Radically Excellent Leadership in Action

[00:00:00.60] WOMAN: Welcome to Corwin's Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast with hosts Peter Dewitt and Michael Nelson. This podcast is from education leaders for education leaders. Every week, Peter, Mike, and our guests get together to share ideas, put research into practice, and ensure that every student is learning not by chance, but by design.

[00:00:26.17] PETER DEWITT: Michael, here we are for another episode of Leaders Coaching Leaders. How are you?

[00:00:31.13] MICHAEL NELSON: I'm doing great, Peter. Although, at the time of this recording, it really has shifted from summer to fall for me in Washington State. It is cold all of a sudden.

[00:00:41.45] PETER DEWITT: Oh, I am sorry to hear that because it is 73 degrees here. But I'm feeling empathetic.

[00:00:50.11] MICHAEL NELSON: Thank you.

[00:00:51.10] PETER DEWITT: Maybe it just didn't come out that way.

[00:00:54.61] MICHAEL NELSON: Well, we have a great podcast, right?

[00:00:56.71] PETER DEWITT: We do. I love how you're ready to move into that. You're like, OK, enough of this small talk. Yes, we have Doctor Kate Anderson Foley. And she has a new book out with Corwin. It just came out a month ago or so.

[00:01:08.95] Radically Excellent School Improvement. And for those of you that don't know Kate, you can actually go to her website, the Education Policy and Practice Group, but widely known for her work in breaking down barriers for children who have historically been marginalized. She began a career as a special education teacher, pioneering inclusive practices.

[00:01:28.95] And as assistant superintendent for the Illinois State Board of Education, she oversaw services to more than 852 school districts, charter schools, non-public schools, and the Department of Juvenile Justice. And really interesting to talk to her.

[00:01:44.75] MICHAEL NELSON: It was. We just had a great global conversation with her. Her book itself actually breaks down school improvement process into six steps. And from the board level to the administration into teaching. And she has at the core of everything, which is important to you and I, right at the center are the students. And from the cover of the book, everything represents that piece.

[00:02:13.46] And we didn't go specifically into her six steps within the book. But you can definitely will feel the flow of those six steps that she highlights through our conversation.

[00:02:26.88] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, definitely interesting to talk to. So look forward to all of our listeners listening to Doctor Kate Foley Anderson Foley. Enjoy the podcast.

[00:02:43.83] WOMAN: Picture yourself popularly known among staff members as the reliable go-to person who makes meaningful change happen. This is possible when you equip yourself with robust strategies and tools from Corwin's leadership workshops. Sign up today at corwin.com.

[00:02:59.83] MICHAEL NELSON: Kate Anderson Foley. Welcome to the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast.

[00:03:04.78] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

[00:03:07.64] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, it's really good to meet you. And Michael and I have been looking forward to talking to you. We've gotten to know you through social media over the past few months, which has been really good. We can stalk each other in a very polite and professional way.

[00:03:21.88] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:03:24.01] PETER DEWITT: So congratulations on your new book with Corwin. It's called Radically Excellent Schools. So tell us a little bit about what brought you to writing the book on Radically Excellent Schools.

[00:03:38.20] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: So radically excellent school improvement, keeping students at the center of it all is really about my cumulative years leading school districts and then State Department and my tiptoeing into the waters at the federal level. And it's around comprehensively putting strategic planning in motion.

[00:04:03.35] It's not just-- I am not a fan of the 40-page document that sits in the shelf, either hardcore or virtual. I'm really focused on incremental change and supporting the schools who are implementing those changes. What leads me to the radically excellent side of things is that there's a relentless focus and drive that is keeping all the adults in the organization focused on the students. So students are at the center of it all, meaning at every decision point along the way.

[00:04:42.31] And then within that, there is an intentionality between and among all the departments. So interconnectedness. So when we do strategic planning, we build in the interdependencies. For example, well, how is teaching and learning coupled with the business department? HR. Things like that.

[00:05:07.48] And so again, throughout my work, in my professional roles before I moved into my private practice, has been around a strength based system of support and a strength based not for some, but for all. And again, how do we put this into play. And so that's a long story about why I decided to do this book and the title of it because we can go into the details between what that system looks like, coaching, all of that.

[00:05:46.48] PETER DEWITT: No, we will definitely get there. And I know that you're speaking Michael's language when you say focus on students. As soon as I heard you say that, I'm like, Michael's going to be following up with you.

