Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Understanding the Needs of Children and Teachers During COVID-19 with Steve Bollar

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Understanding the Needs of Children and Teachers During COVID-19 with Steve Bollar · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
• 0:08
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
• 0:17
  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:21
  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
• 0:25
  Now here's the small Biz lady herself.
• 0:29
  Melinda Emerson.
• 0:31
  Hi, everybody.
• 0:31
  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small Biz lady, and well, come to small biz chat.
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  I'm America's number one small business expert, Melenderson, and I am so excited to be here
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  with you all.
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  So, you know, small biz chat live is a peer to peer interview show.
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  They give small business owners a way to really get and share invaluable business advice.
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  The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure.
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  Our goal is to give small business owners an opportunity to hear sage advice from multiple
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  angles so that you can not only start a business but grow your business.
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  Thank you so much for being with us, and we're gonna talk to a leadership and education
• 1:12
  expert.
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  And my next guest, Steve Bhuller, AKA, Stan Tall, Steve, He is a former superintendent of
• 1:21
  schools, a principal, and he also is the author of a new book on leadership called Stan Tall,
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  leadership.
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  He's known for his quick wit and creative thought and humor to engage audiences, and he
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  really works with educational leaders all over this country on how to bring smart ideas to
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  schools.
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  And he is also a very good friend of mine.
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  So I am excited to have Steve Fuller join us tonight because I think anybody out here who's
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  got kids has got a problem.
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  We gotta try to figure out what to do about getting these kids to school.
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  Is it safe?
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  Is it not safe?
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  Should you take the kids to college?
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  What is going on?
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  We just had a couple of colleges shut back down this week.
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  So, Steve, thank you for joining us on this chat live because I thought it was important
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  not to just talk about business, but talk about real life and stuff that real families are
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  dealing with.
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  And I have a fourteen year old son that's going to 9th grade this year and I'm worried about
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  sending them to school.
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  You know, and I'm getting conflicting stories.
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  The school wants to do one thing.
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  The department of health is saying we need to do something else.
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  What is a a nervous Nilly mom to do?
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  What what should we be doing out here?
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  It's a difficult thing.
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  I tell you what.
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  And, ultimately, what comes down to it.
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  It comes down to the parents' decision.
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  It it really is the the parents' decision as to what it is that you wanted to do, but it is a
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  difficult decision that's out there.
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  Schools right now, they are being turned around constantly.
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  The decisions that they've made at the end of last year, because that's the here's here's the
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  big thing of everything.
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  At the end of last school year, COVID hit.
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  Schools went nuts.
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  Everything went crazy, and they said, oh, we're gonna do virtual learning.
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  That was not virtual learning.
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  Okay?
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  That was emergency virtual learning.
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  There's a difference.
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  Okay?
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  Emergency virtual learning.
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  It's like building a plane while it's in the sky, and is a is a a lightning storm and you
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  you know, that's that's basically what schools were doing.
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  So we were in survival mode.
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  A lot of schools, they were just trying to find the kids.
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  Once they left there, they were just trying to find them.
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  And then throughout the summer, as things went on, the schools were like, oh, we made it
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  through.
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  Okay.
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  Summertime.
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  Well, the work just begun because they got new information, new information, different
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  information, and information kept changing and changing and changing and changing.
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  And so now there are schools in some parts of the country.
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  They've actually gone back.
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  They've done it, but here where I live, New Jersey Northeast area area here, we haven't
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  gone back yet, and it changed again.
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  The school district where I live They said that they're gonna do a a hybrid.
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  They're gonna have Monday, Tuesday group, off on Wednesday to clean, then a Thursday, Friday
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  group.
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  Pick which one that you want, and they'll let you know Then once everybody did their picking
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  and everything, then the board had a meeting and they decided to go virtual.
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  So it's like things keep changing.
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  As a parent, I know that is very difficult, but but but keep in mind, the number one thought on
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  mostly all schools and administrators' mind is what can we do to keep them safe?
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  That's first.
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  And then it's the instruction at education piece.
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  I hear you.
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  I hear you, Steve, but listen.
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  I have one child.
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  My only begotten said.
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  You understand?
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  And I'm definitely afraid of something happened to him.
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  And in my case, My son takes the regional rail to school.
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  So my son actually takes public transportation to get to his private school.
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  So in my case, even if I let's say even if I felt comfortable, for my child to walk into his
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  school building.
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  I'm gonna trust public transportation to get him there.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  No, man.
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  No.
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  No.
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  Uh-uh.
