How Communication Can MAKE Or BREAK School Leadership | Transformational Educators Ep. 20

What would happen if your entire campus actually did the things you all agreed “mattered most”? 

In this episode of Transformational Educators, host Matthew Flippen sits down with Dr. Robert Thornell, educator, author, and school leadership consultant, to unpack why most schools do not have a knowledge problem, they have a consistency problem.

Drawing from his years as principal at Timberline Elementary and Chisholm Trail Middle School, Dr. Thornell shares how he led a mindset shift from adult centered to student centered, and moved a campus from nearly two thirds of students failing at least one class to fewer than ten percent. He walks through the beliefs, systems, and daily practices that turned expectations into concrete action in every classroom.

You will hear how Robert used simple but courageous moves like calling in students one by one, turning a single question into a campus wide rallying cry, redesigning collaboration time for teachers, and calibrating what “meeting the standard” really looks like in student work. He and Matthew talk about journaling across content areas, gradebook audits that reveal what a school truly values, and how literacy and academic discourse became everyone’s responsibility.

This conversation is for aspiring and current school leaders who feel the weight of inconsistent practice, low expectations, or culture drift and are looking for hopeful, practical ways to create lasting change without starting over or replacing their staff. You will come away with language, structures, and encouragement to build collective responsibility, protect time for collaboration, and stay courageous and consistent with the expectations you know your students deserve.

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Transcript

Coming up...

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every principal I know that's struggling is inconsistent with their expectations. We know how to improve schools. It goes down to that consistency and the courage to do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

That is Dr. Robert Thornell, educator, author, and school leadership consultant. He believes most schools are not failing because leaders do not know what to do, but because they stopped doing what they said mattered.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

It was a realization that the work was going to be a little harder than I thought. This was truly a belief system change, a cultural shift that had to happen on the campus. And it had to start with the way teachers believed in our kids.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

He explains why instructional improvement breaks down when belief erodes and why no strategy works until leaders confront the mindset adults carry into classrooms.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

We rolled up our sleeves and we started calling kids in and talking to them. The second student that came in, he goes, Why do you care? You're the only person who's ever asked me if I can do better. That really touched me.

Meet Dr. Robert Thornell

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Today, Dr. Thornell breaks down how leaders turn expectations into action, rebuild belief across a campus, and create consistency that actually changes outcomes. By the end of this conversation, you'll learn how to turn expectations into action, create consistency across classrooms, and lead cultural shifts that improve instruction without starting over. I'm Dr. Matthew Flippin, and this is Transformational Educators. Today we're going to focus on this part, this uh this idea of instructional improvement and how intentional leadership decisions shape culture and what aspiring leaders need to do as it relates to uh instructional excellence.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I love the fact that you use the word intentional because I think that's the key right there, that we're doing it on purpose.

What two early principalships taught Dr. Thornell

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yes, absolutely. Great things rarely happen purely by accident or coincidence. So we can't always control them, but we want to, we we definitely, when we're intentional about the attempt, uh then I think it definitely leads to success. We were talking earlier about two of your early campus leadership experiences. And uh yeah, and I'd love to touch on um, you know, when you first went to Timberline Elementary and then the Chisholm Trail, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And what those two experiences taught you and and how you implemented instructional leadership practices that ended up really uh being successful. So take us back because tell us a little bit about that first principal experience and then that's the best one, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Uh well, I will tell you the very first thing I want to say is being a principal is my favorite job I've ever had. Uh, you know, in 30 plus years of education now, I just I loved the role. I loved it for a lot of different reasons. But when I when I first took over Timberland Elementary, it was a pre-K through fifth grade campus, Title I campus uh in Grade Mine, Texas, and it was uh bilingual. Uh and uh that was a whole new world for me. I am not bilingual. I wish I was, so I had to learn quick. Um but I think uh in both both cases on both my principalships, I've followed veteran principles. And I think there's a lot of good and bad. There were a lot of things established in there. Uh, but then there was also uh probably time to uh change and and and poke at poke at some some old practices and try some new things. So I learned that I made a lot of mistakes. Um, but I we had a lot of success with those two. I think uh one phrase I use a lot with principal new principles nowadays that uh I wish somebody had told me uh my first year is uh the simple one of don't take down a fence until you know why it was put up. And and I I've heard that phrase over the years, but I use it a lot, and I think about that there are changes that I wanted to make, and I knew why I wanted to make them, but the community and the culture may not have quite been ready for them yet. And there were things that happened that I didn't realize why they were there. I didn't realize the thinking behind them just as an outside person coming in. And so I think one of the keys uh that I learned quickly and continue to learn to this day is uh pause, listen, be visible, uh, and and and find out what's really going on and why those decisions were made. So that was one of my big learning experiences.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Is there a specific example related to instructional leadership?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

