Why Lesson-Plan Audits Cost Principals the Results They Need ft. Cory Eckstein | Transformational Educators Ep. 36

Principals who tie teacher evaluation to lesson-plan compliance are trading real instructional results for paperwork, and Cory Eckstein built a direct counterargument at Redland Elementary.

While leading a rural Alabama K-4 school of 720 students, he moved the state report card score from 84 to 96 across four consecutive years by cutting unregulated compliance requirements for veteran teachers with proven classroom results. His outcome-first approach reframes teacher advocacy as the primary lever for student performance: if a teacher's data shows strong results, the lesson-plan audit adds nothing and costs trust. Practicing school leaders who want diagnosis, not inspiration, will find in Cory's framework a precise case for what real teacher support produces.

Cory became principal at Redland after just six months as assistant principal, inheriting a K-6 building of 980 students mid-year with no AP support for six months. When the new middle school opened and fifth and sixth grade left, he narrowed focus to early literacy and numeracy for the remaining 720 K-4 students and pushed formative assessment into daily practice, using STAR diagnostics at the start, middle, and end of the year alongside daily classroom data to drive small-group composition. He also moved veteran teachers to a tiered lesson-plan system, eliminating templated submissions for those with strong results and adding weekly collaborative planning sessions on an extended schedule to replace isolated individual prep time.

The accountability architecture Cory describes sits on a cultural foundation worth examining separately: he treats data as a temperature check rather than a performance verdict, which changes how teachers engage with it during common planning. His argument for relationship-building rests on a practical claim, not a philosophical one, specifically that a student who feels known by their teacher produces more during the next day's lesson than one who does not. For principals wondering where the time comes from, Cory points to lunch tables, hallway walks, and morning check-ins as legitimate instructional infrastructure, not feel-good extras, because they reduce the friction between a teacher's capacity and what actually reaches a child.

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Transcript

Coming up...

Cory Eckstein 0:32

Why do I, as somebody who taught fifth grade ELA for 10 years, need to go in and dissect and check behind using a lesson plan of a math teacher who has outstanding results in their classroom? So to me, why am I asking you to waste your time doing it my way, just so I can check a box and say that I know that it's done when the results are there? And so I always say that if I come to your house and you cook me an outstanding meal and I think that it's one of the best I ever had, I don't need to see your recipe to know that it was a great meal, right?

Dr. Matthew Flippen 1:08

That's Corey Eksteen, principal of Redland Elementary School in Elmore County, Alabama. Over four consecutive years, he helped raise Redland's state report card score from 84 to 96. Rather than burdening high-performing veteran teachers with unnecessary compliance tasks, he cultivated a culture of trust, ownership, and excellence that translated into stronger results for students.

Cory Eckstein 1:32

One of my core values is teacher advocacy, that when a teacher is loved and when a teacher is supported and when they feel important and worth something, then they're going to go out of their way for the children in their class because they can.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 1:45

In this episode, you'll learn why trust, not micromanagement, is the foundation of high-performing schools, how highlighting strong teacher performance data can eliminate the need for burdensome lesson plan audits, and why reducing administrative demands allows educators to focus more time and energy on student learning. I'm Dr. Matthew Flippin, and this is Transformational Educators.

How do you lead a high performing school when there is nothing obvious to fix?

Dr. Matthew Flippen 2:07

Tell us a little bit about Redland Elementary School and the community that you serve.

Cory Eckstein 2:12

Yeah, so we're uh a small little community out in the middle of uh of nowhere. We are part of the Elmore County School System. Uh, we're in the Weetumka, the city of Weetumka, but it's a small little community outside of the more, and I use this term loosely urban area. We're all rural out here. But uh, so it's uh we've got about 720 kids, K through uh fourth grade. And um it's a high-performing little school, a lot of support from the community, a wonderful faculty and staff. Uh it's a wonderful place to work. We have outstanding kids. Um I couldn't ask for a better place to be.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 2:47

And you've been there in that role as principal for how long now?