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  Like, I I don't you can't control other adults on a public a public even if my son's sitting
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  there with his mask on, who's to say what the septic workers are doing, what what the other
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  adults on that train or door.
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  Like, I I mean, I just I can break into highs even thinking about it.
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  Right.
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  You know?
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  And it's not a situation where I could drive him every day because the school is almost an
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  hour away from my house.
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  It would kill 2 hours a day, every day me dealing with that.
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  I that's not feasible either.
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  So so I, you know, I'm really per plex as to what to do.
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  I mean, my school gave the option virtual or hybrid, you know, and we chose virtual because
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  of our transportation situation.
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  And I recognize too my kids are not great.
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  So my kid can sit in front of a computer and be taught because he's older.
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  He can be more self directed, but people with low kids, people with, like, first, second,
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  third, 4th, like, kids that are still learning to read, the kids that are still learning,
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  multiplication tables and stuff like that, that's a lot more that that's a lot more hands
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  on learning.
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  And I can see why that is a nightmare online.
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  Very much a nightmare online.
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  And your your concerns are valid.
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  They they make perfect sense.
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  I mean, that's concerns even in my situation, my kids take the local school bus.
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  And I'm like, man, I'm taking the bus.
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  I can't trust the other kids on the bus.
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  Let alone somebody on accept the bus.
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  So I completely understand that.
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  That's why, I mean, in majority of all schools around, they do give the parents the option.
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  You know, we have the virtual option versus the the coming into school option.
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  Now with this option, hopefully, and and in most cases, then schools that I've been working
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  with continually is they've learned from the building the airplane in the sky while it was
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  flying about virtual learning and what it can be done.
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  So schools are making adjustments.
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  When you're talking about your younger students, alright, your kindergarten, your pre
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  k, 1st grade, 2nd grade, that's your foundational areas.
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  A lot of schools, what they're doing is let's say that you have a grade level.
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  Let's say that your 1st grade level has a 100 kids in it.
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  Alright?
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  You put it out to the parents.
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  Okay.
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  How many wanna do virtual?
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  How many is gonna come in?
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  What do we have going on with this?
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  And you find out that 50 of them wanna do 100% the other 50 are gonna come in.
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  So what they're gonna do is they're gonna push those 2 those 2 groups to 50 into 2 smaller
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  groups, and they're gonna make teachers solely virtual teachers.
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  Now you have the virtual teachers that are here that are handling the ones at home.
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  They can break down into smaller chunks, have smaller groups, interact with them the best
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  that they can, provide that in that connection with them as best as they could and and pull
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  them through in the smaller bits and chunks.
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  There are some schools that are more strapped that are tighter.
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  Where the teacher is like, look, I'm gonna have me 12 kids in front of me, and I got another 12
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  to 15 are gonna be online at the same time.
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  It's difficult.
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  I'm not saying it's the best thing in this effort.
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  But they're being creative as they can to try to make this work.
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  It's hard.
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  What I've said in a group, I was in a group webinar where I was talking about improving
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  virtual teaching strategies.
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  I said, look, what we're doing here in school, administrators, they're picking the best worst
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  solution.
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  That's what we're doing.
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  We're picking the best worst solution.
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  They're all bad.
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  They're all bad ideas.
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  We have a bad tough situation.
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  But we gotta pick the best one of that and then move forward.
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  And keeping in mind, their teachers are slowly getting a little bit better with this virtual
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  learning on how to make better connections with them, how to get that information to them.
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  And keep in mind also there are schools within America that have been 100% virtual.
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  There are virtual schools that have been in existence for 20 some 20 some years.
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  So it can be done.
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  I was consulting with the school out in California.
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  When COVID hit, they reached out to me and he says, Hey, we need to work with you because we
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  need to rebrand.
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  We're a 100% virtual school, and we just realized the rest of the world just caught up
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  with us.
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  Right.
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  So it is possible.
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  It is possible.
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  It's just difficult.
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  It's very cool.
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  What about what about the achievement gap, though?
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  There were kids in regular school that we're not doing as well as other kids.
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  So now you put the digital divide layer on top of that.
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  I know, you know, we we live very close to to the city of Philadelphia.
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  And there were so many students that not only did they not have computers at home, They
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  didn't have internet.
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  Now I do now I did just hear that there's been a move to give low income families internet for
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  12 months and that they're they did some partnership, which we've Comcast and Pew
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  Foundation and all these people got together and said, okay.
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  We can't have this again.
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  So now they're gonna give these families internet.
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  But what about the kids that didn't have?
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  You know, what about last school year?
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  I mean, was the last quarter of school a watch for most kids?