One of the funny stories, I don't know if it's totally instructional, it is student achievement. But for instance, the principle that I followed was very big into summer birthdays. And if a boy had a summer birthday, you know, they were a little bit younger than their peers, maybe that caused some of their discipline, some of their academic achievement was a little bit lower. What that built over time was this particular campus retained a lot of kids, especially in first grade, kindergarten, first grade, and then do first grade again and second grade again. Me being a young whippersnapper that do all the research and everything, retention doesn't work. I immediately fell into a trap of we're not retaining these kids. You know, and you can argue both sides of the research and everything, but I was not prepared for that conversation. The first grade team in particular, I remember talking about, well, we have always done this and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it really works well. And we started talking about it. What I learned to do was ask better questions. Because what we found out was, yeah, they did really well in first grade, again, the second year, but if you followed them on out to third, fourth, and fifth, it really did not have the positive impact we had hoped it would have. And so, you know, and I think research bears that out, but it was also, again, one of those things where I kind of, you know, said we're going to do something without really understanding the belief system behind it. They weren't trying to do anything wrong. They thought they were helping those students. Part of it is I had to reflect on that why do I believe how what I believe, right? You know, I mean, uh you can we can find research to back up anything we want to believe. And so it has to be more than that. It has to, you know, really, are we doing what's best for these kids and these families? And that is one experience that I have used many times in my career working with principals, is, you know, just because you believe something doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's wrong. And so we had to talk with that. And eventually we all came to a great understanding and we worked to cut that retention rate down and what we could do, what other interventions, what things could be put in place to help those students. Because we don't just have them in first grade, we have them for six years, right? Pre-K through five. That's one example that's always stuck out with me. When you get into real specific types of examples of things like we want kids to have academic discussion in class and we want to teach this way versus the teacher doing all the target, those are definitely culture shifts. And sometimes I felt like depending on the age of the teacher, the experience level of the teacher, but that's not fair. But we did have to shift how we were teaching as part of the coaches. And I and I dealt with that, especially I dealt with that at the middle school level for sure. How long were you at the elementary school? I was at the elementary five years and at the middle school five years.

What he walked into at Chisholm Trail

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So then you got five years of experience under your belt, you get promoted to slightly bigger kids with a different set of challenges. So what was Chisholm Trail like when you arrived?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

So two things. One thing I should have mentioned both times I was kind of recruited and talked to people I knew, but I was coming new to the district. So when I went to Timberline, I was new to that school district. Nobody knew me. So my credibility was you know right here. Same thing when I came to the middle school. Not only was I new to the district, and the superintendent had asked me to come over, which was a nice uh thing, but uh I I had zero uh connections in the district, and I was coming from elementary. So you can imagine some of those middle school teachers looking at me like, oh, that what is this? Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Well, we we do we do find that it it happens that you know there's always a reason why you're perceived, potentially not you, but people in general, new leaders. There's always a you can't do this, you won't be good at this. There's some negative perception.