Cory Eckstein 2:50

This the past year was my fifth year. So my first year uh here, I was the assistant principal. And in the middle, we when I first got here, it was a K6 school, 980 kids in the building. But they were in the midst of finishing uh, yeah, it was a huge it was huge. They were in the midst of finishing a middle school. And so my first year here, my principal who hired me uh accepted the position at the middle school that they had just built. Really had no intention of applying for the principal uh job because I just didn't think I had enough experience. But he uh he said, I think it'd be a good thing for you to do, just so you know, if if you intend to eventually be a principal, you want people to see you in that light, and it'd be good to, you know, interview to get that experience. And so um I did, and I didn't expect at all to get the job, but I did. And so I um after six months of being the assistant principal, uh accepted the job as principal. And so from January to July, I didn't have an assistant principal. So I was the sole uh leader on campus for um for about six months with 980 kids and uh K six while we got ready to transition the fifth and sixth up to the middle school. So if uh for the all the lack of experience I had as an administrator, I feel like I saw it all and learned it all in that six months that I that I was here on my own.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 4:07

I was gonna say that sounds like trial by fire. Yeah, you you had just been for six months. Wow, I can even imagine now. Had you been on that campus before, or was that your first time with that?

Cory Eckstein 4:18

Uh started in uh July, and then by that next uh January, I had accepted the job as principal. So I had just six months of experience really here on campus.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 4:28

Oh, wow. So you had to start by building relationships. I mean, you had a lot, a lot to do.

Cory Eckstein 4:32

Oh yeah, and and uh lucky enough, this is like I said, a super supportive, wonderful faculty, wonderful staff. And I always tell them that they when I first started teaching, that group of um of teachers that I taught with, they made me into a teacher, and this faculty here turned me into a principal. And so it's really by their grace and understanding and and patience and uh willingness to sort of teach me and allow me to learn that I was uh able to be successful.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 4:59

Yes, yeah, I love that. I love that. And that shows also your humility because they they would feel that way towards you because you were willing to listen and really take take them seriously, unless they didn't give you a choice.

Cory Eckstein 5:12

Yeah, well, hey, I'm not an expert in anything. And so I always, you know, the best thing I can do is rely on the wisdom and experience of the people around me. And so, hey, they were here, they've been here. A lot of the teachers have been here since the since it opened. And so uh if I wanted to be the best that I could for this school, this school's culture was not innate within me. You know what I mean? I needed to learn it from them, and so uh I was willing to do that, and they were gracious enough to sort of uh hold my hand down that that uh journey.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 5:39

We're there for about first year. Obviously, you observed probably some things that even though you mentioned it's high performing, you probably saw some things in growth areas as it related to instruction or instructional practices. Tell us a little bit about some of the gaps that you saw that you wanted to tackle first.

Cory Eckstein 5:59

Sure. Well, in in the in the district that I was in before, I had taught for 10 years. And so, you know, when you're embedded in a culture of a place, you're you you you see the things that you would want to fix, you see the things that you would that you think would benefit that. Uh, and that was one of my fears when I came here to uh such a high-performing area and such a really a supportive community that I would have nothing to offer. You know what I mean? And I'm coming from a different place. I I I'm I'm starting at a new place that is that is doing a great job. And so what's there to reform? You know, and in my mind, that's what a principal or an assistant principal is is there to do. They're there to reform and and evaluate and make things better. But when I got here, I realized that a really good, uh, a really um important gift or talent that a leader really should have is not necessarily uh reforming or reformation. Sometimes it's just refining. Sometimes it's really opening your eyes to things that are going really well and try to find a way to make those better. And I think that's a a much more unique challenge because um if you bring me some old beat-up car and you say, hey, what do I need to fix on it? I could say, well, there's no fender, the bumper's in it in, there's no uh, you know, mirrors on it. But if you bring a really well-oiled like Ferrari and say, tell me what's wrong with that, I'm gonna have to really pay attention and look, right? And then I've got to convince you, if I find some sort of minor thing that nobody can see, I've got to convict convince you to still fix it, even though it still looks and runs really well. And so I that was sort of my when I got here, it was really looking for things that I could help refine, not because I just needed to make some sort of impact to be important, but if it was what was best for the kids, if we wanted to do a better job and to, you know, in education, we've never arrived. And so it's important for us to realize that there's so it we how can I still find it? And then the biggest challenge with that was how do you ask people who work really hard and have really good results to dig even deeper and to work even harder and to find even better results when they're already working so hard. And so it it was a uh it was a hard balance to find. And I think that stems from kind of what we were talking about, just the willingness to learn from them and be supportive of them. Um, and so I think that was kind of, and so I that was a really long way of saying when I got here, it we were uh we were in elementary school and a middle school shoved into one building. We had two instructional coaches, two counselors. Um, and so once with the middle school was built and our fifth and sixth grade left, we could really focus on that surly that that that early literacy and early numeracy and and instruction and instructional practices that could be consistent uh amongst all of our elementary people and not have two different sort of uh umbrellas that we were operating on. We could consolidate and really dive in kind of like we under a microscope, the instruction and and what our expectation of that

The shift to individualized instruction for every student

Cory Eckstein 8:53

was.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 8:54

So tell me about that. What stood out as a concern as you look looked into that?

