00:00:01:17 - 00:00:31:08
Speaker 1
This meeting is being recorded. Everybody gets to agree. Welcome back to another episode of Putting the Pieces Together with Jigsaw Learning. Today, Curtis, Lorna and I are joined by Nicole Townsend and Mike Yorke from Buck Son. Nope. Let's try that again. It's not that central mountain. It's Buck Mountain. Central. See, it's always good when I screw up first and then again.

00:00:31:16 - 00:00:54:00
Speaker 1
Welcome back to another episode of Putting the Pieces Together with Jigsaw Learning. Curtis Laura and I are joined today by Nicole Townsend and Mike Yorke from Buck Mountain Central School with Waterstone Regional Public Schools. Nicole is in her second year as principal after being vice principal at that school, and Mike has joined her in his second year as an assistant principal after years of being a high school English teacher.

00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:03
Speaker 1
So welcome to you both.

00:00:56:09 - 00:00:56:21
Speaker 2
Hello.

00:00:59:10 - 00:01:13:21
Speaker 3
Good afternoon. It's great to have you both with us. Before we get started, I love to hear a little bit more about the background and kind of what brought you to the place that you're out here today. Mike, do you want to start off and then we'll turn over to Nicole?

00:01:14:16 - 00:01:44:13
Speaker 4
Yeah, sure. So, yeah. Second year vice principal at Buck Mountain Central School. I'd actually started my career with Witherspoon Regional Public Schools here before, and then I transferred out to pursue my career to kind of take on some leadership responsibilities with the English department there. And then took that as as far as I felt I could do for the time, which was there was so much left to do, but I believe it's the best opportunity to work with.

00:01:44:13 - 00:02:09:06
Speaker 4
Nicole came up when she received her principal Shep and so I could not pass up a chance to come back to a school I loved in a, in a great position that has been so rewarding. And then since then, yeah, I've been taking my master's of educational studies through the University of Alberta. And right now, my, my focus for my research assignments is to look into retention rates of rural teachers.

00:02:10:09 - 00:02:33:19
Speaker 3
Oh, that's super exciting. Well, I'll be interested to see what that what that brings out. I've, of course, have an interest and passion around educators in a rural setting. It's my background. It's my mom was a rural educator. I was as well. So super exciting. Now, Nicole, Mike kind of sets you up here. Now, it seems like, you know, the draw of working with Nicole.

00:02:34:05 - 00:02:34:20
Speaker 1
During that day.

00:02:34:21 - 00:02:41:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the challenge goes to you of share something about yourself and see if you can build up Mike and in kind of the same way.

00:02:42:12 - 00:03:26:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Fair enough. So interestingly. So I was a classroom teacher Up Up Mountain when Mike joined us a couple of years after I had been teaching here. And so we, we naturally kind of gravitated toward one another to collaborate on things going on in the classroom, less on content, because I was a math science teacher and so I didn't really have a lot to bring to the table in terms of English and literacy, but I focused more in the numeracy area and in the sciences and then I had mentors here at Black Mountain who had gone through the Master of Educational Studies program at the U of a same program that Mike is talking about.

00:03:27:00 - 00:03:53:20
Speaker 2
And it was an opportunity to continue working while getting my degree. And so I embarked on that as just a way I am the type of person who likes to keep moving forward and really has no goals in mind. So I just jumped in through a master program and just just because I wanted to learn, right. And so then following that, got an opportunity to come on as a vice principal here at Buck Mountain.

00:03:53:20 - 00:04:16:01
Speaker 2
I loved it again. I had no real aspirations of being principal then. Then an opportunity came up and here I am. So it's been a pretty natural evolution for me. But yeah, I know it's it's been great to have Mike back here at Buck Mountain. We kind of our leadership styles and our content areas and all of those things kind of complement each other.

00:04:16:20 - 00:04:34:11
Speaker 2
And it really it speaks to a culture of the people that we work with because we're, you know, they see us as lead teachers first and then administrator second. And so that is that's kind of the culture of our building and something that we're really proud of.

00:04:35:15 - 00:04:59:19
Speaker 1
And that love for learning that you were talking about. Nicole, is such a big part of that successful journey. And I it actually popped into my head as you're talking about your master's that we just our daughter just started university this year. And as we dropped her off and got her settled into bass, we both were going, Oh, we'd like.

00:05:00:06 - 00:05:17:13
Speaker 3
To be back. But it's so funny because when you're in it, it's, oh, it's exciting. And then you reach that point of, Oh my goodness, I just need to get this thing done. And then you reach a point years later of, Okay, I could handle doing this again. So I think we all share the master's. Jenn, you've got your master's.

00:05:18:09 - 00:05:35:23
Speaker 1
Degree in the in the educational studies program from UVA as well. And so it was a fantastic blend because I was in Fox Creek at the time. So the ability to do the online portion and only have to go in during the summer was fantastic. The ability to tailor the project to the content that I was working in was amazing.

