Jack Arend (00:00)
Well, hello and welcome to another great edition of A Matter of Principals, the AWSP Leadership Podcast. I'm Jack Arend. I get to be the deputy director at AWSP. And gosh, I love this piece of my job where I get to talk to really inspiring leaders across our state and the nation and just see what they're doing, what kind of leadership magic they're producing in their buildings and in their community. And my goodness, listeners today are in for a real treat.

I am so excited to talk to our guest today. you're gonna meet him in just a minute, but my goodness, Tyler Dockins is the principal at Irene Reither Elementary in the Meridian School District. And he is one of these people that I would say is on the watch list, and that's a good list. AWSP, we get to interact with lots of leaders across the nation. And when I kept hearing Tyler's names, I thought, My goodness, I need to meet this guy. And then our we are so lucky that he

He applied to be on our elementary regional rep grade level committee. And gosh, he's serving on that now. And he's We'll talk more about that later in the podcast, but he's also serving as our elementary rep to the National Principals Association. And and above all, the cool things he's doing in his building and in his district and now throughout the state and the national level, he's just a really cool guy that has a really fun story and is just an active, an active family man and

I don't know, maybe we'll talk hockey. I don't know. I don't know anything about hockey, but maybe we'll go there. So I'm excited to introduce you all to a great elementary principal, a colleague and a person that's becoming my friend that I'm really excited about. So Tyler Dockins, welcome.

Tyler (01:45)
Thank you, Jack. Appreciate you having me on the podcast. incredibly grateful for that.

Jack Arend (01:49)
Yeah, yeah, well I'm just so excited to talk to you. But let's before we get into the kind of the meat of this whole episode, this whole little series that we're doing, the series, Tyler, that we're focusing on is what are leaders doing across the state that are making the AWSP Leadership Framework really come to life? And so we'll we'll get there, we'll talk about the work you're doing in your building and your district. But right now I just want the listeners to kind of get to know you a little bit and a little bit about your

your school. So just tell us a little bit about your school, tell us about the Meridian community, and and maybe what makes Irene Reither special.

Tyler (02:25)
Absolutely.

Thank you. So a little bit about a community. Really, when I think about Meridian School District, a phrase that comes to mind is the Meridian magic. There's a level of connection and authenticity in the community that's really special. We're one middle school, one elementary school, one high school. So everyone goes through all the three schools together. And then when you look at graduation at the end of the every year,

There's a walkthrough where all the seniors walk through the elementary school, the middle school, say hi to their teachers. It's an incredibly inspiring kind of you know part of the community is that connection.

Jack Arend (03:03)
Yeah.

Tyler (03:04)
And so we're a huge school. We have over 800 students just north of Bellingham and unincorporated Whatcom County. we're pre-K through fifth grade, so we're serving seven grade levels there. and it's it's over a hundred staff members.

So very, very large school, small community. and like I said before, there's just a ton of magic and connection and and and deep family partnership.

Jack Arend (03:29)
Holy smokes, I I don't think I heard much past when you said 800. Because as a former elementary school principal, Tyler, that is like a small town.

Tyler (03:41)
Yeah.

Jack Arend (03:42)
my gosh, and over a hundred staff, that's a big elementary school in

Tyler (03:46)
Yes.

Jack Arend (03:47)
what sounds like a pretty special community. And so what like if someone were to run into you, like if I were to get in my car and drive almost all the way to Canada to see you.

What would I what would make I Reen Reither so special? As you walk me through the hallways, what makes it such a special place? Cause the people listening can't see this, but man, when Tyler talks about a school, it is a smile from ear to ear.

Tyler (04:13)
Yeah, so I think the thing that really stands out is in its name. Irene Reither was a former teacher in the community. And I think a a phrase that I think a lot about with culture is that the culture of the school drips from the walls. You can tell about you know what the school culture is in terms of how people talk. You can tell what the school culture is and the interactions between both staff and students and student to students, and you can tell what the school culture is in terms of what they're talking about. And I think

An element that you'll see that's really special within our school is that our teachers and our staff really geek out about the craft of teaching. So you'll it's commonplace

Jack Arend (04:50)
Yeah.