Cory Eckstein 8:58

Well, see, and that's the thing. Nothing was a concern because it was a great school, but it was like you the more time you spend in something, the more you're able to kind of see, okay, you know what I think we really need to do? If we're really gonna, even though we're already a good school and we have great scores, if we're gonna do an even better job, one thing that I really noticed was um more explicit, individualized instruction for every child at our school. So not just the kids with an IEP or not just the kids who are in tier two instruction, but what about the kids who are performing well? What specifically does that child need that's gonna allow them to grow? What specifically does that child need? And that's hard to do. It's hard to ask that of a teacher to really get to know each child individually and explicitly and be in sort of a diagnostic way, where you can look at them and say, hey, this is why they're struggling with this, or hey, they're excelling at this, so this is something that they need. And so what we really focused on was formative instruction uh that was consistent across the board, uh, formative assessment, I'm sorry, that was consistent across the board, where every single day we were able to diagnose what that child did well and what that child needed more of, so that I could individually address their needs the next day. And so we really started looking at individualized instruction really based off of formative assessment.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 10:20

Hey, is today's conversation resonating with you? You know, the educators we feature on this podcast all have one thing in common. They're committed to growth, not just for their students, but for themselves. At Graceland University, we've built programs and partnerships that support that kind of growth, servant leadership and school transformation for educators who want to make a lasting difference. If you're curious about what that could look like for you, scan the QR code or check out the link in the show notes. Let's get back to the

How teacher advocacy became the foundation of instructional improvement

Dr. Matthew Flippen 10:52

conversation. You mentioned the fact that teachers are already working hard. Did you do anything to free up time or generate space for them to do more individualized instruction?

Cory Eckstein 11:03

Yeah, I think one of my core values is uh teacher advocacy. And uh I really try to filter um anything that I'm doing as a leader through my core values. And so one of the most important ones to me is teacher advocacy because I I say it all the time. The best thing I can do for any child in this building is to love and support their teacher. That when a teacher is loved and when a teacher is supported, and when they feel important and worth something, then they're gonna go out of their way for the children uh in their class because they can. And so it's a big um it's a big priority of my leadership team to always take something off the plate of the teachers. Anything that we can take off of their plate because they're here to do something they're called to do. And it's hard for them to because they just want to teach. They just want to sit with the kids and talk with them and and show them the best way to do something and learn a little bit about what happened with them yesterday so they can relate that to the instruction and they grow to love them and they grow to care about them and they grow to want what's best for them. But if they're bogged down in paperwork or if they're worried that they're gonna miss their their kids um, you know, uh cheerleading tryout because they have to do, if they don't feel loved and supported, they can't make the connections that they need to. And so we're constantly trying to take things off of their plate, make sure that they prioritize their own families and and what's important for them at home so that they can give their best to the teachers. So it's important for us to go in, take everything we can that we're able to off of their plate so they can really focus on the formative assessment, so they can really focus on those individual relationships with each child.

Why veteran teachers should not be held to the same lesson plan requirements as new teachers

Dr. Matthew Flippen 12:33

Was there something specific that showed up as you needed to take that off their plate in order to free up time?

Cory Eckstein 12:39

In any trouble. But one thing that I did notice is that uh oftentimes teachers spend a lot of time on just let me just say hypothetically, a lesson plan, right? And um why do I, as somebody who taught fifth grade ELA for 10 years, need to go in and dissect uh and check behind uh using a lesson plan of a math teacher who has outstanding uh results in their classroom, right? So to me, why am I asking you to waste your time doing it my way, just so I can check a box and say that I know that it's done when the results are there, right? And so I always say that if I come to your house, Dr. Flippin, and you cook me an outstanding meal and I think that it's one of the best I ever had, I don't need to see your recipe to know that it was a great meal, right? And so if I go by a classroom and I know that they have outstanding results, and every time I go, they're in a small group doing tiered instruction, why do I have to see the lesson plan? And why do I have to give them a formatted template of a lesson plan to do it my way if I know what's going on in going on in there? And so we move to sort of a um tiered lesson plan arrangement to where if it were uh some of our newer teachers or people who really needed some support, um, maybe they were on a coaching cycle, we would really focus on their lesson plans, but in a way that it was there to help them with their instruction. If they are a veteran teacher with outstanding results, then I as long as you're planning, I see that in the results of what's going on in your classroom. I don't need you to spend, you know, an hour doing a templated lesson plan that is not moving the needle. So little things like that. Any little thing we can find to take away from you. If it's if it's extra paperwork, if it's common planning, where now we're all going to meet together uh and plan together so that we can help one another, those little things. So instead of you being off uh in a corner by yourself planning all your lessons and doing all that, what if we can do it collaboratively? So we started doing collaborative planning once a week uh with an extended schedule so that we can really give them the time that they need to do what they got into this job to do.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 14:45