The report card moment that changed everything

SPEAKER_00 7:26

There's those things, and you have to build the credibility. I've never taught eighth-grade algebra or eighth grade science or whatever it might be. And so, how do we go through that? When I took over Chisholm Trail, it was a struggling campus. You know, I was a title one campus, had a lot of great resources, a lot of great teachers, but there was a belief system that wasn't there, right? It was like this is okay, these kids, this is the best they can do. And overall apathy of, you know, hey, this is we're the we're the poor school. You know, we don't have the same type of students that other schools do. This is the best they can do. We were able to fix that fairly quickly, but we fixed it through, you know, uh, I think questions again, you know, can we do better? Is a question, a story that I always talk about because I asked that of a student, and he said, You're the first person to ever ask me that. And that would really struck me. When I think back to Chisholm Trail, things were going great. I was doing all the things I normally did as a principal, and we were happy, and it was a good start to the school year. And we got to the first report card time, right? The end of the grading period, and I ran the list of student failures. It was about two-thirds of our school was failing at least the class. And I can admit this to you now after I sat in my office and I cried, right? I mean, like, what have I gotten myself into? What is this turnaround? What is it gonna look like? And what is it that brought you to tears? I think it was a realization that the work was gonna be a little harder than I thought, but also the idea that we're gonna have to change some things. Like this was truly a belief system change, a cultural shift that had to happen and had to transform on the campus. And it has to start with the way teachers believed in our kids. We had great teachers. A lot of times we talk about collective efficacy in schools right now. That's a big one. But the term that I like better is collective responsibility, that they were all our kids, you know. And so if a teacher across the hall is struggling, we're not gonna shut our door and say our data's good and that's not our problem, we're gonna help help each other. And this idea of collaborative teachers working together to help each other, I think was a big piece. There's also a certain level of respect and accountability that comes with that, right? You know, I I do feel like sometimes in the name of whatever we consider good positive culture, we forget about the accountability or the job side of it just to make people happy. And I think that, you know, is it an adult-centered building or is it a student-centered building? And I think what I took over was an adult-centered building, and we had to flip that model and we're gonna do what was best for kids, even if that means the schedule's gonna look a little different or whatever you know it might be. We did some pretty creative things at that time.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

You got that first report guard back and brought you to tears. And then tell me what were some of the first moves you made in response to that.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

So, you know, we had about eight, eight a little over 800 kids at the time, almost 900, and two-thirds are are failing a class. And so after I caught my breath a little bit, I said, okay, now I'm gonna I'm gonna run the list for kids that are failing two classes, right, instead of instead of one, and just see if we can get this to a manual and well, it was still almost half the school. And so I shed a few more tears, right? But you know, I had two assistant principals, two counselors, and between the five of us, we rolled up our sleeves and we started calling kids in and talking to them. And that's the first thing we did. Well, tell me about this. I have a pretty good story I sometimes tell when I speak, but the second student that came in was the one that just said, You look at this stuff. Like he goes, Why do you why do you care? You know, my parents don't look at my report card and give me this whole spiel. And he ended up becoming one of my, you know, one of my special kids, one of the kids that you remember at the end of your career. But we talked throughout the year. But I remember in passing, and I think I just mentioned it earlier, but as he was walking out the door, I just said, Hey, do you think you can do better? And he said, Yeah, you know, I guess. At the end of the school year, when he had did have his grades up and he'd pass the test and everything like that. I remember him telling me, he said, Dr. Thornell, you're the only person who's ever asked me if I could do better. That really touched me. And he of course I got you know, I can go on with that story. But I think that that question became one that resonated with me because I told the staff that story and I told them, you know, can we do better? Can we just do a little bit better? That's all we're trying, that's all we're working for. And that kind of became our rallying cry, if you will. You know, can we do better? A little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I know, I mean, uh, the importance of expectations that children have for themselves, that adults have for children, that leaders have for staff and themselves, I mean, that can't be overstated. We've got to have appropriate expectations.

Why inconsistent expectations quietly hurt schools

SPEAKER_00 11:32

And I will tell you, every principal I know that's struggling is inconsistent with their expectations.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

What's an example? What's inconsistency look like?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