Tyler (04:51)
for people to to walk down the hallways and hear someone talk about, you know, Timothy Shanahan's on literacy podcast, people talking about different teaching techniques, a ton of student work protocols going on where everyone really sweats the small stuff in order

Jack Arend (05:05)
Mm.

Tyler (05:05)
to make sure that kids grow.

And so a a phrase that we talk about is belonging is the basic expectation. So we really want to to encourage and you know, really support belonging. And on top of that, even more, right? We want kids to live choice filled lives in terms of being able to succeed in navigating those social emotional skills and those relationships. And at the same time, being able to do really incredibly rigorous work. And so I think that's

Jack Arend (05:31)
Yeah.

Tyler (05:32)
something that's really true about our school.

Jack Arend (05:34)
gosh. Makes me want to finish this podcast right now and get in my car and come up there. not gonna do that. Hey, I if you're l I'm sure the listeners right now, if they're if they're in their car, they're wishing they had somewhere to write or type some of these things down. I just love I'm I can tell already that I'm gonna come up with some I'm gonna leave this with a lot of Tyler quotes, but I love this the culture of the school drips from the walls. Hmm, that one really caught me. Thank you for that.

So big school, small community, and and and a staff that loves to talk about the craft. Isn't that fun? Like this podcast is fun for me because I get to talk about leadership with amazing leaders, but it's really fun for me to hear from you that your teachers are, as you said, geeking out talking about teaching, right? It's such a cool career. It's challenging. I mean, don't we all know that? But dang, it's a cool career.

So I I want to get a little bit past Irene Reither and in and into you for just a second. And I wanna know what first what first drew you into education and when did when did Tyler realize, hey, maybe leadership's in my bones.

Tyler (06:46)
For

me, it was just a a bunch of different experiences and people and the community I grew up in. So originally I'm from West Valley, Phoenix, in the Glendale, Peoria area. you know, I moved here as a kid in in Washington and went to high school and college, you know, in the area between, you know, Bellingham and University of Washington, Go Huskies. And at that time I had the opportunity to go join a teaching program and I got to teach in the neighbor grew up in in Phoenix and went back there and served in the community where I was from.

and that's where I met my beautiful, amazing wife, who is an instructional goddess, just loved watching her teach. she's a teacher as well. and we picked up and moved across the country and did some teaching in Newark, New Jersey. And I think

Jack Arend (07:27)
wow.

Tyler (07:27)
I think just spending some time in places across the country and learning from really incredible people. to me, like that's why I love teaching and getting into school leadership is one having impact on kids first and foremost. Impact is a core value of mine and improvement.

our core values. and then spending time to listen and learn from other people. it just is inspiring to work with really amazing folks and you know, kind of getting back to even our own district, like we've got a really cool thing going with school leaders here where there's a lot of collaboration and work. And so some of the stuff that, you know, we'll talk about with Irene Reither is actually spreading across our district because of the amazing school leaders that that we're connected with here.

Jack Arend (08:10)
Thank you. That that's great. So gosh, Arizona, Washington, New Jersey, like you've seen some different systems. And some, you know, I think that's what's fun, also, is patchworking together the quilt of leadership and schools and and bringing in different things that you've experienced from different places and and just different styles. And yeah, that that's really exciting. So I was a former elementary principal and I loved that gig.

And and that that is just the life of a school leader, right? What we're hearing right now is the life of a school leader. There's radios going off. it

Tyler (08:47)
Sorry about that.

Jack Arend (08:48)
no, there's no apology. You're running a small town. I get it. Tyler's coming to us today. I can look into his office right now. And before we started recording, we said, let's turn our devices off. But you can't ever turn all your devices off as an elementary principal.

Tyler (09:02)
Not the Next Tel. the the Sellone was silenced, but not the emergency channel, so

Jack Arend (09:06)
There you go.

What do enjoy most about leaving an elementary school?