[00:05:57.18] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: You'll have a question or two, right?

[00:06:00.37] MICHAEL NELSON: Yes. There's so much about the language that you use that's very similar. So I was a school superintendent in a district right outside of Seattle, Washington for 14 years. And the language that you use of the interconnectedness of in and between, all of that language is so critically important whether you think of within the system, outside the system, including communities and families and all of those pieces.

[00:06:31.62] But keeping the students at the center is something that is threaded throughout. No matter where I have googled or stalked you, that seems to be really at the forefront of who you are. Even the cover of your book, the way it flows of the showing to me-- the cover of your book shows the interconnectedness totally with the way it flows back and forth.

[00:06:58.98] But then in each center is the circle of with the students. And I think that just is strong representation of the vision of the book. But I know people say it, but in your work, how have you seen people put that into practice, the vision of putting students at the center?

[00:07:23.35] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: So I'll give you a quick example. I'm working with a charter school network right now. And we did strategic planning and we started with that. Like, who are our students? You who are they? All the demographic, all the profile, whatever you would like to say about it. But who are our students?

[00:07:44.89] And do you believe that they are capable of learning? That sounds like such a simple question or such a yada, yada, yada question, right? But really, it reveals a lot about the organization and the people within the organization.

[00:08:00.59] So when people say to me, well, yeah, I think most of them can do it. Yeah, your ear kind of tilts, right? When they say, yes, we know we have to do better. There we go. Now I can pinpoint in.

[00:08:15.75] And then organizing from an appreciative inquiry. And that's my process. From a strength based, what are you doing well? What area that you'd say you're doing well in? And let's start to build from there. And then put in all of our students.

[00:08:33.63] From there, it's that idea of-- and I'm going to pull this up if you haven't already thought about asking me about it is the double helix system of support. I would say this is it. This is the revolutionary piece because in the past and it's still current-- I even contributed language to say don't do RTI and MTSS in this form, that the triangle goes up, points up or points down.

[00:09:09.70] No matter it's funneling students. Instead of flipping it to say, here's all the students, here's the full continuum of students. So what are we, the adult, going to do to put in an intervention or strategy or enrichment that's going to move the student? And therein lies the difference.

[00:09:35.33] Because instead of identifying the students, we are identifying the intervention. And from that perspective, that's where we keep students at the center of all of our decisions, be it lesson planning, be it working together, comprehensively situating the adults, and then support, of course through all the-- you can call them professional learning community. Some people call them teacher-based teams.

[00:10:10.38] Whatever that configuration is, then the questions go to that. What do we want students to know? And then how will we know when they've gotten it? Well what do we do for the students who haven't gotten it?

[00:10:26.55] And I always put a big capital YET, yet. Doesn't mean they can't. What are we, the adult, going to do to ensure that they have learned it? And then finally, what do we do for students who already have it and might be bored out of their mind or totally checked out and then become behavior problems as an example.

[00:10:52.61] So what are we doing to engage our students? So this is just a different way, but it is the way. And I didn't just pull this out. This is what I put in practice throughout my career and how I've been working with others and that. So this is a formalized way. I'd love to revolutionize education in a way. Post-pandemic, we must do something differently.

[00:11:19.07] PETER DEWITT: So I like that very much. And the idea of students at the center, really important. And I loved what you were saying earlier about the business office because that's some work recently that has come up where they play a role in this.

[00:11:33.36] But I want to get back to you were talking about the interventions in place. And one of the questions that came to mind is something Michael and I kind of are confronted with all the time, no matter where we are in the world, actually, is the idea that they will say that's all well and good, but we can't even get teachers in the classroom. Or the teachers coming out of school in their pre-service program, they're not always prepared to do this work.

[00:11:59.13] We've compiled data from hundreds of schools. And one of the biggest focuses that schools have are tier one interventions because they just don't naturally-- I guess there are just teachers that don't just naturally have that experience to be able to do that work. So within your framework that you're talking about, how do those-- it's almost like you're differentiating for the adults because you're going to have those seasoned teacher that know how to do them.

[00:12:26.61] Then you're going to have these-- maybe you mentioned charter schools, but what we see is a lot of emergency certified teachers that aren't even exposed to this language. So how does that work with the schools that you're working with?

[00:12:41.68] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Yep. So you said a lot of there. I'm going to try to unpack some of it.

[00:12:47.92] PETER DEWITT: Sorry. It was long winded, wasn't it?