You know, inconsistency meaning, hey, we all said we were gonna read kids at the door between classes before they come into class every day. We all said that in August and we all loved it and ever agreed with it, and now it's October and we're not doing it. Is the leader gonna say something? Are we gonna do that or are we just gonna let it go? Right? Because it, you know, I'm big on if you allow it to happen, then you're saying it's okay. That's an easy one. But we say relationships matter, and you know, you're starting at the door field. So things like for us, it was real big. When you go back to instructional leadership, we really zeroed in on writing our thoughts down in journals, right? Every class had journals, whether it's a math class, science class. Well, if some teachers are not doing that, right, then those kids are missing that opportunity. And so those are examples, you know. Even now when I walk through classrooms, you know, I'll flip through kids' journals or through their things. It's you know, it's really one of the things I'll point out to principals or teachers sometimes. Well, and you think about this, you remember your days in math when all the they had all the questions and the hard ones or the thinking ones are at the end, and those are skipped. Like, why are why are we not getting to those? And so I had one principal, he said, you know, I took what you said, and we've made a conscious effort, and we start with those, and then the practice is the easy ones, right? And he said, My math scores have gone way up. But it's just those little things that we said we were gonna do it, and just the principal, you know, sometimes I say it's courage, but I don't know, I don't know if it's courage. I think we just get busy, right? You know, we get busy and we don't do the things we know are best. That's kind of like uh it's kind of like eating, having a good diet. We get in a hurry and it's easier to stop at McDonald's. We know that's not good for us, right? We do it in late out of convenience or just because it's it's easy.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Holding people accountable can also just not be fun. And so when you've set a standard and now you have to go back and say, hey, how are we doing it? You got to be modeling it, you gotta be encouraging it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Can I tell you about one of my mistakes then, or not many mistakes, but one time when I kind of lost my cool a little bit. It was my first year at Tris on Tradeoff and I won't say I lost my cool, but I have been told sometimes that I have a low look or something like that. But we were I was working with this teacher, and this was a teacher that was probably giving me a little pushback. And this was probably midway through the year. And I'm embarrassed to say this because it was inappropriate of me to say this, but in front of her whole department, the whole English department, she said, Well, I don't even know why you asked us to do this or care about this. Our last principal didn't make us do lesson plans. Again, this had built up in me over time, but I kind of snapped at her and I said, Well, maybe that's why he's not here. You know, and and I regretted saying that, Matthew. I really did, but the point was made, right? There, I mean, it was okay. It ended up being okay, right? But I regretted in the moment saying it the way I said it, but there was accountability level there. And that's also some of that change going through there. Um, and so, you know, it is what it is, right?

How leaders create clarity instead of compliance

SPEAKER_01 14:18

That's a great point. I mean, people hear out loud that they're, oh, there were no lesson plans. I mean, they should be like, wow, that's kind of a minimum expectation. So, how do you help teachers see clarity instead of compliance?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

That's an important piece. I see some young principals, they're so gung-ho to establish themselves, they create a lot of compliance or a lot of things without really knowing why they're there, what's important. And I think the best leaders peel that away. I do think one of the things I hate to hear people say is I hire good teachers and get out of their way. I think that is morally irresponsible. Your job is to help teachers get better and support them and care for them. And it's not to leave them alone and let them do whatever they want. This idea of the clarity piece, you know, I just think we gotta we talk to them. What what what is important? What do we need to do here? And you know, what are we trying to learn and how are we gonna know if they do it? You know, those are the old cliche questions of PLC. But they became a cliche for a reason because they're true. Like, what are we trying to teach here and what's the best way to do it? And what I have found is trying to find small wins when teachers can work together to help each other do that, right? I may not be the best person to help you design a biology lesson or a first grade reading lesson, but I can design the schedule to help get you with somebody that can. I can decide, I can still give you feedback, I can still give you the resources to do that. So I think that's a big piece there. I'm one of those people I like to be liked, right? I wanted to be liked. I will tell you that that's one difference from elementary and secondary. Elementary, you're kind of a rock star and secondary, maybe you've got to prove yourself a little bit much. But I also think over time I've come, I'd rather be respected than liked, even though I prefer both, right? And they're gonna respect as an instructional leader. This is why we're doing it. I also think if you take care of people over time, then when you do ask them to do something that they may not agree with or understand, they're more likely to do it because they have the trust in you. They trust that your belief system is there, they trust that you're doing this for the right reason. And so I think it's okay. And I think being vulnerable as a leader to say, hey, I made a mistake this time, that builds trust as well. You know, it's funny you say that. One of the questions I always ask principals is I ask them, what would your teacher say is important to you? And then I usually get when I get a chance, I ask the teachers what's important to them. And I don't really don't care what it is, but the question is, is it the same answer, right? You know, we all believe what this is, what's important, that clarity piece. Well, that is a coaching question I use.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So you mentioned collaboration. I'm thinking about, you know, you had two-thirds of your children at the middle school that weren't doing well. But uh, you must have incorporated collaboration and mentorship somewhere in there. Tell us how what that looked like, how it worked.