00:05:36:18 - 00:06:00:08
Speaker 3
All right, so before we jump into the collaborative response, which is actually why we're here, you know, I know we're going to have a lot of people that are engaging in master's work, looking at ed leadership pieces as well. While we just go around and just one thing that if you could share with somebody listening who's considering or starting in the middle or just trying to push through the end.

00:06:00:15 - 00:06:08:08
Speaker 3
One piece of advice, Jenn, I'll put you right on the spot. Want to start off one one thing that you could tell someone listening to this and we'll just kind of go around.

00:06:09:00 - 00:06:22:24
Speaker 1
Oh, find some peer editors. Absolutely. Have someone else read through your work. And then for you, not only for Master's, but anything you're putting in. Anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we left out.

00:06:23:14 - 00:06:46:10
Speaker 3
So I think for me, it's trying to find what's the leverage into something that you have passion in, in being able to explore. I've had friends that had a project or a thesis that actually wasn't totally something they were interested in. They had kind of been suggested to them, and it now was a bit of a tougher, tougher goal for that.

00:06:46:10 - 00:06:47:12
Speaker 3
How about for you, Nicole?

00:06:48:18 - 00:07:03:24
Speaker 2
I would say we know, you know, teachers learning, educators learning has an impact on student learning. And so it's to build on what you're saying about having a passion for it. Is this being able to share that passion with the people you work with and the students you work with has a huge impact.

00:07:04:08 - 00:07:05:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:07:05:11 - 00:07:11:19
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so that's so true. Nicole and I would I would double up on that to say that.

00:07:12:15 - 00:07:15:02
Speaker 3
You can't choose ditto as you know, sponsor. It doesn't.

00:07:15:02 - 00:07:15:07
Speaker 1
Work.

00:07:15:16 - 00:07:18:06
Speaker 3
Like that.

00:07:18:06 - 00:07:46:12
Speaker 1
No, I was just thinking about the importance of, oh, surprise collaboration. Find a buddy and convince that body to do to do their masters with you. Because that idea of either joining a cohort or having someone else that's in that same program that you can depend on and that you can go through your struggles with is a really important piece of working through your masters.

00:07:46:12 - 00:07:48:09
Speaker 3
Mike, you get last word there, my friend.

00:07:48:24 - 00:08:10:06
Speaker 4
You know, the thing that I come back to so often is just the idea that when you do your undergrad degree, you see the sliver of what teaching is going into a master's. It broadens your view and all of a sudden you start looking at holistic and sometimes systemic barriers and opportunities to improve school culture, learning, all of that stuff.

00:08:10:06 - 00:08:15:02
Speaker 4
And so just the amount of the world you see that impacts education.

00:08:15:02 - 00:08:37:15
Speaker 3
All right. Well, we're going to have to take this and make our own podcast on the benefits of higher learning and whatnot as we go. But I do know that Jen had some things she wanted to actually get to within this particular podcast, so we should probably veer back on course. Jen As you're smiling and giving me the Let's get it going, eyeballs stare.

00:08:37:23 - 00:08:55:18
Speaker 1
Well, Curtis, I know you've been raving about what's going on at Black Mountain Central School with this collaborative response. And I have not had an opportunity to be there, to see it, to be a part of it. I have only met these two lovely people through a screen where they're leveraging software to support collaborative response. So so I want to hear about the journey.

00:08:56:08 - 00:09:05:06
Speaker 1
So I mean, where to begin? How did you hear about collaborative response? And you know, what piques your interest about it? What makes you keep going with it?

00:09:06:21 - 00:09:35:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll, I'll jump in on that. So in a, in an effort to start doing some educational planning for our school division, our superintendent at the time had leveraged learning teams within our leadership cohorts. So principals and vice principals and district leaders from across the school division in kind of areas of focus. And one of the areas of focus was collaboration.

00:09:35:16 - 00:10:01:08
Speaker 2
And so one of the groups jumped in to this idea of how do we have, you know, teachers across WRP starting to collaborate? And so they did a little bit of research and arrived at jigsaw learning. And so then we started digging into what is this collaborative response. I know a bunch of books were purchased, people started doing some learning and some inquiry and fast forward a few months, then it was brought to leadership team.

00:10:01:08 - 00:10:22:05
Speaker 2
Is this of response something we want to invest time and money in in our school division? And there was a resounding well, yeah, it was kind of like, well, this is kind of like the missing piece. We've we've done response to intervention, we've done policy work, and we just feel like there's something that's not quite coherent about the work that we're doing.

00:10:22:11 - 00:10:49:11
Speaker 2
And so we jumped into collaborative response in the spring of 2021, I believe, and in September that year, leaders were told, you know, this is kind of a game plan for the year of initiating some collaborative response within your school, move at your own pace, figure it out right, see what works for you. And that was the year that Mike and I started working together as a leadership team.

00:10:49:18 - 00:11:00:08
Speaker 2
And Mike and I are both of the opinion of We're going to do something, let's just jump in. And so we held our first collaborative team meeting on September 15th last year.