[00:12:49.87] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: That's fine. That's fine. First and foremost, I have advocated that teachers come out with dual certification. They should come out with not just one undergraduate class of this is special ed. They need to understand how to universally and comprehensively put a lesson together for all students. That's one.

[00:13:18.48] Two, they need to be able to see themselves that co-design and co-deliver of instructional practices coupled with behavioral interventions as well, or however you want to term a tier one. I call it universal. They need to have the understanding of the why. And so many programs don't do that.

[00:13:40.54] I have great experience with teachers who are on emergency certification, alternate pathways. And you're right, they don't know what they don't know. But within that improvement process, and I'll go back to one of my examples of when I was working with this group of strategic planning. But within that strategic plan, district overall, all the school improvement plans are aligned because it cascades down.

[00:14:14.60] And then we ask ourselves these questions of, so what do the adults need? What do the teachers need, related service providers, what have you. And that's the professional development and coaching support that goes with.

[00:14:30.91] I'm a big believer in building the capacity of the principals because they are very important. But oftentimes, principals don't have that skill set as well. So that's why coaching is critical.

[00:14:46.27] The knowledge, the skills, and the dispositions to look at things in an objective way, understand the data, but then be able to support and coach the teachers and the teacher teams along that way. And that's where I have seen just like almost like a vacuum.

[00:15:03.18] Oh, you've got PLCs. Great, that's great. And let the facilitator do their thing. Yeah, send me a report. Instead of saying, no, no, no, no, flip it. We are in the business of ensuring that students learn.

[00:15:22.11] So I as the leader, be it a superintendent or principal, what have you, need to know where students are. What does the data say? But I use a root of the root analysis.

[00:15:36.84] So many school teams stop at, here's the cause, but let's address the cause. But instead, go to the lower cause. Go to the deeper cause. OK, so students are improving. Why is it? They don't come to class. Why is that? They're on their cell phones. Why is that? And we dig down deep.

[00:15:56.27] This is a very current problem, absenteeism. And now school districts are banning cell phones. OK, OK. The question, how are you going to engage students? They weren't engaged before.

[00:16:13.38] They've come back to us socially and emotionally stunted for a wide variety of factors. So then the teachers who didn't know what to do before are now given, and by the way, enforced the no cell phone. And some cases and some districts and probably America's a little bit more resistant if how are you utilizing artificial intelligence not to swap out work, but to engage our students.

[00:16:50.55] And also think about the amount of newcomers and the amount of students who are learning English as a second language and students with disabilities and others who need to see themselves in the learning. So my work and this book really digs down deep into that. And I give examples for professional learning communities.

[00:17:17.41] I give examples for the co-designing, and then I pull it really far down into the IEP. Because again, I mentioned, this book has a twist and that I highlight the Supreme Court case of Andrew F. And the higher standard. Yet when districts say, yeah, we're doing that. We've always had a high standard.

[00:17:44.85] Great. How do you know what's your evidence of impact? And then all of a sudden, they say, well, OK, all right, maybe we need more help with that. And so I show people how to do that. And then through it, coach them.

[00:18:00.98] So here's the detail of some of the special ed. And, Michael, I'm sure this very well. Special education is very costly. And that's the additional cost. But the litigation is extremely costly.

[00:18:18.27] And it also can permanently hurt a relationship between the school and the family, which I think is very important that we repair. And so when you get those conditions right, everyone wins, right, because we've kept students at the center.

[00:18:38.27] What do you need? Ambitious education. How are you going to get it? That's an access and opportunity. And then how are you going to know that you're making an impact? Evidence. And that's the professional development, the coaching that we all need to do.

[00:18:55.51] MICHAEL NELSON: Thank you. You're right. Your book really details the processes and procedures and really makes you think as a leader about your own system and ways to make improvements in within that. I would love to know. I'm sure in all your travels and feedback on your book that you have some maybe examples of hope.

[00:19:20.95] When you talk with school superintendents, principals, districts, and you think, there's hope there. When you get that feeling, what are they doing? In story format, what are they doing that gives you hope tied to all the procedures and processes that you outlined?

[00:19:43.15] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Right. You made me think of a district that-- when I was in Singapore this spring, one of the schools in Australia looked at the equity autumn. We besides keynotes and all that, we had master classes, and I took them through the equity audit in relation to the system and et cetera.