Love it. Those are great examples, Corey. Thanks for thanks for sharing those. And I think those are real practical. You know, the the common sense approach that you just um used, I think sometimes leaders feel restricted from uh making those kinds of choices, and instead they stick with uh an overly structured system that is burdensome. And so it sounds like you're you're sensitive to that and you apply that in a way, like you said, it's a new teacher who needs more support and guidance and coaching versus the veteran who's proven their outcomes year after year. And uh, and in some ways it's almost insulting to say, I need you to use this uh this template that may or may not fit what you found to be best practices for your for your children.

Cory Eckstein 15:30

We as leaders, we can't put our own uh you know, compliance that is unnecessary, uh, maybe in this unregulated compliance. Like right, there are certain things that we have to do to be compliant, but I don't want to force compliance to my way of doing things at the expense of the instruction in the classroom. Uh and you know, there are things, but I'm I'm very lucky our central office is very supportive. And so I can go to them and say, hey, what about this? What if this is gonna move the needle? What do you think about that? And they're usually if if it's gonna benefit the teacher, in my experience with my uh the people at our central office that I've worked with, they they want us to do whatever we can to help the teachers be supported. So I feel lucky in that sense as well.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 16:10

Yeah, and I think you know, the way that you go about building trust and rapport, I mean, obviously showing honor and respect for your staff, I think, and then that proves results, right? And then when you treat people in central office with that same uh dignity, honor, and respect, and you ask for permission to experiment, right, you're more likely to have have some leeway for that. Obviously, you're gonna follow it up with data uh that shows whether it worked or not, and then uh and then you know move forward from there.

How data transparency drives better outcomes without burdening teachers

Dr. Matthew Flippen 16:39

When we think about that in the in the data process, I mean when you're trying to collect and make sure you know you're you're fair across some variations in levels of accountability, what have you found to really help make that possible? What is it on the data side of outcomes that you're looking at?

Cory Eckstein 16:59

Sure. Well, number one, transparency is uh the most important thing. And so, you know, the way that we approach data uh at our school is that nothing uh, you know, it that that's just one tool of measurement, right? Because so many things can affect uh data. The good instruction, uh, the students that make up your classroom, the support you have from your administration. And so when we meet in our common planning, we're very open about our data because it's not necessarily uh always tied to the performance of the teacher, it's just a tool to measure where we are, a barometer to see what do we need to move towards next. And so um, we're pretty transparent in that. And we use that formative assessment is the most important thing that uh that I believe the data that drives it. Because what I want to know is uh today, what happened today? I don't always need to see. If we're talking about in the middle of the year, we use that data from our um, you know, our state accountability test, the ACAP, we'll use that data. But more importantly, how is the data um affecting your small groups and the fluidity of your small groups today? Um, how is it affecting which kids you're pulling and seeing? That again, going back to that personal relationship that you have with each kid, I don't want to know blues, greens, and reds. I want to know individual names because those numbers on our data charts have names. They're people, they're walking the halls, they have stories, they have parents, or they have no parents, or they have um, you know, trouble or issues or whatever it is, and all that folds into it. And so uh the accountability for us really comes from the individual uh data that we have every single day, your formative assessment, your we use STAR last year as one of our uh diagnostics. So the star that we're taking middle of the year, beginning of the year, end of the year. Uh but the most important data is that relationship.

Why relationship building is not separate from instruction, it is the engine of it

Dr. Matthew Flippen 18:44

I will hear um educators talk sometimes about they don't have time to build relationships with kids. You know, there's too many requirements placed on them. So when you hear that, if someone sold you that, what how would you respond to that?