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  I mean, Did anybody learn anything last year?
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  Oh, you know what I mean?
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  Like, I heard that there were school districts that used the grades from the first three
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  semesters and use that as their grade for the year and didn't even give kids grade for the
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  last the last 9 weeks of school or last quarter of school.
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  Correct.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Again, keep in mind, it was emergency virtual learning.
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  Everybody was scrambling and trying to figure out what's the best way to do this.
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  So, yeah, At the end of last school year, there are some districts.
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  Like, I I work with schools in Buffalo area when I work connected with them.
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  Their number one focus with school that I was working with during that last part was by the
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  end of the school year, we wanna find all our kids.
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  That's it.
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  They weren't we instruction.
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  The the the gap.
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  Yes.
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  It was there.
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  Our goal their biggest goal was finding all of the kids because we know that some kids have a
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  lot of different situations, home life.
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  You know, I've heard a situation where the kids are like, okay, we're home.
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  Hey, look, I I'm an essential worker, so you're gonna go live with your cousin.
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  You know, boom, off.
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  They they're gone.
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  And they didn't go back to school because they were thinking that the schools closed us over
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  with.
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  You know?
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  And then they're, you know, people calling the house.
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  Where's the kid?
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  They said, you know, they're with their cousin.
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  I've got time for this.
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  I'm trying to live.
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  So that's what the situation you're dealing with.
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  On top of it, we talk about and it's a great thing.
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  A lot of school districts are going all out.
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  They're making sure people have internet.
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  They're making sure that they have the Chromebooks.
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  They have whether they need to get connected and get educated because we all know how
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  important that is.
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  But in the same token, let's say that you living in a house.
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  A two bedroom house or apartment, two bedroom apartment.
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  You got 5 kids in there, along with your cousins, and a couple other ones.
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  You're trying to find a place to sit down and to do your learning, or you only have one
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  computer.
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  And you know what?
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  Mom needs it for work.
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  So the situations aren't the best.
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  The important thing that I'm noticing, especially with a lot of the educators in the
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  groups that I work with they're keeping an open mind.
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  I did a a webinar a few weeks back for principals and superintendents, and the title
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  of it was it's not business as usual.
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  It's not business as usual.
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  You just you can't.
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  You can't go back and say, okay.
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  Get these kids back in the class.
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  Let's get them going.
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  It's no.
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  It how dare you?
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  I just that's with shame for shame for shame.
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  You need to continue after what we know understanding your needs of your students and
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  your teachers because teachers are people too.
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  Right?
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  How do you go back to the way that it was before?
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  It is in possible to do that.
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  You have to alter.
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  You have to change, and it's not anymore about the grade because that's a big thing.
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  Especially when you look in your secondary, your high school, and such, It's not necessary
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  100% about the grade.
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  It's about the learning.
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  And that's what a lot of influential forward thinking educators were were trying to do.
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  Good practitioners of education were doing this before COVID, but now it's really in home.
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  It may not necessarily be about the grade as much as it is about the learning.
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  How have they learned?
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  How you know, that's the whole point of the standards, whether it's the the state
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  standards, national standards, whatever.
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  What's the level of growth?
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  We wanna put a letter a to it or a letter b to it, yippee ki yay, it comes down to how are we
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  gonna get them to move forward to whatever degree that might be.
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  Wow.
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  So how glad are you that you're not a superintendent of a school district, Thank you.
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  Go ahead.
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  Man, so you I I and, like, I I coach and I I coach superintendents.
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  I coach principals.
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  And I'm sitting like like, woah, dodge the one here, man.
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  Woo.
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  It because it's it is it is enormous.
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  It is in a warm, enormous pressure that is on the educational leaders right now as to what
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  decision to make because you're not going to please everyone.
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  You have some situations in some states where they're telling them, you must go back no
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  matter what.
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  It's a must.
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  You must have the kids back in in their hearts of hearts, they completely disagree with that.
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  They don't want that, but they're required to.
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  And then on the other side, you have the the teachers associations and teachers unions and
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  like that.
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  We're openly saying for the safety of our teachers, we we don't want them back, but on
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  the other side, you want it.
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  So and then as you know, it's becoming very political, you know, politicized So it's a very
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  tough, you know, line that they're they're they're walking on.
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  No decision.
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  Like I said, no decision is the best.
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  Let's pick the best worse decision that we can to move forward with what we gotta do.
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  But the one thing that I really wanna impress is that for the parents who have the kids, Keep
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  in mind, schools are truly doing the best that they can.
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  They are trying to find the best possible solution.