[00:20:09.04] And when they looked at the data, they were very honest. They said, oh, wow, we're not doing what we need to do. But then the two people were talking to one another because one was the director of Student Services. And she goes, we can do this.

[00:20:26.21] And she started to talk. And her eyes just went like that. Like, we've got this. We can do this. And by putting that practice into play, my hope is that they're doing it this year and that they're making a difference.

[00:20:42.88] The other when I give hope is when-- because I work with boards of ed too, right. Boards of director. And they're going--

[00:20:50.60] MICHAEL NELSON: Very important.

[00:20:51.43] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Yeah, yeah. And I take them through certain things, and they feverishly take notes. Like, I like what Kate said on that. Like, we got to dig in deeper on that piece of it. Those things really make me happy because my North Star has always been advocating for children and youth who have been voiceless. And that's just the way it is.

[00:21:20.46] And so if I have any say in any way to have improvement for kids, I'm all about it. Because at the end of the day, they're going to be adults a whole lot longer than they're going to be in school. And the trajectory of a child's life can actually change by what we do. You, me, the community. That gives me hope.

[00:21:49.77] PETER DEWITT: I think-- you're definitely speaking my language there because I'm a former inclusion teacher and elementary school principal. But when I started teaching in a high poverty city school, I had a co teacher who was a special ed teacher, and we really got rid of the status piece.

[00:22:06.90] You're not going to call me the general ed teacher, and you're not going to call her the special ed teacher and those kind of things. And I think people miss a real opportunity because still to this day-- and that was back in the mid to late '90s. Special ed kids were being pulled out into the hallway to be taught.

[00:22:24.94] And I was like, this is never going to happen. It's not going to happen. But still to this day, you see those kind of things happening. And it's sad to me because people are missing out on an opportunity.

[00:22:37.39] I learned so much by co-teaching with the person that I co taught with. That lessons for me still to this day as a facilitator. One of the things you said, though, I want to go back to. And I said I was going to the whole business office idea.

[00:22:54.67] So often, the business office seems like you might have the director of business or the superintendent of business that's sitting at the board meeting, but they don't always feel like they're a part of the decision making that happens within the schools. And I actually just had this the other day with a group in Ontario too because they're all working on collective leader efficacy with us.

[00:23:16.34] And so when you specifically mentioned the business office, what are some things you can say right now for people who think that their business office is involved because the administrator shows up to a meeting, but they might not necessarily be involved in the way that you think they should be?

[00:23:35.52] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Yep. So I've always invited myself to the business office. And because again, some districts were better than others as far as where we siloed to the point of nobody really knew what anyone was doing. And so I always felt it was my duty and responsibility to make sure that they know what I'm working on, et cetera, et cetera. And, of course, a special education, all grants and everything else.

[00:24:06.50] But it was a way for me to introduce my beliefs and who I am and how I'm moving the departments or how I'm moving the school district. And at the same time, it was a way for me to gather information. Do they have the skill set that they need?

[00:24:21.01] Are they legally literate and financially literate for the things that we need to work on? So the fiscal, the human, and the resources, they all need to align. That is part of my equity audit as well and the work forth after that.

[00:24:38.17] And when we did that-- and for example, now when we've been doing that, the Department is actually at the strategic planning, been at the summer institutes. They're now saying, oh, I see. And when you and I share a goal-- so, for example, I'm going to use responsive classroom as one of the tools.

[00:25:04.27] So it's a curriculum. All the behavior modification, social, emotional, et cetera, et cetera. When you and I know what this is about, then the financial pieces would make more sense. Here's some of the buzz that's going around lately. Science of reading.

[00:25:22.19] OK. I'm going to be agnostic on this. But they have to understand then what are the structures that I may need in the office of teaching and learning to make sure that it's done with fidelity in any training, any registration fees, things like that. Business services has often been, in the past-- I have been out since 2018 from the public side. So maybe some things have changed, but there's always this knock of you spend too much money in this. What does this have to do with that versus understanding the whole. And so when you create a holistic, comprehensive system.

[00:26:12.21] Where they have responsibility for part of that goal, then there's an vested interest to say, so why are we spending that or why do we need a half time person or a full time? It makes more sense because it's then shared accountability.

[00:26:31.99] So the design, the details of it, but shared accountability for me is everything. It's not just this or that. It's not just you or you. It's us. And then how are we, again-- I always ask, how are we, the adults, ensure that students have good outcomes?