Cory Eckstein 18:56

Yeah, I would say that um the and and my teachers can tell you this. I'm never if I walk down the hall and I saw that if I just peeked in a room and I saw a teacher with a board game out there uh at their small group table, I know that that's not going on every single day. And I would innately understand that something's going on here that they need, that they want to have some time to talk to that cat that to that child, and this is a a mode of what they're doing. But I always say to them, to the to our teachers here, the kids never going to remember a specific math lesson that you taught that day. They're never gonna remember, you know, they'll know down the road, oh, I can I can add two-digit uh, you know, um problems, but they won't, but they will remember the time that you took you listen to them about your journal entry where you're telling them about the story that they wrote or the picture that they had, or when you ask them about um, you know, hey, I heard you had a pet snake. Will you bring me a pet? I want to see that thing. I'm terrified of them. I want to see, they'll always remember those things. And you'll get more from them during your math lesson uh tomorrow if you spent the time and talk with them uh on a personal level today. So I know that there's a lot of accountability put on teachers and they want them to teach everything in this short amount of time. Um, but if you can take the time to get to know them and build that relationship with them, you're gonna get more out of them in your lesson tomorrow than you would if you never did that. You may not have time in the middle of your math lesson, but you can always squeeze in next to them at the lunch table. You can always uh walk around the track with them at recess instead of, you know, taking a break and sitting. And so I'm perfect, I I want teachers to have the time where they sit and eat lunch, but there's always time that you can find to hang out and build relationships. A lot of times with my teachers during their planning, I'm in, I'll go down to their room and hang out with them and talk with them and say, you know, how's your kid? I know you said your mom was sick, how's everything going with that? And so a lot of my time sometimes is just spent going around during their planning and checking on them and asking them how they're doing or going around in the morning. And I get more out of their performance as an educator because I spent the time and they know I care about them. So when they come to me and they they look at me at two in the afternoon, they got tears in their eyes and they say, Hey, I have to go right now. Well, I already know that their mom's been sick, or I already know that their kid is has cheerleading tryouts, and they're trying to get over there by the end of them so they can see. Because I've talked with them, I know you don't have to communicate every little thing with me uh because we have a relationship with each other. And so there's always time to find that. You may not be able to do it during your uh RTI time, but you can definitely do it during lunch or walking down the hall or just when they walk in in the morning and you see they're they got uh you know they're teary-eyed, and you know, hey, they probably didn't have breakfast, so you go grab it and sit it on their desk and pat them on the back, you can do it then. It doesn't always have to be during the instructional time.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 21:44

Yes. Yeah, 100%. You know, Gordon, I love that because you're modeling the kind of relationships that you want to see them have with uh the children in their classrooms. And and we know there's tons of r research that shows that if you've got one meaningful relationship with a with a healthy adult, an appropriate adult, then uh the the impact on your on your life long term is so so dramatic. Now, I know you said that the school is high performing, but um, but that's an outcome. What are the children coming to school with? What's the demographics of your school look like?

Cory Eckstein 22:18

We have a pretty uh I would say uh socioeconomically, uh we're um we have maybe about uh ten to eleven percent that are low socioeconomic. Uh we have a small minority. Population here. So our kids are coming to us mostly from families, mostly from um uh supportive environments, but we know that uh that's what it all appears to be. Uh and then whenever they get here, you know, you find that they're students who need some um, I would say, a little bit more support than maybe we thought in the beginning. Uh, but the majority of our kids are coming from uh good established uh backgrounds. And so we just have a supportive group of people. And so even those that that are coming from a different because you know, I'm from a divorced family. My parents divorced whenever I was uh young, and so I definitely understand the uh how hard that is on the parents. You know what I mean? So because my mom, uh, she was raising us uh uh kind of on her own for a little while. My dad was involved, but we lived in different places, so um it's just it's not a negative connotation on the parents, it's just you know that where uh where there's a family where I'm married and I have three kids that we we're a team and we can help each other out. Well, where there we have parents coming in where maybe it's a single mom or a single dad, there there's a place for Mr. Egstein to help out. You know what I mean? There's a place for the teacher to help out. And so um we have a really we have a really solid foundation of support in this community for all types of kids, whatever their background is, uh whatever they look like, wherever they're coming from. Um we have an understanding, like compassionate and empathetic way of uh of working with them. So with all of our kids have so much potential. But um, every kid has potential in every place that they go. And the most important thing that it for us is that we tap into that potential.

