Teacher Podcast #5 - Teacher Pilot Launch Day

Jamie, welcome back.

Well, hello.

All right, so now we're actually going to get into the meat, like what actually happened, uh, when I showed up at the school, what actually happened on the pilot launch day. We had already kind of launched because I showed up when, in August, second week in August, and kind of we were giving out boxes about a month earlier. So anything you want to share about the initial teacher thoughts or reactions to the proposal and your thoughts?

So, you know, we were talking about this in the last podcast and I was like, oh, we definitely need to make sure we talk about this, especially for those people who have followed Lisa for a while. I think some of my teachers were intimidated because they didn't remember me from when I was disorganized. They only know me now. And I am even a little bit calm in this. Like, I'm a lot, people. And so, um, I own it, and my teachers know that. But like, they, especially my new staff, they did not know me at all.

Mm-hmm.

All they know is what they see now. So I think some of them were that. And again, I'm the principal, so they wanted to make sure they quote unquote did it right. So they would call me and be like, is this right? Am I doing this right? And I'm like, as long as you're doing something, you're doing it right. And so like giving them that chance, um, after Lisa came, which I mean, you know, I'm gonna throw her under the bus a little bit, or the, the train since that's what we talk about now a lot. Um, she's a lot too. So I was like— Oh yeah, yeah. The two of us together And we're just the blonde and brunette versions of each other. So it was like, am I going to intimidate them even more? But I think they, they saw it and heard it differently coming from her versus just me. But just know that they're going to embrace this at their level. As Lisa said, I had a bunch of the new teachers and female teachers. I did not have a ton of the male teachers that took them. the opportunity to take the box. We're going to talk later about a time thing, and that was some of the aha moments for some of my male teachers. So just knowing that everybody's pilot slash launch, whatever you're going to call it, is going to look a little different because your staff's different, you're different. But let them, let them embrace it at their level, because I think That was some of my, my initial reactions as I, I did see that they were trying to make me happy or trying to do it the way I would want it done. And I told them, you've got to do it your way.

Well, and I think that's just such a great point that they felt intimidated. We try to perform organized, like, or put off that we are organized. Even if we internally do not feel organized. And, you know, when you look at what is the pre— what is the job of the prefrontal cortex? Now that I'm in my PhD, I realize there's a lot of, a lot of different theories. I thought it was like black and white, like, but it is not. But a lot of the things that we talk about of our executive functioning, that whole umbrella term, Literally is called organization, planning, prioritization. Like, that's literally what you call it inside of psychology of what your executive function is doing. These are all organizational structures. And when you've been in teaching for a while, you figure it out. Like, you figure out that district, you figure out that grade level, you figure out this group of people that you're teaching with, the jobs, the expectations. You figure it out. You create some kind of a system for yourself. Just like in the household, we have to figure it out, create some kind of system for ourselves for all of these extras that need to be done, not for teaching and not for lesson planning. Organized 365 does not address teaching and lesson planning. We believe that you are a teacher. You are great at what you do. You went to college for that. You know what you're doing like. We don't need to add to that. We are only bringing color to everything else you do as teachers that you don't even realize that you are doing. And is the organizing of this minutia of this administration which weighs us down, even when you're a great teacher. So you can be a great teacher and do amazing lesson plans and really be loving and passionate about what you're doing in the education sphere. But then when you show up in a meeting and you don't have the right paper, or you forgot about this thing, or you're late to this other thing, you berate yourself and you beat yourself up and you make yourself feel like, oh my gosh, I can't believe— I don't even know why they trust me with kids that I'm teaching this class. Because I can't even show up to this meeting on time, or I didn't remember that paper. And it, it's just nonsensical, but it is what we do. And so one of the very first things I said when I was standing there is I said, I'm not here to make you all perfectionists. I don't even think perfection is a thing. We are people of excellence. I'm not here to make you all use the same box the same way. I'm here to support those of you that do not feel like you are organized in the administrative part of your home and school. So that you have more time at home for yourself and at school to be a teacher. That's, that's all I'm here for. If you already have a system that works, you don't need this box at all, but you need to help those around you that aren't feeling the same way. And I said, the first thing I said was, I want to give permission to the people who are organized when you are seeing a teacher that is disorganized to be able to articulate and say, hey, I noticed blah, blah, blah. I found something that works for me for that. Do you want me to share it with you? And if you are the one that is disorganized or feels like your legs are about to fall off, they're paddling so hard under the water of your duckness, to be able to say, hey, other than teaching and lesson plans, I don't understand how anything works in this building whatsoever. So any color you want to share with me would be great. And I said to do this by building level. And there, there is another pilot we're doing right now. In another school where we're doing kindergarten and 4th grade, putting the systems in only at those levels to see if the communication at those levels changes based on the communications at other levels, to the point that the principal notices that those teams are functioning at a higher level, at a communication level, not production. None of this is about making you a more perfect teacher, a better teacher, raising test grades, any of that. All of this is about teacher wellness. Teacher satisfaction and keeping teachers in the game longer. That's all I'm in for, like actually helping a teacher see what they're doing and then communicating. So I said, at the building level, whoever is the most seasoned and the most organized, I want you to start telling people how you're organized. If you have checklists, I want you to share it with everybody. It's mandatory. They don't have to use them, just share them. If you are the newest person, I want you to ask questions in every meeting. Say, how do we do this? Is there a better way we could do this? And not feel guilty about asking it. And everybody in that level is going to benefit. So really setting the stage of the goal was not for everybody to perfectly be using this box. The goal was for people who have already figured out how this building works to share that information with the new people. That's it.