Why collaboration needs protected time

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Well, uh, you know, I think that a couple of things we do is, you know, and this may sound real easy and stuff, but we have to create time for it to happen, right? Some of it happens naturally, some of it happens in the hallway or after school and before school. And those are great times and probably some of the most valuable times, but those are also inconsistent times that I can't, you know, not that it's not happened for everybody, right? And so it was very important to me to create time to do that. And we did it in a lot of different ways, whether it was giving them time through subs, whether it was creating time in the master schedule, but you know, I can get into all the details. But I do think time is an important piece. Like if I'm gonna expect them to collaborate, then I'm gonna allow that to happen. I think two big things that we had to pull back the doors on were one is how are we designing our lessons? Can we make this lesson better before we teach it? Because once I go in and watch you teach it, it's too late. I can give you feedback on it, but it's already happened. So, how can we make the lesson better before we teach it? Was kind of a mantra that we took on. I have a template that I would share with anybody that wants to. I still share it this day. The first thing it did was if you were a new teacher to my building, whether you were a brand new teacher or a 20-year veteran, if you were new to my building within the first month, month and a half, you and I went on walkthroughs together to master teacher classes and said, This is what it, this is what it looks like, this is where we're going. Not that you're better than things, but I wanted all my new teachers to go with me, and we did that. So that was number one, walk, walk, walk classrooms with them. But that also opened the door. Now, the second group that I did, after I finished all the new teachers, was I would take my department chairs or my master teachers, I wanted them to walk classes with me because I wanted them to see you're an expert, but the people that you're planning with may not be experts, so it helped them in their PLCs and their meeting to see where their team might be struggling and where we're going. So that was one thing that we put in place that I think was very, very valuable there. And that be served as a mentor thing. And we got to the point where I didn't have to go on those teachers, you know, two couple teachers went on them together and we created a schedule where two teachers would go walk the teacher's classroom. So that was a piece there. But so planning lessons and walking through, and then I think the other part was that we had to realize is calibration of expectations of student work. And so we spent a lot of time. Okay, the assignment was great and the teaching looked great, but then you know, I had 20 kids in the class and 15 of them met expectations, but five didn't, right? Or, you know, Matthew, you graded it this way and I graded this way, you graded easy, I graded hard. That might help your kids in the short term, it might help my kids in the long term, or vice versa. But what it was really important to me as the school got bigger and bigger is an A needed to be an A in every classroom.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Right. How did you get calibration set?

What parents, report cards, and gradebooks are really signaling

SPEAKER_00 19:59

We had like a three-week cycle, if you will, where you know, one of the PLCs was they were planning the lessons and everything. The second one, we tried to go watch it second week, and the third week they would bring back some work. Right. And so during their PL Summit, they were actually looking at student work, was a piece that we did there. The other thing that we incorporated, I mentioned earlier that writing was very important. So every class, once a grading period, whether it was band, PE, speech class, home egg, math, science, every class, one of their summative assignments had to be a writing piece. And what that came from was it was just kind of an accident. It dawned on me one time we were looking at some student work, and here was this kid, Matthew. And look how he writes and thinks in English class, and look what he turns in in social studies class. And it's not the same. This kid's walking down the hall, but the expectations for different classes were different. I'm a big literacy guy, so right? We got to learn to read and write and think and communicate and talk. And so we made that an emphasis in all our classes. And so that was part of that calibration piece is if you can do it in one class, then you need to be doing it in the other class, and what does it look like? And that was very visible in the walls, on bulletin boards, you know, in our in our PLC room, wherever I think that that was an important piece. It also helped with parents, to be honest with you. That's a whole nother thing. We haven't even talked about that culture shift with parents yet, but I'm sure we may get into that instruction.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Let's shift over to that a little bit. So, I mean, you're trying to deal with instructional uh excellence and expectations, but there can be parent expectations that are helping or hurting uh that that process. What did that look like at Chisholm Trail?

