first graders need like five more months. It feels really unfair that I’m not able to give that to them just because they turn seven. So that’s kind of where I’ve been living right now.

Angela: I think about that all the time. Like why do we have grade levels? We’re spending so much energy differentiating within our classrooms, within our grade level. I’ve even had kids move like up for math or down for reading or whatever. Why are we creating a system that isn’t working for kids? It actually isn’t even working for the adults.

Christy: Right.

Angela: Like who is this working for? Curriculum companies, testing companies.

Christy: Yes.

Angela: Kind of people outside of the work.

Karen: Yeah. What about you?

Christy: I think the first thing for me would be on the staff side. Like how can we get more adults in our buildings to give more attention to students for whatever that is. If they do need more reading, can we have more reading specialists or a math specialist. Or even sometimes kids just need general attention to have somebody sitting by them and coaching and saying, “You are on the right track.”

I know that there is research that people bring up that class size doesn’t really matter in terms of student achievement.  But what I do think that class size matters is how well you’re able to get to know those kids, how special they feel in your classroom. I think the level of control you have to have. Because when you have a smaller class size, you don’t have to be a drill sergeant with every procedure. Because when you’re shoving 30 kids into a class, everyone does have to be doing exactly what you say when you say it.

Angela: Right.

Christy: Otherwise it becomes chaos. But if you have 12 kids in a classroom and they’re talking and whispering, it doesn’t feel as chaotic.

Angela: Right. No I love that. I love that so much.

Karen: We’ve been able to see that in the pandemic as well that the class size isn’t it. It also helps teachers feel effective. I think we’re at a phase in education where teacher efficacy is at an all time low. They’re doing stuff they’ve always done and it’s not giving the same results. That’s something that we both work really hard to build up in our staff is helping them find the impact that they have and connect the dots between their actions and the impact how we’re seeing.

That’s something I’ve noted in the past three to four years. My veteran teachers have even doubted a lot of their efficacy and their ability to bring change in kids. That’s hard. Class sizes help with that too a lot.

Angela: Definitely. Because, you know, at least in the things that I teach, I teach that our thoughts create our emotions. Our emotions impact we approach or act, and then those are the results we created. Education is the evolution of humans, right. We’re here to inspire them into actions that evolve their wellbeing. Teachers were able to do that to a certain efficacy level for a period of time.

COVID really did unveil what wasn’t working. People are like, “I just want to go back to normal.” It’s like but people, that also wasn’t working for everybody, right. So now I feel like we have an invitation and an opportunity to really have these conversations, which will include some discomfort. Because the old way might have been working in some ways but not in all ways for adults and for kids.

Karen: Absolutely. Yeah. We agree with that completely. Yeah.

Angela: So it’s a matter of having the courage and kind of the culture and the space to bring up the topic. To allow that conversation to happen, right. I also think back to what you said about the site leader. This is where The Empowered Principal came to be. I know I felt very disempowered a lot of items. It’s like I’m supposed to be running this school, but I don’t have a lot of control over what happens, right? So I had to look at what control do I have.

Karen: Yes.

Angela: A lot of it just came down to conversation and exposing our brains to new ideas, new thoughts, new ways of being. Not that I’m telling you to change, but I want you to explore what’s working and what’s not and what you think could change. So how do you guys have these conversations with your staff? And balancing just like the value of being positive and open and exploring and evolving and also understanding that kind of clutch of the reality of the system.

Christy: One thing we both do well is to use our staff effectively and their knowledge and their gifts. At least we try to really hard. We both have task forces and leadership teams. I know for me personally and I’m sure Karen too. A lot of the decisions we make in our building are actually more bottom up than top down.

So I think just to go back to your point of how do you balance that system. And then also the hope and positivity is hopefully creating the idea of what could be. What could our building be? Always moving towards that and saying, “Here’s what we do have control over. What can we do as a team and as a school community to make that the best it can be given the confines?”

So I think we’re both realistic leaders, but also hopefully still visionary and inspiring and knowing that just because it’s currently what it is doesn’t mean it’s what it always has to be.