[00:26:54.64] So it turns that into the we in a very real way instead of well, I'm the treasurer or I'm the business department. Just report. You know what I mean. It takes away from that siloed piece to, oh, I see how this works.

[00:27:10.51] Here's another example. Culturally responsiveness in the sense of who's in our school. Do they represent? How do we bring materials in, et cetera, beliefs and to that. Well, I would always partner with HR because we needed to have better interview questions, better scenarios. It was a way for us to assess.

[00:27:38.69] We want the best. We just don't want somebody. And it was also a way for me because I was a chief in large urban. It was a way for me to assess what kind of support are we going to have to provide this teacher, great teacher, brand new or what have you. But there's areas of support. What are they? And it was a great way for me to do that. And as well as address bias.

[00:28:10.72] MICHAEL NELSON: You're just taking me back to so many reflections during my tenure as superintendent, to be honest. And when you were describing the business office and the systems, for me-- and I actually would bring the visual, do you know the-- it's a ball, but it's plastic and it's plastic web. And it can come to this little tiny baseball size, but then it can expand into a big balloon. And it's all interconnected. It's all a web.

[00:28:43.98] But I would describe our school district as this ball. And we are all interconnected in this big ball. And you see all of the different plastic pieces, that open air plastic pieces in the different colors come together. And the business office is not a separate ball, but in this huge web.

[00:29:03.03] But as the ball would shrink when it would get to the core baseball sized piece, that's the students. We're all interconnected tightly around students. And so this visual graphic, it's like, I hadn't thought about that in years. We just did that.

[00:29:20.00] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: It still applies, right?

[00:29:21.82] MICHAEL NELSON: Still, yes.

[00:29:23.47] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Yeah, for sure. That's a great visual. I'll probably keep that forever now myself.

[00:29:29.20] MICHAEL NELSON: Use it for all want.

[00:29:30.53] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: But there's intentionality about that. Therein lies the difference. You brought up intentionality of how it all works together.

[00:29:39.20] There are many that just say, it's this. The hierarchy of organizational charts, those need to be flattened. Our new millennials, our new people don't see hierarchy, the way maybe people of a certain age do.

[00:29:59.30] And that's OK, but they need to make sense of it. So I've done some writing on how coaching is really, really important now in this world of volatility and uncertainty and all the complexities and ambiguity. That is the world in which we live in right now and probably will be for a long, long time.

[00:30:24.77] And that notion has applied to business, but it's never applied to education. Education has always been all of the volatile and ambiguity, all of that complex. I often say education organizations are the most complex political entity businesses on the planet. Let's understand it. And then let's roll up our sleeves.

[00:30:57.15] MICHAEL NELSON: Well, Peter, I have a tangent question, but I don't want to ask my tangent question without giving you free rein to--

[00:31:04.46] PETER DEWITT: No, no, no. This is a good way to start to close out. I can't wait to hear this tangent. I don't know if you've ever brought that up before. So this is--

[00:31:15.87] MICHAEL NELSON: Well, Kate, I don't know if you know this about me, but I love children's books. And I have used children's books as a way to facilitate adult learning since I became an administrator over 30 years ago. And my collection of children's books is quite large.

[00:31:34.47] PETER DEWITT: I've been to his house. He's telling the truth there.

[00:31:37.11] MICHAEL NELSON: And I just use them because I think they have strong messages not only for students and kids when you read them to your classes, but the message is that sometimes I wanted to have across my system comes across much more poignantly in a children's book than if I would have just stood up and made a speech around that same subject.

[00:32:02.95] So you wrote a children's book, which I've just really intrigued with. Ida Finds Her Voice. In all that you do, why a children's book? Why this subject? How does it interconnect to the book that you just wrote for Corwin Press? Tell us a little bit about that as we close out this interview.

[00:32:26.75] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Well, thank you for asking me about that. So I wrote-- I've had Ida on my mind since 2017. 2016, 2017. And it was as a result of this increased divisiveness and hatred, almost. And in my role, and I was living in Chicago at the time. Take the trains to work. That's how we commute.

[00:32:58.81] MICHAEL NELSON: Sure.

[00:32:59.34] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: And I noticed in the course, my work at the schools, the district level, there was a lot of children in need. And then I look deeper, and I really saw the adults in need. And Ida was a way to, what you just eloquently said, was to get to not only the children, because we need to make sure our children are OK. Whoever they are, however they are, they need to be OK because they're children.

