Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 364. 

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, hello, my empowered principals. Welcome to December, the month of head colds. I have a little bit of congestion. So I apologize for the change in voice on this episode, but the show must go on. I’m feeling better than I sound. I’m feeling much better than I did a while back, but this podcast feels very important to share with you because I’m speaking to all of you who are feeling overwhelmed. I want to offer some thoughts, some insights into silencing that overwhelm or at least turning down its volume. 

So this year has been emotionally intense. It’s been emotionally intense for a lot of reasons and with that emotional tension and that emotional intensity can come fatigue and overwhelm. For many principals, people have been reaching out to me in droves asking for help, for guidance, for support. They are eager to jump in EPC because they are looking to feel grounded. They want to silence the overwhelm. 

I have been working in EPC to help school leaders regulate their nervous systems, calm down the anxiety and the stress and the worry and the overwhelm and the frustration and the fear of not being good enough, capable enough, competent enough, fast enough, smart enough, decisive enough, just overriding insufficiency.

I have a principal who’s not a brand new principal. She’s been in the position for a few years and she has some experience under her belt, but she’s feeling more overwhelmed than ever. When you’re feeling that intensity of overwhelm emotionally, when it feels like everything’s coming at you at once, you can’t seem to get control of your time or your schedule, or it feels too difficult to prioritize. 

On top of it, you have people’s judgments, criticisms, accusations, requests, demands, their unhappy responses, thinking you should be doing things differently than you should be. When you have tasks on top of people’s opinions, on top of emergencies, fires, interruptions, behaviors, it can feel like there’s no going back. There’s no way to reconcile this and to get back on track. Okay.

When you’re feeling this way, the first thing you need to do is stop. It’s very counterintuitive, but the goal is not to go faster or schedule more or work longer hours. The goal is to stop yourself for a minute and take stock. You’re not going to feel like doing this because it feels like you’re revving at the start line. Why can’t I go just do the things and get them done so I can feel better? 

But if you take a stop and you pause and you look at that approach, let’s just think this through. You’ve been working harder and harder. People are asking for more and more. The demands are increasing. The timelines are coming. Observations aren’t quite getting done. People are not, you know, maybe behaving in the way that you want them to. Teachers aren’t teaching in the way that you want them to. Students are not engaging the way you want them to, or you have parents or you have IEP meetings that are not getting scheduled in the right time. 

When all of these things are coming at you at rapid fire, your brain eventually is going to want to shut down. It’s the overwhelm cycle in motion. You’re going to try and keep up and eventually you’re going to run out of steam, and you’ll want to shut down. It’s almost like you, you just want to close everything off. You just want to jump in your car and drive away. Have you ever felt that way? I have sat in my car a couple of times pondering if I should come back or not. 

First of all, it’s normal. The overwhelm is normal because there is too much to do in the amount of time you’re provided. If you were to fulfill every request, every ask, every demand, attend every single meeting, connect with every single human, connect with every single student, every parent, be in tune with the district office. 

If you were to literally do all of it per everybody’s opinion, yeah, there would be too much to do and not enough time. So if that’s a given, trying to outrun the overwhelm is what’s creating more overwhelm. But you go past the point of overwhelm into either frustration, discouragement, or complete shutdown, complete apathy. 

When the overwhelm is so intense that you feel like running, that is the time when the most important meeting on your calendar is a meeting with yourself to sit down and take a breath, take a few of them, and to pause your body long enough to start to regulate your nervous system, your emotional intensity, all of that overwhelm, the panic, the fear, the overwhelm, the doubt, the frustration, that all combined into one big intense emotion. It needs you to pay attention. It’s there for a reason. It is inviting you into awareness and reflection. 

So when the emotions get big, when overwhelm gets to be so much that the only solution feels like quit, run away, you are definitely in fight or flight, my friend. Sit down, ground your feet, take a breath and notice that if you actually sit in your office with the door closed and you take a couple of deep breaths, you’re actually safe physically. You’re actually safe mentally. You’re actually safe emotionally. 

It might not feel safe, but you can regulate yourself just like we ask kids to do. We ask them to learn how to emotionally regulate themselves. This is what we’re doing when we are in extreme overwhelm. We’re taking the breath. We’re going to pause for a moment. That pause is the magic wand to turning down the volume of overwhelm. It’s like saying oh, okay, I need a minute. Let me breathe. Let me slow down my body, my heart rate, my blood pressure, my nervous system.

Let’s say okay, I’m feeling overwhelmed. My mind is racing. My heart is beating fast. There’s a lot of energy in my body. When I’m overwhelmed, I know that overwhelm is simply a message to get my attention, to get me to slow down and stop and regroup and recalibrate so I can reboot and get back to business doing what I was meant to do. 

When overwhelm is overwhelming you, the quickest solution is not to run away from it, not to do more, take more action. The fastest response to turn down the volume is to listen to it, to let it guide you, to let it inform you. There is a reason that you’re overwhelmed every single time.

You want to identify why you’re overwhelmed. That is how you can untangle being overwhelmed. One thing I’ve noticed a lot of times when my clients will slow themselves down after they’ve done all of the venting and sharing as to all the reasons why they’re overwhelmed and the reasons why they can’t get out of overwhelm. One thing they notice is that they have dropped the reins of time mastery, of planning mastery, of balance mastery. 

They’ve just forgotten that they’re the ones in control of their time, of their planning to create balance, that they are the masters of their time balance and planning.

Now listening to this podcast right now, you’re like easier said than done. To that I say, of course, if it were easier done than said, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I probably wouldn’t be a coach. But the truth is that when we’re overwhelmed and overwhelmed doesn’t get acknowledged or validated or have a voice to share with you the insight and wisdom and wonderings that it has for you, and you rush away from it.

You’re like I’m overwhelmed. I’ve got to go do more. It’s a way of avoiding the emotion versus just sitting with it. Wow, I’m really overwhelmed right now. I’m spinning. I feel like I’m whack-a-moling. I feel like I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling incompetent. I don’t feel like I’m a good principal. See how your identity has shifted because of the overwhelm? How your actions are impacted because of the overwhelm. 

If you ask the overwhelm, what insight, what wisdom do you have for me? What knowledge do you have for me? It will tell you. It’s like, well, I’m overwhelmed because we didn’t plan for this, or there’s not a system for that. Or I didn’t schedule this or I’ve been overworking to the point of exhaustion. I can’t even think straight. Overwhelm will have some insight for you. 

That’s why it’s here. It’s knocking on your door to let you know it’s here. If you invite it in and listen, it immediately turns the volume down. Then when you take in that wisdom and you’re willing to use that wisdom and apply it to, Oh, I haven’t been planning very well. Why haven’t I been planning very well? Well, it’s because I’m whack-a-moling all day. I’m putting out fires, and I’m thinking the reasons, the excuses that my brain is offering is there’s no one else to do it. I help kids co-regulate faster and better. Teachers can’t do it. They’re overwhelmed. I feel bad for them. 

Your brain’s going to offer you all kinds of reasons that feel very valid. You have to look at them with a critical eye. Is it absolutely true there’s no one else, or do we just not plan for this or train for this? Then you’ll say well, there’s not time for that. You might feel like there’s not time to prepare somebody to delegate a task to, but what is it costing you in the end? Which is more time effective in the long run? Training somebody to support you or you doing it yourself for the rest of time. 

That goes from everything from newsletters, staff bulletins to cleaning the staff room. There’s so many things that we get our fingers in. Event planning is a big one, right? We think we need to be the person that plans all the events. We think we need to be the only person who can do the master schedule or facilitate every single meeting or write the bulletins or write the newsletter to the parents. There’s so many things that we actually think we need to do that we don’t and they feel very true.

So we increase our own overwhelm when we’re not willing to sit down and say how am I actually spending my time and what is the return on investment of that time? 

Back to the client I was working with. Her brain was being very mean to her saying she’s not doing anything right. She can’t keep up. Nobody’s happy. Nobody likes what I’m doing. Everybody has this opinion of me that I’m dropping the ball and I’m not doing this. I’m very scattered.

Why that felt so painful is a part of her brain that actually believed it. That she is dropping balls and she is scattered and she’s overworking at the cost of her friends and family and personal time, but not feeling like she’s creating the desired results she wants. Then you get into an argument with yourself. 

So now there’s a peanut gallery in your brain judging and criticizing every little thing you do, whether you do it right or whether you don’t. At the same time, the other half of your brain is defending yourself from the peanut gallery. So now you have an internal conversation going on that doesn’t serve you because half of you is being critical and the other half of you is on the defense and trying to justify your actions when the truth of it is we want to clear both of that. It’s not an all or none game. You’re not doing it all right or all wrong. It’s always the land of and. 

So being able to silence the overwhelm comes from you listening to the overwhelm. I’ll give you a little secret. This is true for every emotion. You feel slowing down, stopping, pausing, listening to it. What does it have to offer you? 

The same is true for people. When people are at you the most, when they’re coming at you sideways, the hardest listen to them, acknowledge them. Even if you don’t like what they’re saying, even if what they’re saying is not true, listen, because that person is creating overwhelm for you. The best way to turn down the overwhelm is to listen. 

Once you listen, the insights will come. I can show you how to do this. I know this is a practice nobody teaches you, which is what I teach in EPC. So I can teach you how to do this. But when you listen to your emotions, let them have a voice, validate them, acknowledge them and listen what they have to say. You will be surprised at how knowledgeable you are, how wise you are, how you actually know exactly what to do to turn down the overwhelm, to reduce the overwhelm, to silence it. 

You might not want to do those things and be in resistance to those things, but you know. So you know if you haven’t really been planning, but if you have been planning, then there’s something else. Maybe there’s a system that needs to be smoothed out. Solutions are in the specifics. 

Your brain wants to stay general and ambiguous, and overwhelm is very general and very ambiguous. It’s just everything’s wrong and it’s like Henny Penny and running around calling chaos. But the truth is that when you slow your brain down and you get very specific, what’s working, what’s a little crunchy, and what do I want to adjust so that I feel less overwhelmed? You’ll be shocked to know that you already know the answer, and you already have some solutions. You just might be in resistance to those solutions.

If you’re in resistance to the solutions, that’s where EPC steps in and helps you unblock and remove those resistant obstacles in your mind. Those thought obstacles, the reasons that you think you just can’t, we change that into, I can. We make it from hard to easier. We make it from complicated to simple. That’s the magic of EPC. 

So step one, you have the volume control for overwhelm, and you can turn it down as low as you’d like. It’s all up to you. EPC doors are opening in January. I would love to have you all join us. Join us now as an early bird, get on the wait list because we’re going to be doing the mid-year reboot. We’re going to reboot, recalibrate, get your momentum going for the second half of the school year. Have an amazing week. I’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 362. 

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, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday and happy December. Look at us already in December. My goodness. Time is flying. We’re in the magic of December and all of its festivities and celebrations. It’s such a beautiful time of year. I hope you are enjoying yourself and really allowing yourself the pleasures of this month of December.