Karen: Yeah. I think part of how we’ve redefined the role as principal as well is that we have never tried to give off that impression that we’re the smartest person in the room or that we have all the answers. It’s been really important as we make relationships with staff to be really humble, to listen more than we talk. That’s hard for me, but I work on it.

Angela: We’re teachers. It’s hard for all of us, right?

Karen: Yes, yes. But to also like really model that culture of risk taking. Like that’s more than just, like you can’t just say it. It has to be embedded in your actions. You have to own mistakes in front of your staff.

Angela: Yes.

Christy: Oh yeah. I mean even like this year with our scheduling with COVID was so different. I had to have a whole new building schedule in November, which I’ve never had to totally undo a master schedule before.

Angela: Right.

Christy: I’m just like well guys I tried, and it didn’t work.

Karen: Yep.

Angela: Yep.

Karen: Like I just had a really great talk with my leadership team. I was like you know I hadn’t really put it into words until we were talking about it. When you’re a first or second year teacher, you always feel like, “Eh I let those kids down.” You know you have those moments.

Angela: Yes.

Karen: But they also move on and you don’t see them every day. This is my eighth year in the building, going on my eighth year. I still see them every day.

Angela: Yes.

Karen: I was like you know all my mistakes in year one, two, three, and four. The vision I had and how it never came to be. Remember when we were going to do that and that never got off the ground? So I think it’s being really honest with your team. Like yeah, that’s part of life. Like we tried something, it didn’t work. Or I thought of something and I knew we couldn’t bring it up. I think you just have to not take yourself too seriously.

Angela: Yes, so true.

Christy: I had a veteran teacher retire at the end of last year. She was known for being very direct. When she left on the last day of school, she was one of the last to leave because she had so much more to pack up than everybody else. She goes, “Christy, you got better every single year.”

Angela: Highest compliment, right?

Christy: I mean that’s what we want for our leaders. I can’t imagine being like, “Oh I just want to stay the same.” So while that is very direct in that maybe my first year wasn’t as great, I was getting better every year. So I think just being open and humble about that is that truly we are all just trying to get better every year. I didn’t come in as an expert principal. I’m still not an expert principal. Every year brings new challenges and experiences.

Karen: I think a lot of it too with us with our staff is just having these really rich conversations with them without an end goal in mind. Like the other day I just dialogued with a teacher for an hour and a half about reading. What she was seeing with phonics and our program, what she liked, what she didn’t, where she’s stuck, where I think we’re stuck. It was just really nice because you could tell that neither one of us knew the right answer. We were just living in the conversation of pedagogy and instruction. It was just really…

Christy: Shoptalk.

Karen: It was shoptalk. Like your teachers need to have that with you so they can dream, and they can have philosophies and talk stuff out. That’s part of the culture you have to embed.

Angela: Yes. That is so important because what you grapple with as a principal, that reality versus vision, so do teachers, right. So giving them that place to have those conversations to just, that’s how it pushes the possibility. Like I think about with my clients. Like I push their brain to the point of possibility. Like think about what’s possible to the point where your brain starts to resist, right?

When you can have those conversations, it kind of stretches and expands what you believe is actually possible to do for kids or with teachers. I love that you talk about valuing that time that it takes to push those boundaries for teachers because that’s where new solutions come up, right?

Christy: Yeah.

Angela: That 90 minute investment of time that you made let that teacher expand and think of solutions that could work for her and her students or him and his students.

Karen: Yeah and feel really empowered to do so. To like lead that conversation and feel really like okay. We’re moving in the right direction. Like we’re moving in the right direction. Like that’s really great.

Christy: We changed our approach to professional development. Before I became an administrator, I thought I really wanted to do PD and still really enjoy that side of things. But did not love curriculum work as much. Usually those are tied together. So I always remember when I delivered PD prior to becoming principal, I wanted to make sure that everyone got a quick tip that they could take right back to their classroom that very next day.

My thinking has evolved a little bit. Now I actually told my staff this year. I said no longer will our professional development be a quick tip or teacher proofed. We are going to dive in. And we might actually leave our professional development feeling like we know less than when we started. Because we’re going to be diving into the research and hearing what experts had to say. We’re going to be formulating our own ideas around the evidence. It’s had really good impact and really good conversations in trying to provide the structures for that.