And I think so. 2 things with that. I was nervous that especially once I saw that they were intimidated and that type of thing, I was nervous. I did not want to be Adding something else, just adding one more thing. I wanted this to be an opportunity for them to learn from each other and take what worked for them and what didn't work. And sometimes, which we will get into in one of the future podcasts, we find out we didn't even have a checklist and we needed to create it. So those kinds of things, it just allowed for conversations to occur. And, you know, and, and I guess I was also a little bit nervous, and I think we're gonna talk about this a little bit later, that like, if you bring the visible visible, does that make them even more resentful? So that would—

Yeah, let's just, let's just hit it. The number one question I'm getting in school districts who are looking at implementing this system, and thank goodness that this person voiced this to me, she said, look, you know, I'm talking to the superintendent and we're considering it. But the reason why we don't want to do that is because we already know— verbatim— we already know our teachers are overworked. We already know they are resentful. We already know they're thinking about quitting. We don't want to give them the actual reason to do it. And I was like, whoa. So I immediately did what everybody wants to do is I went to Jamie. I'm like, Jamie, this is what they're saying. And then what did you say back to me?

I said, I think we all know that we're overworked. You're not hiding it from them that they're overworked. But I think what the biggest aha moment to them was we put a name to it. We, we, we identified it, and then they were able to proactively make a plan for it. And it also brought about, like Lisa has talked about this for years, that the only person who can remove something is the person who put it on their plate to begin with.

Yes.

So they were still doing things and I'm like, why are we doing that? And they're like, I don't know, the person before you did it. I was like, I never even knew this was a thing. Like, you guys have been doing this behind the scenes, and, and, you know, and then teaching them that there's times that it's hobby work because it makes us feel better, and then there's times that we're making something harder than it needs to be. So it really opened up the conversations again, and I laughed because I had, I had several of my teachers that came to me, and it was something to the effect of I'm not alone and I'm not crazy.

Right.

And so it's like, right, you're not. So then it was, okay, if we're not alone and we're not crazy, what can we do either as a group or as an individual? Once you've seen it, you know, Maya Angelou has that quote that it's something— I'm going to butcher it, but it's something about you do what you do until you know better and then you do better. Well, yes, we've been doing what we can. And I think the pandemic, like, sent us all for a tailspin. And then now that we're coming out of it, it's all of these new weird things that, like, nobody really knows how to deal with it, but nobody wants to admit that they don't know how to deal with it. So we're all in our rooms going, oh my God, oh my God. So I think it was just that, that ability to be like, I'm not the only one, right? And so it might have—I mean, I'm not going to say that they didn't. You know that I never had anybody come up and go like, you know, why am I doing this? Blah blah blah. But it allowed for a conversation, right? That I could be like, well, here's why we do it. Or like a couple of people, I love them to death. They're just like me. It's easier for them to take it on themselves than to have somebody else. But I'm like, you're doing that to yourself. Make, make your, make your, either your spouse or your colleagues step up. You don't have to do it all. Like, yes. And then they say, but I wanted it done right. Okay. But there's gotta be a part of it that can be done that you can be like, you know what? The dishes got done and they didn't get melted because he put the plastic on the bottom row. Like, I don't—

Gonna be dirty again.