SPEAKER_00 21:39

It looks like a whole lot of things. You know, I think the first thing is still to this day, but even back then, I mean, parents look at the report card, right? They they look at the report card and they okay, I love my kid has all A's or you know, A's and B's, they're doing fine. And they don't really know what that work is. And so we we've we did that a couple different ways. So I had an old pastor one time, you've probably heard this in your experience that uh what's important to you, I can tell what's important to you by looking at your checkbook. What's your checkbook? Yeah, where do you give? What do you put to your checkbook? Well, we kind of adjusted that mantra a little bit. So I can tell what's important to you by what you put in your gradebook. And I would talk to teachers about that and say, you know, hey, I get it, right? There's you know, 10 grades in a grading period, you know, a couple of them may be, hey, I just need to get a couple grades to just do this easy assignment, right? But if all of them are like that, are we really telling the story of what the kid's learning? And so we we would do like a gradebook audits Hey, you know, bring me. You know, I know you're doing a lot of cool stuff in your room, and that lab was really cool or that discussion was cool, but when you put a grade on something, you're telling the student and the parent that that was important and that was a good grade, you know, a worthy assignment. And so we talked about we need to have worthy assignments, you know, and and then that helped the parents a lot. The other thing, when you are visible with what it looks like, you know, we we we ended up created on our website, but we had them on in the we'd send them in newsletters and we'd send them everything. This is what an exemplar assignment looks like. And so look at your child and does it look like that? You know, and really talk about these are the expectations. And when we really practiced with kids that they could write and articulate why their assignment met the standard, that we wanted the kids to be able to articulate that to the parents. We wanted teachers to be able to do that, and that that's a lot harder than it sounds, Matthew. But that really helped with our parents say, hey, this is where we're going, and this is what we're trying to do. And you know, again, literacy was a big, big push at the time. And so, hey, you know, what's your kid reading? You know, get help with all of that. But the visibility of the standard is the standard, is is an important piece. Like this is this is what a seventh grade essay looks like. And if yours doesn't look like that, you know, we should be able to articulate why. What is it, you know, and so that that's what we did. It takes time, it takes time to calibrate.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

How long did it take? To me, what happens is culture and expectation shift, outcomes shift down later after you've implemented the practices. And so from that first six weeks through that first year, did you start to see culture shift and then really take hold the second, third?

How the campus moved to over 90 percent across demographics

SPEAKER_00 24:10

It happened rapidly once it started happening. I think a couple of things stood out, and one of them is going to be something that's probably real hard for some schools to do, but at that time we were able to do it. But we didn't get any extra staff to do this. We talked about it a lot, and the teachers kind of agreed they took bigger classes instead of teaching seven out of eight periods, they taught six of eight. And one of those periods was a PLC period where they got to meet with their department and work every single day. And and you know, again, I mentioned that to some people around the country and they look at me with big eyes, but that was a staple. That wasn't something I mandated. That was, hey, here are some ideas, how could we do this? And then that was very much grassroots. The staff bought into it. They believed the collaboration time was worth it. So within that, then they had their conference period every day. Chris, don't touch that, right? But then they had their PLC period, and in their plc period, I took two days of the week and the other three were theirs. When I go back to time, an eight eight period day, four periods, I was in their PLCs. And I mean, were there days that I missed? Absolutely. But that was on my calendar because it was important, it was on theirs. And I think that once we did that, boom, things took off. I mean, it really did. And again, the other two big ones were the reading and writing push that we did across the curriculum.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, it's so incredible. I mean, there's some structural system things that you had to put in place. I really want to highlight. You threw out some ideas and they settled on one that actually was going to create more work for them in a sense, but because they picked it and bought into it. And then, of course, getting to see the results of that extra time. Just repeat one more time the statistics.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

You went from two-thirds failing. Yeah, to over 90% in all demographics, not just 90% average, all 90% all different graphics, or 90% in ELA, math, writing, social studies, and science tests, all five tests. And you didn't change out all the students. Nope. And you didn't change out all the teachers. We got bigger. We ended up getting bigger. We went from about 900 that first year when I about five years later, I was at 1200 kid in middle school. And it was, it was good. It was a special place and it was fun. But you know, I will say that it's not hard. It's a simple formula. And I I say I mean this to the bottom of my heart. We know how to improve schools. We have enough knowledge, we have enough research. It goes down to that consistency and the courage to do it. And I really, I really believe that. The schools that I see there are still struggling, they're they're not being consistent with their high expectations of academics. They're just not.