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  They know for some of y'all, Half of y'all like, please get them out of this house and
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  other half of y'all are like, please don't take them out of my house for safety reasons, and
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  they have to balance that.
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  And they're trying to do the best that they can
• 14:47
  Well, I think that's really sage advice.
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  And I do wanna give you an opportunity to share one thing that you wrote in your book Stantal
• 14:54
  Leadership Tell us about the results formula because I know that that's what you teach when
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  you work with educational leaders, and I think it's helpful for business leaders too.
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  So can you share that with us?
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  Yeah.
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  Definitely.
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  The reason yeah.
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  The results formula, and it's interesting.
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  I was talking about the results for we just yep.
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  Today.
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  I did a discussion on improving your virtual teaching, and it works in so many different
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  ways.
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  The results formula revolves around 5 letter r's.
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  5 letter r's.
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  So what you respect, you recognize, reward, and reinforce give you results.
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  With your respect, recognize, reward, and reinforce future results.
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  So with that, number 1, it's all about what you respect and value.
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  Alright?
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  What is most important to you?
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  And when I speak to school leaders or teachers and things like that, I always go back to that.
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  What's most important?
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  What do you respect and value?
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  Now I get it.
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  Places have vision statements.
• 15:47
  They have mission statements.
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  But, truthfully, if you talk to every teacher or every person in your organization, can they
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  recite the vision or mission statement verbatim most of the time, not.
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  But if you can clearly identify 4 to 5 things, this is what we respect and value.
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  This is most important to us.
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  Then within your class, within your school, within your organization, the second part is
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  recognize.
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  Recognize people when they do what it is you respect and value.
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  And when I say recognize, I'm not saying give him the trophy.
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  Don't give a certificate.
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  Not just take note when someone does what it is you respect and value.
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  Let's say in the school, you've, you know, internally branded, you post it all over the
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  place, what it is you respect and value.
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  Hey.
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  Way to go.
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  I see what you did there.
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  With number 2 of what we respect and value.
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  Awesome job with that.
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  And it you continually just notice when people are doing things.
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  People love to get noticed when they're doing the right thing.
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  I've had teachers come in and say, you know, I get on them when they don't do the right thing,
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  and it's not my job to recognize them for doing what they're supposed to do.
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  Do you want them to continue to do what they're supposed to do?
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  Yes.
• 16:49
  Well, then you need to recognize when they do that.
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  I mean, oh, my are you kidding me?
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  It's just a it's a testament.
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  So that's the second part is recognizing.
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  And the third one is reward.
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  So there needs to be some kind of reward system that connects directly to what it is your
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  respect and value.
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  Anybody that heard people say I'm not rewarding now, I'm not gonna do that.
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  No, everyone likes to some type of reward as long as it's directly connected to what you
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  respect and value.
• 17:16
  I say that one time college football back when we had college football, they have stickers on
• 17:20
  the helmets, right?
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  You ever seen the stickers that they have in the helmet.
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  They do a good job on the field.
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  They get a sticker.
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  Those guys will kill on that field for a sticker.
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  So it's not about what that reward is.
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  It's about what it means.
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  Mean, you can give kids stickers all day.
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  They love them.
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  It's a pre k to 12th grade sticker, but there needs to be some kind of tangible reward.
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  I call it VTW.
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  Visible, tangible, walk aroundable.
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  They can walk around with it.
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  People can see it.
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  It's tangible.
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  They can feel it.
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  Visible.
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  They can see it.
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  So that's the reward part.
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  And then the last one is reinforce.
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  So with reinforce, it's all about doing it again and again and again And again, if you
• 18:00
  were to go to Google images and type in reinforcement, and then images will come up of
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  framing a building, scaffolding a building, reinforcement for concrete, if you notice
• 18:08
  there's not one metal pipe, one metal beam holding up a whole building, it's thousands of
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  them, which means you do the first three things again and again and again.
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  What do you respect and value?
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  Recognize them again again and rewards.
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  Now if you do those things again and again and again, what's the probability of you getting
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  the results that you want?
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  It goes up.
• 18:28
  Highly probable.
• 18:29
  Yeah.
• 18:30
  And that's the thing.
• 18:31
  A lot of times in schools and in organizations, we focus on eliminating the problem or getting
• 18:37
  the exact I always say reduce not eliminate.
• 18:40
  You're not gonna eliminate a lot of things, but you can reduce it, bad behavior in school.
• 18:44
  You might not eliminate it, but you can reduce it.
• 18:46
  Also want me to help you do that.
• 18:48
  You wanna get a better grades from the students, better outcomes, better things than
• 18:52
  your employees, if you have employees with it, identify what you respect and value with your
• 18:56
  employees, recognize your employees when they do what it is you respect and value.
• 19:00
  Have some kind of reward system directly connected to what you respect and value and
• 19:03
  reinforce it by doing it again and again and again gonna get the results that you want from
• 19:07
  your employees.
• 19:08
  The probability increases dramatically.
• 19:10
  So it works in schools.
• 19:11
  It works in education, and that's it's It makes sense to me.
• 19:15
  It just makes perfect sense to me.
• 19:16
  Well, I think it makes sense in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of us can use these systems
• 19:21
  even with our own employees because sometimes really easy to point out what people didn't do
• 19:26
  as opposed to acknowledging what people did do right.
• 19:29
  And there's there's something to be said for positive reinforcement as opposed to negative,
• 19:34
  you know, putting people down that doesn't that doesn't work.
• 19:37
  Alright, Steve.
• 19:37
  What is your favorite podcast?
• 19:41
  I have I I got 2 that I really, really, really love.
• 19:45
  The first one is the speaking show.
• 19:46
  With David Newman.
• 19:47
  He talks about speaking and the the business of speaking, and I love the guest that he has on
• 19:52
  there.
• 19:52
  The second one is called Hidden Brain.
• 19:54
  It's all about thinking and how people interact with the world around them.
• 19:58
  I absolutely love both of those.
• 20:00
  They're they're my I I I can't get enough of them.
• 20:03
  I'm a big fan of the Hidden Brain too, and then I first learned about that podcast actually
• 20:08
  from NPR because the guy that that He comes on NPR every so often and talks about his his
• 20:14
  podcast and his research that he does for the Hidden Brain You know, I have a couple of
• 20:20
  podcasts that I like.
• 20:21
  I'm, like, not I'm a I'm a grazer, so there's a couple of different ones that I like.
• 20:26
  I'm a big fan of Entra Leadership, which is Dave Ramsey's podcast.
• 20:31
  He's always on it.
• 20:32
  He has another guy that hosts it, but I actually really like that podcast.
• 20:36
  There's also some other ones that I've that I've grazed around, but it's so hard when
• 20:41
  you're producing your own podcast to make time to listen to other people's podcasts because
• 20:45
  it's like, Oh my gosh.
• 20:46
  But I'm I'm a fan of quite a few, but I the one that I listened to lately a lot is, auto
• 20:52
  leadership.
• 20:53
  So That's one that I'll throw out there.
• 20:55
  Alright.
• 20:55
  Here's my next question.
• 20:56
  Steve, I'm gonna come at you for this one first.
• 20:59
  So what is your favorite business app?
• 21:01
  Favorite business app that you can't live without?
• 21:04
  Oh, a favorite business app.
• 21:06
  Lately, I truthfully, I've been using PayPal, like, champ lately.
• 21:10
  PayPal and I become real good friends over the quarantine.
• 21:14
  So, yeah, it's like because, you know, I do speaking and everything and and stuff, but I
• 21:18
  started doing some products and things, and I I've been using PayPal.
• 21:21
  So I've gotten to know PayPal pretty well.
• 21:24
  Yeah.
• 21:25
  Steve Boller, what's your favorite book?
• 21:27
  Right now, one of my favorite books was actually by Kathy Fayock and Lewis Kramer.
• 21:32
  It's the speaker author.
• 21:34
  And because I had a new book coming out, I needed to focus on how it's gonna utilize that
• 21:39
  book.
• 21:39
  How's it gonna market that book?
• 21:40
  How's it gonna get it out there?
• 21:42
  That when you talk about one of the most simplest, easiest reads that is just you can do
• 21:47
  everything in there that day to make it better for your book that's gonna be released, it just
• 21:53
  makes sense.
• 21:54
  So for me, at this point, right now, that's what it was.
• 21:57
  Alright.
• 21:57
  And my favorite is the e myth revisited by Michael Gerber, which is always my favorite
• 22:02
  book.
• 22:03
  I always talk about that.
• 22:04
  Listen, thank you so much If you guys want them to learn more information about them, just
• 22:09
  check out our blog, succeed at your own boss.com.
• 22:12
  You'll have lots of more information about them.
• 22:14
  And I just wanna thank you all for joining us on small fish chat live.
• 22:18
  I'm Melinda Emerson, a small biz lady, and I will leave you with this.
• 22:22
  You never lose in business either you win or you learn.
• 22:25
  God bless everybody.
• 22:26
  Good night.
• 22:28
  Thank you for listening to the smallbizchat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 22:33
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 22:40
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.