00:11:00:11 - 00:11:01:10
Speaker 1
Oh, wow.

00:11:01:10 - 00:11:08:02
Speaker 2
You jumped in in January. We were like, no, if we're going to do this and we're going to do it wrong, we're going to figure it out early.

00:11:08:10 - 00:11:14:07
Speaker 3
Okay. So you definitely heard the right ready fire. I'm saying. Right, right. Initially that stuck.

00:11:14:13 - 00:11:14:18
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:11:14:19 - 00:11:36:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I mean, we had both I think we were just drawn to a lot of like we knew that if we were leveraging the structures properly that people would start to see the dividends that it would pay throughout the year in the classroom and so we're like, well, why wait? What's what's the point of waiting? We're just setting people up, you know, let's look as we go.

00:11:36:23 - 00:11:45:23
Speaker 2
And so we literally said Learn by doing and jumped right in and it was it there was clunks along the way. Like it wasn't.

00:11:46:24 - 00:11:48:12
Speaker 1
A pretty talking degree.

00:11:49:07 - 00:12:15:12
Speaker 2
But I would say that it's enabled us to get some momentum and it's kind of taught us a lot about the team that we have here and about their readiness to keep going. And it's that attitude hasn't changed one little bit. It's full steam ahead. Let's keep going. We're on this path. Let's you know, there are certain times we have to say, okay, we need to slow down in order to keep moving fast.

00:12:15:12 - 00:12:31:02
Speaker 2
But it's it's been awesome. These last, I guess, 16 months or whatever, working within the processes and structures specifically, but then also digging into some of the deeper stuff with the data and the continuum of support.

00:12:31:02 - 00:12:31:10
Speaker 1
So.

00:12:31:23 - 00:12:54:17
Speaker 3
So one of the things that had struck me when, you know, you're working with schools and at the time we're in a zoom environment, so these breakout rooms are going on. And, you know, as I'm kind of cruising around breakout rooms, hearing conversations, it really struck me how quickly your school understood that idea of layering teams and that, you know, we had structures in place before.

00:12:54:17 - 00:13:19:22
Speaker 3
We're not bringing in this collaborative team meeting that we tried right beginning in September. And it's going to replace everything else. No, it fits in its place. That struck me how early your school started to get that understanding. So, Mike, share with the people that are listening or viewing this what that means to you as far as the idea of layering, the collaboration and what that looks like at that Buck Mountain?

00:13:20:16 - 00:13:39:02
Speaker 4
You know, it's fun, I think, when you say, you know, like we just jumped in and we were there when the initial conversations, we had to have a stop was like, This isn't actually new, this is just in addition to it. Yeah, I think teachers got caught up in the cycle of we're doing things and then we're stopping it to do something new and then we're in that over and over.

00:13:39:08 - 00:14:01:07
Speaker 4
Whereas this was No, no, the things that we've done before were successful to an extent. So we're just modifying and adding on to those goals. It's like the next step, it's the next evolution of that. And so once teachers realize that all the work that they had been doing for five, ten years was not necessarily going away, they saw that it was like, Oh, okay, so I just need to modify this now.

00:14:01:07 - 00:14:24:15
Speaker 4
All of a sudden I'm having cross cross curricular conversations with people about this rather than just being stuck to my own subjects and things like that. But I think the other piece for us that works so readily is our staff are eager, they're small, like we have, I think 11, maybe 12 of us total, including the nine for teachers plus our educational assistants.

00:14:25:07 - 00:14:47:04
Speaker 4
And so when it actually comes to having these open and candid conversations about what our next steps are, it really is a close, almost, I guess, intimate conversation. You know, like we're not we're not trying to be allusive or anything with our answers. We're saying, well, like, tell me if you're having hang ups on it, what are your hang ups?

00:14:47:04 - 00:14:56:10
Speaker 4
And we actually talk it through. And so I think just the way our staff interact and the way that we're able to work together made the system fit. So well.

00:14:57:24 - 00:15:09:07
Speaker 3
So then what do the layers look like for you? We talk about, you know, and you've seen and adopted the visual yourself within your school of those four layers. What does that look like at Black Mountain?

00:15:10:21 - 00:15:21:12
Speaker 4
So one of the changes actually that we're most excited for this year is that we so we had a flex block, you know, for the last I don't know. Nicole ten years almost and.

00:15:21:12 - 00:15:21:19
Speaker 2
Yep.

00:15:22:06 - 00:15:42:06
Speaker 4
Yeah. And it used to be in the middle of our morning, you know, so they'd already been the classes and they were kind of getting back into the idea of, okay, what am I missing? What do I need to do RTI for things like that? And we really saw that moving back to the beginning of the day would start their days out with that idea.

00:15:42:06 - 00:16:05:14
Speaker 4
We're focusing on the tier to supports that are going to support us throughout the day, but it also allowed us to have our staff complete their collaborative planning meetings during that time as well, so that better late into the school day and because it's at the beginning of the day, you know, we request contractually that our teachers are here before the students are so they can come here and they can get right into their meeting.