What emerging principals need to hear right now

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Well, and it it's one of the reasons I'm so excited to get to even do this podcast, is because the intent was to capture hundreds of stories of transformational leaders that did versions of what you did. And it's so encouraging to see that I don't have to fire the staff, I don't have to fire the parents, I don't have to fire the children. I can take what's there, I can set expectations, I can adjust process, build trust, relationships, and then grow from there. And that culture of excellence, consistency, accountability.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yeah, it just starts happening. Sounds like magic, but it's not. I learn stuff from school at grade schools every day. Every week I go on some, I wish I had known that when I was in principal. I'd like to be operating principal and do that. I mean, there's so many great ideas out there and people doing wonderful things that that gives me hope all the time.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

I love it. I love to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

So, advice you'd give to emerging principals related to all this?

Where to follow Dr. Robert Thornell

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I think the very first thing you got to do is be very visible in your school community. That's with teachers, with kids and parents. Let them get to know you. I think you do it a lot of different ways, multiple ways. I mean, with social media the way it is now, I do think it's still in some ways an underutilized tool by our school leaders. But you can tell a lot about a school and a leader by what they celebrate, right? If I'm only posting about the football team, do I ever care about band or tenants? Not that I've ever been accused of that. But you know, and so I think I've let the community get to know you, but while they're getting to know you, they're also getting to understand what you place importance on and what you believe and your vision for the school. And so I think that that is real important for new leaders to do that. I think the second thing is, you know, kind of going back to my idea about uh don't take down offense to no wise put up, is just you know, be curious, ask a lot of questions about why things will happen. You don't know everything. And so I think you can't be afraid to change things, but you you know, make sure you understand why you're doing it. And not just that you understand why you're doing it, but reflectively the other folks know why you're doing it too. I think that's important. When you come in and just start changing things that look like they're kind of random, I mean I think that hurts. Those are things there, and then it's hard work, but just be consistent. It's a great job. I truly believe you don't have a great school without great principals. I've seen great teachers at poor schools, right? You can have a great teacher at a low-performing school, but you won't have a truly great school unless you have a great principal. It's the best job you can have, but it's it's hard work.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

100%. I totally agree. Rob, where can our listeners follow you and learn more about your work?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Well, I am on X at Thornell5 at Thorn L5. Um I usually use X. I've used LinkedIn a lot too, just Robert, Dr. Robert Thornell. I do have a weekly newsletter that goes out called Juggling the Job. They can probably find a way to hook on that some, you have little ideas and tips to principals. So I'd love for you to follow that and read that along and get put my email in whatever you need to as well. I get lots of questions from people as we go. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Well, there's so many great things that stood out about today's episode for me. I took some notes to make sure that I've got some of these in here, but you know, the calibration, the grade book audits, so many practical examples of how do you shift culture.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

We went through this whole whole thing. I've talked a lot about literacy, but one of the people that probably stands out to me the most that signifies the change in Chisholm Trail was a math teacher/slash coach. And you know, we had struggling algebra scores and whatnot. And we did this initiative to write and make our thinking. Uh go ahead, I'll just go ahead and say Coach Kleckner is his name. All three of my students went through his algebra class, but he he took over, he became the department chair. He it was almost like his athletic coaching thing fit in with how we're gonna teach now and transform and get kids talking about math. And when he came in and three years later, and I think still to this day, I think he's got about a four, four or five year streak going, but he had a hundred percent of the kids pass the algebra test. When I think of watching teachers change their practice, it's him. It was a great example, and it happened in eighth-grade algebra math class, where traditionally our kids were in the 60 to 70 percent pass range, and over the course of two or three years, now the expectation is 100% to get that. So he ended up being one of the campus teachers of the year and all that. But it's just a cool story of just watching somebody take to it and not sure at first and struggle and try it. And hey, here we are, and this is success, and now I got my formula.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

What a highlight. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Absolutely. Well, I'll close out with just you know, if you found this episode uh valuable, as I did, uh please share it uh with a colleague or an educator benefit. And and uh if you haven't already, please follow Transformational Educators. We don't never miss an episode. And until next time, keep leading with purpose and transforming schools into places where everyone thrives. If today's conversation gave you fresh insight or inspired you to lead with purpose, please follow the show and tell a friend. It helps us reach more educators who want to make a difference. For more stories, resources, and tools to support your leadership journey, visit Graceland.edu. Until next time, keep leading with courage and care.