Angela: Oh that’s really good. That’s a really good way to like open up the conversation about professional development and what it is and what it isn’t, and why we’re doing it in the first place. Because it is a huge investment of time and mental energy, right. People want that closure. They want that, “I walked away and now I know what I’m doing.” Then you try it for a couple days and then you go back to your old habits because it is short lived. Oh, that’s really good.

Some principals out there, listen up. If you’re doing PDs that are tip of the day, you might want to consider digging in a little bit deeper. I remember one of my professors I loved the most. She said, “I would rather you go a mile deep than a mile wide with your kids.” That really stuck with me. That’s what you’re saying basically. Let’s go a mile deep into one thing versus trying to do everything well across the board.

Karen: Mm-hmm. I think staff appreciate that more. It was not what my plan was, but because of COVID I just realized teachers were pretty saturated already with the stress of teaching in a pandemic. So I had a lot more on my professional development goal list. We only ended up doing one focus all year. Every teacher said 100% they liked it better than any other year.

Angela: Oh that’s good.

Karen: Like lesson learned.

Angela: Oh yes. That’s another thing where I think when principals are willing to fail. Give themselves permission to try and fail something and then be open about that, teachers will start to do the same. Then kids will start to do the same. I think some of the reasons we have behavior problems might be we’re not allowed to fail right? This not allowed to fail mentality or that failure is the worst thing that can happen versus whoops. Tried that approach for four years. That didn’t work.

Christy: Right. Being okay with that four years and giving yourself grace and forgiving yourself.

Angela: What did we learn in those four years? Like something came out of those four years, right. That’s okay. Like I tell my clients the pile of no’s is always going to be bigger than the pile of yesses.

Christy: Good way of saying it.

Karen: That’s really good.

Angela: So you guys started a new podcast.

Karen: We did.

Angela: Tell us all of the goodness. What’s going on?

Christy: It’s a work in progress.

Karen: Yes.

Angela: That’s okay.

Karen: Episode one and two maybe didn’t have the structure. My lovely husband gave me some feedback.

Christy: Our husbands are very nicely critical.

Karen: Mine will never do it again because now he’s scared. So we decided we were going to tackle real scenarios from people and approach it from the lens of like what does our gut response tell us we would do? Then what does the research say to do?

Angela: That’s fun.

Christy: Then also hopefully creating systems that allow both of those things to exist. We are both really passionate about systems. That you can have the best of intentions, but if you don’t put a plan in place to make it recurring and consistent then usually your best laid plans don’t happen.

Karen: Yeah, they don’t happen.

Angela: Yeah exactly. That’s the fun and the hard part of this job, right, is that really is the balance. When you get too sucked in is when you get overwhelmed and exhausted, and you overwork. You just get caught in that overwhelm cycle. You have to know to pull yourself out to laugh at the craziness of this job, right?

Christy: Yes.

Karen: We both try to have different things. My counselor and I have like a running list of the most random things we’ve ever said that the other one has overheard. Because if you work with kids, you know you’re going to hear things like, “We don’t eat our shoes.” Or.

Angela: We don’t go potty on the floor.

Karen: Yep, yep.

Angela: And number two.

Karen: Yep. Sometimes she’ll just send me a little one of our best quotes, and that’s a way to get through the day.

Angela: Yes.

Karen: We both talk about like you have to know. When you’re caught up in the middle of the day, you have to know what you need. Sometimes I do need to shut my door and be alone and maybe cry for a hot minute.

Angela: Yep.

Karen: Sometimes I do need to just go into like some of my favorite classroom spaces. There’s just some classrooms that feel like a nice hug. I just want to go in there or be with a student. You just have to give yourself the permission to do what you need in that moment mentally.

Angela: You know that is such a good tip. That really is a good tip because I think that the thought principals have, especially new ones, is that they’ve got to be on their game at all times. There’s this whole idea. For me it was like, “Oh I have to grow up now. Things are serious now that I’m a leader. I’ve got to put on my big girl pants and be serious all the time and very professional.”

I was like I’m a bigger mess than I was when I was teaching. Like I had it pulled together. Like what’s happening right now? I was crying all the time. I couldn’t keep up. Like oh gosh, right. Your mess is your message.

Christy: Yes. I had the exact same experience. I think I felt the same way. That I always had to project the calm, the confidence. Not that I don’t still try to do that obviously, but never let myself break in front of others. I think my staff would hopefully tell you too that they’ve seen a progression in letting the real me out over the course of my tenure in this building. The more me I shared, the happier I became. The happier the staff became. So I 100% agree with you.

Karen: We both believe in setting the tone for our building. That doesn’t always mean positivity. We’re really like aware of the toxic positivity conversation going around. I think that both of us try really hard not to feed into that culture for our staff. Like if someone is feeling frustrated, we want them to be able to talk to us about it obviously in a professional way. If someone is feeling overwhelmed with the job, we don’t want to say that you can’t show that side of you when you’re at work. I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Christy: Yeah.

Angela: Yeah. No, that’s exactly what I wanted to get to. Was there is that positivity where you’re faking it versus authentic positivity. Which is actually like feeling your emotions, all of them, the good, bad, and the ugly ones in order to clear your brain of space to say like okay. Now back to what can I focus on? What do I have control over? How do I want to experience this? What is going positively, right? Positively and the work.

We can’t be positive unless we process the negative emotions or what we label as negative emotion, right. So I love that you really highlighted the difference. Because faking it ‘till you make it, I think, is the worst advice any new principal could ever get ever.

Karen: Yeah. I think if you’re doing the job right, which is kind of redefining the role also. We both believe in transformational leadership. That’s a really fancy word, but at the core of that is its relationships and it’s having those real relationships with people. So in the course of our year, we know over 1,000 people. So some of those people will have real horrible life things happen to them. We care about them.

Like I’ve worked with this staff for seven years. I love them like my family at this point because of what they do for our kids every day. So when they’re going through a hard time, I feel it for them too. I need to allow myself to feel it. My staff needs to know that I have those emotions and it’s okay to have them. My staff needs to see me having empathy for others and my students need to see that. You have to let yourself be human in this role.

Angela: Yes, yes. Yeah, it’s sad because we were taught not to be.

Karen: Yeah.

Christy: Yeah.

Angela: That’s, I think, what you guys are—Like that’s what I love about your work is that you’re taking that back and saying no. Like yes, we have fun. We play. We make lightheartedness of this work because we’re working with kids for crying out loud, but we’re also in the trenches of how do we help people through the inevitable? Which is processing trauma, going through hardships. Just being around other people who are emotional.

So something I learned about being a principal is that there’s your emotions, there’s other people’s emotions, then you have emotions and reactions to other people’s emotions. When somebody is having an intense reaction like a parent or a student or even a staff member, you’re having a reaction to that. But you have to learn the skill and art of kind of navigating your emotions, their emotions in that moment. Then being able to go off and process your own, which is I need 15 minutes to close the door and be like ah.

Christy: You’re so right in redefining the role. I think a lot of people would be surprised at how close an elementary building principal to kids and families. One of my favorite stories about Karen is that she had a family who was going through a really difficult time. Totally unrelated to school. The first person that the mom called was Karen. She needed to know, “What’s my next step?” She called her, her kid’s principal.

Like I think that that just shows. Like we are on the phone with families. We sometimes show up at their house when they need it. Not every single family do we become a part of it, but there are a lot of families that we become a part of it. We do have that constant communication back and forth. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that.

Karen: Yeah, yeah. I mean that’s yet another role. I mean my school also experienced part of one of the towns experienced a flood. Red Cross came into town. My families were not very comfortable going to Red Cross. So they were coming to me, and I would help them figure out how to do that. As a 37 year old woman, I don’t know how Red Cross works. That’s not my life experience.

Angela: Right.

Karen: But I knew that my community needed me to figure that out for them because they were going through the trauma of a flood. They needed someone to use their frontal lobe for them. I was like all right. You trust me. I’ll do it. So that is part of what we are called to do.

Angela: Yes. That’s another thing COVID has really highlighted for the world, I think, is that schools, especially elementary schools, are such an integral part of our community. It is where a lot of people feel the safest. Like I live in the middle of downtown San Jose, California. People don’t walk over to the police station or the fire station. They want to go to the schools. That’s where they feel safe. That’s where they feel trust.

I think as a school leader, one of the most beautiful emotions you can create in terms of culture is that acceptance, trust, openness, welcoming, non-judgmental, helpful. Like all of that kind of place because families don’t feel like they have another option. With the schools closed this year, obviously I mean I know we’re all dealing with kind of the aftereffects of that experience for some families, for all families. So I love and appreciate that you said it’s so much more than test scores and classroom observations. That the job really is connection and community.

Christy: To go back to your point, that’s how you stay positive even when you’re going through the gritty stuff.

Karen: Yeah.

Angela: Yep. Yep, we full circled that.

Karen: Yeah. Christy and I like to share stories. You know, I like how we both have kind of found that the best thing about our job is that we’re somebody’s person. Like Christy will always tell me about there’s a couple of really funny kids that she’s their person. Just hearing how they’re so excited. Or they don’t even realize that they had a good day, and she has to tell them. Like no, this was a great day.

Angela: Oh my gosh. I miss it so much. Like just talking with you ladies has made me really reappreciate the time that I did have with my families. Of course I love what I do now in supporting school leaders on a more personalized individual basis, but this is why I do the podcast and reaching out to connect with as many educators as possible. Because this is what makes it so fun is the connection.

Doing this job in isolation, if anybody out there is feeling really, really isolated please listen to these podcasts. Follow Karen and Christy. Reach out. I mean I literally just messaged them, and they were so kind as to write back and like we made this happen on a Sunday morning in our finest attire.

Christy: You do look like you’re wearing it.

Karen: You look like a million bucks.

Angela: Like what would the modern principal be wearing today?

Christy: Like you are rocking it and I’m in my discount scrubs over here.

Angela: That’s why I love you ladies. This is the real authenticity happening in this moment. So if listeners want to find out more about you, can you send them in your direction? Where can they go to get more of you?

Christy: We are most active on Instagram @themodernprincipal. We are also on Twitter @modernprincipal, and our website www.themodernprincipal.com.

Karen: All one name. Just search it, you’ll find us.

Angela: That’s right. I had to like look for your actual names. I was just calling you the Modern Principals.

Karen: That works.

Angela: I was like no. They have human names. I have to find out. So then I was like looking on the website. You guys really do exemplify what’s possible in the position, which is why I was so compelled to have you on this podcast. Because a lot of people on this podcast are aspiring leaders, new leaders, or they’re leaders who’ve done it for so long and they’re feeling a little burned out, a little crusty. Like they need a little revival.

So that’s what you provide out in the world. I love it so, so much. Someday I would love to meet you in person and work together in some capacity. I think that would just be a blast. So are there other services? I mean obviously you’re working full time. Are you both mothers?

Karen: Mm-hmm.

Angela: Oh my.

Christy: Both got girls.

Karen: I have one. She has two.

Angela: Nice. So you are doing a lot, but you’re also offering support to school leaders out there. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Karen: Yeah, I mean just reach out. We offer consultations for those people that are looking at moving out of their current role into some school leadership roles. We find that it’s hard to navigate that process. So we offer that. Then we’re working on getting some courses, different things. That’s ever evolving.

Angela: Yeah, that’s so fun.

Christy: I think we’re still in the beginning stages of all of that. So just lots of conversations, but we’re always willing to connect. If they resonate with the things that we do, we’re always willing to figure out a way to partner.

Angela: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I love you. I am thrilled to have seen you face to face. I’m glad this finally worked out. And look forward to just continuing to follow you and watch you grow and to stay connected really truly. Because I think this work, I feel more encouraged when I see people out there doing the work in real time. Because that reminds me that the work I’m doing really does matter in supporting school leaders out there. So thank you ladies so much for being on the show.

Christy: It was a pleasure.

Angela: Yes. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.

Christy: Bye.

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