00:16:05:20 - 00:16:29:16
Speaker 4
And so that adds on time that they otherwise would have been, you know, doing various important things. But so is this and from there we have our collaborative team meetings embedded at that time as well every third week. So instead of having a collaborative planning meeting every third week, they're going to have a team meeting. And our three pillars of our school are our sense of belonging, literacy and numeracy.

00:16:29:23 - 00:17:12:14
Speaker 4
So when we have those collaborative team meetings, they're usually the sense of belonging or sorry, they're usually the literacy or the numeracy. And because sense of belonging as a whole staff initiative, because we all want our kids to feel like they belong here and our staff, we actually have those on our PD days in order to then have all staff collaborate on the sense of belonging and really digging into the issues of if these are our three priorities, how do we as a team get to the heart of what students are struggling with, which and what is our plan so that we're all accountable for that learning and then our our school support team meetings

00:17:12:14 - 00:17:35:12
Speaker 4
we have every Monday in the afternoon, usually at the time. But that works best because being that we're a small school, most of us teachers portion of the day, but it includes our Indigenous support worker, our family school liaison worker, our guidance or guidance counselor composition, our inclusion coach, which is myself as well as vice principal as well as a teacher.

00:17:36:02 - 00:17:47:21
Speaker 4
The record as well as our high school and we meet for about an hour or so and go through to our agenda there. And then I'm missing one piece of our time.

00:17:48:13 - 00:18:08:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I just want to jump in and just say so. Our case consults are happening as needed. And so that usually, you know, we have wraparound meetings, we have meetings with teachers about one student, whether it would be learning need related or maybe it's something to help them attend to learning. Maybe it's a behavior concern, something of that nature.

00:18:08:16 - 00:18:33:20
Speaker 2
We would have a case consult. We try to do those in the morning as well. Being a 7 to 12 junior high high school, we have a lot of coaches and those people give up their time freely to volunteer for our kids and we don't want them to have competing kind of priorities at play because of course, all these things that we're talking about and all these meetings are so important that we want people to feel like they're available for them.

00:18:34:15 - 00:18:55:13
Speaker 2
And then the other piece of that, Mike, just to jump on the layers of the teams, we also have a team called the Guiding Coalition who is responsible for the structures and processes for collaborative response within our school. So while we, Mike and I do take the lead, we have different facilitators. Mike and I don't facilitate the collaborative planning meetings.

00:18:56:00 - 00:19:10:08
Speaker 2
We do facilitate a lot of the collaborative team meetings at this point, but we're building capacity within our guiding coalition to be facilitators as well as to build capacity in using the dossier software for our collaborative team meetings.

00:19:11:04 - 00:19:48:01
Speaker 1
And so that's that's really beautiful. And Mike, I just going back to something that you said before about the fact that there were a number of teams that you already had in place, but really looking at recognizing what you've got. And then how do we enhance or how do we tweak that perhaps to make it a little more a structural, structural and and and I'm just thinking in those layers, one of the things that we talk often about is we can have all of those teams in place.

00:19:48:01 - 00:20:03:21
Speaker 1
But a critical part of that is how do we communicate with each other? Like how do how does each team connect with another? And it just identifying what is it that you do to create that strong communication between your teams?

00:20:04:23 - 00:20:29:13
Speaker 4
So we, we actually use the dossier software to track all of the progress, but also the interventions that we are allowing or that we're supplying to students. All of our Tier two as well as our Tier three plus. We all have norms that we apply to our training up north with the Tier one interventions that we've worked through and communicated with staff throughout this year.

00:20:29:13 - 00:20:47:23
Speaker 4
Though, aside from just those two, we have access to the agendas of all teams. So anybody can go in and say, Hey, what's going on? We try to incorporate teachers who may not be on those teams into some of our action planning and saying, Hey, we're going to work with this teacher to try to also do this implementing strategy in their classroom.

00:20:48:11 - 00:21:06:14
Speaker 4
You know, if it's our literacy one, well, that could be something that applies to every subject. So letting those teachers know like, hey, this is going to help you out to. And so just transparent communication. And then the this is where we make it.

00:21:07:09 - 00:21:10:11
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah.

00:21:12:07 - 00:21:33:21
Speaker 4
There's one last one that I was going to mention that is really important as well. We we are also planning for active collaboration between those teams to try to support each other as well. So for instance, our literacy team, which I am actively a part of, is reaching out to the core curriculum teachers to say, what does literacy look like in math?

00:21:33:21 - 00:21:48:09
Speaker 4
What's it look like in science? What does it look like? It's social so that we can support these initiatives. Even though the other teachers aren't in our meetings, they still have access and a voice in what is going to impact their environments and they're working with those students directly.