Tyler (09:14)
I

think with an elementary school, it's the joy. I I I think the there's two pieces to this about an elementary school. Actually, really three. I think the first part is just the joy of seeing a kid run to school and come in and give you a big hug every day. Like you can't even on a rough day, right, you're still gonna get hi, Mr. Dockins and a big old hug, right? And to me that's really powerful because that's what it's the r that's the why for us, right? Is the connection.

Jack Arend (09:40)
Yeah.

Tyler (09:41)
The second piece that I've noticed is there's something about elementary teachers specifically where their kid, I mean, I think all teachers have an incredible amount of kid focus. And I think there's something about elementary teachers where the kid focus is really like palpable. And I think you see that in terms of how they talk and act. And I think that's really powerful as well. and then the last part I would say is just the opportunities, right? So, you know, Raj Chetty, an economist, did a did a study and found that, you know, most folks' earnings potential.

was very much predicated on who they had for a kindergarten teacher. And so I think that tells you a lot about the impact that elementary teachers can have on kids' lives. those foundational, you know, things that they learn, learning to love school is really important because if kids walk away with a love of learning, that's something that can never be taken away from them. And that's something they can

Jack Arend (10:31)
Mm.

Tyler (10:31)
carry on forever. And so I think the potential for impact is also another piece that is really, really

an amazing part of working with kids in the kindergarten through or pre K through fifth grade age ranges.

Jack Arend (10:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's thank you for that. You know, you mentioned earlier when you're explaining about your beautiful school and and and telling us, sharing about it, that there's seven seven grade levels in your building and that is the for your community, if a child were and a family were to go through the entire, you know, PK through twelve system, they would spend the most of their years in your building.

And just that idea that not only are we creating, well, as you said, belonging and safety and a sense of community, it just it all gets solidified into the foundation of learning in your building. And then those middle school and high school communities just keep enhancing that. But I really like I I I have this image of you said the school the k a child running into the school. it's fun, hugs around the knees, man, that's fun.

Tyler (11:36)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jack Arend (11:36)
That's really fun. That's really

fun. That's great. so I shared earlier that this series that we're doing on AWSP, this this specific podcast series is highlighting the AWSP Leadership Framework, the eight criterion in there, and seeking out leaders like yourself that are doing some pretty incredible things. And then we want to make sure that all the listeners know how how you might tie that to the framework. So

I was intrigued by lots of things happening at Irene Rither under your leadership and under your district's leadership. And there's a couple different things. And I don't know, Tyler, I might need to have you back for a second episode because I think there's just a lot of questions I have. But today I want to talk about the process that you have developed, your district or your school has developed around hiring. And everybody, we all know we need to hire great people.

We have to hire great people. Our kids deserve the best teachers in front of them. Our teachers deserve the best principals and assistant principals, and superintendents deserve that as well, right? They need to know every building is just running at high levels. My wife works in the healthcare industry and she talks about the surgeons that she works with or these people that

she's a speech therapist, and and well when she's involved in a surgery, she says, wow, this surgeon, they're practicing at the top of their license. Which I love that phrase. And when I talk to you and I hear about what's happening in your building with your teachers and teachers geeking out over teaching and all this stuff, man, it sounds like your building is practicing at the top of their certificates. So can you would you help just just break down for the listeners and for me?

This this way you're approaching hiring.

Tyler (13:32)
Yeah. So Jack, you know, first off, thank you. The podcast is amazing. I listen to it and get a lot of nice tips from other school leaders and continue to to to tinker with that. So appreciate what you're doing here and for the other leaders coming on and sharing what they're doing because it's helpful.

Jack Arend (13:46)
Thanks. Thanks.

Tyler (13:48)
you know, it really started with a dilemma. It was my first year at the school.

And essentially what happened is, you know, we went through the hiring process. We have a very classic hiring process to begin with. It was we sit with a panel of teachers and different leaders and different people across the school. We ask our 10 to 13 questions in, you know, about a 45 minute period after we screen some candidates. and, you know, a lot of them we we really tinker with our behavior based questions to get the the most out of each question. and we still end up surprised.

And when we

Jack Arend (14:22)
Yeah.

Tyler (14:22)
say surprised is, and I mean this in the most loving way, is we have some teachers sometimes that we hire, and I think any principal can tell you this, where we still got some cultural, you know, classroom cultural stuff that needs to to to get supported. And it it's r if you from an empathetic standpoint, to see a teacher struggle is really heartbreaking, right? You see someone who spent four years in college, you know, or more, dedicated to this incredible sacred profession, and then they struggle.

And then what happens is it it's it's it's a no-win for anybody. The teacher themself who gets hired is now got doubts about their expertise. you know, the kids are not getting the best experience, the colleagues are supporting another colleague and they have a hard time seeing them as grade level teammates struggling. And then you've got a school leader now who's spending a lot of time to support them, which is what we do. We step into the gap and support people. But now what happens is other priorities end up getting shifted because we're supporting classrooms that need support.

And so what happened is we kind of said we need to really rethink what we do and kind of strip everything down to the studs and rebuild what our hiring process is. And when you really think about what folks do, they spend 90% of their day in front of kids teaching. So we said, let's do demo lessons. Let's have a teacher who is a potential candidate come in, teach our babies for 20 minutes, and then do a 20-minute simulated coaching conversation afterward to see not only

what their instructional moves are in those 20 minutes, but how they think about instruction, how they talk about it after it happened. So essentially in that 40 minute period, we're we're answering, you're getting answers to questions that that you know you could ask 40,000 questions to. And I think that is something that we came together and decided to design a process that really has been a home run for us because one, at our school, the people who kind of rise from that process

Are fantastic and are getting incredible results and incredible culture. and then the other piece that is really an incredible part of the process is folks who may not get the offer are getting feedback that is genuine. I mean, how often do we have as teachers or educators five, six people sitting down, watching you teach, and then working really hard behind the scenes to give you the f the feedback that we think is gonna

impact you the most, both on the affirming side and the adjusting side. And so that's the gift we give is that we want to make sure that all people who want to be in this profession are getting the feedback they deserve to live out the careers that they chose to live and to do inspiring work with kids. And we've even had candidates go through the process and then come back, share about that process and end up getting offers. And we saw the improvement after a number of iterations in that process. So it's been really exciting process to design.

Jack Arend (17:12)
Wow. so walk me through, like let's say Irene Reither has an open third grade position. Can you walk me and the listeners through right now the process from we have an opening, we're looking at applicants, they come for an interview, they get offered the job, and then what does support look like after that?

Tyler (17:35)
Yeah.

So, you know, Jack, it's that that was one of the things that we thought through was we didn't want to make it time intensive. You know, it has to simulate what a similar, you know, job application process would be because, you know, having people come back for iterative rounds over multiple days is just not feasible, right? People take a day off, right, or want to do an afternoon. So it has to be quick. So it starts with, you know, opening the position.

And then depending on the position type, right? If it's a leave replacement, you're gonna have fewer candidates. If it's a continuing contract, you're gonna have more. For a K5 open pool position, we'll get anywhere between 100 to 200 candidates, which is a lot. All right. Let's it's near it's near Bellingham. Yes. So we'll get we'll get

Jack Arend (18:15)
Wow, wow, the pool is deep. Wow.

Tyler (18:19)
a lot. However, we don't change our process. So when we get a leave replacement

Jack Arend (18:22)
Wow.

Tyler (18:23)
in the middle of the year, someone goes out on leave.

You know, we're gonna get five or six candidates and we keep the process the same because we don't shift the bar. And that's the first part is we wanna make sure that it is repeatable, defensible, and fair and rigorous. Right. So those are important qualities. So we post

Jack Arend (18:39)
Yeah.

Tyler (18:40)
and then we do resume screen. And I think that's pretty common. Every district has their own version of resume screen. And it starts with mindsets. So we do resume screens with school leadership groups, and sometimes we'll even bring admin interns in because we develop leaders at our school.

and a thing that we'll do is we'll look at those resumes and then there's very specific things we look for, but in short, we look for we hire for potential. That's the thing we look for because we believe that when someone's with us, they're gonna be here for a long time. And we believe we have the systems to support them, so we hire for potential. So that's the first thing. Once we've screened resumes, we'll take a pool of about a hundred and we'll screen that down to about 30 candidates or so. And then we'll do

A video interview for 10 minutes, like a video screener. And we'll just ask them two questions. We'll say, tell us about yourself, what's your story, and why Murdy and why now? And the reason we did this is primarily for equity. Like we really believe that there's a lot of things that people learn and don't learn about resumes. And it depends on the privilege and opportunity you have. And so hearing a story from somebody is really powerful. Hearing their why is really powerful. Your why is gonna get you the tough days of teaching.

those doldrums of October, right? The tough days in May. And so the Zoom screener is intended to really figure out your why and your passion. And so those two questions are the the the next step. Yes please.

Jack Arend (20:02)
Can I can I just hop in for just a second? I

love I love this idea of the zoom screener. So 120 people apply for your third grade continuing contract or whatever that is, and you narrow it down to how many are you zoom screening approximately? About thirty. Yeah. And

Tyler (20:16)
About thirty, about about you know, about twenty five percent or so is what we look to do, but it

really is not a a quota or anything like that. It's a it's a thing we look for. Yes. Yes.

Jack Arend (20:24)
Sure, people that kind of rise to that level. Yeah, that makes sense.

here we wanna take a we wanna take look at this person. Like right? We wanna see if they're gonna go to the next round. W can you do you know offhand, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, like really is the question that you ask them what's your story, or what

Tyler (20:41)
Yeah.

Jack Arend (20:41)
what really? And so you're just asking maybe kind of what I did to you. Tell me what got you into this, right?

Tyler (20:50)
Exactly right, Jack. Exactly right.

Jack Arend (20:51)
I l and I love

this why meridian, why now? My two favorite questions always are, why this, why now? So okay, that's great. Sorry to interrupt. I'm just my

Tyler (20:59)
No, that's great.

Jack Arend (21:00)
gosh, I am taking so many notes right now. This is great. Keep going. Keep going.

Tyler (21:04)
Thank you. Thank

you. Yeah, we we're really proud of it. We we've got a team that's refined it over and over over time. We get feedback. So it's good. so yeah, so after the Zoom screener, it you know, we look for the the two things that are a big part of our culture. Do you love have a love for kids? Like we have to see and hear joy working with kids. That's really important. If you absolutely love working with kids, that's a culture fit. and then the second piece is do you geek out about the craft of teaching? So when we hear people talk

Jack Arend (21:29)
Yeah.

Tyler (21:30)
about things that they're listening to or things they're reading and

And if they're up to date on what's happening, you can tell that that's that those are self-improvers, right? We we believe that improvement is really important. So we got to see that within the process. So once we go through those, we then ask ourselves, do we want to see more? Right. And that's the first the question question that we ask at every end of the process. We look at the resume, do we want to see more? Yep, let's do the zoom screener. Do we want to see more? And then we go into the demo lesson. And so that zoom screener typically ends, you know, that video screener is about 15 minutes. It's quick.

It is not

Jack Arend (22:03)
Yeah.

Tyler (22:03)
a long process. It's just to basically get to make it more conversational and kind of remove some of the barriers that are often in the place for teachers who are trying to get jobs. Because in a pool of a hundred people, a a school may only have time to interview five people, right? And what missed opportunities there are there because you might be able to find somebody that you that is unearthed, if you will, just because they didn't have this one thing on their resume or maybe their experience or something.

Jack Arend (22:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (22:33)
So going

into the the next part, the demo, we send an email and we say, hey, here's a standard. This is third grade math, like you said, on the third grade position. And we say, You've got 15 minutes. Here's an exemplar problem from one of our assessments that was low with our data. So we look and see which which items from an item analysis standpoint, which ones our kids are struggling with. And then we say, you know, teach this. You have 15 minutes. Here are the materials that you'll have at your disposal. you design the lesson as you see fit.

And then here are the questions we'll ask you afterward. And then we basically tell them there's gonna be a follow-up coaching session with one of our coaches. And essentially they're gonna debrief, you know, what went well, what they would do differently, and then we're gonna also give them feedback and see how they respond. So that's the the third part of the process.

Jack Arend (23:21)
Wow. So I wanna I wanna can I just dissect that a little bit more? I'm really curious about this. So Meridian has asked Jack to come and do an in-person interview, and I'm gonna I'm gonna teach these third graders this math because I I really like how you're using your own school's data to say this is a something we're grappling with and we really need to improve this for our students. Love that.

I come in, am I going into one of your classrooms or are we bringing kids somewhere else? Like is it just right in a classroom setting?

Tyler (23:56)
Yes, right in a classroom setting. So the candidate comes in. We have students do tours. They're like ambassadors where they give the candidate a tour. They take

Jack Arend (24:04)
Yeah.

Tyler (24:04)
10 minutes to walk, you know, both buildings of the campus, large campus, so they get to see all the buildings.

Jack Arend (24:11)
Yeah.

Tyler (24:11)
they come back and, you know, that's intentional to calm the nerves. We want to make sure that when teachers hang out with kids, like, you know, think about your first day of school. You're nervous the minute kids walk through the door, it's like, I get this is good, this is why I do this, and then things relax.

So we try to make sure that ex candidates are experiencing you stress, right? The positive types of stress that you would have from the recital or the big game or the dance or something like that and not not distress. So that's intentional. We they see the kids, they walk, they do a tour, they come and they sit down, and then I give them some framing. I say, okay, we're really excited to see what you got today. you're gonna do a 20-minute lesson. I sit you down, I intro give you introductions to the entire crew.

I say, and the entire crew leaves to go set up the classroom and give the expectations for the kids. I say, I'll be your timer. When there's five minutes left of your 20-minute time period, I'll throw my hand up in the air and wave it around in the air like I just don't care and show you the five. and then I'll give you a one-minute warning as well. And then after they do their demo lesson, I walk them out. Usually I'm like, that was a great lesson. Nice job. I really love what you did here. And then we give them 10 minutes to silently reflect on the coaching conversation questions.

and those and that's just to process their thoughts. And then they come into the group with our our our panel. And usually this is a panel of both a school leader, like a principal or assistant principal, a developing leader, so somebody that we're doing like admin designee work with because we're building bench depth always. and then there's often a peer that would work with them or potentially a grade level leader. and so we we try to incorporate as many people as possible and we try to rotate some others through as well.

Because not only is it about selecting people for your culture of your school, it's also professional development. So I've had teachers that come into this process that work within our school and they say, like, my gosh, just hearing everybody talk about teaching, I feel like I've learned so much as a teacher. And so that's

Jack Arend (26:07)
Yeah.

Tyler (26:07)
the other piece that's really powerful is a question I always ask myself is like, how can school leaders and the systems and things you build get as much dual or multi-purpose and intentionality out of it?

So we're doing hiring, but we're also doing PD with our teachers during that time because when you take a bunch of sharp instructional minds and they start geeking out about teaching, that's gonna spread. And so

Jack Arend (26:30)
Yeah.

Tyler (26:31)
I think that's the other piece is not only giving the gift of feedback and trying to support the profession, but it's also helping our school get better. So we go through that coaching process and and then we close and we we have a very, very hard conversation afterward to figure out how how do we move forward. So

Jack Arend (26:45)
Yeah.

for the people listening, Tyler has mentioned the coaches. He has a couple coaches, and that might be the next episode that I dig into you, Tyler, about this incredible system of coaching that's happening in your building that I think I I believe was kind of your implementation of all of that. And we can talk about that later. But what what I heard was the a coach will kind of walk them through the reflection process. And I I'm curious.

you talked about the questions that the candidate might be reflecting on after their lesson was, you know, what went well, what would you do better? Do you would you share with us a few more of those questions that they might be reflecting on?

Tyler (27:27)
Absolutely. And I'm gonna give away some of the secrets, but you know, they're secrets. So, but

Jack Arend (27:30)
well don't give away anything.

