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Impact Standards with Jeff Bradbury · The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

• Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everyone. You are listening, as always, to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks for being with us. Really pleased to bring you into today's conversation with my friend Jeff Bradberry. A podcaster who has been doing it for a very long time. Jeff's an educator at ISTE award-winning digital learning strategist, an educational broadcaster, public speaker, entrepreneur, and triplet dad, as we're recording this, he is about to be the dad of 12-year-old triplets. And so by the time this comes out, he'll yeah, he'll have 36 years worth of kids and his message hasn't. Fired thousands of [00:01:00] educators through the teacher cast educational network for about the past 15 years. So, I'm sure there's a lot of you out there who are familiar with teacher cast as kinda one of the originals in in education podcasting. Jeff has a book out called Impact Standards Designing District Systems That Power K 12 Learning. That's what we're talking about here today. Jeff, welcome to the show. Jeff Bradbury: It is great to see you. Thank you so much for having me on today, Ross. Ross Romano: Absolutely. And Jeff you look much too young to have 36-year-old kids. How? Jeff Bradbury: It's been an amazing 12 years of working with you've been with me throughout the entire thing. You've known me before triplets, and so yeah, it's 12 triplets and parenting is a fun adventure. And now we're hitting the the preteen area now. Ross Romano: You know what you're gonna have a whole production crew is is what that's like. They used to say I have, I'm one of four boys, and so [00:02:00] everybody would say one more and you have a whole basketball team. But you're gonna have entire production crew there for the, to grow the empire. Jeff Bradbury: Mm-hmm. Ross Romano: Let's talk about the book. Here's a question. This is a, just a small question. What's the book about? Tell us about what's the big idea behind this? We'll get into some specifics. We'll go through a lot of it. But every now and then, I feel like it's useful just to start with, what is kind of the animating idea for the book, right? Why is this the one that you chose to write? Jeff Bradbury: The book is called Impact Standards Designing District Systems That Power K 12 Learning. It took me a long time to write it. I'm super excited. It came out in the summer of 2025 and essentially the book is this. Every single school district has a strategic plan. The school district comes together, the superintendent leads the way. The board of education's into it. The community's into it, and essentially your strategic plan says in three to five years, this is where we want to go. I. That's where this book picks up. Once you have that plan [00:03:00] and you basically have an answer to the question, what do I want my classrooms to look like? That's where this book picks up. We talk a little bit about how do you walk into a classroom, figure out what you want it to look like, and then get that classroom to be that way. But most importantly, doing it through instructional coaching, doing it through standards based curriculum aligned. Instructional coaching and how do you take your vision for that school district? How do you take the vision for what classroom instruction should be? Could be, and that we're talking everything from the lesson planning to the interactions to all of that stuff that your district wants. And it doesn't matter, large district, small district, but how do you blend the digital learning with the technology, with the curriculum, and how do you support everybody that's on what we call the innovation curve? But most importantly, it's how do you do it through the use of your professional development system, your instructional coaches. And finally, at the end of the book, we talk about what does it [00:04:00] look like at the end, once everything is moving, once your coaching department is running, once your PD is running, once your teachers are trained, once your vision is starting to move and everybody's all at the same spot. What does that actually look like? And then how do you take that next step? So is it a handbook? Is it a blueprint? Is it a bathroom reader? I don't know. But the Bo bottom line is it is that one book that every single school leader needs, whether you're an instructional coach, superintendent, tech director, and most importantly your curriculum director. It is that handbook that says, okay, I know where I want to go. Let's figure out how to get there. Ross Romano: Who is, there's, you've already touched on a number of the different stakeholders and contributors to these strategic plans. I guess, who do you believe should be the most commonly the initiative owner, right. Who's leading it? Jeff Bradbury: Every strategic plan is led by the superintendent, right? That's why you have the superintendent. This is the vision, this is the plan. And really, and if I'm talking in broad terms, [00:05:00] this is the document from which the superintendent is graded upon. Are you getting where you need us to go? You've got the, you've got the ship start to move it, right? And essentially your strategic plan is great in, in one year. We want this in three years, we want this. We want all. Compute. You know, we want all classrooms to be one-to-one Chromebook. We want to have wifi and everywhere. We want to have these scores. Think about it this way. Your school district is gonna say, I want to raise over the next three years, I wanna raise the reading scores in my third through fifth grade classrooms. Great school district comes up with it. The principals are all on board. The, this is our goal is to raise reading scores. How are we going to do that? We're gonna do step one, step two, step three, great. Well, who's gonna be in the classroom supporting that? And again, that's where it goes back to, that's where your instructional coaches come from. We bring in instructional coaches to figure out how do we raise those reading scores? How do we work with teachers [00:06:00] so that way they can become better at. Supporting that goal for raising reading scores. We bring in reading coaches, we bring in, in you name the type of instructional coaches. We want to make sure everybody is able to teach in a digital environment. Great. We need tech coaches. We wanna bring in, I, I have a friend that just became an official AI coach in her district. Great. Clearly one of the goals for that district is we wanna embrace artificial intelligence. How are we doing that? Well, I've got this person and they're gonna learn how to do it, and it's gonna be on them, the coach, to bring out a program so that way everybody in the district, our job is as administrators, is to provide the tools. Their job as the coaches is to. Create the system and to run with it. So again it's, there's a lot of information in, there's about 90,000 words. Took me a long time to write. And looking at it now, you can see all the different school districts who have had a chance to check it out. And it's been [00:07:00] kind of neat connecting with people who have gone through it, read through it, and you know, there's a podcast attached to it. Of course there's a workbook, there's there's a number of different supplements and stuff, but. Being able to support school districts at that level has been kind of awesome. But to answer your question it's the superintendent's project and it's basically the handbook going, okay, once you make that declaration, now what? (ad here) Ross Romano: The reason I ask that, right is because you referenced three to five years, where do we want to be? And I'm thinking about among other challenges, right? The the declining average tenure of super tendencies and the turnover in the role, and how do we get. Districts to commit to these strategic plans and commit to. Seeing them through in that context and is it what comes first? The the plan or the tenure kind of thing? Right. [00:08:00] Is it like if we have a great plan and we're building and we're progressing forward. Then we will continue to be able to build on that. Is it having some certainty around the end point and working backward from that? I mean, it's, I'm just curious about that. 'cause I could see that being one of those things that may consistently prevent schools and districts from committing to. A long term plan need three years in in, in terms of a school district is a long term. If you think about what's three years in the life of a student, right? But ultimately if you don't start and you don't work through it, then you'll never get there in every five years. It's the same conversation about the things that we haven't done. Jeff Bradbury: Well, well, you've given the answer, but you've also solved the problem, right? Why do veteran teachers not want to buy into systems? Because when you blink, it's gonna change anyway. Ross Romano: Mm-hmm. Jeff Bradbury: Somebody else is gonna come in. They've got their great idea, they've got their consultants, and here you go. To answer your question bluntly, the answer is [00:09:00] your mission statement, right? Every school district should have two things, and they should be the most consistent that are out there. Every school district should have a mission statement and a vision statement, and you'd be surprised at how many schools don't or. backwards. They have a statement, but they've labeled it wrong, or they have a statement and it's not clear of what their statement actually is. Every school district should have two different statements. Their mission and their vision. Their vision statement is, where do I want to go? In three years, our hope is that all third grade teachers, sorry, all third grade students are reading at Proficient. All eighth grade students are ready to get into a rigorous high school, and by the end of 12th grade we have prepared them for college career, et cetera. That is a small version of a vision. The mission statement is how do we get there? Now the next step to answer your question is, well, who drives the ship? And you need to bring in a leader that is gonna fit that mission [00:10:00] statement. Ross Romano: Mm-hmm. Jeff Bradbury: And I've had the option or opportunity to be in a number of school districts and be a part of the not only the hiring committees, but also the, let's really think about this. Your strategic plan has to fit the mission of the school. Your superintendent has to fit the mission of the school. I'll give you a good example. I used to live in North Jersey. Most of North Jersey is Google, and it would not make any sense, even if you're doing a national search, it wouldn't make any sense to bring in a superintendent that was Microsoft's background because they're gonna come in and they're not gonna understand the Google environment. And then next thing you know, everything changes. So you really should look at things going, this is what the community wants from the school. This is the mission that the community is sharing, that they want the school district to go in. Where's Captain Hook? How can I put that one in there? And then how does Captain Hook bring in their crew? And really where do we want the ship? Sorry, watching a lot of once upon a time, [00:11:00] all of these different things in here. And then really now you know the direction that the ship is moving. Who's gonna support that? Who's gonna support the, who's gonna be rowing the oars and who's gonna be typing into to tapping into everything there. Your superintendent's gotta set the vision. Your principals have to agree to it. The principals have to be working with the instructional coaches. The instructional coaches are then going into the classrooms. And if the classrooms are going, then the te then the students are gonna see consistency. And if the students are seeing consistency, who else sees that? Consistency? The parents. And when the parents start to see consistency. The phone sometimes stops ringing. I'm not gonna say it always does but at least we can see the consistency moving in there. But if the board, as an example, brings in a leader that's gonna completely throw out everything and go in a different direction and look, you see this in basketball teams. You see this in football teams, right? We want to coach. That's just like the previous one, or we're ripping it up and trying it again. It's no different. Ross Romano: Yeah, so then who's pulling up the anchor [00:12:00] on the ship? I mean, to me is this piece of buy-in largely, right? It is determining what is the element here that is going to keep us from moving forward and. It's about the people, right? And it's whoever are the stakeholder groups who are not on board with what we are doing who are not willing to do their part or to support it. Largely beginning with they don't see the vision that usually is because we haven't communicated the vision, right. And then we haven't thought ahead to. Who are the interested parties in this? Who are the ones, right? Right. Jeff Bradbury: It's and so, and the word that we're having here is culture. Who sets the culture of everything? Is it the super, is it the principle? Is it somebody else? One of the things that I mentioned in the book is this video about and maybe you've seen it, maybe people who are listening to this and the video, you can find a variety, but [00:13:00] it's millions of views. It's basically, it's called Guy Dancing on a Hill. Have you ever seen this video? And essentially there's a video of a guy dancing on a hill at a concert and you can see him on the side. It's grassy and there's a bunch of people sitting around and if you find the right video, there's a narration to it. And the way that the video works is it's one guy who's up and he is boogieing and he is dancing. And that's it. And then another guy comes up, and so we talk about the fact that the guy who's dancing first, he's called the lone nut. He's gotta go up there and put himself out there. And his job is to attract one more person. And if you have a second person booing and dancing, that now validates the first person. Now, in order to form the movement, you have to have a third person come up and validate the first two because that third person now is forming a group. Once you have a group, you're gonna get four or five or six more coming to you. And then once you have 10 people dancing, you see in the video, suddenly 30 people are dancing, 80 people are dancing. And now [00:14:00] the culture has shifted. Now the movement, and I say that and I write this in the book too, and I do this in all my PD sessions. Who's the first guy that has to dance? And most people get this one wrong, but the first person that has to dance is the superintendent. He's gotta say, we're going Google. We're going Microsoft. We're raising the reading scores. We're going, he's the, he sets the vision. The next person that has to verify that he's not a nut. Is the principal. If you get up in front of your principal and the principal goes, that guy has no clue what he is doing. We are over here. A principal's not gonna be around that long, and B, why would you listen to the vision? Your immediate boss isn't? So who's the third guy? Who's the third guy that's dancing that starts to get the little group together. That's your instructional coach. The instructional coach is gonna go into all the lead teachers' rooms and say, look, we're gonna try this Google thing. Look, we're gonna try this discourse thing in the classroom. Look, we're gonna try this AI thing, and if we can get the lead teachers going, then you can get a few more [00:15:00] teachers and a few more teachers. The next thing you know, the school was like, okay, well 30 people in here are doing this AI thing. Maybe I'll give it a try. Now you've got a culture shift. But this the moral of the story is the instructional coach can't bring AI in and the principle can't bring AI in, and the tech director can't bring AI in. It's gotta be from the top. We are gonna try this. We're gonna we're gonna fail, we're gonna succeed. But the superintendent has to dance first. To then get the buildings involved, to then get the coaches involved to then get your lead teachers and next thing you know, you have a movement and that takes time. Ross Romano: Yeah. Well, I mean, perhaps related to that metaphor one thing I was wondering when it comes to digital learning and I guess the baseline objectives around digital learning in today's schools, like how much of it is. Have to, how much of it is want to, [00:16:00] right? Like, how much of the plans are built around? Well, this is just what's required in schools today. And so we have to do all these things. And then how much of it is that aspirational, inspirational piece? And I when you mentioned the dancing, it's like, it starts off as, okay, I have to do this all right. And now the next person's like, all right, I guess I have to join. And then at a certain point you reach a tipping point where. I wanna be part of that. Now I see where it's going and I see what's taking shape and I see what can be possible and now I wanna jump in there. But you know, it starts out, I think, with probably figuring out how are we addressing like fundamental. Needs and requirements and being able to operate in a modern digital environment. But then how much are we really thinking about what is our unique vision? Because that's the thing about the mission and vision, particularly in organizations like schools, right? That I'm sure if you read a hundred of them, you'll find 90 of them that look. Kind of the same. And then and then there's the [00:17:00] exceptions where there is a uniqueness to what we want to be in our environment. That just because we're all schools and school districts, like it doesn't mean that we all necessarily have the same. You know, goal of where we wanna be in the same way of going about it. Sure we have certain things in common, but it is, it does need to really start with that leader, right? To really define what is this organization going to be. Jeff Bradbury: Well, remember and you know this better than I do, everything that we do is in the marketing. If I said, Ross, I want you to record a podcast, and then I want you to edit it, and then I want you to go into Canva and make two to three graphics for it. And then I want you to actually write a newsletter for it, and then I want you to write the blog post for it, and then I want you to stick it onto Facebook. But that's gonna be different than putting it onto LinkedIn. But that's gonna be different than you're gonna go, forget this. However, if I said, Ross, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to speak to the world. I'm gonna give you the opportunity to share something that you're [00:18:00] passionate about and through, through the podcast, you are gonna be able to support thousands of educators, students, families, et cetera. Suddenly those things are different, and when we're looking at the concepts here. I can say you're gonna go teach a lesson and you're gonna use Google Classroom, and you're gonna throw AI on top of that, and you're gonna make sure that everybody's 5 0 4 is covered and you're gonna make sure that their bathroom passes are done. And you're gonna, you're gonna go, forget this. I don't have time, I'm done. But if I say, dude, you're gonna change your classroom right now and we're gonna do it through the use of this thing called ai, this thing called Google Classroom. And that's gonna help you spend more time with your kids and more time with the people that mean the most to you. And by that I mean actually the ones at home. This AI thing is actually gonna give you the opportunity to spend more time doing what you want to do. [00:19:00] That's different than saying, yeah, here's a laundry list that you have to accomplish every five minutes, and you have to learn how to do prompt engineering now. the way that we look at things. It's the way that we market things, and it's the way that we are able to demonstrate the validity of these ideas and concepts. If we stop using the word and we start referring to it as through, suddenly things are not that difficult, we can go, all right, I, I know that through ai. This is gonna happen through my podcast. You and I happened to meet and formed a great friendship. Now that's been 14 years through this podcast, but if I said, you gotta go record something and you gotta go find some people to have to listen to it, I don't have time for that. So it's the language that we use, it's the marketing that we put in there, and it's going, all right, we can do this. We're doing it. We're building a culture shift through Dancing on the Hill. As opposed to, yeah, you're gonna go stand over there and wiggle your butt [00:20:00] a little bit and maybe somebody's gonna follow you. Ross Romano: Yeah. Is all learning digital now how is the digital learning a strategic plan Jeff Bradbury: I look, I teach middle school dig intro to digital media. And a digital media one. And a digital media two. I, none of my stuff starts digital. We're having conversations. We're writing things down, we're drawing things out. We might, now, I might draw on paper and I might draw on a Canva whiteboard, but I'm still doing the ANA analog, the analytical, hands get roll your sleeves up, getting your hands dirty. Even when I was in a, in an official coaching role, even when I was in an administrator role, not everything has to have a Chromebook. Some of my best lessons, even now as a digital learning teacher do turn the Chromebook off. Let's have some fun today and let's go to a field trip. Let's go down the hall, let's go to the library. Let's go. If you start with where people are, you can a lot of times get them to where they want, where you want them to be. You have to meet them where they are, and [00:21:00] that's no difference. If it's a third grader or a third grade teacher, where are you right now? My vision is over here. The mission is how do I get you there? (ad here) Ross Romano: actually, I had a conversation recently with a principal who was talking to me about how when he moved into the principalship of the school he was in, there was a particular tool they were already using in the school, and he had some skepticism toward it. And I asked if it was. About that tool in particular. And it was just about the entire category. And he said, well, I was a technology teacher, so I'm not a tools guy. And which I thought was so interesting, right, because it was like it isn't necessarily what I would assume would follow from, I was a technology teacher, so I'm not somebody who's just all about the tools. But you know, I think the point was like. We're really into the purpose and intentionality of what we use. So we don't just take for granted that we have to [00:22:00] have something in each of these categories. Like these are the required categories. We are really thinking about what does it do for us? How is it a value add? How is it delivering better results than not having it or than an alternative. And so. Because you're in the role where you are working closely with technology, you're thinking about that, Jeff Bradbury: But I and I go, I'm not teach. I've never, I've been there for three semesters. I don't remember ever walking in and teaching technology. The lesson that I did today was all about choices. Figuring out where you want, looking at something, reading it, synthesizing, and putting it together, figuring out what kind of a thing you want, and then go do it. Or I could tell you that we played with Google Docs. They shared their Chromebook with somebody else. There was some commenting involved. They shared their Chromebook with somebody else. There was some editing. I don't teach the technology. I'm actually trying to teach the kids some of these life skills. I'm teaching them how to do synthesizing of data. You might call it [00:23:00] spreadsheets and charts and graphs, but I'm actually really not teaching spreadsheets and charts and graphs. I'm doing it through the spreadsheets and the charts and graphs. But what we're really doing is critical thinking skills and we're trying to get them to teach. One of the lessons that I love doing is why do you belong here? Our school district is very big on I belong in my school. I'm building community. I have a place in this world that SEL kind of stuff. All of my lessons are, show me why you belong here. Show me why you're wonderful. Show me how amazing you are. I just happened to do it through video, through a slide deck, through some writing, through some drawings, through some conversations. Somebody else is gonna do it by reading a book. Somebody else is gonna do it by doing math. Somebody else is gonna do it just by sitting next to a student and having a conversation. So for me, technology is the vehicle from which you're going to transform a child. I don't teach technology. Ross Romano: Yeah. So what is a digital learning curriculum? Jeff Bradbury: That's a very good question. If you're going to look at things in a [00:24:00] horizontal landscape, you are looking at it from a September through June. Landscape. Right. I'm gonna start here. I'm gonna end there in the middle. We're gonna do some docs and sheets and slides and Great. If you're really looking at blending the digital learning with the curriculum, and this is where a lot of school districts don't get it. They've got a tech director and a curriculum director, and there's no synapse between the two sides of the hemisphere, right, of the brain. You need to look at this and say, okay, I'm gonna build a scope and sequence. I've got kindergarten through 12. I'm gonna build this up, and I'm gonna know that by the time we get to second grade, they're gonna know basic typing, drag and drops, and mouse skills, et cetera. By the time they hit the fourth grade, they're gonna get these things seventh grade, eighth. So when I look at that as a curriculum, I'm gonna go between the 12 years. This is where I'm planting the different skills. Now if you do it right, you're gonna say, well, by the time they get to third grade and westward expansion. They're gonna learn how [00:25:00] to drag an animation across the screen, so you're actually doing the curricular skills at the same time as the digital learning skills. That's why I don't believe in going to computer class. In elementary school, you're teaching social studies. Just show them how to do the project if you need help. Grab your instructional coach. That's what they're there for. But now that you can say by third grade, by fifth grade, by eighth grade, now you can start to look horizontal and go, well, where in third grade are they gonna pick this up? Where in ninth grade are they gonna pick this up? And so for that reason, it doesn't matter. You know that by the time they hit the end of ninth grade, they need this. Well, why do they need this? Well, because in 10th grade they're doing these topics. And these topics require these skills, right? Why do we not do well in standardized testing? 'cause kids aren't used to sitting in there for 45 minutes. Oh no. They're on their computer constantly. Not really. They don't know how to focus for 45 minutes while taking a bubble test. They know how to play on Google Docs. They know how to make a slide. But that's so different of a skill than focusing [00:26:00] on a test or an assessment or whatever you wanna look at it as. So looking at this as where in the curriculum do they want to learn the skills and then, which. drag and drop saving images, all that good stuff. Where does that come in those particular projects? So in my world, the curriculum director shouldn't be looking at it as the knowledge base, but also the how to get the knowledge base. Also, that's when you can get your digital learning and your curriculum director in the same room and go, okay, let's actually figure this out and we're gonna actually build lessons that teach both of these things at the same time. 'cause you're not teaching curriculum and you're not teaching 'em digital learning. You're teaching them skills through the digital learning applications. Then it's a tool. It's not a thing. Ross Romano: What? What is the curriculum mapping look like? Jeff Bradbury: So for me, curriculum mapping really is just building out that spider web. I teach a half year course and I know that I have 10 applications that they need to know, they need to know doc sheets, slides, [00:27:00] websites, forms organization, email a little bit of this, little bit of that, right? How am I gonna get there? If I can have that in my head and I know that I've got 45 days to go through 10 different applications, well then that means that I'm gonna have to have a project that does more than one of those things. We're right now, we're we or not right now, but we, the kids recently had to write an autobiography of themselves as if they were 50 years old. Really, what I'm trying to teach 'em how to do is to format a Google Doc using paragraph headers. But the problem that I'm trying to solve is where do you wanna be when you're 50? Where do you wanna be when you're 30? Where do you wanna be when you're 20? Where do you want to, I'm trying to get them to think ahead. Again, vision and mission. It all goes back to vision and mission. Oh, well by 50 I wanna have a house and I wanna be an architect, and I wanna do this, and I wanna do that. Great. Well, by 40, what do you need to do? By 35, what do you need to do by your what? What college major do you think you need? What kind of, because this is middle school, where do you get [00:28:00] there? All of that stuff comes up and now I have to go, all right, well, how do I teach them paragraph Now I could do it on a Google Doc, I could do it on a Canva doc. I could do it on a, I could, right? And so for me, it's kind, it's just, it's take out project, insert new concept, but the skills are the same. Ross Romano: You. Yeah I think, I mean, I get to do that project myself, like, I don't know. Nobody ever asked me. Jeff Bradbury: And the fun part is that autobiography we got there because I gave them 11, I gave them a slide deck with 11 slides by high school, and I asked them four questions, like, what do you wanna do? What kind of extracurricular by 25? And I gave them a whole bunch of answers or questions I should say. So we took the slide deck. Into the doc. We're taking the doc into. Now we're making a movie poster of your life. Now we're taking the movie poster of your life and we're building out scenes. The scenes are gonna go into an animation project, the animation, so it's really, I do one project the entire two marking periods, but the [00:29:00] web. Is chunked up into a dozen or so different projects with benchmarks and standards, but it's all standards based too, based on the ISTI standards, based on the curriculum standards. If you walked into my classroom on any day, I could tell you what math standard I'm hitting. I can tell you what science standard I'm hitting. I can tell you what English standard I'm hitting because I'm teaching the child. I'm not teaching technology, and my mission statement in my school says, we're gonna have a well-rounded school district. So when I got the job, I took the mission of the school and I said, all right, I'm gonna build my curriculum to that 'cause that's the map. Ross Romano: What. Do you feel like and you know, hopefully it aligns with what you said, right? Parents are looking for, with respect to the digital learning that's happening in schools, I mean, we've referenced that important the families, the community as the, Jeff Bradbury: are looking at it from a lens of an eighties parent. I get asked constantly, are you gonna teach my kid typing? No. What do you mean no? Well, we're gonna write, your kid's gonna write a, a [00:30:00] resume. We only have one class period to do it in. If the kid looks around and sees everybody's moving faster, they're gonna learn to type pretty darn quickly. So I'm giving you I am teaching you how to type, but no, there's not gonna be any typing.com or Mavis Beacon or anything like that, right? They just know my kid goes like this with their fingers, or my kids are trying to use a big, long keyboard with their thumbs, right? I'm giving the parents the skills that they're asking for. But when I actually have the chance, and I love this to sit down with parents and they say, well, what are you doing here? And I go, I don't know we're gonna see where we are and we're gonna have some fun with it. And then I pop out, well, the kids are gonna be writing their own resumes. What I said, yeah. In my upper class, we start the year off by writing a resume and we make it all up. 'cause they've never done anything before. They've never had a job. So they make up a resume so they know how to do. Paragraph styles and headers and formats and bullet points and check boxes and all that good stuff. Then we run them through an entire two marking periods of building a [00:31:00] resume. No sorry, lemme say that again. Building a restaurant, they're now entrepreneurs of a restaurant. They're building up brand kits and floor plans and you name it, menus, the whole deal. Then at the end of the year, we write their real resume. Now they've learned how to market, they've learned how to brand, they've learned how to build, they've learned how to create, they've learned how to, and now you actually have the skills. And now we can look at A and B and go, that's growth. And usually at that point in time, mom and dad wanna give me a hug because they go, thank you for teaching my kids the skills that nobody else is doing. And I go, yep, call me anytime. So I feel that parents right now are seeing things. Are you teaching my kid ai? I'm showing them how to do a Google search. Yeah, of course. I'm teaching them AI because everything is ai. It. AI does not mean copilot does not mean Gemini does not mean chat. GPT AI means I need something. How do I go get it? The AI is the [00:32:00] tool from which that happens. So, yeah. Again, we're doing movie posters on autobiographies. The kid's like, I don't know what my movie's called. I said, good, open a Google search, type in three movie titles about a podcaster with a dream comedy movie, and it spits out three different movie titles. I said, great, take that and build on it. Don't take that and use it. Take that and build on it. So was I teaching ai? Maybe, but I'm not teaching how to cheat on an English paper. So I'm using the width, right? I'm gonna, I'm I, all I need to do is find a movie title. I'm doing it through the AI tool, or I'm doing it through a Google search or all those good things. So, yeah, I mean, parents are asking for a lot of, ' cause they don't know. don't know. When I tell them that I'm doing advanced spreadsheets with their sixth grade babies, they go, that's kind of cool. Usually what parents tell me is that I have their favorite class. And the kids can't stop saying good things about me, so I'll take that. Ross Romano: Well, we'll leave that in the podcast that I was, yeah, I mean, I was doing the math when [00:33:00] you were talking about the typing. I was like, how old are these parents? But it is true that like, with so many things, right, like and school being one of them, that between the time. And we are a student in school ourselves. In the time where we have kids in school, like your Jeff Bradbury: Mm-hmm. Ross Romano: of it is trapped in amber. Like you haven't really thought about what's happening in schools in the intervening 20 years or whatever it is. And you know, like with so many, like when I, things I haven't looked at in the grocery store between the time when I was a kid and then I had a kid and I'm like, they still make these, Jeff Bradbury: Well, Ross Romano: I didn't know. I didn't know this was Jeff Bradbury: part is, the fun part is being on the other side when you go into teacher conferences as the parent. I'm opening up my kid's notebook to the teachers and going, do you see what my kid is doing? And my kid by the way, has a large Canva document that has its own calendar in it. He's built a productivity system with spreadsheets and every time he gets homework, he writes down all the homework and he is got charts and graphs. He's building out an entire productivity suite in, in. Are you [00:34:00] gonna teach the kids how to do this? Because this is the thing that interests my kid. And usually the teacher goes, no, I didn't know what this was. And I said, well, look, if you've ever seen my kid playing with Canva, just know that he's building something that's pretty amazing. He's not playing with Canva. He's actually building a system to help keep him organized. And at that point, the teacher just kind of was like, okay, like, Ross Romano: Maybe you. My production Jeff Bradbury: kid could know more than me. I'm like, well, look at who. Well look who his dad is, right? Like all of those different things. So, we have one job, and I say this over and over again. This is the thesis for my curriculum. We have 13 years as educators with our kids. I have 13 years to get my kid to be able to answer one question. And that question is, tell me about yourself. If the kid graduates high school without being able to answer the, tell me about yourself, these, then there's not gonna be a second question on a job interview or on a college exam, or on a whatever. They're not gonna be able to get through the basic front [00:35:00] door of life. So how do we train our kids to be? Well, we do that through social studies because we're teaching 'em how to speak and how to write and how to tell a story. We're doing that through math 'cause we're teaching 'em how to balance their budgets and stuff. We're teach, we're right. I'm happy to be doing it through the Google Doc system. Every school district has a mission. Bring a kid in, make him better and send him out the door. A better human. That's what we're all here for, and that is how I'm gonna do this again. That's how we do impact standards. Ross Romano: If you don't, let's make sure that we talk about a piece that I know is important to you. It's the instructional coaching piece, and how does that fit into this, right. What's it all about? Jeff Bradbury: It is the fulcrum. You are the fulcrum. You are the one that's in. So an in. For those of you who aren't familiar, an instructional coach is usually an educator who has been deemed in a position to meet with administrator. Get the vision, get the goal, get the figure out where the ship's gonna go. At a district level, at a building level, at a department level, [00:36:00] whatever. And you are essentially the guide on the side. You get to go into the classrooms, you get to work with the teachers, you get to have those conversations. It's part education, it's part friend, it's part therapy. I have to be able to come in and go, so how you doing Ross? Great. And then immediately, just like a student. Are we gonna work today? Am I gonna listen? Am I just gonna say hi and walk away? Where are we? What? What's the temperature of the class? But being in an instructional coaching role, you are that fulcrum because you are in the classroom, but you're also in the administrator room, but you're also dabbling around central office, but you're also when the bell rings, you're standing in the hallway because there is no schedule for you. You are your own entrepreneur. Your success is you. If these teachers don't like you, they're not buying what you're selling. You gotta figure out how to sell it a different way. So a lot of my coaching philosophies and a lot of the book is marketing. It's how do you put [00:37:00] yourself out there? How do you write an email to somebody? How do you write a newsletter? How do you make a website, not what your website platform is? Not what is your newsletter platform? It's how is that newsletter actually helping get to Ross? And then how is Ross receiving that in a way that's gonna say, I need to get Jeff, I need some help with this. And how is it all helping fulfill the mission and the goals of the school? Again, the school says we're gonna, we're gonna raise reading scores. The coach's job is to raise reading scores. What is the coach gonna do to entice the teachers to work with him? So that way we now have conversations about reading scores. We can co-teach about reading scores, we can make assessments about reading scores. We can work with the students on the reading scores, and then the reading scores go up. So you are that fulcrum that makes the teeter-totter run. Ross Romano: I mean, well, the marketing component right? Is so important. I've, and it [00:38:00] comes up again and again. I mean, it came up a few years ago when I was diving into some some different interviews and work on the. Teacher shortage and teacher retention question. And what one of the folks who kind of works in that space within you know, teacher prep program said is the profession has a marketing problem. It doesn't market itself. I've talked to people in school districts about programs that they have within their, that they have within their district. I said, well, how do you market it to families? Or how do you do. Enrollment marketing. You know that it's a competitive environment. You know that there's more choices than ever for kids, right? And that they're that you need to make sure that families know what's available, what you're doing. And a lot of times with that, you get the answer like, well, we don't do that because it's a bad word or something. And it's like, no, this is, you are selling. A vision, you're selling an idea, you're [00:39:00] selling opportunity, you're selling, right? Like it's not and there's these connotations around it, or people have this discomfort with the idea of if you believe in what you're doing, you should be really comfortable. And in fact, you should understand it as part of your job to tell people about it. Right? I think a lot of people who even when they think of. Sales. I don't like sales. Sales is uncomfortable to me. Jeff Bradbury: Nobody likes sales because sales is a commission based conversation. Right. Ross Romano: and it is a, Jeff Bradbury: something if you do something first. That's not how education should be working Ross Romano: well, the, and the stereotype is when they say the used car salesman, but the stereotype is, I'm trying to trick. Into buying something that you shouldn't want, right? If you believe in what you have, whether it be a product, whether it be an idea, whether it be an opportunity, right? If you believe in its value, you should not be uncomfortable selling it. So [00:40:00] many marketing, communicating it, telling them about it. You should in fact know that you're helping them when you make sure that they know about it. So whether that is the work that the coach is doing, whether that is within the school. The school leader, the district leader, saying we're, we have this strategic plan around digital learning, Jeff Bradbury: Guy on the. Ross Romano: we know that one of the key audiences for this is the families and the students, and we know that by proactively going out there and telling them about it, here's what we're working toward, here's why it's good, here's why it's gonna help kids that. They'll be excited about that. That that does a huge service to our teachers. 'cause now people are coming to them with the benefit of the doubt, and they're actually eager and excited about what they're doing instead of coming in antagonistically and the teachers are fielding all these questions about what's going on here because the school hasn't communicated anything. Jeff Bradbury: But you gotta meet them where they are. Ross Romano: Mm-hmm.[00:41:00] Jeff Bradbury: Do you remember seeing the movie, the Search for Bobby Fisher? Ross Romano: Mm-hmm. Jeff Bradbury: Chess movie, right? Kid seems to have a knack for chess. Parents decide to go get him a chess lesson. They find the chess teacher. Chess teacher walks in, goes upstairs to see the kid, and they have their first lesson. And then teacher walks down the door and before leaves says hello to the parents. They says, so, do you think he's good at chess? And the teacher goes, I don't know. It never came up. And he leaves. That's coaching. Some days you just go in and you talk about music. Sometimes you talk about the family sometimes, and if you do that enough, then you can say, so have you ever thought about this AI thing? Or Have you ever thought about using Google Docs? Or, Hey, if I could save you five minutes, or maybe you just show them something and wait for them to go what was that? And that's when you go, all right, I got you. I've caught the fish. Now let's reel it in. Now we can get onto the boat. But some teachers will do it right away. This is the innovation curve, right? Some teachers will come to you and go, Hey, you're the coach. [00:42:00] Show me this. Some teachers are gonna go, I heard about this, or I saw the other teacher do this, or in the faculty meeting somebody mentioned that I should come and find you. And then there's the teachers that are in the back of the room going retire in soon, forget it. Or they, to, to our point earlier, they've seen the pendulum go back and forth and they're like, yeah, this AI thing is, it's a fad. We're not gonna be there. So you need to go in there and go, yeah, we're not gonna talk about chess today. We're just gonna, how are you? Tell me about your life. Tell me what you're thinking. Why did you like this? And then you just leave 'cause you're making friends. And sometimes you do that once, and sometimes you do that for two months. It's a relationship business. It's all that it is. Those who can do it right, are mixing all of the ingredients, the technology, the reading the strategic plan, the school improvement, all of that stuff is constantly in your head going, okay, how can I, when can I, how? Like, right, like middle school teaching, right? You know, what [00:43:00] days you can push your kids. Ross Romano: Yeah. Jeff Bradbury: You know, on the day that we're recording this, I know that tomorrow we have an assembly. I'm not doing much for the day. I'm getting my point across. I'm doing my lessons, but it's gonna be a Friday and the kids are gonna be bouncing off the walls. I'm not gonna do anything that's too heavy. On Monday, we will, like Monday we will, but tomorrow, like I'm gonna go in and hold on. And if I can get a few students to move forward on a few things, great. But I know there's gonna be a lot of kids that are they just got back from a band concert. They're up on the chorus stage. They're up on. So, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff kind of around there, but it's all relationship building. No different than podcast. You know when to ask the questions to move the conversation forward. And you know when you're go, you know when it's time to go. So what do you mean by that? And you just listen really, and you just listen. Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, it's it's a skill. It's a, it takes an experience, right? With working with schools, the coaching with people. By its very nature. You have to be comfortable with the the [00:44:00] multitudes. It's the diversity of individuals, but the multitudes within them. Right. And like, today is this day, tomorrow's gonna be this way Jeff Bradbury: I'll tell you one more. It's just like having triplets. all of 'em are gonna move at the same boat at the same time. Sometimes two of 'em need a hug and one of 'em needs to get tickled. It's the way it works. Ross Romano: So Jeff what else you got going on? We've talked a lot about the book here Jeff Bradbury: You know what? There's a lot of good things happening. You can find more about the work that I'm doing over on teacher cast.net. You can find our podcast, our blog post. Of course, we focus on instructional technology and coaching. If you're looking to make a podcast, I've got some great things for there. If you're looking to get into productivity we've been doing a lot of great things on Google vids and notion and how to stay organized, but there's so many different things out there over on teacher cast.net, 14 years worth of v blogs and podcasts and professional learning stuff. And you know, if anybody out there's looking for somebody to talk with them about their strategic initiatives, talk to 'em about their coaching. Or would just like to have a guide on the side to help [00:45:00] figure out the question of how do we get the classrooms to move a little bit in a more strategic way. Would love to reach out and talk to you. And of course you can always reach me at teacher cast.net/contact. Ross Romano: Well listeners, we will put the links below to Jeff's website to teacher cast to the book where you can find impact standards. You can find that. Through either of those websites. So we'll put the link there below. It's published by XFactor edu. You can find it on Amazon wherever you get your books but we'll make it really easy for you. Put the link right there. You click on it, you go over to it and check it out. There's a lot there. Jeff mentioned 90,000 words and we have said, I don't know, only a couple thousand here in this interview, so there's plenty more there to read. Please do check it out if you have not already. Please do subscribe to the authority. We'll have. More interviews coming your way every week. Lots of great guests in the past. If you haven't heard some of our older episodes, scroll through there. It's still a lot of good ones there. Lots more [00:46:00] upcoming or head over to b Podcast Network to learn about all of our shows. But thank you listeners for being with us and thank you, Jeff.