[00:33:30.39] The other side of that is, how do we help parents and how do we help adults have difficult conversations? So you might not agree with whatever the thing was. But we need to be able to say, this is a human being.

[00:33:44.64] And so Ida goes through a series of things that are disturbing not for her, but the people looking at her or as a result of the adults doing something. And she's trying to make sense of it. And then there's a culminating event that happens at the park.

[00:34:03.54] And throughout her caring parents to talk about these things gave words to what she was feeling. And then at the end, very powerfully, joins others, adults who also have been marginalized, including all of our newcomers and our people with disabilities, people who might have different family makeup as other people, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs.

[00:34:35.50] All of those things are OK, even though you might not agree. But we all have a place in this planet, on this planet. And then how do we talk nicely and civilly? And how do we help kids make sense of very complex topics?

[00:34:51.89] But what I found is I'm sure you too have found are, parents are younger, right? So they're the younger of the younger of the younger. And some of them have missed some of these things. And it goes back to who I am personally and professionally, and that is I'm a social justice warrior.

[00:35:17.00] PETER DEWITT: Well, thank you for that. And, Michael, I like that tangent question that you asked. That was very good.

[00:35:23.82] And thanks for being on the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast, Kate. It sounds like you were doing fantastic work. And congratulations on the book, which is Radically Excellent School Improvement. So congratulations on that. That's fantastic.

[00:35:42.76] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Thank you so much.

[00:35:43.94] PETER DEWITT: Thank you for being on the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast.

[00:35:47.28] KATE ANDERSON FOLEY: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to just share with you too, and share with everybody.

[00:35:53.58] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:35:57.64] MICHAEL NELSON: All right, Peter, we just had a great conversation with Kate Anderson Foley and about her book, Radical Excellent School Improvement.

[00:36:07.18] PETER DEWITT: Yeah. And what I appreciate about her is that when she was talking about the way the book is put together, she really focused a lot, it seems, on systems. And that's something that can be missing from schools. I think there's that balance between the feeling that we get when we go into a school, and this is a strategy that we think can work, to maybe the other end of the spectrum where she is talking about systems and what to put in place and what this can look like.

[00:36:36.47] The soup to nuts kind of version as far as professional development. I think where I wanted to ask a deeper question was just the whole idea of a lot of principals, I do feel like, hey, I would love to be able to do this work, but I don't even get time to think about it or superintendents get the time to think about it because we have unfilled positions or we have emergency certified teachers. And she was able to speak to that too, which I appreciate.

[00:37:04.67] MICHAEL NELSON: Yeah, she really did champion that incremental change kind of philosophy that we've heard. There's definitely lots of books about small changes, small habits that you can implement that cause the big ripple of change.

[00:37:20.72] But I just thought the interview-- the part for me, where it went back to my superintendent days, Peter, was when you really were talking about the business office and not having them be a silo. And you brought it up a couple times throughout the podcast.

[00:37:36.75] And I think that is huge significance. Oftentimes, business leaders within our school systems do not necessarily come through the educational lens. They come through the business lens. And they are making sure that there's checks and balances in numbers, but not necessarily tied to what those checks and balances and numbers mean to programs and to what it means to students and staff and how to bring them directly into the conversation so they're a part of it. They can have look-fors all the time rather than just a teaching and learning director going and begging for more money for maybe instructional materials.

[00:38:22.25] PETER DEWITT: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely come up in conversation the work that we've done. And I think one of the things I hope for when people listen to the podcast is just that idea of how do we involve the business office. What that equity audit, those kinds of things are those things that we do as well, and what can we learn from them.

[00:38:41.07] And of course, we're always going to enjoy when somebody says evidence of impact, because that's the work that we do, and we're looking for evidence of impact. So that was important. But as always, Michael, very good to see you. This is what we say. Good to see you too, Peter.

[00:38:59.87] MICHAEL NELSON: Let me get that to you back.

[00:39:01.91] PETER DEWITT: Absolutely. That's how you answer that. It's really good to see you, Michael. Absolutely. It's good to see you.

[00:39:08.33] MICHAEL NELSON: It's always good to see myself. No, Peter, it's great to see you. A great conversation once again. Kate Anderson Foley, just a wonderful, wonderful experience.

[00:39:19.35] PETER DEWITT: Yes. And thank you, everybody, for listening. As always, we're looking for your feedback, but we're grateful that you took time to listen to our Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast.