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Embracing Joy in Education: George Philhower on Community-Centered Leadership · Exceptional Educators Podcast by FrenalyticsEDU

• 0:00
  Nisha Srinivasa: Welcome to the exceptional educators podcast by Frenalytics q, where innovation meets inclusion in education. I'm your cohost, Nisha Srinivasa.
• 0:09
  Matt Giovanniello: And I'm Matt Giovanello, CEO and cofounder of Frenalytics. At Frenalytics, we put special education English language learners front and center. Our award winning Frenalytics edu platform helps streamline progress monitoring, improve communication and compliance, and offers truly personalized learning to your students of all abilities.
• 0:27
  Nisha Srinivasa: Each episode of our podcast features candid conversations with district and school leaders, classroom changemakers, tech founders, and industry executives, all dedicated to transforming learning for each student, especially our learners with unique abilities. With a focus on extraordinary educators and the exceptional students they serve, we explore the latest in special education, accessible technology, and inclusive leadership. In this episode, exceptional educators is exceptionally thrilled to welcome doctor George Philhauer, the current superintendent of Eastern Hancock Schools. George works to support educators in accessing resources and technologies, creating positive school culture and climates, and rethinking personalized learning approaches. So we can't wait to hear his thoughts today.
• 1:13
  Welcome, George. We're so grateful to have you here.
• 1:16
  George Philhower: Thank you so much. I'm I'm thankful to get to be here.
• 1:19
  Nisha Srinivasa: So just to start us off here today, I'm sure this is something that you have heard working in spaces in education is what is your why? What has brought you to the world of education?
• 1:31
  George Philhower: So, you know, my mission in life is to figure out how can we create school spaces that kids and educators would be excited to go to. And I think if we can accomplish that, it's not easy. A lot of other things will begin to fall in place. But that's what I I wake up thinking about every day, and what I go to sleep thinking about at night is, you know, how might we create school spaces that people would be excited to attend.
• 1:58
  Matt Giovanniello: Well, I think you are certainly meeting your why there, George. I would love to spend a moment thinking about how at Eastern Hancock, you've been able to tailor educational experiences around the use of ed tech, specifically for your diverse learners, your students with disabilities, your students receiving alternative pathways towards graduation. How are you helping them reach their full potential by personalizing the learning experience in those ways?
• 2:20
  George Philhower: So my background was special ed student. Growing up, with learning disability. School was really hard for me in my younger grades. I didn't learn to read until I was upper elementary really. So I remember that.
• 2:32
  I remember what that experience was like and I think about that often when I'm thinking about putting plans in place for our kids. My background as a teacher was a special ed teacher, so it's a population of students that weigh heavily on my mind as I'm thinking about direction of our school district and the decisions we're making. So the real the truth is learning is personal for every kid regardless. And I think it's most obvious for the kids that learn in ways that are different from the other kids. And I think what if I had a dream, it would be that we find ways to create the intentionality, leverage the intentionality that we put around the kids that need accommodations and a specific plan for their unique needs, and we figure out how to scale that for every single kid.
• 3:20
  I'm really hopeful that technology will help us with that. But what my best hope for technology is that it takes away the parts that keep the humans from doing the human job. You know, I think about AI and all of the amazing things that feel possible that weren't possible six months or two years ago. My best hope is that those things take things off of plates of people who are doing lots of paperwork and doing lots of things that get in the way of them sitting next to a kid and allow our people to do the job they signed up for, which is to sit next to a kid and help them learn and help them learn to learn. Yeah.
• 4:00
  I I think that's my my best hope is that as we explore what technology tools we're gonna use, I want to make sure that our teachers are able to do the job that they signed up to do, which I think is also aligned with our four promises. Anything that brings more joy to the grown ups or the kids or allows them to connect with kids even more or, you know, helps a kid grow at their unique space and in their unique way, helps them feel successful and forge their path towards ultimate life success beyond their time at Eastern Hancock.
• 4:30
  Nisha Srinivasa: I just wanted to share a thank you because I have a special education background as well. That's where my teaching was. So it's also something that's really near and dear to my heart, really to my own personal story as well. So I just wanted to first share an appreciation for you and the work that you do. Some a phrase that usually, like, always sticks with me is the idea of arriving tide lifts all boats.
• 4:53
  And so when we lift up students that are in need of accommodations, that are in need of services, that all other students are able to be lifted as well. And so just wanted to thank you for the incredible work that you're doing on that front.
• 5:05
  Matt Giovanniello: Because you're able to tailor educational experiences to each and every student's needs. Just this week, as you know, Eastern Hancock Schools got named one of Indiana's best place to work for 2025. So we need your secret. What is leading all of your motives to make staff so excited to return day in and day out and in turn serve students in the best way possible? What are you doing that's going right?
• 5:24
  George Philhower: Yeah. We're pretty proud of that. And we got notified last Friday or Thursday, I believe, that that we made that list. And I think we're the only school in Indiana to make that list, so that felt really good. You know, this is my fourth year at Eastern Hancock, and it was a pretty spectacular place before I got here.
• 5:43
  So a lot of what happens at Eastern Hancock was was true before I got here, but we've got just a bunch of incredible people. We are very intentional about everything we do, and so we've got a strategic plan that guides all of our work. Within our strategic plan, we have four promises. And those promises are joy, connection, growth, and success. And so, you know, just real quickly, each one of them, joy is just our intention to create a space that people would wanna come to.
• 6:12
  And sometimes that is achieved when we do silly whimsical things like dressed up and blow up costumes to go run around the school building during a passing period. And sometimes it's more meaningful things to make kids remember the stuff that we want them to remember. An example of that is a fifth grade class that's learning about Paul Revere, and he actually rides past the classroom on a horse screaming the British are coming while they're learning about it in their classroom. You know? And we also think about joy as an invitation.
• 6:43
  You know? Our best hope is that we do things to make people love the school experience so much that they take a step closer to the work that's happening. And we think that if they do, they'll find our other three promises. So those are connection, which is just the idea that we want every employee and kid to feel known by name, strengths, interest, needs, and future hopes and dreams. And we think the most important word in that little phrase is feel.
• 7:11
  And I don't know about you guys, but I don't feel known and loved unless people are doing something with the information that they know. So promise number three for us is growth. We want our kids learning new things every day that they'll remember, which sounds really, really easy unless you've ever been an educator. And if you've been an educator, you know that the research says that 60% of the stuff that kids are learning in class is stuff that they already know. And we also know that we've all taken that test on Friday at 02:00, and by 02:45, we couldn't retake the assessment.
• 7:42
  So, you know, we think about how do we cause new learning that kids will remember every day. And then promise number four is what we call success, and that's just the idea that we want to remember that our ultimate goal is not creating a bunch of academically proficient kids. We want to make sure that we're propping up students for lifelong success. We want them confident about that Monday after graduation and whatever step they're taking, we wanna make sure that they're prepared to do so. So I think a lot of the work we do just comes back to the intentionality that we we use those promises as both our it's our compass, but also our filter as we're trying to figure out how to make some decisions.
• 8:20
  Nisha Srinivasa: I really appreciate your perspective on intentionality and the way that in using very intentional decision making has such a positive impact on the community at large. What are some of those intentional decision making processes or initiatives that you've implemented or seen implemented that have contributed to the evolution of those pillars of success that you've mentioned?
• 8:44
  George Philhower: Yeah. A couple of things. One is if we want our our kids to feel known by name, strength, interests, needs, and future hopes and dreams, then we better be talking to them. So that, for me, personally, looks like a couple of things. One is I have a student advisory council that I meet with every month, and it's my most important meeting that I have.
• 9:02
  We spend the month of August every year convincing the kids that they need to tell us the truth, and we kinda spend the rest of the year holding onto our seats while they're telling us things that are that are sometimes difficult to to hear, but, some of the biggest insights into our kids' learning experience has come from those meetings. Another thing that we do is that I meet with every single junior and senior one on one. It's two on one because our high school principal joins me as well, and we talk to each kid about what are they planning to do after high school, and that gives us some insight in into a couple of things. One is do they feel like we've prepared them for whatever that's coming next? And and, you know, what what experiences have we put in place for them to help them think about that decision?
• 9:46
  And two is what community partners might we have access to that they don't just because of our positions that we could connect them with to help them as they're spending their last year or last few months at at Eastern Hancock to make sure that they're they're ready. We think that the gravity of the work we're doing is not necessarily pulling us towards a place of joy, connection, and even growth and success. So we we try to figure out how can we if we want it to happen, it has to be intentional. And so we work every day to to do things to pull us towards those four promises.
• 10:22
  Nisha Srinivasa: It's amazing. And I I heard you mention something that caught my ear specifically about community partnerships. What have you done in your time as a superintendent to forge those community partnerships that have led to those opportunities for students within your school district?
• 10:37
  George Philhower: Sure. We have a strategy. We call it CAFE. It stands for community and family engagement. So we host quarterly community meetings where we invite all of our community partners into our school.
• 10:47
  We're pretty remote, we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. We host those at the neighboring town, and we get a hundred community partners to show up. And, you know, the first meeting, I think they show up because they're curious about why we're doing this. The second meeting is the most important one because at that second one is where they get to hear that we listen to them during meeting number one, and then we've put things in place to make that learning experience at school better based on what they're telling us. About a quarter of our kids who are juniors and seniors are involved in work based learning, which means that they're getting paid at pretty high wage to do a job where they're also earning high school credit and sometimes even college credit.
• 11:31
  So that's kind of the pinnacle experience of of what that looks like as a result of those partnerships. Between each of our quarterly cafe meetings, we have industry specific committees that meet. So we've got a committee for manufacturing and for health care. And because we meet with all of our kids, we know which kids like, which specific kids are we talking about that are interested in those specific freer bands. And then we just are constantly having conversations about how do we embed the things that our kids are interested in into the day to day experience and the opportunities that we provide our kids while they're in school because it's it's a more important conversation than just, you know, what do you wanna be when you grow up.
• 12:12
  It's, you know, it's a conversation about how do we make your school experience more meaningful while you're here, and how do we make sure that while I'm paying for it, you take as much advantage of the opportunities that are available as possible before you go off into what we might call the real world, which kind of translates to public schools not paying for that anymore. And so we try to figure out how do we leverage those partnerships as much as possible just to try to add to the incredible experiences we could give our kids.
• 12:40
  Matt Giovanniello: I think the keywords here, George, that I'm picking up on are opportunities and also partnerships. And I feel compelled to give a quick plug during my recent visit out to Indiana where I was with you. For some background, George and I have known each other for quite a while now, and I had the opportunity to visit not only our friends and partners in Western Ohio, but it let me drive out a little bit west and visit our friends in Eastern Indiana. And so one of my stops was to East Central ESC in Indiana, George's parent ESC for his district. And not only were the opportunities that we explored, we've been speaking about here, George, right at home, literally within the walls of your school building, but I know you're also supported quite a bit by EC ESC and the new RIASEC program.
• 13:22
  Tell us a little about how Eastern Hancock has been benefiting staff and student wise about some of the opportunities that your ESC has been piloting in the past few months as it relates to career exploration, as it relates to CTE, as it relates to work based learning.
• 13:34
  George Philhower: In Indiana, we've been exploring this topic for for a long time. A lot of us had a chance several years ago to go to San Diego and visit, a friend of mine's school who, does some incredible things. His name is David Mirshiro, and he's at Cajon Valley Schools in in San Diego. And they've integrated career exploration and career discovery through the lens and the language of RIASEC, which is, you know, career exploration framework. So Pat Haney is the director at our service center at East Central Indiana.
• 14:12
  And prior to him, Katie Lash was the director there. And Katie secured the space that allowed us to do this. And then Pat's group applied for a grant and received it that allowed them to transform six classrooms into Riyosec exploration rooms. So they have a a wonderful system where kids can take field trips, and go through a a systematic process where they're doing some self discovery, and they're thinking a lot about their strengths, interests, and values, and and ultimately, like, what they might wanna be thinking about doing as they progress through the education system. And that also alongside that is professional development for staff.
• 14:51
  And something we're thinking a lot about at Eastern Hancock is how do we make the experience that our kids are having in their classrooms a little more relevant? You know, it's a it's something we're always pushing towards, and something a lot of kids are interested in is life beyond high school. I've been in school every day that I can remember, you know, since I was five. I've been on this school calendar, which means I know a lot about school, but it also means I don't know anything about anything else. And when I was a kid, if I asked my teacher, why do I need to know this?
• 15:24
  I got in trouble when I got home because that was disrespectful. But today's kids have a cell phone in their pocket where they can watch whatever they want on Netflix or YouTube or whatever they want, and they don't even have to tolerate irrelevant TV show. So if we think that they're going to tolerate a irrelevant education experience, I think we've we need to rethink that. And I think a secret way that we could unlock the relevancy in a lot of our classes is through partnerships with our employee partners and community partners who are applying the stuff that we're learning in our classes in the day to day world. I think it's a extremely exciting time to be an educator because it feels like this is something that we should have known for a long, long, long time, and we're just now dipping our toe in the water.
• 16:11
  And I I can't wait to see what this looks like in the next five or ten years.
• 16:15
  Nisha Srinivasa: I'd love to get back on something that you mentioned around professional development. I've been an educator now for seven years, all in California schools. And in my time as an educator, I have yet to experience a professional development that really is letting me or allowing me to think about ways to connect students' experiences and their interests to real world opportunities. That's something that was really intriguing and interesting. I was wondering if you could share a little bit more about what that professional development art is looking like, how teachers are responding to it, and ways that maybe you're seeing the trickle down from the professional development reaching into some of your classrooms.
• 16:54
  George Philhower: Yep. So I think something that we get wrong in education is has to do with professional development. And and, really, what I think stands in the way of that is is teacher evaluation. So my experience has been, and and I've been fortunate to get to travel to lots of schools, any teacher that I've asked to talk to about their evaluation process, and we've talked about whether or not it makes them a better teacher, I'm I'm batting about 0% on teachers that say this process helped me get better in my classroom. It usually sets up an environment where teachers are anxious, and at best, they're putting on a show when the evaluator's coming in.
• 17:36
  We could talk about all the things that I think are wrong with it. You know? I I don't know. I I haven't been in a classroom in fifteen years, and I haven't taught kindergarten in twenty years. And when I go into the kindergarten classroom, the last thing that teacher needs is my advice.
• 17:53
  Maybe she needs me to, like, point out some things that I saw and talk to her so that I can learn because mostly what I'm thinking when I'm in there is, goodness sakes, she's good at this, and there's no way I could do this, Chuck. So one of the first things we did at Easter Hancock is we we shifted our teacher evaluation system. So at no point ever does any administrator go to any of our classes, and when they leave, that teacher gets a one through four rating on anything. That never ever happens. Teachers get feedback, and administrators go into classrooms to learn so that they can have conversations with teachers afterwards.
• 18:30
  But we took that evaluation piece off of the table. The teachers get their evaluation points based on their willingness to set goals on an annual basis, create a plan for professional development that aligns with those goals, and then carry that out and then be able to reflect on their improvement throughout the year. And and I think, you know, this is just my opinion, but I think that the reason that a lot of our efforts for professional development aren't successful is that we don't allow our professional development plans and our teacher improvement plans to work together like I think that they could if if we did a little rethink on that.
• 19:08
  Matt Giovanniello: I bet. And it's funny. I'm listening here as you're describing the way you've morphed evaluations, and it sounds a lot like the private sector. So you might not need to spend a lot of time here to realize what works versus what doesn't. I have so many questions based off this, George, but I'll start with one to begin.
• 19:23
  For schools and districts that might be listening to this and realizing that maybe they're stuck in old ways or it's time to revamp their evaluation system, how do you move from a point of, oh, yes, I guess we need to do that, to actually evangelizing and motivating somebody to go ahead and take that first step? And then what for you when you went about this overhaul a few years ago, were those first steps? How do we get from a one through four evaluation in a fifteen minute sit in in a classroom that is not representative of teachers' performance whatsoever to a more holistic standpoint such as the one that you're following now? What's what's kind of that playbook if you have to get one?
• 19:56
  George Philhower: Sure. I think, you know, I I realize that every state is different, and some states have pretty prescriptive formats that you have to follow. I would encourage anybody that's looking to do something different to first look at what's really required. Because I think sometimes we think that there are things that are required that really aren't. So, like, Indiana, for example, the requirement is at the end of the year, everybody has to have a rating, one through four.
• 20:22
  And there's a handful of other things that that don't require us to follow the traditional system. I think beyond finding out what are the parameters that you're allowed to create your new system, I would start with conversations with administrators and with teachers. And the questions that I would ask teachers are, is this making you better? And if they're telling us no, then I think that points to an area of needed improvement. And I would also talk to our administrators and ask them how comfortable they are implementing the system and how much they are enjoying it.
• 20:55
  And if both of those answers are also no, then I think we have a moral imperative. Like, it's beyond a need for change. I think we've got lots of people that are wasting lots of time doing things that aren't helping anybody and that they aren't enjoying. And so from then, I like to ask questions like, what would we do if anything was possible? You know, what what would we do if, like, if what if the only goal was everybody wanted to create a system where they got better?
• 21:28
  And and I'm not saying that we've got it nailed, but we're closer than we were three years ago. And I think every year that we implement this plan, we we find things that we wanna tweak and get better. And I I think once you find out what you're allowed to do Okay. Invite others to help you create a system, and intentionality is also always a priority of mine and be really intentional about why are you doing it and what are you changing towards.
• 21:56
  Nisha Srinivasa: It sounds like the intentionality that you're describing both relates to the initiatives themselves, but also to the trust that you've been able to build up amongst educators within your district. And so how have you gone about doing that? I'm really curious because at least, in my context, there's a lot of distrust for folks in sort of, like, higher administrative roles. And so I'm curious how you've managed to build such strong rapport, trust, and really deepen those relationships to implement and create that change where anything is possible as you shared.
• 22:32
  George Philhower: Yeah. I think that's it's always a work in progress. Right? And it's always an area for me of impostor syndrome. You know, I I believe people follow availability, and as my schedule fills up, that becomes really, really difficult.
• 22:43
  And just transparently, that's been a goal of mine recently is to try to figure out how I can use those spaces in between, you know, passing periods and before and after school to have some casual conversations with with people and and hopefully over time build those authentic relationships. I don't know. I have a probably borderline naive positivity that where I just genuinely believe that I need to lead with trust. And my life experience has taught me that when I on the side of trusting people to do the job that they signed up to do, they generally do a better job than they would be able to do if I were standing over them and micromanaging them. And I believe that educators are some of the best people in the world.
• 23:35
  I also believe there's not many other professions where a person's personal life and their professional life intertwine so much. I bet met very few educators who don't take what they do home with them and who don't equate their effectiveness in their classrooms as their effectiveness as a person. And so I don't try not to take that lightly. And when I'm asking someone to change, I know that in some ways, they're feeling like I'm asking them to change who they are. And I think that that's a balance I'm always struggling with, and I I spend a lot of time thinking about is how do I lead in such a way that everybody understands that we're never going to be there.
• 24:16
  You know, one of my favorite quotes came from a book at the at the back of a book by Scott Harrison. He's the CEO of Charity Water, and he came across a quote. I mean, it's a tweet that he took a picture of back when we were allowed to call it a tweet. And the quote was, don't be afraid of work that has no end. And if there ever wasn't like, education is the field.
• 24:39
  It has no end. So we are always trying to figure out how do we get better at this job we do. And the struggle of leadership is doing that and creating a space where people feel like they are good enough as they are as people, and we love them the way they are. And I think that tug of war that happens is probably the most difficult piece of leadership.
• 25:05
  Matt Giovanniello: I think you're spot on, but you're flipping the script on the traditional way of administration being seen or perceived by staff and employees of a district and vice versa, quite honestly. I think it's way more of a a level playing field, so to speak. It's way more transparent. It's way more open and way more responsibility and outcomes driven than, I think, maybe what you've seen at least in your districts in times past and certainly what it sounded like you walked into, compared to where you are present day. I feel like this environment, going back to that conversation before, George, like, the outcome of treating people in the way that you're describing is leading to staff feeling valued, leading to staff feeling supported, leading staff feeling that they could be motivated to succeed.
• 25:44
  And it all all goes back to positive school culture. I will be remiss to not talk about one of the other big pillars that Eastern Hancock has brought on. I believe it's in its third year this summer. It's the Joy Jam Conference. We need to hear more about that, the genesis of it, and how your, perhaps, as you described, naive positivity may have inspired such a unique conference because that too is flipping the traditional conference script on its head.
• 26:08
  I think it's putting positivity, joy front and center as opposed to being a little bit of an afterthought, and it shows. So please tell us more about it. We'd love to hear it.
• 26:16
  George Philhower: Yeah. So I I was able to talk about our four promises. So joy, connection, growth, success, and and joy is first on purpose. We think that that has to be like, we lead with that because it has to be an invitation. And I think we we talked a little bit about the idea that the gravity of the work we're doing and the gravity of the world isn't necessarily pulling us towards a place of joy.
• 26:36
  So if we're gonna get there, it's gotta be on purpose and intentional. And one of the ways we do that is we host a summer conference called Joy Jam. We try to think about how do we create the most incredible experience for educators where they're learning awesome things from wonderful speakers. They're interacting with people like you, Matt, who come in and and help us put this thing on. But at the same time, we're giving them a joy filled experience.
• 27:02
  So when you register for Joy Jam, you tell us what your favorite candy and snacks are so we can make sure we have that at the conference for you throughout the day. We've got a candy and snack room that you can go check out. You know, we are kind of in the middle of nowhere, you can't run across the street to Starbucks. So we make sure we have a barista there so you can go get your free fancy coffee if you want. We've got other kinds of fancy drinks.
• 27:23
  We get Chick fil A for lunch usually, which is everybody loves Chick fil A. Right? We had a puppy room our first year because most people like puppies, and sitting in a room playing with puppies is a pretty fun thing to do. Last year, we had a petting zoo and had some mini horses running around. I I I joked that it's the first time in my career that I've had to answer the question, which door does the horse come in, which is fun.
• 27:46
  You know, we've got lots of things that I can't even talk about just yet planned for this year. We opened up registration just a little bit ago. We can host up to 400 people. So we are we are stoked about JoyJam and looking forward to hosting it again this year. And, you know, we want we want JoyJam to not just be a conference, but a a movement that, you know, people are thinking about in November and February in those times when the school year feels harder.
• 28:14
  Matt Giovanniello: Oh, yeah. You are bucking the trend, George, in every step of the way in planning a conference like this. I hope it serves as inspiration for people to do copycat conferences, but in a good way. Like, we need more of these JoyJems. We'll be there this summer.
• 28:25
  We'll be able to experience Joyjam Live, and we're very excited to be a part of it. But going back to some points you made prior, and even just a moment ago about being, quote, in the middle of nowhere in more of a rural environment, there are downsides that can be can exist as a part of being in more of a a remote location, but there's a lot of upsides too. You talked about some of them, and one of them was the fact that you have one on ones with every one of your high school juniors. The fact that not only you're there as the district superintendent, but that high school building leader is there as well. That's a huge positive.
• 28:54
  For schools with thousands of students in high school level or even tens of thousands of students, that's just not possible at scale. As you reflect a little bit about what you do that makes you unique, that is attributable to being in more of a remote, smaller school setting that maybe some larger schools, if you were in one, you wouldn't be able to pull off. What comes to mind that kind of you're turning into a positive based on that smaller culture?
• 29:16
  George Philhower: Yeah. I think the thing that's true about a school district our size is we're big enough to offer lots of incredible experiences for our kids, but we're also small enough to create experiences that are customizable enough for each and every single kid. So things like bell schedules and those calcified traditional structures that we have, we are allowed to color outside the lines because we know our kids well enough to break the rules so that they can find the success that they deserve. I think the other thing that's wonderful about a school district our size is I don't have to have a meeting to make a decision that I think would be good for kids. We've got our four promises that serve as our filter for decision making, but but if if one of you two say something that I think we need to implement, you know, it's a Thursday, and we could probably have it up and running by Monday because I don't need to have a meeting to make a decision.
• 30:08
  But it's me. I'll send a text to one of our three principals, and we'll give it a shot, which is, I think, a wonderful thing. It it allows us to have a bias towards action that probably isn't possible in places where you've gotta have more scaled decision making and levels of approval before you can get stuff done.
• 30:27
  Matt Giovanniello: I think there's a couple of different philosophies here, George, as it pertains to meeting students where they are. One of them is this concept of every student having an IEP, and this is a little bit of a a forward thinking long term goal. Where do you stand on that debate? I know there are varied levels of agreement with that philosophy, the way in which it could practically practically be carried out. Is that something that you believe in?