Yeah.

I'm gonna tell you. So if you do go back to the household, I have 2 funny stories. Uh, I was raised by a mother that had me ironing everything. Like we ironed our bedsheets. I heard that— I heard Oprah say that she will sleep on bedsheets twice, and then she has new bedsheets because they're not crisp enough. I'm like, oh, well, she and my mother are of the same generation then, because I had to iron all of our bedsheets, which we called linens. So when I went to Miami and Miami University, and I'm a freshman, and my roommate said, hey, you want to go uptown? It's like 9 o'clock at night. I said, no. I need to stay in and iron my linens.

And they were like, what?

That was the last time I called them linens and the last time that I ironed them. But this is an example of like, that's how I was raised. I was away from the house. I had done the laundry. Time to iron the sheets. I've never done that again. More recent episode was when the pandemic happened. I had somebody cleaning my house at the time. Obviously, that put a kibosh on that. So she wasn't coming over anymore. And it was not until week 7 that I noticed dust. And I say that because I now know that if you are dusting any more often than every 6 weeks, you are over-dusting. The Organized 365 audience has tested this theory, and they find it to be true as well. If you dust every 6 weeks, you will not— you will not notice dust in your house. Or you can dust every week. You're over-dusting if you dust more than every 6 weeks. So just little things like that that you've just done forever because it's part of your routine, or we've always done it until you have an event, a person that points it out to you like, that is weird. We don't call them linens and don't iron them, and you should come uptown with us. Or a catastrophic event like a pandemic where you're like, oh, you know what? This thing I was doing every week only needs to be done every 6 weeks. That's part of what this does. Let me be clear. We're doing too much. Everyone in academia at every level is doing a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't need to be done anymore. But we will never know that it doesn't need to be done anymore until we start talking about it.

Yeah.

And if we're not talking about it, no one could take it away. And I don't remember where I first heard this, but someone said that the CEO is the only person that can take away complexity inside of a corporation. And that is true. Once I assign something to my team, they will do it until they no longer work here. And the interesting thing inside of a business is when someone leaves in a business and you rehire someone for that position, it's at that time when you rehire someone for a position in a company that you rewrite the job description and you eliminate any of the work that is no longer necessary and add on new work that has come. We don't do that in education. But you naturally do that in businesses through natural turnover inside of a company. Or you'll go along, you'll be like, hey, this is something I do in my company all the time. Hey, tell me all the meetings that you're a part of. I change the meetings people go to quarterly. There's no meeting that you go to for the rest of your life. Every quarter, I look at every meeting that anybody in our company goes to, and I eliminate any that are no longer necessary. And I add new ones for the new initiatives that we have coming up for new quarters. That's why businesses evolve and grow without this debt. There's technical debt, meeting debt. Job description debt, this not really looking at it. But in education, we just add, add, add. And so this Workbox experience allows us to look at like, okay, this is how we've done this for the last 42 years, but maybe right now we don't need to do it this way. So I'm going to explain real high level what the different invisible work we have at school is so you could start to recognize what we're talking about. And I color code these. So the first color is red, and red, that is anything that is related to an IEP or a discipline issue. This is, you know, very important. That's why it's red, because there are legal implementation implications for IEPs and discipline issues. That would also include your 504s, any of those things. Anything along that line is red. We're going to talk about that in another podcast. Orange is the color that I have for calendars and computers. So calendars and computers weekly. I go through and update my calendar, look through all the meetings that I had the last week. Are there any actionables that need to come from those parent meetings, or any of those kind of things? Anything that you need for computers? This is the color inside of the Education Workbox community group, because there is a community group where the teachers go to town on making checklists. They have so many checklists, and because this product was in existence before the pandemic, The teachers proactively inside of this color made checklists for their kids' passwords, especially if you teach at the younger ages. The kids don't remember their passwords for all the different things, and everything has a password. So they would have a list of like, okay, this is the class. Here are all the names. Here are all the passwords. And then you may say, ooh, but we can't put passwords on the list because they're passwords. Yeah, well, they're not to Fort Knox. They're to the Mathnasium class for Section 2. So you can have it on a checklist. So much easier for a teacher to just go, oh yeah. Here's your password, read it out to the kid and keep moving instead of, I don't know how else you would find a password. That was like game-changing for teachers when they started making those checklists. Yellow is the out-of-classroom color. So when you're going on a field trip, if you need to go get copies, if you need supplies, if you're going to have parent helpers make things for your classroom, those are out-of-office things. Green is financial. So when you need reimbursements, when you need money, there's something else for green. Oh, yeah, you could do grading in there if you want to. If you want to do grading inside of your box, grading lesson plans and teaching are not in the education work box, but you could put them in there if you want to. Blue is the team color. So you have multiple teams when you are a teacher. You have your grade level team, you have your building team, you have your parent team. You have your IEP team, lots of different teams, and all of those teams have meetings. And then each meeting has its own slash pocket so that you would have the meeting agenda from the last meeting so you can follow up on whatever you needed to follow up on. But the genius of this box is that you can have thoughts outside of a meeting, write them down on an index card, put it in that slash pocket. Then when you go to that next meeting, you remember what you wanted to ask those people without sending an email, without interrupting, and without forgetting. Purple is the color for students. So that's where you keep your student lists, attendance, fire drills, any of that kind of stuff would be in there. And then pink is the color of you. So pink is your color for your professional development, your reviews, your CEUs that you need to make, and your happy mail. Any of the things that are related to you as a teacher being an amazingly awesome teacher that you need to remind yourself. By looking at someone who has written it down and sent it to you. Anything you wanted to share about those colors, Jamie?

And I think, too, yes, those are all the colors. But then when you get them, you might have a large number of one color versus something like— that was one thing my teachers were like, we're supposed to use all of these. No, no, no, no, no. You might only have one. You might not have it at all like You might do one, one until you get great at that one and then build on that. So it is your system. And I know it sounds silly, but the fact that there's 5 of each color, it really does work. And that was one of the things my teacher said was it, it got them without even realizing what they were doing. They were task stacking.

Yeah.

So if you, if you Are doing an IEP, and then you go to make a copy, and then you go to make an email and all of that. You don't realize how much time and mind space you're, you're, you're taking up switching from task to task, where if you've got all of it in one, you're able to get it done, which goes back to the Sunday basket. And we know that, but for those that don't have it, it helps you task stuff. So keeping that in mind, but as long as you're within the same framework of it, like you own it, you own what that color is, and, and it'll change, right? Like right now at my house, I don't have a whole lot of purple because we just recently redid everything in our house. And thanks to Lisa, I know that when an appliance goes out, I just buy a new one because I bought them all 19 years ago. So of course they're all going to go out at the same time. And so I don't have a bunch of purple, but I— my company colors for my side business are purple and aqua. So I use the purple for my side business. So just know that it's within your range. Like if it's— we're going to talk about something with special ed that was like a huge aha moment for me with red. So I want to save that one for later, but just embrace it. And whatever it's talking to you, like, internalize it and do it.

I would say the biggest— wasn't a problem, but limitation on this pilot was how fast we did it. Like, if I, you know, if I could be like, okay, well, I know there's funding and we could do it, I probably would spread it out over 2 years and it would be different. So as we create these, Programs for different districts. We will work within what, you know, the parameters that you have— time, money, all of those things— and the transformation that you want to occur. One of the cool things you did, Jamie, that I now have adopted for orange, the orange color, is you had a slash pocket for each month, and I think that's genius. So these slash pockets have 2 folders on each side. So you can label them front and back. So you can have like August on the front and September on the back, and then October on the front. Or you could just buy an extra set of slash pockets, and you can have the 10 months of the school year. But I love that for 2 reasons. One, as soon as you finish something, you always have ideas for how you could improve it and think you'll remember, and you don't. So if you just write that down and put it in the slash pocket, you have it for the next year. But also, so often, like right now we're recording this in February. But you have a great idea for May. Where do you put that? You know what I mean? Like, there's just no place to put it. So this system makes visible the invisible work you're doing, but it also captures your brilliant ideas and then puts them somewhere safe so that when you get to that time frame or you get to that project or you get to that again, you can remember what you were thinking. It allows your brain to have all the genius ideas it has any time of day in any setting. And as long as you capture that on an index card and get it into the right slash bucket, eventually that idea is still there when you need it. Which leads us to the second thing that I taught in that first pilot day, which was about index cards. I shared a little bit of academic research that I have on index cards. And I just challenged the staff between this meeting and the next meeting. The only thing, the only homework that they had was to start writing down every single to-do and idea they had on index cards one per idea or to-do, like not to carry on an index card and make yourself a list. But every time you had an idea, write it on a separate index card. And the reason why I have you write it on a separate index card is because if you have 2 thoughts on the same card, they might go in different slash pockets, or one might need to be done today, and the other one needs to be done a week from now. You need to capture the thoughts that you have in your brain on paper, and then once they're on paper, be able to sort them wherever they need to go. Until they're actually going to happen.

I have to add this, and this is not like we— you just said it and it made me think of this. I just sat in an IEP meeting this week where a student was way behind on her assignments, and one of the teachers that has embraced the program was giving her advice and told her— now, the, the student didn't have index cards, but we— I said, you But this— the teacher said one assignment per, like, sticky notes was what the student was using. And so that you can throw it away. And the student came and saw me. Let's see, we had that meeting on Tuesday and the student came and saw me on Thursday and was like, I got so much done because I was able to sort them and start working on them and Where when she saw the list, it was overwhelming. But when she saw one index card at a time, it was doable.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know the science behind it because I haven't done the research yet to do the study that shows that this is working. I could just tell you it's working. It actually works in real world. And this is probably a great little segue here. I have been working on evaluating this pilot from a quantitative standpoint. And what I have realized is education as a whole is qualitative. Like, we know what works in a classroom because we teach and we pivot and iterate, and then we share that learning, and then we move forward. Like, every single thing that is done in a classroom was done from grounded theory. Like, somebody tried it, it worked. Somebody else tried it, it worked. And now everybody does it. Nothing in a classroom was ever started in an experimental quantitative setting and then disseminated into the classroom. So the way I set this up as a quantitative study is not working, but qualitatively we do have a lot of support for what we're doing.

Well, I think too, going back to the index cards, I think it— and going back to the 12-folder or like my 10 folders, part of the reason too, if you have the Home System, if you have the Sunday basket, you know there's a waiting file. So, but my waiting file was getting too thick and I was having to thumb through it. So now by having the monthly ones, I'm able to put them in there and it is waiting until the month it matters.

Yeah. So, and at work you're always going to have more waiting than at home because at home the goal of the Home System Is to finish and move through processes at home so that you have more time to do what you're uniquely created to do. The purpose at work of a Workbox is to become more productive and to be able to produce even more. So you're actually not just waiting to finish things at work. Those waiting for things become the ideas that create new products, processes, and systems going forward that makes your school, uh, have better test scores, have better, uh, community, have more. Like, it's the nature of business.

Well, and I think too, you think about like, there's this one thing that I learned from a video I watched with Angela Watson. I'm super excited about it. I can't wait to do it, except if I do it right now, it's busy work. If I do it this summer while— so basically it's creating this chart and I'm gonna be able to have all these files in there. But if I do it this summer, I'm gonna kill 2 birds with one stone. I'm going to do the work while I create the chart, where if I do it now, I'm just creating the chart to create the chart. Yes. So it's that, it's that timing, like you mentioned before, that proactive procrastination. Like, I know that I'm going to get this done. But it's going to be better to do it later than it is for me to do it right now.

Yeah. Okay, I wanna segue into after I did that, and that was a very brief teaching that I did. Like, here are the colors. Here's what I want you to do with the index cards. Get your box if you haven't gotten a box. And then you and I really had a conversation. And I think the bigger purpose both you and I wanna get to, which is hard to get to when people are overwhelmed, Is how do we actually reduce some of the overwhelm? So we had a pretty open conversation with people who were in the room. So we had in the room teachers, you were the principal, and I believe the assistant superintendent was there as well.

Yes. Okay, got a different title, but that's what I call her.

Okay, great. So we had different levels of management, so to speak, in the room. It wasn't just all teachers or all teachers plus you. We We pretty much had the whole corporation represented there. And I wanted to not poke the bear, but kind of like, I had never— I'm a teacher and I'd never been in a room full of all teachers. And I wanted to see all these ideas that I've been saying and having in one-on-one conversations with teachers would work in a whole building. And because you're so open and honest and you were ready for it too, We just started asking a bunch of questions of the people who are in the room. And like, what are— what is the invisible work that you have? What are the problems that we have in this building that maybe we don't know? Because my, my guess was, or my hypothesis was, there were problems that had not surfaced yet that were not solvable by one but would be solvable by all. And that's immediately what we saw. Like, I was so surprised. I think the first thing that came up was the discipline, that there were some more discipline issues this year than there have been in the past.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and it was nice to have the teachers be able to kind of talk through maybe why that was or how that had come to be, like give them a forum to have that conversation which they had not had before. But then the real question that came out that I remember, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the real question that came out was one of the newer teachers said that the building really didn't have anyone that was trained for specifically discipline issues. First problem. Second problem, there was nowhere to go with the person who had a discipline issue because of the configuration of the building. So what were your thoughts when those 2 things came up?

That I had not hidden it well. So those were issues that I thought I was keeping from the staff, but they had noticed it. No. Well, not to— well, the behavior stuff, it's just been a— it's been a unique year with that, and we're still struggling with space. Our building is a tight fit. But I really did appreciate the fact that they were open. I will say There were times that you and I talked later that I think they would have been more open if certain people hadn't been in the room.

Right. Right.

And so I did like later we, we did the mentee program where they could, like, make comments without anybody knowing who they were. So that part, I think that they, they did at least vocalize what I also knew was a problem. I think they vocalized it at a different level because I thought them just sending it to me was fine and that kind of thing. So it did, it did open up those, those conversation levels. And also we recognized there's things that they can't change. There's things that I can't change. There's things that the superintendent can't change.

Right.

As we've been talking about. Indiana's test scores lately. I mean, it's— we're, we're, we're— let's see, since I've been in administration, we have had 3 new tests, and, um, we're, or we're coming up on a 3rd new test. It's, it's just, it gets a little frustrating at times. And this last time, the cut scores were just— they just, they've kind of been demoralizing because I'm like, okay, you cannot tell me That 22% of the entire state of Indiana is successful in this topic, right? So it's just those kinds of frustrating things, but it gave them a chance to talk about them.

Yeah.

And then us to be like, okay, that's something we can actually handle, or that's something that's bigger than us. And maybe we either create a committee that goes to the State Department or whatever, but what What can we actually handle with the resources that we currently have?

Yeah. And I was surprised. So you and I talked right after. I was like, well, they say that there are a lot of kids and there's no place to go in this building. You're like, well, yeah, this building was built— I can't remember when— and it had like a population of half. And I was like, wow, like that stuff, like every year, just a few more kids, a few more kids. Like it just sneaks up on you. Yeah. That the density of kids inside of a building. And it's not a quick fix. I mean, that's gonna involve a building campaign, and you're 4 buildings in 1 corporation. So are you gonna become 5? Are you gonna become 8? Are you gonna become— you know, I mean, like, that's like, that's like a 10-year problem.

Right.

But even being able to articulate it, and then you're like, okay, well, we all know that everybody at every level now knows that this is a known issue. At least it's seen.

Yes. And I think that's the biggest thing is people can recognize, okay, but it got us all using again that same language that we talked about earlier, that we're all like, okay, we're all at least on the same page. Right. And they talked about different systems that we had in place for testing. and that kind of thing. So we've made some adjustments on some of that. And sometimes you've got to monitor and adjust and then you go, okay, yeah, that didn't work either. And so then you're back to the drawing board.

Yeah.

But we're at least opening up those lines. And again, it makes them realize, hey, I'm not the only one and I'm not crazy. It's kind of like I was even saying at the last PD that we just had, it's been funny because this year For some reason, hoodies are a huge issue. And I just thought, is it just our kids? Like, have they all lost their minds? And then now I'm seeing it all over social media that like, it's, it's something this year—

About 'em.

About 'em. And I'm like, well, not that it makes it any easier for me to deal with at school because it's them constantly fighting us, but at least I know we're not the only ones dealing with it. It's not like just my students are being disrespectful. It's something about whatever's going on out there that we're not seeing, you know. But just, I think again, it's just that acknowledging. And sometimes you have to acknowledge and move on, and sometimes you can acknowledge and make adjustments. And again, budgets are in place. You make a budget and then you make like a 3-year plan. So sometimes you're like, okay, I get that. Yeah. But this is a, this is a Small ticket item, we can fit it in, or this is a large ticket item, we have to plan 3 years out. So you have to start having those conversations, and that's in Indiana. I don't know what budgets are in all the other states.

And but at least teachers feel hurt. Like, you're like, okay, that's a 3-year thing. Okay, well, at least it's like even on the list. Like, I remember as things were coming up in that meeting, you were like, oh, that I can fix tomorrow. That— I'm like, you were making notes. You're like, I can fix that, I can fix that. Like, they were saying You walked out with a handful of index cards. You were like, all this can be fixed by next week. But you have to. And also, obviously, this is— and this is why I thought this would be such a great pilot. I knew you had such a great staff relationship and community. I think the staff held back because you had to raise your hand in front of, like, administration. But also they were like, hey, if we get to solve some problems, we're going to be vulnerable and we're going to share what we need to solve. And I think if everybody's coming at this with that same vulnerability of like, hey, the wellness of the staff providing for the students is important. Therefore, the staff from superintendent to principal to assistant principal to teacher level is going to be vulnerable to raise the issues. We're no longer dealing with them in isolation.

Correct.

Because it's not like the people in the building didn't know that was an issue. I'm the only one that I was surprised. I was like, oh, wow. Well, I didn't even know this because I don't know because I'm not here. And when something is no longer in isolation, then you feel seen, you feel heard, and you feel like you don't have to carry the weight of that alone. Now, if you don't have a great collaborative community like you do, I could see how that could turn south.

Yeah.

But because you had a great relationship with your staff, I did not observe during this whole pilot where they were like, well, we told her and she didn't answer it. So now, you know, like, and, and also as a teacher, when you're in that collaborative environment and you're making visible the invisible work and then trying to figure out what can be done now, what can be done later, what's out of our control, what's, you know, just like the world going mad, not us. Um, you feel like you're in it together, and then you're going to stay in the fight longer.

Yeah. And I think too, um, one thing that I've had them send me, like, they'll send me like, this is a, uh, a dream. Like, if, if, if you ever have money, because that's what happens. Like, sometimes you get to December and you're like, oh, I do have this pot of money. And so like one year, the Librarian that— this was before I went through this program, but she's like, Jamie, the laminator is like ready to drop dead. So I like skimped and everything to where— and I told her, I said, come see me December 1st. And then December 1st, I was like, okay, I've saved enough money. We can get a new laminator.

So let me just say, no laminator is like DEFCON 1 for a teacher. We must have a laminator.

Correct. Correct. And so there's just those things that like, once I knew it was there and like they needed it, Mm-hmm. If again, that, that year I was able to be like, okay, maybe we buy a cheaper of this to be able to save, you know, whatever to get to the end. Um, and because of that and because of my frugalness, I don't get a lot of questions with spending. So if I go out spending and, and every year I spend my entire budget on, you know, things that we haven't thought our way through, Then you're gonna get questioned more. But when I, I have a very detailed process of how I go through it, and I'm like, okay, is this gonna help in this group? Is this gonna, you know, just being able to, to have those conversations and to be able to, like, we have a lot of grant opportunities, but what I'll tell teachers is, okay, don't apply for that grant because we have this fund over here that would pay for that. So then it looks like, you know, we're needy or whatever. So, but definitely keeping those things in mind.

Yeah. So that's the end of our first pilot day. As I left, I was just so grateful. And Jamie, I just want to say thank you to you and to the Lawrenceburg Schools for allowing me the privilege of coming in and meeting with your teachers and being part of their professional development. It was It was so fun. It was— I enjoyed the drive over and the drive back each day, really reflecting on my own school journey as a teacher. And I could have never imagined when I quit teaching that 12 years later I would have this opportunity to create something for teachers who are still in the teaching industry. And I just— I'm just so, so grateful for it. So thank you so much for that.

Oh, and we, we have enjoyed every bit of it. And at some point, I'm not sure if we're gonna do it in this one because I know this one's getting a little bit longer. But I wanna talk about the September one when we did the time circles. But that's— that could be—

Yeah, we're gonna hit that. So I'm leaving. So I was leaving and I was driving away, and I was just so blessed and grateful for the opportunity and just so excited about what surfaced during that meeting and A little nervous about if, if the teachers were really gonna embrace doing the index cards or not. Like, I knew some of the teachers were like, oh, I don't know about this thing. And I know I'm a lot, and I know the way that I think about organization is very different than anybody else. And so if you're not in the Organized 365 ecosphere, it is like you just got hit with a fire hose, and you're like, what is this? Where did she come from? Why are her thoughts so different than everybody else's thoughts? And because the pilot was only going to be 5 months long, I was thinking, boy, though, that special ed team needs a lot more support than what we gave them. When I said, how many checklists do you have? Or like, how many systems and processes do we have in the building for special education? And the answer was none. I was like, oh, the Titanic is like almost to go under, and they don't even know it. Like, just from an organizational standpoint, I knew that if we didn't step in very quickly, No one was gonna have the capacity to learn about the Workbox because all you were going to be doing was treading water. And so I was like, I really, really have to spend more time with the special ed team. I almost turned around and came back and was gonna like be like, get in here, like we're gonna learn this right now. And I was like, no, I can't do that. They have other things they're doing today, but I need to reach out to Jamie and see if we— I could schedule some more one-on-one time. I had some ideas with the special ed department before the next meeting. Because they were not going to be able to figure this out on their own in the amount of time that we have for the pilot. I had to move them forward faster. So that's what I was thinking about when I left. What did you do between this and the next meeting?

So between this and the next meeting, other than the special ed, the biggest thing I saw was teachers were still not aware of their time. So I took a very— at our September PD, I did. If you do her planning days, the time circles, imagine that activity. But I, I changed it up a little bit to where they at least saw it. That was the first time that I think I really got all of their input. Like, I think they all really embraced what we were talking about, even though I think because it addressed some of the things from home. Right? And so even the men would be like, because I stood up there, I said, the laundry is getting done. It might not be getting done by you, but it's getting done. So like, what can you do to help your spouse or significant other or whatever? And so some of them, like I had some of the guys that came up and that were like, you know, I really appreciate this because I never really realized What's going on at the house because it's getting done, and most of their spouses also work outside the home. So we did the time breakdown, and I talked about Laura Vanderkamp in the 168 hours, and we broke it down, and I taught them how there's different time. There's time circles for the weekends versus the weekdays, and I think that I can see the. Regress, leave some of them, because I think they were at the same point that I was the first time I did one of those time circles that you're just like, okay, this is why I— this is why I am the way I am, because I'm doing too much for the 168 hours. And so, yeah, I think that that was a huge— that there was more embracement after that. We did still get a couple of more people that came and got boxes. But, and then that's when I started seeing later that them bringing slash pockets to meetings.

Yeah, I think knowing that you're doing too much and knowing that there's invisible work is one thing. If all we actually did was just make it visible, then no, there'd be no point to that. Then you're just adding work to work. But the purpose of making it visible is to eliminate as much as possible, whether that can be eliminated at the principal level, at the superintendent level, at the state level, at the— like, what are we doing that we don't need to do at all? Also, I talked a lot about crowdsourcing. Like, if everybody in 4th grade is doing this, does everybody in 4th grade have to do it? Or can one person do this and one person do this and one person do this versus everybody doing everything? So you're doing more batch task things. And then the next thing is to set up repeatable processes, set up checklists. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next episode.