I want to talk with you about walkthroughs, teacher walkthroughs, classroom walkthroughs, district walkthroughs. Walkthroughs have been coming up this year. Teachers are highly stressed about walkthroughs. Principals highly stressed about walkthroughs. We’re going to talk about how to create a stress-free walkthrough environment at your school. So let’s talk about it. 

Most teachers get very nervous of walkthroughs. Administrators get anxious about walkthroughs. We get anxious about district administrators coming to our campus. Teachers get very anxious about district administrators walking through their campus. So there’s a lot of unsettledness that comes with walkthroughs. People are unhappy about them. They’re frustrated. They’re fearful. They’re worried. They’re stressing out. They’re freaking out. They’re unsettled. 

When your teachers don’t feel good, when they’re stressed out, you’re stressed out. You don’t want them to feel this way because you know the impact it has on them, the impact it has on the classroom. So you’re frustrated that they’re frustrated, right? You’re feeling uncertain. They’re feeling uncertain. It creates an energy on campus of a lot of stress, a lot of pressure. People aren’t happy about it. They might feel a little disgruntled about the whole thing. 

We’re going to break this down a little bit. So if you think about walkthroughs, let’s talk about why they’re stressful for you. Let’s talk about why they’re stressful for teachers. Then let’s talk about how to create a more stress-free environment and help your teachers feel more confident regarding walkthroughs. 

So we’re going to break down the worry here. When you think about walkthroughs, what exactly are you worried about? Now, everybody’s going to have a different response to that. Are you worried what they’ll see, what they’ll think, what they’ll do, what they’ll say, what they’re going to tell you to fix, who they’re going to tell you to fire? That’s usually what happens for us.

We freak out because we’re like oh my gosh, we’re being vulnerable. We’re being exposed. What are they going to see? What are they going to say? What are they going to do? What are they going to tell us that we have to do or tell teachers they have to do? So we anticipate a negative feedback experience. 

We never really stop to think about oh, they’re going to come in and they’re going to be so enamored and so excited, and they’re going to be so mind blown at how great teachers are. We’re always like what isn’t going to work? What’s going to go wrong? What are they going to see? Just notice that.

The brain defaults to this. It’s normal. Notice it in yourself. What are you thinking is going to happen? What are you anticipating is going to happen because of this walkthrough? How are you feeling about it? Are you worried you’re going to get fired? Are you worried you’re going to get demoted? What is it that you think is going to happen? 

Oftentimes, if you sit yourself down and you ask the question what am I freaking out about here? Or what am I worried about? If you’re honest with yourself, you’re like I don’t feel like I’m going to get fired. I don’t really feel like they’re going to demote me. 

It’s more the fear of feedback. The feedback of something we did or said or decided, something we didn’t do or didn’t say or haven’t decided, something wasn’t right, something wasn’t good enough, something needs to be changed. That’s typically where we fall in the land of I’m worried, I’m stressed, I don’t like this feeling. 

What I find so interesting about feedback, and it’s something I’m exploring at a deeper level because we are in the business of giving one another feedback. We’re giving students feedback. We’re giving and receiving feedback as a principal. We’re giving and receiving feedback to our teachers. There’s such a visceral reaction to feedback.

I think about this, where does this fear of feedback come from? We brace for feedback and we anticipate and expect the worst kind of feedback. Where is this coming from? I can see it. It comes from our childhood, from our parents, from other adults in our lives, mentors, it could be grandparents, aunties, uncles. It could be coaches we’ve had, but it also happens with our teachers.

It stems from our childhood when adults were constantly giving us feedback about what we did right, what we did wrong, what we should be doing, what we shouldn’t be doing. We started interpreting that feedback and creating an identity around it. 

We didn’t discern for ourselves if the feedback was accurate or true for us or aligned. We were just kids. We were just taking it for face value, believing it and creating an identity around who we were as a student, as an athlete, as a musician, as a test taker, as a child of a parent, as a sibling, as a cousin. Like all of these people giving us feedback in our life, we’re bringing it in and it’s molding and it’s evolving our identity because we’re taking it on at face value. 

So we would interpret that feedback and decide what we made it mean about us, about our character, about our intentions, our integrity, whether we are a good kid, a bad kid, whether we are a good student, a bad student, whether we were a good athlete, a not so good athlete, all of that. We make these decisions based on this feedback, okay? 

That happens in childhood because we don’t have the awareness or the tools or the discernment to say hmm, I’m wondering if this feedback is accurate or what else this feedback might mean because when we’re kids, we’re very worried about the consequences of this feedback. That we’re going to be in trouble. There’s going to be a physical consequence. There’s going to be a grounding and something’s going to be taken away from us. We’re going to be deprived of our friends or our phone or TV or our favorite things, maybe a mental consequence, how we think and perceive ourselves. 

We anticipate some kind of consequence from parents, from teachers, from adults that have authority over us in our childhood, and feedback can become very scary. So for the adults who experienced as children feedbacks and consequences that were painful or scary, feedback as an adult can be absolutely terrifying.

Because we’re an adult and we have a little more authority over our lives and a little more agency over there, we’re just going to do anything we can to try and avoid it. As an adult, you get to decide what the feedback means. You get to discern for yourself if the feedback lands for you, if it’s accurate, if it feels true, if it feels aligned for you. 

Feedback at its simplest form is simply an opinion. So your boss gives you feedback, that’s their opinion. When your spouse or partner gives you feedback, opinion. Kids give you feedback, your teachers, your boss, anybody. When anybody gives you feedback, it is their opinion of the situation, their opinion of how something was handled, their opinion of how you handled it or your actions, your words, your decisions, that kind of a thing. 

But it’s really an opinion. It doesn’t make it the law. It doesn’t make it a rule. It doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean it’s true about you. It doesn’t mean anything outside of you other than what you make it mean. I will say this. It’s much easier said than done to separate that out. Because we’re wired for connection and for inclusion. We want to be liked. We want to be a part of the community. We want to feel that people respect us, admire us, and value our contributions. 

But if we do acknowledge that any kind of feedback we receive is an opinion, we can separate it a little bit from ourselves. We don’t have to take it as absolute truth. We can take a moment for ourselves to discern the feedback we’re receiving. 

So I’ve talked about receiving and giving feedback on a different podcast episode. I believe the episode is 255. So listen to that one, and you can dive in on how to give and receive feedback. I think the title of that one is called Coachability, but it’s really on receiving feedback, giving feedback, and how to interpret that feedback and discern for yourself what lands for you, what feels true for you, and other types of feedback that doesn’t. 

So allowing your opinion of the feedback to be taken into consideration as much as you consider their opinion, that’s what I talk about on episode 255. So check that out for more feedback discernment. But what I want to contemplate today is why you don’t like the walkthroughs and how to make them more stress-free for you and then why teachers might not like them. 

So you are going to have thoughts and opinions about the walkthroughs. The district announces, we’re going to do walkthroughs this year, and we’re going to come through and spend five minutes per classroom, and then we’re going to take notes, and then we’re going to debrief with you and debrief with the leadership team, and then you’re going to have to take it back. They’re going to tell you what their process is for the walkthrough. 

You’re going to be like oh, this doesn’t sound fun at all. This makes me nervous. I’m worried what they’ll see, what they’re going to say. They’re going to tell me I’m going to have more work on my plate. They’re going to tell me I have to go fix my people. My people are good. What are my teachers going to think? How are they going to feel? This is going to just cause disruption in the classroom. What a big mess, right? You’re going to have a reaction. 

I want you to notice why. Think about this deeply. When you’re nervous about district administrators coming to your campus, there’s a vulnerability there. There are insecurities that you have as a school leader. Thoughts about you, thoughts about your identity as a leader, thoughts about your school, your thoughts about what’s working, what’s not, and what you make that mean about you as a leader. Your identity is feeling challenged. It’s being questioned. 

Because think about principals who are like, bring it on. I love walkthroughs. This is great. I want the feedback. I’m looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to show off my school. I’m confident. I feel good about this. There are people that have stress-free walkthroughs all the time. 

If you’re stressed out about walkthroughs, it’s an indication that you have some internal work to do, some identity work to do as a principal around your thoughts about yourself, your thoughts about your work. You’re probably really hyper-focused on what isn’t working versus what is, and you’re probably leaning towards the wanting to be perfect, wanting everything to look smooth and perfect and problem-free in your classrooms, problem-free on your campus, right? So, notice this. 

Then I want you to shift gears and look at your teachers. When you see teachers freaking out, it’s the same thing. You’re upset because they’re upset. You want to protect them. You don’t want them to feel bad. Number one, you can’t control their emotions. 

But two, if you think about why teachers would be freaking out about walkthroughs, yes, it might be new to them, and new is hard and different. It feels uncomfortable. That’s one part of it. But if it’s a standard practice and people just don’t like it, the reason they don’t like it is because they’re afraid to be vulnerable. They’re afraid their insecurities will come to the surface or something will go wrong. It’s their identity, their self-efficacy that they’re grappling with. Because there are confident teachers. Anybody can come into the room and they don’t mind at all.

So, we want to identify what’s the difference between principals and teachers who are confident with walkthroughs, who have no stress about them, and teachers and principals who are stressed out about walkthroughs. So, you might not like it for different reasons than your teacher or similar reasons, but typically it comes down to feeling insecure, being afraid, anticipating a negative outcome. 

So, lots of times when we go through the walkthrough experience, we try to dog and pony show, right? We say we don’t want to do that with our teachers and we create safe spaces for them to be authentic, but then district comes in and now that’s not authentic. Okay, what’s going on? 

It’s the same process. Am I going to be judged? Will it be a safe experience? Will I be emotionally safe? Will I be professionally safe? Will I be publicly safe? Am I going to be publicly embarrassed? Are they going to talk about me at the district level, or are they going to move me? Are they going to come in and sick the coach on me and make the coach now work with me for some incompetency that I have? There’s a lot of stress that can be involved there.

But what’s really happening at the end of the day for these teachers, it’s not about the walkthrough. As funny as that sounds, it feels like it’s the walkthrough, but it’s their thoughts about the walkthrough. They’re trying to catch me doing something wrong. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like they have value to offer.

What’s in it for me? Why are we doing this? I don’t understand the purpose. I don’t see the value. What’s in it for us? What’s in it for kids? What’s in it for teachers? Are they just walking around trying to be seen? Is it a political move, right? There are so many thoughts that teachers have. Are they picking on me? Are they trying to come after me? There’s a lot of scarcity and fear.

So what can you do to calm and bring down the stress level? Teachers are worried about themselves at the end of the day. They’re not good enough. They’re not doing enough. They’re not doing it right. They could get it wrong. District leaders are going to come in and tell me I’m not doing it the way they want me to. I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t trust them. All of those thoughts.

They’re making it mean their opinion defines me as a teacher. They define my career. Their opinion is going to determine my experience. These people have power and control over me. They have power and control over my career. 