• 30:47
  Do you think that it's achievable with technology? Do think we have just way too far to go to get there?
• 30:52
  George Philhower: Yeah. I think I think every kid does already. Like, we just don't write it down yet. Right? So if you think about all the components of an IEP and present levels of and goals and all of those kind of things.
• 31:07
  Like, every kid has those. Like, we have those for every single kid. What we don't have is this systematic way to, one, document it, and two, deliver the instruction in that customized way. Like, the every kid having an IEP is the easy part. The hard part is the customized high quality instruction that needs to happen as a result of that.
• 31:31
  So, like, it's one of the things as I think about moving towards our four promise, and maybe I've just brainwashed myself long enough that I think those are four promises that need to be in every school. I think eventually the result has to be that that's the way we look at education. I think what could happen is, as I think about my best hopes, I think the kids owning that IEP is something that I think is probably something that allows it to be more effective. And and, honestly, like, as I think about my past experience as a special ed teacher and, you know, what I've hoped for, the kids that I serve at Eastern Hancock is that we eventually shift that ownership of learning and how to learn over to them anyway. So, yeah, yeah, I guess my short answer, Matt, is yes.
• 32:18
  I think it's possible. And, I think it's, you know, I'm, again, the naive optimist. I think it's gonna happen.
• 32:26
  Matt Giovanniello: I think that makes two of us as naive optimists. And I might be slightly biased, but I think we can get there. I'm curious as to how you're involving students right now. What steps have you started to try and give them some more control? Are they participating in their IEP meetings?
• 32:40
  Do they get access to their data more regularly? What have you put into place right now so far that might be good inspiration for other districts, and what's next on the the short term road map to get us closer there?
• 32:50
  George Philhower: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I have a great answer to that. You know? I'm I'm able to meet with every single junior and senior, but I I'm not sitting in too many case conferences right now.
• 32:58
  You know? But outside of that, in terms of systematically, we are shifting to more of a system where kids are thinking about who they are as a learner. I mean, we do senior exit interviews with our seniors where our community partners are coming in and asking them hard questions and listening to them present about their readiness for graduation. And as we think about scaling that work down towards even down towards our elementary school, you know, that's what a a lot of that is what a student led conference should look like is the the kiddo explaining, you know, their readiness. And so not looking at it through as initiative for a specific group of kids necessarily, but I it's it's definitely something that we're taking steps towards k through 12 is kids owning their own learning and kids being able to speak to the specific things that they're learning.
• 33:50
  And and also at the same time shifting what assessment practices look like so that kids are able to connect what they're learning with what they know they're learning and be able to talk about whether or not they're meeting their goals.
• 34:01
  Matt Giovanniello: George, thank you for all of your insights and for your time today. This has just been such a great conversation, so thank you. We like to ask all of our guests at the very end of our episode, a special question to help us get kind of inside the mind of how you think about your role as a superintendent. And that question for you today is, what does being an exceptional educator mean to you?
• 34:25
  George Philhower: I think I'm gonna tie it back to where we started, which was that we're creating a space where kids look forward to coming to. I think the secret answer to that comes from our four promises that we've defined at Eastern Hancock that, you know, kids look forward to coming to school when it's fun, you know, when there's joy there. They look forward to coming to school when they can connect with their friends, when they know that they feel loved and supported, you know, and that's connection. I think kids look forward to coming to school when they know that they're going to learn and feel successful when they do learn. And then last but not least, I think kids look forward to coming to school when they know that it's relevant and that it's they're having a real experiences that that's going to launch them into a a life where they'll be successful and confident.
• 35:12
  Matt Giovanniello: I love how even the reflection goes back to your four promises. I think if there's a lesson to be learned from listening to this, it's that when you have an organization of any type, especially a school or school district, if you can point back to your wife, you can point back to the pillars that you stand for, in this case, your four promises, not only will guide all of the decisions and the actions that you take, but you'll know how to become better with those actions. So, George, thank you for your generosity with your insights and your time today. It was such a pleasure having you on. I'm excited to see you in person again very soon.
• 35:40
  To everybody listening, thank you for joining us for today's episode. Nisha, thank you for joining me as our cohost. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.