How Redland went from an 84 to a 96 on the state report card

Cory Eckstein 24:04

Because I'll tell you, when I first got here, uh it was right after COVID, and we didn't have any state accountability reporting uh and since uh I think 20 um 18 was the last time that they uh had a report card score. And so it was an 84 at the school that I'm at right now. And so after two years of being here, we were we had the the everything was sort of back in swing, and our first report card score was a 90. So we went from an 84 to a 90, and I really think it goes to that really explicit instruction and relationships that we had with the kids, and then the next year it was a 92, and then the next year it was a 94, and then the next year, this past year it was a 96. So we've gone as a school from an 84 to a 96, and I really think it's but and we have the same population of kids, we have the same group of kids, but when you come in and you sort of leave things up to to what may be, and you say, hey, we have a really good community, we have really good kids here, and you kick back, you might end up with an 84. Or if you don't have everybody, everybody's working hard and rowing, we're rowing the ship and everybody's rowing uh as hard as they can, but we're all not rowing in the same direction with the same goal in mind, then you might end up with an 84. But if you're really focusing explicitly on each individual student and you're supporting the teacher so that they have the time to do it, then I think it makes a difference in instruction. And when instruction's better, outcomes are better. And so um I think that is really sort of the way we were able to go from an 84 to a 96 because we got the same, same group of kids that we've had, same a lot of, for the most part, a lot of the same teachers, a lot of the same administration. But what we did was we collectively decided that we haven't arrived. Uh 84 is not the best that we can see. How can we drill down and explicitly teach the individual needs of each kid? And I think by doing that and knowing these kids individually in a diagnostic way, we were able to see that in our uh in our rapport card scores.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 26:00

I love that. I love that, Corey. Now, at 96, I mean, you're getting to a point where beating yourself year after year, keep going up and up, it's gonna get harder and harder. You're gonna run out of space.

Cory Eckstein 26:11

Yeah. And we sort of have been, you know, that's been our fear every year. Uh, that, you know, you you can only go up so high. You know what I mean? Before before you come in. But we're not scared of a lower score. We're not worried about because we know that our instruction's there. And so at this point, I feel like we've actually, these teachers have kind of become an expert in in what they're doing. Uh and and they're they're experts in the content, but now they're expert experts in the culture of their classroom. They're experts in in a way to get out of the kids what they know uh that's in there. So if we go to a 94, a 93, a 96, all of that at this point, we know what we're capable of. All it would be is an indicator of what we need to adjust because we know the instructions there. And so uh, do I like having it? I'd like to have a nine, I'd like to have 110 if that were possible. Uh, but ultimately we really just it's nice to have it, but we just use it as a temperature check of what we're doing as those who are delivering the instruction.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 27:08

That's right. It's one measurement. And I think that's such an important point to just emphasize. It's uh that that score is one measurement of a lot of things that go into making uh, you know, ultimately, you know, successful citizens. I mean, these children and also having a culture that is strong and your people stay, because I I mean a a staff that is consistent and stays together tends to produce better outcomes for children. Well, this is this is incredibly insightful and helpful. I mean, as always, when you're such a you're such a pro in what you do and your and your approach is one of really genuine care for people. And I think that you know, that heart of a servant leader, you know, starts starts there and that humility, uh, and but also a desire for excellence. You know, it's that balance of um, you know, yes, we're we're great. I love you, and hey, how how far can we go together? Um, yeah, is really makes a makes a huge difference.

Cory Eckstein 28:03

So one I know I know I said I've talked about my core values, but one of mine is ambition. And so it's uh, you know, excellence is important, but just being ambitious to do better than we have before, I think is an important thing for uh a leader to possess.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 28:16

Completely, completely agree. Well, how can our listeners uh connect with you and learn more about your work?

Cory Eckstein 28:22

Well, they can follow me uh on TikTok or uh Instagram, I'm the millennial principal on there, uh, which is a silly thing, but it ended up being what it what it is. And so I like to um I'm a big advocate for teachers, like I said. And so I I post a lot of stuff from a teacher's perspective about what they're going through and uh you know how important their job is, and a lot of it is uh um, you know, satirical in nature, but I think another one of my core values is humor. And so I think that that's an important way for that we can relate to one another. And so uh the Millennial Principal on TikTok or Instagram, um, Corey XD on Facebook, and we have a wonderful school website as well. If they wanted to check out all the great things in Elmore County, they can just Google Redland Elementary School.

Dr. Matthew Flippen 29:05

If you found today's episode valuable, please share it with a colleague or educator who would benefit. And if you haven't already, follow Transformational Educators so you 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.