00:21:49:14 - 00:22:11:16
Speaker 3
Okay. Before Jen, I know she's going to grill in a little bit more on that continuum of support component. It's funny because at one point you said, you know, we're a small school, there's only X amount of us and we sometimes hear we're a small school. Everybody knows all the kids. We don't need this because if something comes up, I just I talk like we see everybody all the time.

00:22:11:16 - 00:22:27:16
Speaker 3
How would you respond to a school that says we don't really need the structures and processes because we're always talking, we see each other. It's not like we're I'm in one wing and Lauren is in another and never shall the two meet. How would you respond to that? That idea?

00:22:28:13 - 00:22:48:03
Speaker 2
I'll I'll jump in there. So I think that while we do talk about kids often, you know, because we're interacting frequently, we're not really doing anything about it. We're not necessarily problem solving together. And then having a systemic response when a student need comes up, right.

00:22:48:05 - 00:22:52:05
Speaker 3
With that idea, there's a difference between informed and responding.

00:22:52:12 - 00:23:13:10
Speaker 2
Exactly. And I want to also say that, like, I do think that our school one of the things that is unique about our school culture is that all of our learning teams are for all students. Right. And I know that that's something we say a lot in education, is that that all of our kids are our kids. Right.

00:23:13:10 - 00:23:38:14
Speaker 2
They're all our kids. But we live that value in this building. And, you know, we can we can see that in initiatives or things like our literacy team enacting a one school, one book project, we're doing redesigns frequently, which is something, you know, until I learned more about it, I thought was only going to happen in junior high or elementary.

00:23:38:14 - 00:24:11:17
Speaker 2
Right. You know, I don't I don't want to ask a 31 teacher to give up 15 minutes to read. It's just so important. But in reality, that adds so much value. We're putting in so much capital in that time that we're getting so much in return right? And so that culture piece is a big piece of it, but also just that idea that we need a systemic response because we all care so much about all of our kids that if we're acting, responding as individuals all the time, we're going to get burnt out for sure.

00:24:12:02 - 00:24:12:12
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:24:13:02 - 00:24:32:13
Speaker 4
To add on to that, Nicole, you know, to take your example of the one school, one book where we're hitting all three levels of our school pillars, they're like, we're hitting literacy, obviously, because kids are reading, but what was that? Also support for that supports numeracy and every other core where they need to know how to read with fluidity.

00:24:32:20 - 00:24:47:07
Speaker 4
Right? But then we're also doing sense of belonging because everybody is engaged in one activity at that time, but they can then communicate and see the value up. So just things like that where we're actually hitting a whole school approach.

00:24:47:07 - 00:24:48:23
Speaker 3
Awesome. All right.

00:24:49:10 - 00:25:17:11
Speaker 1
I was just to go back to the continued support, but actually you guys are out right now. You're talking about culture and the the impact that you're having across the pillars. So with the implementation of collaborative response and the work that you've been doing as literacy teams, numeracy teams and the introduction of the collaborative team meeting, what would you say has been the impact on your staff culture?

00:25:17:11 - 00:25:22:06
Speaker 2
I would say that we're it's almost like we.

00:25:22:06 - 00:25:22:23
Speaker 1
Are.

00:25:23:13 - 00:25:50:12
Speaker 2
More proud and more like outgoing about how awesome we're doing rather than like I think that prior to the implementation of collaborative response structures, we were a little bit more of a closed system in that we were really like within our own school, really like we knew what everyone was going on. We're really working well together as a team, but this has extended now beyond our school.

00:25:50:12 - 00:26:10:20
Speaker 2
We're able to say This is what we're doing at Buck Mountain. How can we help you at another school do the same? Right. And I think that that that sense of pride is really gives people confidence. And then you can't stop that train once it's in motion. Right. And so I think that that's how it's impacted our teaching culture for sure.

00:26:11:10 - 00:26:34:10
Speaker 3
Well, and I think you hit on something that I've experienced that I've seen there within with task and regional of just even as an outsider parachuting in for these leadership days from the first set of conversations to where they're at now, there's just so much sharing and vulnerability of people being able to say, How did you figure out that flex block thing?

00:26:34:10 - 00:26:45:09
Speaker 3
Because that is killing us in our building. And I'm not saying it as a mark of shame. It's I'm I'm a legitimately curious of how to make that work. Yeah.

00:26:45:15 - 00:27:11:22
Speaker 2
For sure. And I think that we're just going to keep on building that capacity. Right. Like we talk about collaborative response not being what we do, but like the, like how we do everything. It becomes a part of our system. And I think that like as we keep growing, I feel like we're developing leaders and all of our staff on, you know, because of we have a common kind of starting point with with collaborative response.

00:27:11:22 - 00:27:13:15
Speaker 2
So I think that that's been important.

00:27:15:00 - 00:27:32:07
Speaker 4
I think one of the things that I honed in on really quickly is that the six approaches that, you know, there are two experts in there, yet everyone's an expert at the same time. And then just having like to use the word that use Curtis or ability the fact that it's okay if I don't have the answer, somebody is going to have the answer.

00:27:32:07 - 00:27:43:20
Speaker 4
And if we actually just stop working in isolation, whether that be in our building or across our division, we actually will all come to a better expertize because of it.

00:27:43:20 - 00:27:44:14
Speaker 3
Absolutely.

00:27:45:14 - 00:27:47:19
Speaker 1
I'll go ahead. Lorna, I'm sorry to.

00:27:48:24 - 00:27:49:14
Speaker 3
Take a number.

00:27:49:14 - 00:28:21:11
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah, exactly. That that idea of of being able to feel at ease and comfortable and able to admit that I actually don't know what to do in this instance and creating the environment and creating the culture, building that culture to be able to be vulnerable with each other helps us all to grow. So that's really exciting that you you have that in place and you have that happening with your teams.

00:28:21:11 - 00:28:40:14
Speaker 1
So as you're building that expertize and your teams are growing their practice, I want to go back, Mike, you talked about, you know, we have universal practices. We have our focus on Tier two. You have your layers of teams. Can you talk to us about the continuum of supports that Black Mountain School, Black Mountain Central School has and how that came to be?

00:28:41:13 - 00:29:03:04
Speaker 4
Yeah. So it is something that we're still actively working on developing. It's, it's something that when we look at all the things that we've done over the past year is probably the one that's been the most time consuming but in the best way possible because we want to set something up that was actually usable but also represented the values and the initiatives that we want to have.

00:29:03:12 - 00:29:29:13
Speaker 4
So like when we look at probably, I mean, it's probably took us four, five months to really hammered it in on our Tier one continuum because we had these teachers who were doing all these amazing things, but not really knowing if that was a tier one that was a Tier two or what, because the idea was, well, you know, we want to offer that to every community that's like, okay, yes, but but not quite at the same time.

00:29:29:13 - 00:29:58:20
Speaker 4
Yeah. You know, that whole every kid every day kind of thing is really what Tier one is. And so we're actually finding a place where I feel like we've got some real groundwork there. And so now we're starting to dip our toes into Tier two and think, okay, well, if these are what we do every day for every kid, what does this look like and what are these things that we're going out of our way on a situational basis to address the learning needs of this child right.

00:29:58:20 - 00:30:28:03
Speaker 4
Because it goes back to that theory of they're not tier two students. They're students who access Tier two supports. And and so that's actually something that we're very active on. Nicole spends an entire afternoon one day and she made this wonderful mural on our we have a meeting room and for just the stuff and it's in the shape of mountains because of course we're Black Mountain and we have our tier one, our Tier two, three and four mountains on there.

00:30:28:09 - 00:30:51:16
Speaker 4
And just having that visual representation of, you know, this is what we support in our building and that doesn't mean that they're there fixed it means that until we're in a place where we're competent with these, that we're working on it and, you know, and that kind of idea that we're always open to what comes next. But we also want to be able to see that we're making tangible changes.

00:30:52:16 - 00:31:15:15
Speaker 3
Okay. So, you know, there's an email coming to show your picture of what that just looks like. People are going to be asking that very question. You know, it's just it really stands out to me with what you're saying there, Mike, and how that connects to what Nicole said just a little while ago of if we do this from an individual basis, people care so much for the kids and the learning success of all.

00:31:15:15 - 00:31:42:11
Speaker 3
It's it's a recipe for burnout. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So it kind of aligns with that. Let's not put 100 things at tier one because your ten, my ten, your ten, it all adds up to there's 100 things we could be doing, but are there some things that we can really hone in on that we agree are highest, highest impact and leverage things we can be doing and then those other things become there things we could try based on the context of the course.

00:31:42:11 - 00:32:09:03
Speaker 3
The student, my own personal skills and expertize as a teacher. So to me that I think you've really hit on something that we always try and reinforce that the the document, the bulletin board, whatever the visual representation that it creates, is less important than the messy process that it takes of those conversations, because they're not it's not easy when we privatize what it is that we do well.

00:32:09:03 - 00:32:20:17
Speaker 1
And it and it does come along with that foundation and learning. We're learning and we're articulating our learning now. So that's not easy to do. And we continue to grow through it, too.

00:32:21:07 - 00:32:41:16
Speaker 2
And that's actually that's our guiding coalition's goal this year is to really dig even deeper into Tier one essential practices within our school. So we're at the point that we we've agreed on what we've agreed on, but now we need to go into each other's classrooms and see, is this actually what we're seeing, you know, in real time?

00:32:41:16 - 00:33:09:09
Speaker 2
Is this what's happening in every classroom? And in that process, we know, like teachers often don't get to see other people teach. And so, yes, we're in there to see Tier one practices in action and to give feedback about, well, you know, maybe we missed this thing or maybe we can get rid of this on our continuum. But I also learned the strategy that this teacher was using, and I'm going to steal it for my classroom, and now I can throw that on to two.

00:33:10:03 - 00:33:34:17
Speaker 2
And so we know that by focusing in on Tier one instruction that our Tier two is going to be developed as we go. And you're absolutely right, Curtis, the process is so messy and it is. The conversations, though, that we're having because we're in the process, is where the learning is happening for us as professionals. And, you know, we talk so much about instructional leadership.

00:33:34:24 - 00:33:53:03
Speaker 2
There's no better instructional leadership than being able to sit down and say, well, what what are the essential things in our classrooms? What are the essential things in our school that we do daily and be able to get all on the same page with that? And then what do we do when that's not enough? Right. That's it's so amazing.

00:33:53:03 - 00:34:07:17
Speaker 2
Like when I think about collaborative team meetings, I'm like, well, I can just check off instructional leadership on my growth plan because that's where a lot of that's happening, right? Like they're not happening in growth plan meetings, it's happening in the collaboration.

00:34:08:09 - 00:34:28:16
Speaker 3
And it's one of those things too, where I had a point and again, reflecting as one daughter is beginning post-secondary, I was at that point of, oh, my goodness, a ten page essay. Are you kidding me? That's that's insane. Where now I'm at the point of the sink get it to sink down to one paragraph that truly frightens me.

00:34:28:16 - 00:34:36:24
Speaker 3
And again, the trying to get succinct down to what is at the very, very core of what we're doing in our instruction at Tier one is, yeah, it's hard.

00:34:37:11 - 00:34:58:12
Speaker 1
But it creates that opportunity to wrestle with it too. So when you talk about one practice that you have in your classroom, what does that mean to somebody else in their classroom? And expecting it could mean something totally different. So how do we get through that wrestle and actually articulate what is happening in every one of our classrooms?

00:34:59:12 - 00:35:16:20
Speaker 1
You know, I was just thinking, oh, sorry. I was just thinking that we've talked lots about your staff developing and growing and building that beautiful culture of collaboration and what has been the impact for kids.

00:35:16:20 - 00:35:29:22
Speaker 4
Well, you know, I think our admin assistants would argue that the biggest growth we've seen is the number of books flying off the shelves in our library and the number that they have to sign in and out, because we really have accepted this.

00:35:29:22 - 00:35:33:00
Speaker 3
Problem to have to deal with. Right, exactly. Yeah.

00:35:34:03 - 00:36:01:24
Speaker 4
We've learned as a as a whole school approach to solving or trying to solve the literacy gap that we're experiencing in our neighborhood. And the idea that if in every class we have strategies like, hey, a free time, why do you pick up a book? Right? And those come out of the collaborative planning meetings, go back to the full staff, and all of a sudden we've got, you know, almost every single student in our school with a book in hand like that.

00:36:02:10 - 00:36:08:07
Speaker 4
That is one tangible thing that amazed us as a teacher dream of seeing.

00:36:08:19 - 00:36:09:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:36:10:22 - 00:36:30:10
Speaker 2
And I also see just to build on that, Mike, I also see, you know, a lot of what we see in curriculum now is about like teaching kids to collaborate and working in a profession that is kind of known for being a little bit isolating. We almost have to learn that process of like how to work well with one another.

00:36:30:10 - 00:37:01:01
Speaker 2
And that's not to say working, you know, you know, kindly or whatever it means, like actually having efficient teams, efficient processes and getting after, you know, the work at hand. And I think that by experiencing that as adults, we can support children better. With that they see how, you know, our staff is working together. They know that on Tuesdays they're not going to be able to find Mr. York because he's got a meeting and they're planning for what we're going to be doing in directed learning on Thursday.

00:37:01:01 - 00:37:11:22
Speaker 2
Like students know that our teachers spending a lot of time working together, and I think that that sets a great example and it gives us something exciting to talk about with the kids too.

00:37:12:14 - 00:37:34:02
Speaker 3
Well, and you just perfectly aligned that idea of there's a difference between a group and a team. You know, groups get along really well and and can support one another, but teams are deeper. They they debate, they discuss, they wrestle, they they get uncomfortable. And to show kids that that discomfort is actually it is learning.

00:37:34:08 - 00:37:47:01
Speaker 1
And when you just put people together doesn't mean that you're actually going to get to any actionable place that you need to have some structures and processes around that, too. But consistent for kids, too.

00:37:47:10 - 00:38:22:17
Speaker 2
It's interesting that you say that because I would say that that's probably been the number one positive to come out of increasing the number of collaborative planning meetings that we're having. So we weekly four collaborative planning meetings for a half hour versus if we are meeting, you know, every third week in a rotation or something like that. And you know, staff are learning how to disagree with one another in a comfortable way, which is something that, you know, you think back to like a traditional staff meeting or something like that where people don't want to raise their hand and disagree with what's being said.

00:38:22:17 - 00:38:30:13
Speaker 2
Right. But because of the frequency, I think that that has that's a growth I've seen this year already. So that's it's interesting that you say that.

00:38:31:11 - 00:38:55:05
Speaker 4
Well, and all of that goes back to the idea that we know one of the biggest impacts on student learning is instructional leadership, teacher learning things like that. And so when we're having these weekly meetings where teachers are having to rerun their practices or grow and try different things, it's having an immediate impact even on the more subtle levels.

00:38:55:14 - 00:39:12:13
Speaker 4
You know, it might be just something as simple as having a conversation about what writing looks like or what of our one team, our numeracy team. Their goal this year is a math rich environment. So you know what is having things on your walls, how to do with being numerate.

00:39:13:19 - 00:39:26:19
Speaker 3
Interesting. Oh, awesome. I'm. I'm loving this. I'd like to keep going all day, but I know Jen has places to go and an agenda to follow here as we go. Jen, I think we're we're at a place of a question.

00:39:27:00 - 00:39:40:14
Speaker 1
We are. And I know that you're new on this. You said six months, you're into this. But if you could go back to yourself then with what you know now, what advice would you give yourself?

00:39:42:15 - 00:39:45:14
Speaker 1
That's a tough question. Yeah.

00:39:45:14 - 00:39:57:00
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, cut out all the pieces to be able to think about, you know, as we go to post-production.

00:39:57:00 - 00:40:29:12
Speaker 2
I like you know, I can't I can't say how I would go back and change much, to be honest with you. I think that part of in engaging in this is, is the learning process. And you got to do it to do it like you got to be in it. And so, you know, with that kind of attitude of like, let's just jump in and go for it, that's what I tell people when, you know, when they're having doubts about implementing certain things within their school, like just do it.

00:40:29:12 - 00:40:53:07
Speaker 2
Because you can spend months planning for this and you're going to start at the exact same spot like you really are. You're going to you're still going to fumble. You're still going to, you know, have to learn your way through things. So just it's urgent enough to just start. And so I think that there's maybe I would have gone back and and been more confident about that and not then.

00:40:53:07 - 00:41:13:19
Speaker 2
So, you know, at our first few leadership team meetings when people are talking about their first collaborative team meeting and when they're planning it for and I'm sitting there like, Oh, we've already done a couple of what we supposed to do, right? I would say I would have more confidence and spreading that word earlier.

00:41:13:19 - 00:41:36:09
Speaker 4
Right. You know, because we jumped in headfirst and really just went for it. I don't know if there's much that I could say that I go back and try to do. I think if I were to speak to somebody who's looking at getting into this, though, I would say trust the process because if you're cutting corners or looking at, okay, well, we only have so much time, so what is it that we don't have to do?

00:41:36:12 - 00:41:51:22
Speaker 4
The answer is you have to do all of it. It's so layered and it's so like a like a jigsaw that every piece is integral and it is well worth it to invest the time because it will pay ten fold after.

00:41:53:01 - 00:42:12:15
Speaker 3
What we maybe should have started with that, because both of you have heard me say, you know, when collaborative response is really starting to take hold is when someone asks you about it and you say, grab a cup of coffee because this is going to take a while. So to listeners that are going, wow, this is this has taken a while to break this down, it's exactly what you're saying there, Mike.

00:42:13:14 - 00:42:33:16
Speaker 3
So I just want to say that it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know and work with you and and to hear the things that are happening within your school. It's fantastic. This is your first chance to be able to hear some of our buck back mountains. By the way, we're going to try and cut out every time, at.

00:42:33:16 - 00:42:35:03
Speaker 1
Least for now. I say Buck.

00:42:35:03 - 00:42:39:21
Speaker 3
Mountain, Mountain, Mountain, Central. I'm all for you. What do you see?

00:42:39:23 - 00:43:01:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. So exciting to hear. Not only just sometimes when people first start out in collaborative response, it's, you know that step by step, you know, first we're going to find time and you're going to give us then we're going to go to starting our collaborative team meetings and we're going to do our roles and our, you know, our norms.

00:43:01:21 - 00:43:28:11
Speaker 1
And it's kind of that step by step. But hearing in a very short amount of time really for you to be implementing and seeing that impact on the culture of your staff is truly amazing. It's really exciting to be able to hear that and that you have really grasped on to. Are there the beliefs and the core of collaborative response?

00:43:28:19 - 00:43:56:00
Speaker 1
Goosebumps Absolutely, yes. I'm looking forward to reading Mike's project when he's all done with it with his master's. And and at some point, I want to come back and talk about what's happening for numeracy, because as a former math and physics teacher, Nicole, that was my role too. I'm sure you have immense things happening as well, so there's lots to continue talking about, but I can see why people are raving about what's happening at your school.

00:43:57:03 - 00:44:17:11
Speaker 2
Well, thank you very much. I like Mike and I have been talking about over, you know, this time together is, you know, we definitely are responsible as leaders within our building for, setting up the team for success. But the success comes at the hand of the individuals on the team. And and we have the right teams in the right spots.

00:44:17:11 - 00:44:28:17
Speaker 2
And so as leaders, we just kind of get to sit back and watch, you know, professionals do what they do best. So it's it's a testament to everyone we work with as well.