Episode Details

Bob Sonju, Director of K-12 Learning and former high school principal, explains how professional learning communities and response to intervention can take a good school to a great one. His case: you do not need a new program, you need to get good at PLCs and RtI, and you need to start now.

Sonju was hired as principal at Fossil Ridge in March. On July 2nd at 2:13 a.m. he sat up in bed afraid he would be the first principal fired in his first three months. The next morning a teacher told him, "It's not a matter if we will or we won't." He kept going.

What you'll learn

• Take emotion out of a debate with a cynical teacher and look at the research together to see if you read it differently.
• Stop waiting for the right season to change, because fall, winter, spring and summer all have an excuse.
• Use state graduation numbers, like Utah's 19 percent without a diploma, to make the urgency concrete for your staff.
• Sort your standards into nice to know and must know, and build common formative assessments and interventions around the must know list.
• Write 'simplify and focus' where your team can see it, and take things off teachers' plates.

Chapters

• 0:00 Handling cynical staff with research, not emotion
• 2:24 Taking a good school to a great one
• 3:40 The 2:13 a.m. panic and a teacher's answer
• 6:09 Why there is no optimal time to change
• 9:13 Work differently, not harder
• 12:07 PLCs and RtI, and why there is no quick fix
• 13:54 Guaranteed and viable curriculum in plain terms
• 16:19 Advice for a transformative principal today

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Questions this episode answers

How do you make a good school better?
Sonju says that at Fossil Ridge his team looked past the good reputation to assessment scores, then defined its culture, purpose, vision and collective commitments. One commitment was to intervene immediately with students who missed skills, which meant changing existing intervention structures.

What is a guaranteed and viable curriculum?
Sonju says teachers are overwhelmed by standards, so principals and teachers sort them into nice to know and must know. The must know list is the guaranteed and viable curriculum, and common formative assessments and interventions are written to make sure every student learns it.

When is the best time to make big changes in a school?
Sonju says there is no optimal time. Fall is getting organized, winter is burnout, spring is testing and summer is rest. He says the best time was 20 years ago and the second best time is right now, because 19 percent of Utah students left without a diploma.

About Bob Sonju

Bob Sonju is the Director of K-12 Learning for a Utah school district and a former principal of Fossil Ridge, a high school.

Links and resources

• Learning by Doing book
• Sponsor offer link
• Transformative Principal website
• Podcast on Stitcher
• Refer a principal form
• Best Tools for Busy Administrators survey
• Sponsor Sanebox

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