Do you see where there is no authority, no agency? They feel completely disempowered because they believe that that opinion matters more. That they have control over their career. They have control over the experience. Their opinion determines how I feel and think about myself as a teacher. They’re trying to catch me do something wrong.

What you can do as a principal is to address this, what the walkthroughs mean for the teacher. When somebody walks through your classroom, it doesn’t mean anything about you. If they’re looking for perfection, that’s not the school. You can create safety with your teachers to say look, we don’t have to be nervous about this. Here’s all the things going right. Here’s how you’re amazing. Tap into your confidence. 

Be you. Let them see the reality of the job. If they see it, they see it. Do the best job you can be the best version of you. But worrying is going to make you more nervous, which is going to make you question and doubt yourself, which is going to come across in your teaching when they’re in the room. 

This is a five minute walkthrough. Be yourself those five minutes. Be the confident, brilliant, expert teacher that you are. New teachers listen up. They know you’re brand new. You don’t need to fake it. Be energetic, be happy, be enthusiastic. They’re just looking for will over skill. You can create a mindset with your teachers that takes down the stress that makes it less stressful for the walkthroughs. 

You can take your teachers through this. Imagine what it’s like for a teacher who has no fear of anybody coming into their classroom. They’re confident in who they are and what they’re doing. Even though they have bad days, even though they’ve got a kid who’s going off the rails, they’re confident in themselves. They trust themselves, even on bad days. 

At the end of the day, when you’re doing your best and you’re feeling confident about who you are as a teacher, no one’s firing you. No one’s moving you. They’re coming in to see, and they’re getting a snapshot. 

You can create less stress in the walkthroughs by number one, bringing down your stress level by building your confidence, tapping into your empowerment, and then reassuring your teachers. They’re okay. They’re safe. Be themselves. It’s okay to have people walk through. It isn’t a problem. 

Ask the teachers. If it weren’t a big deal for walkthroughs, then what would you be thinking about yourself? How would you feel? What would you be doing? You’d still be doing your thing. You’d be doing your thing whether people are in there or not. Just do your thing. 

Now, if what you’re doing in your classroom makes you nervous because you don’t feel like you’re honestly living up to your highest standard, it’s an invitation to live to your highest standard. But most teachers aren’t doing that. Most teachers are trying their hardest, and they’re worried it’s not going to be good enough. They’re worried that people are looking for perfection. 

Let’s be honest, there are districts who walk through and they do look for gotchas, and they want to talk behind your back and complain about everything that’s not working. That’s on them. You focus on what is at your sight. Here’s what’s working. Here’s why we’re great. Set the stage. If the district people want to look for the gotchas, they can look for the gotchas. It doesn’t have to mean that it’s true about you. 

They want to nitpick at something? Okay. Let them. Let them be wrong. Let them have their little moment in the sun, and you carry on. If you know you’re doing a good job, it doesn’t matter. If your teachers know they’re doing a good job, the walkthroughs don’t matter. If someone gives you feedback, discern for yourself. Does this land for me?

A lot of times when you get feedback and it kind of hurts, there’s some truth in it. It’s like yeah, I really didn’t plan that lesson very well. I was on my B game today or I haven’t really been differentiating like I know I can, or I know that’s possible, or I haven’t been tapping into my coach. There are some truths that come out in feedback and they’re painful, but we have the opportunity to build up our identity as a teacher and as a school leader.

We can take that feedback and say like, you know what? I want to feel better about this. This doesn’t feel good and I want to make it feel better. So I’m going to lean into this. I’m going to learn how to do this. That’s all it is. If something doesn’t feel good, what would make it feel better? Lean into that. Like we talked about on the episode about pleasure being irresponsible. Lean into the feel-good goal. Let it feel good.

So what do teachers want to feel when administrators walk through? They want to feel confident. They want to feel assured. They want to feel trusting. They want to feel safe. They want to feel aligned. You can help them with that. So what thoughts would your teachers be thinking about themselves, about their teaching capacity, and about feedback?

What would they be thinking if they weren’t afraid of walkthroughs? What would they be thinking about themselves, about the district leadership, about the experience of walkthroughs in general, about the outcomes, about the feedback? What would they be thinking about it? Walk them through the process from being afraid, feeling insecure, into feeling secure. Give them the support they need. Tell them to create safety for them, but walk them through the process of what it would look like to be afraid of the walkthroughs versus confident, or at least certain.

Try that. Let us know how it goes. Would love to see you in EPC. Doors are going to be opening in 2025. Happy December. Enjoy this month, and I will talk with you all next week. Take good care. Bye.

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 360. 

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, hello, empowered principals, welcome to episode 360. Well hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Here we are at 360 episodes of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. What a celebration. What a milestone. Unbelievable to be here with you every week for 360 weeks. It’s amazing, and I do hope that if you’re a listener and you’re a fan of this podcast and this conversation resonates with you, that you share this podcast with colleagues, with your boss, with your district, with anybody that you think will benefit from the work that we’re doing here in the empowered principal world. 

My desire is for everyone in education to feel good about themselves, about the work they’re doing, about the progress that staff and students are making, about the culture of our schools, about the intention behind what we’re really doing here, which is developing humans, developing teachers, developing ourselves. 

Learning doesn’t stop when you graduate college or get your master’s or even your PhD. We’re on the planet as humans to be lifelong learners. And I don’t mean that to be cliche. I mean that because choosing that identity as an educator gives us an entirely different experience in our lives. 

When we decide I want to learn how to rollerblade or roller skate or ski or play pickleball or tennis, or I want to learn how to do a TikTok or figure out how to use something on my computer, GarageBand, or I want to learn how to make videos, or I want to understand Instagram better. 

There is an endless supply of ways we can learn and grow, and the way that I’m inviting you to learn and grow is to learn about yourself. What makes you tick? What makes you feel good? What makes you feel bad? Who do you love to be around? What do you love to do? What is your interest, your passion? What do you love outside of work? Who do you love to be with? Who’s the person that you want to become? What are the past pain points we need to heal up, that we need to learn from, that we need to rewrite the script on what happened, why it happened, and how it happened for us. 

There’s an endless way to learn and to grow and develop yourself, all the way up until the end. And today, I want to talk about this idea that we offer in education. We offer to students. We offer it to teachers. We’ve been offered it as a child, as a student, as a young adult. And it’s this concept that leisure, joy, delight, satisfaction, contentment is irresponsible. 

And I have something I want to share with you that really shook my brain to the core. You know that feeling when somebody says something and it catches your attention so profoundly that you’re like, what? Because it feels totally opposite of everything that you believe in your bones, that you’ve believed your whole life. It’s like somebody will say something and for some reason it catches you and you just can’t believe that that might be true for somebody else. 

And you think about it and you’re captivated by it. And it’s like it unlocks something or unleashes something. It just gives you permission to think about your life, your experience in a completely different way that you have never thought of before. Like permission to have dessert before dinner. Like as a little kid that was kind of off the table, you just thought this is the way it goes. 

You have to eat your dinner before you have dessert, or you have to do your homework before you can go out and play. Or that time when you finally got the courage to study for your license and get your license, you went from not being able to drive yourself around and have that level of independence to being able to drive yourself, which gave you access to your friends, it gave you access to getting out of the house, to maybe getting a job. 

That transition from not being a driver to being a driver, huge mindset shift, right? Making your own money. Before, the only way you thought possible was that mom and dad paid, or whoever you’re living with, whoever raised you, like the responsible adults were paying, and then you got a babysitting job, or for me, I detasseled, I babysat. 

And then when I turned 16, I started working at the local grocery store. And then I was like, I’m in, I’m making my own money. I can buy my own snacks or treats. I can get my own clothing. Like it was a game changer for me. It just like blew my mind. Well, this recently happened to me with my coach. All of us have developed hundreds of belief systems that are very rule-based over the course of our lives. We were taught these confines, like based on the rules of your family structure, your parents, the people that raised you, there was a set of rules that you lived by. 

And as a kid, you’re like, oh, this is just it. This is the confined space I’m in. This is the container in which I live in. And they’re so ingrained in who we are and what we think and what we believe that we don’t even question them. We just accept them as like absolute truths of the world or absolute truths of our lives. And when we get older and we create more awareness and we start to interact with people that are outside of our family system or outside of our religious system or outside of our hometown. We go to college. 

That was a huge eye-opener for me, the way that people thought, the way that people lived, everything. Like their routines, their patterns, their habits, their clothing styles, the food that they ate, the way they managed their time. Like it was just a whole world opened to me because the only way I knew was how my family did life, my family’s opinions, my family’s belief systems, what they felt was important, their core values. 

So there’s a point in young adulthood somewhere along the line where we’re like, wait a minute, is this a rule by law? Like, is this actually true? Is this the only way to do this? Is this the only way to believe or this is the only way to approach life? Is this like a law that I have to follow? Is it a rule? It’s like a law of the universe. Is it a law of the people? Is it a law of the land? Is it a law of this nation? Is it a law of just my parents? Is it a rule that I created? I created this kind of law, this way of being, this way of thinking for myself? Or is it just something that you believed was true and it worked for you, it served you, but you never thought to consider an alternate truth, an alternate way of thinking? 

This just happened to me yet again. This is why I love the power of coaching and the power of personal development and growth. It never stops astounding me. It never stops diving deeper into the life I wanna create, the way I want to feel, the experiences I want to have, the mindset I want to develop, the approach that I wanna take for my life. 

My coach said these words out loud during our group coaching call, and it caught me off guard and it stopped me. It’s almost like I couldn’t hear whatever she said afterwards because I kept focusing on this sentence. Pleasure is not irresponsible. Pleasure, joy, delight, satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment, fill in the blank, happiness, feeling good, is not irresponsible. 

I said it to myself over and over again. It literally stopped me in my tracks. Wait, what? Pleasure is not irresponsible. You guys, I’ve been told my whole life, not blaming my family, it’s just that’s what they were told and that’s what they believed. And so they taught me to believe this too. That pleasure is irresponsible in so many ways. Work before play. You gotta get your work done before you can play. And that work is not pleasurable, but play is. It’s an all or none. 

You’re either working and you’re miserable and you’re doing hard things and you’re grinding or you’re playing. But playing before work, irresponsible. Shame on you, you gotta work hard. Work isn’t easy, but you gotta do the hard thing first and then you can go play. You have to earn your play, earn your pleasure. It’s irresponsible to do otherwise. You have to work hard to be paid, to be successful, to have the experiences you want in your life. 

Other kinds of pleasure. You shouldn’t indulge yourself. Don’t be selfish. That pleasure is trouble, or you’re going to get into trouble if you are having too much fun, if you’re experiencing too much pleasure, if you are playing before work, if you’re playing at work, while your work, during your work, irresponsible. 

Pleasure is selfish. You’re just trying to indulge yourself. All you care about is how you feel and not how others feel. It’s selfish. Pleasure is lazy. If the goal is just to be happy, to feel good, then you’re being lazy. You’re not being productive. You are indulging yourself in, I don’t know, sitting around eating grapes all day. I don’t know what, but the idea that if you’re experiencing pleasure. You’re somehow being irresponsible, in trouble, selfish, lazy, uncommitted. You’re not committed if you’re experiencing pleasure. 

If you love your job, you’re having fun in your job, but you’re not grinding, sweating, overworking, you’re not hustling, you’re not that committed. You’re not that committed. I mean, you might show up for work, but you’re not that committed. Pleasure equals goofing off, blowing off work. Do you see where I’m going here? This all or Honestly, it’s still blowing my mind. Pleasure equals recklessness, that you’re reckless. Especially as a female with strict parents, I was taught like, don’t be going out and having too much pleasure as a 16, 17, 18 year old. That would be very reckless of you, promiscuous of you, okay? 

Pleasure, irresponsibility. Do you see it? I don’t know if anybody else relates to this, but I’m guessing some of you do because I feel like so many educators are sold on this idea that if we’re feeling good, if we’re following what feels good, if we’re using feel good as a compass, as a guide, as a goal, that it’s irresponsible in some way. It feels like I’ve been told so many stories about this pleasure is irresponsible, pleasure is bad, that it was written in my DNA to avoid pleasure as much as possible. 

Like if I was slacking off, having fun, irresponsible, get back on track. Like pleasure means off track and working hard means on track. Does that land for anybody out there? So I have been unraveling this for myself. And of course, when I do it for me, I have to do it for me first so that I can uncover and kind of decode what’s going on here so that I can unravel it for you in terms of how this belief can impact you as a leader, how it infiltrates. It’s a lens through which you make decisions. It’s the lens through which you build your identity. 

It’s the lens through which you lead your teachers and coach them and mentor them. Imagine if you’re coming in thinking pleasure’s not allowed, it’s not okay, it’s reckless, it’s careless, it’s lazy, it’s selfish, it’s unproductive. And then you go into a classroom and teachers having fun kids are having fun, you’re going to think something’s wrong. It’s not in alignment with your belief. They should be working hard. Kids should be struggling. Kids should be doing the heavy lifting. They should be not happy. They should be working. 

A lot of people think this. A lot of parents think this. A lot of teachers think this. A lot of students believe this, that if it feels good, or it’s easy, or even though it’s hard, they’re having fun with the challenge, right? Like they’re doing, let’s say, a project-based learning project and it’s really hard. They’re having trouble figuring out. They’re getting frustrated. That still can be fun. It still can be pleasurable even when it’s hard. 

So I think back to my days in school leadership. And when I was a school leader, I absolutely did not believe that the goal was ever to feel good because it did not feel good most of the time. It felt like the goal on my plate, on my agenda was work as hard as possible, keep everybody safe, keep everybody happy, build relationships while also trying to build a culture. I want everybody to follow the rules because the district wants everybody to follow the rules. 

So the job is to follow the rules and have everybody follow the rules, whatever the mandates were, stay on top of all those demands, do what my boss tells me to do, even though they might change their mind 10 times, support the teachers and kind of buffer between district and teachers. So the district’s not upset, but the teachers aren’t upset. And so So I take all the heat, manage all the systems on campus, implement the district’s vision, even though it might not fully feel aligned for me, and try to get everybody on board even though I’m not on board, and then, oh, don’t forget, increase attendance, increase test scores so that you can get the gold star and we can clap for you. 

That’s what I thought the goal was. Never ever, ever could I have imagined one of my goals in school leadership was to have some fun, to feel good about myself, to feel good about my school, to feel good about the work in a way that brought me satisfaction, contentment, delight, fulfillment, pride. 

It just wasn’t on my radar, especially in the beginning years of my school leadership experience. And why is this? It’s because I didn’t have awareness. There was just no awareness to do otherwise. Because I didn’t even question my actions or the thoughts that were fueling them, right? The energy that was fueling my actions. 

It was just autopilot, go to the emotional gas station, fill up with whatever I could muster, which was just do it because… as I was told to, do it because I should, do it even though it doesn’t feel good, put that fuel in, which was like super low octane fuel, put it in my tank, exhausted, red-eyed, blurry, can’t really think straight, not very motivated, not very excited, and then go to work and try to make all the people happy, right? 

That’s how I was leading until I said to myself, there has to be a different way. This is miserable, I hate this, I don’t think I’m cut out to be a school leader. This cannot be possible. There are principals out there who are happy. I know it. I know of them personally. 

I saw principals in my district seemingly happy. I couldn’t figure out the code. And then I studied life coaching. I got certified with Dr. Martha Beck as a life coach. Then a few years later, I got certified as a life coach to the life coach school. And I hired a one-on-one coach, and I never let that coach go. I had her all throughout the rest of my years. I had her in the transition from being an educator into being a business owner. And we are still friends to this day. 

I studied under her for years because the power of coaching, when I figured it out, it transformed every experience of my life, personally and professionally. When I figured this stuff out, you guys, And I started questioning, wait, what are the rules here again? And what rules am I living by? And are they really the rules? Or are they just make-believe rules? Whose rules are these, right? 

When I first started school leadership, I dove head first into people pleasing, into making decisions and taking actions based on how everyone around me felt, how the teachers felt. I was really influenced by, were my teachers happy? Was my secretary happy? Were the parents happy? Were the kids behaving? If they were happy, they weren’t misbehaving, right? Misbehaviors was an indication of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, discontent, right? Was my boss happy with me? Was the district just running around, people-pleasing, not even checking in with myself? 

I was so worried about what the school board thought, what the local newspaper writers thought, because of course they have their two cents and they have blogs and they put their commentary in the opinion section. I was literally living by everybody else’s rules, everybody else’s level of happiness and contentment. And I was thinking that my job was to make the people happy, do a good job, be a good girl, be a good leader. 

I focused on looking like a good principal versus turning inward to develop myself into becoming a good principal. First piece of advice I got, fake it till you make it, right? That’s the first piece of advice I received. The problem I have with this advice is that you cannot fake the truth. It’s literally not in alignment. It doesn’t mesh. Truth, fake, they’re opposites. They don’t align. 

The frequency of truth always rises to the top. You know how the truth always comes out? Yes. And as a principal, you know this, because you can sense when a teacher isn’t being fully honest with you, really telling you what they think, or a student isn’t quite disclosing the entire truth of what happened in a situation, you can feel when something feels truthful and when it’s not. 

So trying to fake something that you don’t believe about yourself or you don’t believe in you, and you’re running around all day trying to please the people so that they won’t dislike you or they won’t judge you or they won’t criticize you, it’s not going to work in the long run. And you’re going to think you’re the problem, or you’re going to think the district is the problem. 

You’re either going to quit and think you’re not cut out for school leadership, or you’re gonna think that your position, your district is the problem, and you’re going to go to a different one and think that it’ll be better somewhere else. But if you bring along people-pleasing strategies and not tuning into what feels good for you, I promise you this, I guarantee this, I have seen it over and over again. You will feel the same way that you did in your old district you keep trying to chase feeling better from an external standpoint. 

I want to feel better about me, so I’m going to go somewhere and please the people over there because it might be easier to please them than it is to please the people over here. These people, they’re a little bit off. They’re a rocker. But if I go over there, that district looks pulled together until you find out they’re just as dysfunctional as the next district. 

The more you attempt to appease other people, the less you please yourself. This is why we disconnect from ourselves. We unplug from what we need or what we want. We go on robotic mode. We tune out. Here’s what’s happening. This is my experience. experience, we don’t feel good and it doesn’t feel good to feel good. So we tune that out. We numb it out. We ignore it. And we’re like, well, if I don’t feel good, I might as well try and go help other people feel good. 

Because we’re not happy, but we’re not admitting it to ourselves. We try to seek some reward, validation, acknowledgement externally from us, from other people. That’s why we carry on in this matter. That’s why we keep chasing it. We’ll tell ourselves, even though we’re miserable, we’re fatigued, we’re exhausted, we feel unsuccessful, We’re like, well, we’re doing it for the kids. It’s all about the kids. Or my boss wants me to. My boss needs me to. I want to be the best employee I can be. This is what the teachers need. I’ve got to protect the teachers. I’ve got to work hard for the teachers. They’re working hard. I need to work harder. 

But here’s what I find very alarming about this approach. Being a servant leader to the point of martyrdom is creating such dysfunction in our schools and in our lives. If we are not using our emotional compass to guide us and we’re not tuning in to what feels good and allowing ourselves the pleasure and delight in our work and in our lives, We may never come to the day where we feel fulfilled on a daily basis, delighted with our lives, pleased with our professional career, proud of ourselves, proud of the experiences that we had, proud of the person we became. 

This is the most alarming part to me. There are people who believe that it is irresponsible to feel good their entire lives. They never, their entire life, allow themselves to lead their lives and lead their schools, lead their careers from a place of delight and satisfaction. They never tune in. They just think the world is what it is, the experience is what it is, that they have no agency, they have no empowerment, they have no control. And from the day they start until the day they end, they did not have any amount of joy or minimal joy, pleasure. 

And here’s the thing. If you think that feeling good is irresponsible or trying to find ways to make the job more pleasurable is irresponsible, if you believe that, then what happens is you become the person in the room that’s disgruntled, the whiny, kind of tired, nothing’s working. No one wants to be around that. How can we inspire teachers, inspire students when we ourselves are not inspired? 

There are principals, there are teachers who go through their entire career believing that it’s irresponsible to tap into feeling good. I don’t want this for you. Just the thought of that stops me in my tracks. It makes me sick to my stomach. To think of somebody going through their entire school leadership experience as a servant to somebody else’s emotional whims, demands, needs, without once tuning in. 

My friends out there, I cannot, in good consciousness, know what I know about coaching, about these tools and strategies. I can’t not share them. I can’t not share what I’ve experienced with other school leaders. I can’t do it. 

Look, building a business, trying to break into education as a life and leadership coach, bringing life coaching tools into schools where people make fun of life coaches on the internet all day long, where people think it’s soft and weak and fake to talk about emotion when they think that you’re just fluffy and that it has no merit. 

This is hard work that I’m doing. I’m literally a pioneer forging my way into schools, one principal at a time, helping them feel a little bit better about themselves, a lot better about their work, helping teachers feel better, creating better cultures. I’m doing this one leader, one school at a time. This isn’t easy. I could go back and I could go be a principal. I could, but it won’t allow me. The calling won’t allow me. You can’t not know this. I will have this podcast until podcasts aren’t allowed in the world. I will keep sharing these concepts with you until you’re ready to come into the world of the empowered principal, into EPC, and to see that it’s working. 

For hundreds of school principals, this work changes lives. Your superpower, your empowerment is your ability to feel good, your ability to experience pleasure, your ability to tune into the compass that’s guiding you. Does it feel good or not? It’s very easy. If it feels good, keep going. If it’s a little crunchy and it doesn’t feel good, let’s make it feel better. It is not. You’re responsible to listen to the compass within you that guides you, that aligns you, that feels good. 

What feels good matters. It’s guiding you to the solutions. It’s the most responsible thing you can do for yourself, for your teachers, for your students. When something doesn’t feel right, that’s an invitation to stand up for what does feel right. When something doesn’t feel good, It’s an invitation to figure out what part doesn’t feel good specifically, and then make that better. 

The empowered principle rules on feeling good and pleasure is all about flipping the myth of irresponsible pleasure, that pleasure is irresponsible. The list that I gave you earlier, I flip it on its head. Instead of pleasure being trouble, that you’re in trouble, that it is a trouble, it’s a struggle, it’s a problem, if there’s a negative consequence waiting for you when you get out of pleasure, I want you to consider that pleasure is the benefit. It’s the reward. It’s the solution. It’s not trouble. It’s not the problem. It’s the solution. 

That instead of pleasure being selfish, it’s actually selfless. Because teachers, students, parents, principal, district leaders, they want to work with principals and district leaders who are pleasurable to be around, who are fun, who are engaging. This is benevolent action that you’re taking. Pleasure is not lazy. 

Think about when you’re in a state of pleasure, you’re in a state of feeling good, you’re activated, you’re interesting, you’re attentive, you’re energetic, you’re industrious, you’re going for it, you’re productive. It’s the opposite of lazy. Pleasure is the opposite of uncommitted. It’s being committed. When you feel good about something, you feel passionate. You’re committed, you’re guided, you’re convicted, you’re decisive. 

Pleasure is not goofing off. Pleasure is actually like being engaged, getting to work, solving problems, making progress. Pleasure is not reckless. It’s mindfulness, thoughtfulness, considerate, intentional. Pleasure is not irresponsible. It is responsible. It is the ability to respond. It is responding to your needs, to the needs of your school. 

I invite you into this work. I invite you in to the world of the empowered principle. We’re changing the rules. We’re changing how it feels. We’re changing our approach. There are two ways to work with me right now. You can wait until 2025 when the doors open again for EPC, or you can work with me one-on-one. 

The choice is up to you. The doors for EPC will be opening in 2025, or you can start working with me today, right now, as a one-on-one client. Or what’s really fun is that when you sign up as a one-on-one client, you get access into EPC as part of your one-on-one package. It’s a bonus that I give to my one-on-one clients. 

You can start now as a one-on-one, and you can join EPC when the doors reopen. How amazing is that? Your pleasure feeling good is not irresponsible. Contemplate this. See how this is true. Try it on, give it a go, give it a chance to work for you. And I’ll talk to you guys next week. Have an amazing week. Take good care of yourselves. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 358. 

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. 

Hello, Empowered Principals, welcome to today’s podcast. I have a very special guest. Her name is Nicola Soares. She works with a company called Kelly Education Services, and I love that because that is my last name. And we’re both in the field of education, but I actually met Nicola through an e-mail. I hadn’t met her in person before, but I had the privilege of meeting her through an e-mail thread and I loved their services.

I loved their approach and I want you to learn more about them and what they do so that if you are in any assistance and needing assistance, especially in the topic that we’re about to talk about today, which I think will be very appealing to many school leaders across the nation and that is of securing substitutes and doing it in a way that is reducing stress for not just teachers but for you, the school leaders, district leaders. We know that we have a problem. We have been trying to solve it on our own and Kelly Services is providing an approach that is just making it easier for everybody involved, including the subs. Imagine that. It’s a triple win.

So, Nicola, welcome to the pod. I’ll let you introduce yourself and tell a little bit more about your company and your services and what you do to support school leaders.

Nicola: Thank you, Angela, for having me on today. It’s such an honor and the work that you do, especially some of the topics that you cover are near and dear to my heart. So I am Nicola Soares. I’m the president of Kelly Education. I’ve been with Kelly Services, our parent company, for about 12 years. I did start my career as a public school social studies teacher. Wouldn’t that be fun to teach government in US history today? We have lots to talk about. And it really has been a labor of love as myself and our organization, as we’ve built out our services to be completely supportive of our school districts in the way of talent services. The majority of what we do is actually placing substitute teachers throughout the US and actually in about 40 states.

In addition to that, pediatric therapy services, so physical speech, occupational therapy, executive search services for university executive level positions, and also public K-12 school superintendents as well. So we know a little bit about everything that education is facing today. And just to kind of give you a little bit of our scale in 40 states, especially with substitute teachers, K-12, we placed about five and a half million assignments across the U.S. last year.

So we know the teacher shortage is alive and well, and certainly it started well before the pandemic. And I would characterize the situation here in the U.S. as a national crisis. So when we don’t have teachers in the classroom, to me, that’s the cornerstone of everything in terms of success for society and as we move forward as a broader, larger community. So that’s me in a nutshell of what we do with our services as we deploy them every single day.

Angela: This is a dream come true. When I was a principal, so that was from 2010 to 2016 before I promoted up to the district level, there was a shortage then. Post-pandemic, I’m sure, has been significantly impacted, but even prior, I feel like substitute teachers were very hard to come by. And back in the day, I would be lying in bed waiting for that 5:30 a.m. phone call to give me the list of who I had subs for and who wasn’t covered and basically then the baton passed to me and I had to figure how to cover that class, which meant either I was subbing, or I had to pull the instructional coach or a specialist, or the kids got split if there were no other, you know, certified humans to be able to do that job.

And as you just said, really, it is the cornerstone. And what happens is that it’s the kids that are impacted the most. And we feel the stress, teachers feel the stress, the subs are feeling the stress. Of course, the kids are feeling the stress and your services coming in and just providing some solutions and a bridge between the schools and the people who want to help support schools in a substitute position.

That feels like a miracle. So I love to hear that this is out there and available. And it’s been for quite, you said it’s been going on for a long time. You’ve been with the company with 12 years.  And so tell us more.  About how it works like, I’m a principal or I’m a district leader and I’m like, wow, this is the first time I’ve ever hearing of Kelly education. What tell me the process.

Nicola: Yeah, so great question. So I think there are two value propositions here for the clients that we serve. Our end users, which are teachers, and then obviously benefiting the student. But the other value proposition is really about the talent that we place. So let me start with clients. 

So our biggest stakeholder is the building principal and you’re right. I mean, the way you characterize it starts at 4: 35 o’clock, you know, you’re getting those calls or report school secretaries having to handle the placements of that. A service like ours is an end to end program. So think of us.

Eliminating all of that administrative burden. So from the idea of sourcing and recruiting qualified candidates, and I would tell you over those 40 states, every state has a different set of credentialing criteria. So you need to make sure that you have at least the minimum  specification of what that requirement of the job description of the substitute teacher is going to be.

So there’s a whole process, you’re sourcing, you’re recruiting, engaging with candidates, and then you’re onboarding them into. Our employment because there are employees and so if you can imagine, especially for those where maybe the credentials are less where someone has never even been inside of a classroom.

I mean, imagine that walking into a middle school classroom and never  there’s a lot of training that happens pre-hire. And then post hire. So on average, most of our employees are getting at least a minimum of four hours of comprehensive training, everything from, you know, best practices, classroom management, tips and techniques.

And then of course, safety and security or what to do if a child has a certain situation, all of that good stuff. So in that process too, as part of our program, we’re also managing those employees on assignment, supporting them with payroll and questions too. Their next assignments, so a program like ours is very technology driven.

I always the analogy I give. It’s almost similar to uber, you know, where you’re matching the talent  assignment opportunities, but then you’ve got this entire workforce. My workforce, it’s also supporting to make sure that placements are met. Last minute, especially with last minute illnesses at 5 o’clock in the morning to make sure that we’re able to do our job in real time.

So the repeat the rinse and repeat of it is also to make sure that those qualified talent folks, you know, that are taking assignments on a very regular basis within 180 days. So, and as part of the benefit of.  A client program, they also get really great reporting, very detailed reporting around teacher absenteeism.

And I would tell you, there’s a huge correlation. Hopefully, we can talk a little bit about that  in terms of teacher absenteeism in terms of overall, you know, I would say engagement of a public school district in terms of employee sentiment and how they feel about working there. 

Angela: So,  yeah, yes, I actually really want to dive into that. Because the angle that I would like to bring into education is that at the bottom line, Nicola, I feel like it’s how people feel. Absolutely. It’s like emotion drives decisions and actions. And what I hear you saying is that there is a direct correlation and I’m sure your company has stats on this for the people who need that level of information and data, but.

There’s a correlation between absenteeism and how people feel about themselves, about their contribution, about their ability to teach, about how their district feels about them, their site leader, how they feel treated by parents and students and colleagues and their boss. Like so much of that. And I also think about how the substitutes feel coming to a school where the staff doesn’t feel good versus like coming and wanting to sub in a school where people feel good about themselves and teaching and their colleagues and their bosses and their, you know, like the contribution in their identity as a teacher.

So. I would love for you to share your perspective on like how subs feel and their feedback to you. And one of the myths I’m trying to debunk is that there are people out there who want to be subs. 

Nicola: 100%. Yes. 

Angela: There is an abundance of people who care and want to be good subs and they want to come and support your school. And they actually, they don’t want full time jobs. They’re choosing subs for the flexibility or for the. You know, the dynamicness of, you know, being a sub and having something different every day and not having all the responsibilities as a full time teacher. So there are people available for subs. And  I’m not saying you don’t have to go through a sub shortage, but I do think that we can. Offer a perspective or a mindset shift that might feel better about subs in general, and then how we make subs feel based on how our culture is at our site.

Nicola:  So in Kelly, we know being a global workforce solutions organization, we do a lot of research, especially around talent in terms of how they want to work and the ways that they want to work.

And so we call folks, and I think substitute teachers are the ultimate sort of gig workers, but not to give that kind of like, sort of that cultural kind of term vernacular. But when you think about it, Kelly calls ’em work life designers and what we have discovered, especially coming outta the pandemic where people were very burnt out with jobs and going in, you know, really having a sort of a step back of their lives of how do they want work to fit into their lives.

Substitute teaching, I think, is a great opportunity where people can design their income. The way that they want that to sort of flow. So you might have somebody as an example where you’ve got somebody younger, maybe in their late twenties, who have just launched their real estate career, but as they’re launching their real estate career, they also need that income coming in.

What better way to work two, three days a week in their child’s elementary school. A second example that we discovered is that many healthcare professionals. Who were burnt out from the pandemic for all the pandemic reasons that we know, might have been in the hospital system, like an RN, as an example, or a physician’s assistant. 

They have a four year degree that’s usually a STEM degree. Those credentials transfer very nicely into teaching physical science or biology, or maybe even special education. And the fact that they were so burnt out, they’re still very purpose driven professionals. What better way to explore and discover another career.

Through substitute teaching, which is, I believe that many of our folks that do want to do it, they do nurture children, they do care about being a part of that whole developmental process. So these are some of the examples. What is remarkable to me when I first started my position, we had tons of substitute teachers and we didn’t have a teacher vacancy crisis that was sort of going on.

Further as we’ve gone in the last decade or so, we know the challenges of education in terms of expectations from parents, lower salaries compared to other industry professionals coming out. Let’s talk about the economic college debt that many of our students have incurred now to become a teacher. One out of, I believe, seven, I think, on average, it’s 57, 000 of college debt.

One out of seven owes about  105, 000. Probably in those states where they’re required to have an undergrad and a master’s degree. That is just Incredibly crippling. And so when we think about students in their undergraduate degrees, who are now not really pursuing an education degree because really can’t afford it, maybe in life, these are some of the dynamics that we do see.

And then the pandemic just only exacerbated a lot of the challenges that our schools have found. So, coupled with that, all of the geopolitical pressure that we see, low salaries, really tough circumstances. Active shooter threats increasing. It’s just this incredible, horrific challenge that educators are facing today.

So our public school districts, especially instructional leadership, building principals, superintendents have to really think about and re-event it. I think a different employee value proposition, and then also with the subject of substitute teachers, understanding, recognizing that they’re part of the talent supply chain.

Now, and in our data, I would share Angela that probably with long term assignments. Or vacancies that public school districts cannot fill. They’re using long term substitute teachers with who are very qualified credentials to meet that need 20% or so on average.

Angela: So I can believe that totally.

Nicola: Yeah, so it’s been a fascinating sort of study and just watching of how we support and improve, I think, the situation, but I do think that, you know, it has come very much to the public view that we do have an issue with our national teacher shortage crisis, as I call it.

Angela: Yes. And what that makes me think of is, it’s redefining the role of a substitute teacher as an essential component of your employees. Like it is a necessary required essential component. And I’m just going to say it cause I just say it like it is on this podcast, but I feel like perhaps sometimes in the past perspective have been like. Oh, that’s a sub they don’t mean to dismiss, but on the priority list of all of the demands, it tends to be lower.

It’s like, if somebody else can just like give them their folder and give them their king, get them to their room. Like it’s okay. I’ve checked my box that classrooms covered versus remembering that one. To me, we are in the business of human development. This is a human experience we’re having, not just for students.

It is an experience that we’re having as the adults on campus and that the experience of your substitute teacher matters just as much as the onboarding experience of a new hired teacher matters. And we want to keep in mind that. Subs who feel welcomed and feel good and feel a integrated, appreciated part of the staff are going to be much more likely to come back because it feels good to be there.

Nicola: Yeah, great insight again. So one of the things that we realized very quickly because of the shortage, how could we make our program a little bit more beneficial? So a couple different things. Helping to find great talent so that people could hire great teachers second, but also the point that you’re making substitute teachers to be a part of a more inclusive community, knowing that they’re becoming more of an essential worker, as I called it coming out of the pandemic has been interesting.

So we changed some things in our program and part of the value proposition that we do give our clients. If you employ substitute teachers, employ them from the opportunity that you get to experience different qualified talent to come into the classroom. And as part of their opportunity, they get to hire the folks right out of our program. 

We found that if a substitute teacher was hired into a full time position in the district, and they had been at the school, they had been at the district for a year or two, what have you, it was less attrition. The fact that they would have the opportunity to be extremely successful because they had built relationships, they knew the students and parents and had those relationships. So we were really excited to be a part of that, because I do think there are different ways and means of sourcing and recruiting for great talent. But in some ways, it’s not like student teaching, but it does give them sort of an internship experience. Maybe it’s a better way to say it. And then get hired as to be a part of that full time permanent community.

Angela: Yes, I hope people heard that because one of the biggest challenges or stress points that I hear next to behavior management, I would say that’s tops the list is teacher shortage and trying to cover for subs and the principal being so, and I know this intimately personally, like being so stressed because, you know, Almost every day there’s going to be a demand and ask a request for you to be in a classroom teaching, which I absolutely loved, but it almost, you felt like you weren’t getting to your own job.

You didn’t feel like you were leading because you were busy teaching, even though you were modeling what it’s like to be a team player. But at the end of the day, a principal has a set of tasks to complete and do. If you’re teaching, you’re not doing that. Right. So. This is a service that leverages so much more than just checking the box of having a credential teacher in a classroom.

This makes the whole system work more smoothly. I think of it like there’s currencies that we leverage as school leaders, as school principals, you can leverage time where you take the time yourself to go and teach that class. And then you work late hours and you pull the lever of time or you can pull the lever of like Income finances, you know, funding, you can pull that lever and get a service like this, where they pay you or the district or however it works pays you.

And then what you’re doing is saying in exchange for this financial, you know, investment. We’re going to provide you peace of mind knowing you have certified trained teachers who are coming in who have had actual training to know how to step into a classroom to actually be a sub and own that role with confidence and pride and go into a school so that there’s peace of mind for students

The cop, you’re the members of that team that grade level or department. The parents feel good knowing this is a familiar face. Tell us more about that aspect of it from your company’s angle i’m just thinking like. I as a principal have a problem and you have a beautiful solution but I think people are afraid to pull the lever. They’re like I’m afraid to invest the money or I’m afraid.

That it’s going to actually take more time and I should just do it myself. There will be like some challenges met, like mind obstacles, thought obstacles, I call them in the way of like considering the service. 

Nicola: Yeah. So, you know, in partnership, the one thing that we do upfront is always to sort of do an analysis. And it’s always really interesting of what people think, especially. From a cost perspective, they don’t realize there’s a lot of hidden costs associated with the hiring of substitute teachers, or even recruiting full time teachers. Many of the HR departments in our public school districts are incredibly small.

Overwhelmed don’t really have the bandwidth in the scope of reach and services. And so you think about also, there’s a lot of reactionary costs that spent. So you think about people don’t consider associated with the hiring of people like advertising and recruitment and marketing and. I mean, all of that, right?

So, to be able to really assess what the true costs are of a program like ours can really, I think, move in very quickly in terms of what actually are all those true hidden costs. If we do our job well over time, we actually save a district. Money over time, and that’s just more efficient efficiencies around recruiting being able to place.

We see absenteeism sort of going down a little bit. I mean, when you think about absenteeism on the national average of teachers, it’s far more higher than the private sector. I think private sector last that I saw was about 6%. Of employees not coming to work every day, teachers right now can be anywhere in any day, 8, 10, maybe even 12% on a given day.

So when we think about the impact to student achievement over time, there’s a lot of other residual things that take place there as well. So like a program like ours to be truly effective, it really means that we really help a public school district manage their. Teacher absenteeism in terms of placing a substitute teachers district wide, not just maybe on a per building basis.

The other considerations to have as well, too, is that in terms of how they pay their substitute teachers for those that do, are servicing long term assignments that districts, what we say to consider. Thinking about paying their substitute teachers who are sitting in that biology class for 180 days, the equivalent of a teacher’s salary commensurate to their credentials.

To think about that, to tap into those full time budgets too, as opposed to eating up substitute teacher dollars, is also really important. Districts that, I think, coming out of the pandemic, realizing the shortages, have effectively really looked at, critically, their substitute teacher pay on a daily basis, to increase them so that they are Market competitive, if you will, to other districts or just in terms of the equivalent of a full time teacher have also reduced their absenteeism who have also been able to make sure that their classrooms are covered as well. So we do see the benefits of that exponentially when a district buys into a comprehensive program such as ours.

Angela: Have you ever had the experience of not being able to cover? So let’s say a district is working for you, Has that ever happened? Or do you just have such a large pool that you can guarantee coverage?

Nicola: Yeah. So usually, you know, we think about ratios of what it takes, you know, it really depends on the school district or the set of, you know, challenges. And, you know, this Angela’s being a building principal sometimes. Within a public school district, you could have  probably more challenging schools versus others.

It might depend on socioeconomic factors. It could depend on all sorts of things are fill rates or what we call fill rate, which is our daily placement rate. On average, we’re in the high 80s and a lot of our areas, they’re over 90%, which has been unprecedented prior to the pandemic was high 70s, low  80s and say that we tend to be incredibly successful because we have a very efficient practice compared to districts doing it on their own, probably in my tenure here, I might have seen one or two schools or even districts that, you know, Trying to get their fill rates up were really challenging.

I can think of one particular city school district that had, was very reliant on public transportation, but their public transportation was really old and very late a lot of the time. So when you think about zoning of public schools in this particular school district, too, on occasion or had like the Superbowl in their city.

So, you know,  but it just depends. I would say too, there’s always a correlation to the harder to serve schools tends to be where engagement’s really low of full time staff. The other benefits of our program is to be very consultative in terms of being a human capital organization of different things that we can do.

We do a lot of. Pulse surveys, here at Kelly too, especially on a quarterly basis, that gives us a great baseline in terms of what’s going on, employee sentiment, areas of concern, how can we improve what’s going great. We always invite our client colleagues to do the same, because I do think that if they really want to know, And they do it consistently on a scheduled basis. 

It can really help to inform the improvement there. And we survey our substitute teachers too, and especially how they feel about the assignments, the building that they walk into, we turn that over to the district, because I think that’s a great piece of feedback.

Angela: Yes. And the reason I asked that question really in full transparency is because I don’t want principals to hear this podcast and think perfect solution. I can throw money at the problem and it will just vanish and go away. And now they’re responsible and they’re going to take care of it. There is a difference between collaborating with this type of a service versus abdicating 100% of the responsibility and principals. I know what you’re thinking because I would think it too. You’re like, I hear what you’re saying. This is great, but is it going to be another thing to juggle, another thing to manage, another thing on my plate.

And my personal answer, and I’d be curious to hear yours is, I don’t think it’s another thing on your plate as much as it is an invitation to shift the way you think about your subs. Because it isn’t a do, like your approach might shift a little bit in the way that you engage with your subs or you engage with your culture and like building culture so that subs want to stay and want to come. But I think it really starts with not an action, with a mindset, with what’s possible and looking at it in terms of possibility and collaboration and the potential that’s available here.

And in terms of not just getting subs for like that crisis moment or that last minute thing, or for somebody who’s on a leave, but like building genuine relationships with the company, but also with the individuals who are subbing for you to create partnerships, whether that person only wants to remain a sub for the long term, or they are looking for a full-time position, and this is a bridge or a transition for them.

Nicola: And I love the name of your podcast, The Empowered Principal, because that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. From my perspective, what I want our principals, I want them to be successful. And it starts with a successful teacher in the classroom. I call our teachers the head learners of the classroom. And so when you have a successful head learner, especially somebody that you’re trying out as a substitute teacher who’s placed and you get to hire, I mean, that’s great. The success of a program is a true partnership and it has to be collaborative. And that’s why we do provide the insights to our building principals if they choose to be able to really effectively work, you know, how can we help solve your problems? 

So you’ve got a second grade classroom that historically, it’s really hard to fill or keep teachers in or whatever it is, to be able to really tackle and be very surgical too, and where we can help and assist. There are other things too, understanding the talent needs from a building principal’s perspective. I mean, it’s always interesting to me to hear, we really need teachers that I think about a lot of the districts we serve in Florida that can be bilingual. Can you find really great substitute teachers and hopefully that they can be hired into a full-time employment that have that skill set? It’s just little things like that, that if you can help, I mean, I always say to folks, consider us to be the extension of your HR organization or your HR department.

And so looking at the people insights to be able to give you all sorts of best practices, anything that we can do to make that education community of that building a great place to come in and work. And you know what, it’s not lost on me too that our building principals are also head learners. But do you know, and I know you probably do know this, my friend, building principals are the fastest to turn over. At 40% is the national average because it is a very challenging job when you think about all of the stakeholders that you have.

Angela: I call it the ultimate middle manager position, right? Because you are  navigating. The entire school district from the community to parents, to kids, to, you know, teachers, staff, the support staff, office staff, maintenance, like you’re dealing with all of it.

Then you’re dealing with up, you know, district level County fed state. So you really are like the epicenter of that school. And you’re having to coach up and out to your communities, to your school and upward into the district. So it is intense, right? That’s why 50% leave after three years and like 70% leave after five years. 

I always ask my school principals, what’s the one next thing, if you could wave a magic wand and solve it or have it like reduced by half, what would it be behaviors and subs there are external problems, right? So I kind of teach them in that internal work, but it’s also external. And it is actually like, you could write it down in a court of law that yes, these are issues that we’re dealing with, but there are services available to help you.

Meet in the middle, like this service can come in and help you with this. That doesn’t mean like it magically goes away, but if it reduces your stress by 50%, cause you know, you have subs 80% of the time, that’s incredible. That’s an incredible shift in where you as the school principal can focus because now it’s not, you’re only thinking when you go to bed at night and when you wake up in the morning about how you’re going to fill subs, you now have space and energy. To start fulfilling your instructional leadership goals and creating vision and really building up your team.

Nicola: 100% and completely agree. And usually what we find when a program gets implemented, the building principles are like, we lost, do not take it away. You know, like, it’s just its game changer.

Angela: I have a question I feel like people are dying for me to ask.

Nicola: Yeah

Angela:  I’m thinking this. If as a district, we’re trying so hard to recruit. And we’re getting nothing. I hear this all the time. There’s nobody out there. Nobody’s applying. There are no good candidates. Like it feels like the world is void of candidates and it’s not for a lack of trying these districts they’re putting on Facebook posts, Instagram, they’re going on LinkedIn, they’re going on, you know, like ed join, they’re doing all the things, but they’re not getting the traction. 

How is your service able to attract and retain such talent, especially like, and I don’t know the state you serve and not serve, but no matter where somebody is, there’s a district out there. Like, how is that possible? Because I want you to blow people’s minds by letting them know there are subs available, even if you’re in a little. Rural space or like you’re in the state of wherever and you think there’s no subs. Tell us about the magic behind your recruitment. 

Nicola: There are absolutely substitute teachers out there, candidates that want to try this, they want to do this, you know, and I mentioned earlier about value proposition for clients, but also for the talent that we serve.

Not only do I consider to, you know, public school districts to be our clients, but I also consider our employees are clients. What I mean by that is it is our responsibility to sell the brand of a public school district to be able to really provide an open insight, if you will, to all the great things that these, these districts do.

School districts are doing, and they’re doing a ton of great stuff. I don’t think that necessarily sometimes, you know, that’s really made transparent and really promoted. And so part of the, the program that we do have is promoting all of the great things that a particular public school district is doing, all the way right down to different neighborhood school buildings.

I like to think education takes it a little step higher when I think about we provide continuity of instruction, great work opportunities. That’s going to impact students’ lives. So, if we can give continuity of instruction, we’re a part of that community, if you will, as being a part of that, as I said, instructional talent supply chain to be a permanent fixture, if you will, to be able to.

Be hired full time into the district. What a wonderful win. The other thing, it’s not just limited to younger folks coming into the profession. We have so many people that had great careers that might want to do something a little different and those skills transfer and those real life sort of experiences and applications transfer really nicely.

So I really do think it is definitely on us to be able to promote effectively. A public school district’s mission and their purpose and all the great things that are happening there. 

Angela: I’m so thankful that you shared this because I feel like principals now feel pressure to be marketing and selling their school and trying to present it to the world, to the community out there that.

All of the great things it’s doing, and it’s yet another layer. It’s, I always felt like as a principal, like, you know, in a corporation there’s like a pyramid, right? There’s workers and then there’s managers, and then there’s directors and the, all the way up to like the CEOs and the c-suite, the school principal, it’s like a, instead of a triangle, it’s a, a long rectangle, , you’re just rolling from one end to the other, right?

Your HR, your marketing and sales, your finance, your instructional leadership, your budget, you’re doing teacher observations, classroom management, behavior management, like PR, you’re doing it all. And that’s why you feel you’re going, you know, a mile wide and an inch deep because you actually are going a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that’s why services like mine exist for leadership. Development like your services really helps promote it solves multiple problems, you know, on based on what you’ve shared with us today. It’s more than just like getting a sub a person in a classroom. It’s about building a community where we have long term employees.

We have shorter term employees. We have daily employees. We have this breadth of people who are. Genuinely interested in human development, empowering students, empowering teachers, empowering principals. Like, I feel like that is what education is. We’re here to empower people to be whoever they want to be and subs want to be subs.

I think that’s something that was an aha for me. I interviewed somebody from the state of Washington, maybe a few months ago. She’s darling and they’re doing this great collab. I don’t know if you work with the state of Washington at all. 

Nicola: Yeah

Angela: Okay. And there’s a group near, I think it’s Olympia where she’s like, we want to be subs. We love the flexibility. We love like. Different kids, different classrooms and the flexibility, they can work one day a week, five days a week. 

And on the podcast, it was just opening the eyes of people were like, Oh,  there are people who want to do this and who value it and are proud of being a sub and love it.

And they want to serve your school. So I think if you could walk, I always want to give so much value on this podcast. And if you can walk away with just believing and trusting that there are plenty of people who want to support your school and that this can be a real win, it’s available to you. It really is.

Nicola: And I would say, Angela, the best day of my professional life each year is when we announce our substitute teacher of the year. And we get hundreds of nominations from school districts, they’re usually building principals mostly from teachers of their particular favorite substitute teacher and we give them a form and they give the reasons and all that. But there’s definitely folks out there that this is what they do for a living.

Angela: It is their profession and they love it. They adore it. And. It’s empowering for them to be in that role in this way. They feel like it’s the best contribution they can make. And like, that is just so inspiring to me. I love that.

And it’s so fun to hear you celebrating the subs in the same way we celebrate teachers. Like one of my philosophies as a life and leadership coach for school leaders is that everyone in your building, everyone in your district, every member of the organization, equal contribution, but different equal power, but different.

We walk shoulder to shoulder with our custodians, with our office staff, with our nurses, our counselors, our, you know, food service professionals, our paraprofessionals, we are all equally contributing.

Nicola: Yeah

Angela: It just looks different. There’s no hierarchy because you take one piece out of the puzzle, the puzzle’s incomplete. You take subs away, crisis. You take out custodians, crisis. You take out office staff, like everyone’s contributing of equal significance. 

Nicola: Absolutely. And they’re contributing to the success of our students.

Angela: That has a well-being for everybody on campus, right? The well-being. I just remember like, as a teacher, my colleagues would tell me, I’m sick. I’m just giving you a heads up, I’m so sorry. They would feel guilty for staying home with the flu because they knew I was going to have to take on a third of their class, and it was going to impact me. And people would come in sick. People would go in sick to write subplans last minute. It was insane. And we’re forgetting that we’re in the business of humans here, of people, and we have to come up with a better solution. And it sounds to me like what Kelly Services does is it provides a better solution.

Nicola: I think so. And I can tell you, I get up before the alarm clock every single day.

Angela: Because I don’t know what we do, so. Just to wrap up, is there any final words of wisdom, and if they want to reach you, they want to learn more, we’re definitely going to put the links in the show notes for you guys to get more information, but I just want to have you share it real quickly for the listeners out there who might be in their car and can’t take notes.

Nicola: Yeah, I would say the whole issue around substitute teachers or keeping classes covered does not need to be a burden. So a program like ours can work in partnership in tandem with our school buildings, our school districts. You know, we would love to talk to you. How can we help? Because I really do believe with all of the things that we are faced in what we’re challenged with, education does not have to be the way that it needs, what it might be today.

I think there were just tremendous opportunities to readdress, improve, and just really think about things from a different point of view. And it does take a broader community to help solve those challenges. And I really do think part of that responsibility is private sector helping more out with our public school communities.

Angela: Absolutely. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your patience as we were scheduling and try and figuring out a mutual time that would work. I’m so grateful for your flexibility, but this was a wonderful conversation. School leaders do take a look into this, especially if you’re top three stressors. If one of them is substitutes, this is a beautiful solution, a beautiful partnership, and an opportunity for you to leverage and look at subs in a completely different way for the betterment of not just students.

I know we always say it’s for the kids, but this is really about your staff and yourself. It’s okay to get support. It’s okay to reach out. It’s already curated for you. Like, it’s just such a triple win. I think it’s amazing. And I’m so glad that we had the opportunity to share this on the podcast.

So thank you, Nicola, for your time and for your efforts and for the way that you’re serving education and the world, really, like, you know, the world of all the little humans out there who deserve, you know, continuity and people who care and want to be in those classrooms. So thank you.

Nicola: Thank you, Angela. It’s a privilege. Thank you for the work that you do on your podcast, too. So like I said, I love the title, The Empowered Principal. It’s awesome. Thank you.

Angela: Thank you. Have a great week, everybody. We’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 356. 

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, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. The podcast is one of my favorite things to do with my work day. I love it so much. I just really enjoy being here with you. So thank you. Thank you for being here with me. 

I want to take a moment and just share with you how much fun and how much amazement is being created in EPC this fall. There is a knockout group of school leaders who are so passionate. They have such amazing vision. They have such incredible insight. They’re just like you. They are struggling mentally, emotionally. They’re fatigued. They feel overworked. They’re feeling a little bit insufficient. Then they have a great day. Then they have a hard day. It’s all of it. It’s the full package. 

EPC has just been such a wonderful container, a wonderful place for people to come and feel seen and feel heard and express how they’re feeling. We can laugh about it. We can cry about it. We are having the best time. It’s magical. I’m so honored to be in this group with all of these women who are truly masterminding.

What I mean by that is it’s not just me teaching. Yes, I do teaching. I do coaching. But we’re sharing ideas, strategies, tools, what worked, what didn’t, resources, just experience with one another. It’s phenomenal.  I am blown away at the capacity and the potentiality of these leaders. They are phenomenal. So a shout out to all of them who are in EPC. It is truly a pleasure to be working with them. 

All right. On to today’s topic. I’m going to dive right in because this came up today in a coaching session. If one principal is feeling it, my guess is that many, many more are out there feeling it as well. So there are states that score schools. You might get a numeric score, a number score. You might get a letter grade score. You might get stars, a star system. There’s many kinds of rating systems that are out there by usually by state or maybe by county where your school gets some kind of public score. That score is supposedly a representation of the performance of your school. 

I want to break this down. One of my clients was feeling very discouraged and distraught because she didn’t get a score that she wanted for her school. It didn’t feel good. It was a letter score. It was below average, and it felt terrible. I have coached so many people on this. So, I want to provide some perspective here because this can really take a principal down, these scores.

I want to first tell you that the score is designed for you to feel either really, really good or really, really bad. There isn’t a whole lot of sufficiency that feels good. It lands. We’re good. Let’s keep going. It’s like yay, we made it. We got the A, or we’re above. That’s great. Woo, woo, woo. We make it mean all these wonderful things about our school. Or we get the D or the F or however they grade you or the one star or the low numeric score. Oh, terrible. We’re failures. We didn’t do our job. Everything’s going in the handbasket to you know where. It’s all terrible. 

It’s either like, yay. It’s all great. Or, boo, sadness. It’s all terrible. But we take it very personally as the leader because we feel like it’s our burden to bear. If we’re the leader and the school does great, we’re doing a good job. If we’re the leader and the school doesn’t get the grade, then we’re not doing a good job. It’s something on us. 

Couple things I want to say about this. Number one, it is a team effort. It’s not just you. It’s the team. So you want to consider that when you’re thinking about any kind of approach adjustment that you’re going to make. Keep in mind that you alone are not doing all the teaching. You alone are not doing all the behavior management. You alone are not running the school. It’s not just you. It’s a huge team. 

But even more importantly than that, there is a difference between insufficiency and failure. So you can set a goal, and let’s say you aimed for a certain score or you aimed for a certain number or certain number of stars and you missed the goal. So somebody might say to you, you failed to hit the goal. That does not mean that you’re insufficient as a leader. They’re two separate things.

Insufficiency is built into the system by design. What I mean by that is that this testing system is designed and the grading system that they’re giving schools right now, it’s designed for you to feel insufficient. Literally, you’re either doing perfection, or you’re insufficient somewhere, right? 

Here’s the example that I used with my client. Number one, there will always be a gap of some kind in a school. There’s where you’re at and where you want to be because as humans in the business of developing humans, that’s what education is. There will always be a gap of here’s where we’re at and here’s where we’re going and here’s where we’re growing, right? 

So there’s where you’re at in this moment, but if you think where you’re at right now isn’t good enough, it doesn’t matter if you get to the next level, because then there will be a next level and then you’ll think you’re insufficient there.

There’s always a gap because we are wired to evolve and grow. Okay, so there’s always where you’re at and there’s always a where you want to be. It is the process of evolution. It’s not that we’re chasing perfectionism. 

It’s like saying this, I live in a house. I love my house. My house is great. I love the fireplace. I love the windows. You know what? There are some quirks to this house. The upstairs faucet’s a little leaky. The washing machine is older, and it kind of bangs around sometimes. There’s a crack, a chip over here in the paint, a crack over here. We’ve got to repair. Always something that is in need of repair. There’s a little project, a house project. 

So you can love your house. You can be sufficient in your house. It’s a great house. It has a roof. It has four walls. It has windows. It has comfortable beds. It’s got bathrooms. It’s got running water, electricity. Oh my goodness, internet. It has so many creature comforts. I love my house, and I desire a newer home or a bigger home or a different location home. You can love what you have and be in it and desire. You can have a gap in where you’re at now and a desire that you have.

But when you live in your home and you love it, your experience of that moment is I love this, and I’ll love that too. I’ll love where I’m at right here, and I will love where we’re going to the next house. The same is true for your school. Your school is your home. You can love your school. Yes, it has projects because it isn’t perfect. 

Guess what? You could build the best home, custom made super design mansion on the best land, on the best views and the best property. It’s still going to have a punch list. It will still have imperfections. You can focus on the imperfections, or you can focus on the sufficiency of loving your home as is. 

Same with our schools. You can love your school, and it can have a punch list. You can have worked on this project last year, and in the house context, maybe you put new windows in last year and this year you’re going to replace the floors, or you’re going to upgrade the kitchen or one of the bathrooms. You don’t do it all at once typically. Even if you did, there would still be a punch list. There would still be things that weren’t quite perfect. 

We’re not going for perfection, but the system of education has set us up for perfection, which means it set us up to feel insufficient. It set us up for failing. If you were to go from a D to a C and then a C to a B, you’re going to feel amazing, but someone’s going to say but you’re not at an A. Then  let’s say you get to the A. 

What’s going to happen if your school is at an A and it performs consistently? Let’s say 80 or 90% of kids are performing on grade level or above. The culture is great. Parents love it. Students, everybody’s happy. It’s this little pretty school and pretty scores and pretty, then they’re going to say oh, our grading system must be too easy. It must be too easy to achieve. We’re going to make it harder. We’re going to change a test for the kids, the rating system for the school. 

The job is to make it harder. The whole system is designed by designed for you to feel insufficient. You cannot get caught in the trap. It’s an illusion. You’re being sold a game that you’re actually not playing. The game is not chase after test scores and get perfection and get all the A’s and get all the five stars and get the whatever score. That’s the facade that you’ve been sold on, but that’s not it. It’s a hook. 

I want you to consider what you’re making your school score mean about you, about your students, about your staff, about your school community. Are you taking it and applying it so personally and so heavily that you feel like you can hardly breathe when you look at that score? That score means nothing. Somebody made it up. 

I know you’ll say, but it matters to the superintendent and it matters. It matters. It matters. It matters because we taught people. Here’s what an A means. Here’s what a B means. Here’s what a C means. Here’s what a D means. Here’s what an F means. In the field of education, don’t you dare ever consider getting an F because if you do, that’s very bad because it describes your character, your capacity, your effort. 

We’re making grades mean something very personal about the human character, the human, the internal humanness of the student, of the teacher, of the principal. When, in fact, it’s a made up score, scored by humans who made up the system, who are also imperfect, but they’re hiding behind a rating that they’re not giving themselves, but they’re making it mean something about you personally. They’re making mean something about your students and your staff and your ability to be inspirational and to be engaging and to what? 

No, the test isn’t measuring what you actually do in your job. What you actually do in your job is build up emotional regulation in students and staff, maturity, communication, connection, developing not just their academics, but their humanness, their ability to socialize, their ability to problem solve and resolve conflicts and communicate effectively and physically develop, especially with the younger ones, right? They’re developing their bodies physically, kinesthetically. That’s what we’re doing. 

We don’t measure those things. We don’t measure the character of somebody, but yet we make the academic grade mean something about their character. Don’t fall into the trap. It’s a trap. It’s a loop. They want you to feel bad so that you’ll do more. But then what’s happening is you go out and do more and burn out and then you leave, and they think the solution is we get different people in. That’s not it.

The difference between schools that do well and schools that don’t is everybody feels great about being there, about what learning looks and feels like, about what teaching looks like, and they’re not focused on the test score or what they make the score mean. What they’re doing is they’re re-establishing the meaning behind it. They’re interpreting test scores differently, school scores differently. Your school score does not identify you unless you let it. 

When you think about the community, oh, that school got a D, that must be a bad principal. That must be a bad school. You have to interpret what does this D mean? Is it true? Did we just not put any effort in? Did we not try with kids? Did we not teach this year? Or were we developing young humans? Were we showing up every day, giving it everything we had in spite of what we might have been dealing with on our campus, mentally, emotionally? 

You were not a grade. That is not your identity. The D is designed to push the most painful human emotion of insufficiency, but it does not push the button of inspiration. It’s desperation, pressure. It’s a pain point used to try and, I don’t know what, control, manipulate. Create what? Pressure, power. I’m not sure why we’re doing this to people, but it doesn’t feel good. 

When school leaders don’t feel good, their schools don’t do well. When kids don’t feel good about themselves as students, they don’t perform well. When teachers don’t feel good about themselves as teachers, they don’t teach well. If there’s one thing that I could offer you this school year is that your test score doesn’t equal, or your school score, any score. It doesn’t equal your character. It doesn’t equal the character of your teachers, the integrity behind your work, the alignment around what you’re doing. It’s simply a made-up score. 

Now, if we could flick it to the side of the road and never have to deal with it again, that’d be amazing. But we are dealing with the institution and the systems that are in place, and the rating systems are a part of that. Your school’s going to get rated. It’s what you make it mean. It’s how you interpret it. Is it from insufficiency, or is it the house where it’s sufficient, and yeah, it’s got a punch list. It’s got projects that need doing. 

But there’s always a project. There’s always something we can be tweaking and working on, and changing and improving and upgrading. But we’re not in a rush. We’re going to triage. We’re going to prioritize. We’re going to do this project this fall, and then maybe we’ll do another project in the spring. Then we’re going to do another project next fall, and then we’re going to maybe do this little project in the winter. We have seasonal projects at our school. It’s a home. It’s evolving. There will never not be a gap. 

So instead of focusing on the gap, you can focus on the sufficiency of where you’re at right now. Because I promise you this, if you were to hate your home the whole time you lived in it and was always looking at what’s broken, what’s leaking, what’s squeaking, what’s not fixed, what’s scratched, what’s chipped, and every day you just focus on all those little things that drive you crazy and you can’t stand it, promise you this. It won’t be long before you move into your beautiful, big, custom-built, brand new mansion home, and you’re going to start to see the little imperfections. 

That big beautiful house that you worked so hard and thought it was going to be perfect when you got there, you’re going to find that it has punch lists and imperfections just like the old house did. It’s about how you feel about yourself and your school and your staff and your students and what you make those scores mean.

Separate the score from the character of the person. Your school scores do not define you, your staff, your students, or your school. If there is work to do, it isn’t a problem. All schools have it. If you were to have an A rating, I promise you this, they’d rewrite the rating, and you’d be back down because the goal is evolution. 

So focus on what’s progressing, what’s evolving, what’s transforming, what you’re learning as a leader, what your teachers are learning as teachers, the joy and experience of engaging with students. Watching a child go from not being able to regulate themselves at all to having a day where everything’s calm, that’s a huge win. Having five students who can’t regulate down to three students who can’t regulate, that’s a huge win. 

I want you to consider the score has nothing to do with your integrity, with your values, with your character, with who you are. Because insufficiency has nothing to do with failure. Failure is just missing the mark. I set a goal, I missed the mark. Sufficiency is whether I believe in myself and whether I value the progress I did make and the things I did do versus looking at everything I didn’t do. 

I know this might feel controversial in your mind. It might really rub up against some of your belief systems and what you make it mean about yourself or your school. But I promise you, that school score does not have to define you. If it’s something you struggle with, you can join EPC. The doors are open in October because the fall dip happened, and I know that people are struggling. This is the time when most people join. 

So I’m opening the doors in October to let you in, to get you in through the rest of the year. So come on in. The doors will not be open the rest of 2024. It’s open through October. Come on in. We would love to support you. We can turn this around, I promise you. Please go have an amazing week. Take good care of yourselves, and I will talk to you all next week. Take care. Bye. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.