Tyler (27:33)
you know, the first the first question is just very much like what went well? And actually

Jack Arend (27:38)
Yeah.

Tyler (27:39)
let me step back. The first thing we do is we say, here's what the students said. So we involve students in our process. And so after the candidate leaves and I escort them out and I take them and I set them up with the questions, the other person who's running the process and f helping facilitate, typically, like I said, an instructional leader.

we'll

ask kids what did you love the most about that lesson? And we only ask

Jack Arend (28:00)
Mm.

Tyler (28:00)
that question because we're not, you know, we're we're trying to also make sure that people feel good through the process. And we will give adjusting feedback, but we let our coaches do that. and and the we we we sit down and we said, the kids really loved how you connected with them. Or we said we say something that is feedback from the kids first. So then they sit down and the first question is, you know, what tell us about what went well, right? And then we pay attention to what.

They say, right? We we think about what are the things they're thinking about, what are the things they're looking, what are the pieces of evidence that they're looking for of whether it went well. and then then we we after that we give them feedback. We say, yes, our team believes that this aspect of your lesson was really infect effective and this is why. And we look at their body language, how do they respond to feedback? That's really important. It's the meta-analysis, not just the content of the questions. And then we say, you know, what what

What did what you know, what didn't go as planned or expected? What would you do differently? And then we think about like what are they focusing on? Are they foc focusing on themselves from a locus of control? Or are they focusing on kids? And I think that's a big, big split for us. If someone's focusing on like the process or the kids or something like that, you know, that part is a little bit of a red flag for us. We're looking for people that focus on their internal locus of con or you know, their locus of control.

I could have done this differently. I could have done this differently, because we believe teachers' actions lead to student actions. And so that's that's kind of a look for for us. And is that 100% true? No, right? We know there are things that are outside of our control, but the best thing we can do is focus on what's within our control. So so that's the this the second part of that is asking that. And then we say, What would you teach tomorrow? And what would you do if you were teaching tomorrow's lesson? And then we see, do they implement the feedback we give them? That's a like party bonus, right? And then

We also see like, do they know what's coming next in the kind of logical sequence from a content knowledge standpoint or from the data that they saw? and so that to us tells us a lot. And we have a rubric that that really focuses on what are the look for during this. And while the rubric isn't the end all be-all, like we kind of use that as a way to be informed and to have some common language. we do end in the end with just a zero, one, two, three, or four rating, or really a one, two, three, four reading. And we just say, okay.

A a one is a no, a two is someone that's coachable, a three is someone that raises the average of our team, that's someone we want to hire, that's the bar, and a four is somebody that could be like a finalist in like a teacher of the year type of thing for the ESD or an immediate standout on the team. And then we just have everybody give that number and then we talk about it. and so that's that's our process.

Jack Arend (30:43)
My goodness, you talk about it so smoothly, and it's just such a it appears to be such a well-oiled system, and I can only imagine the hours and hours of work that goes into creating and maintaining a system like this. but it's all for the r the right reasons. I got a couple more questions about these panels of teachers. I'm guessing with the school your size, there are four or five teachers at each grade level, maybe six.

Tyler (31:12)
Spot on Jack. Yep. Four four at fifth grade, five at every other level, and six at kindergarten.

Jack Arend (31:17)
Yeah, okay. So I'm got I I I love third grade, so I'm gonna keep going with the third grade

Tyler (31:22)
She goes.

Jack Arend (31:23)
analogy. It's my favorite grade. if the third grade is opening is there, are is the entire third grade team involved in any part of this process or all of it?

Tyler (31:34)
Holy smokes, that would be amazing, wouldn't it? you know, for us, it's it the access to kids is the most important. And so teachers gotta teach. And so unfortunately, I can't, you know, we don't have the budget, you know, to s

Jack Arend (31:47)
No.

Tyler (31:47)
to sub out an entire grade level. So it's it starts with, like I said, usually a principal, usually or assistant principal, whoever's running the process. we'll put like our early childhood coordinator or like a lap or ML coach.

Kind of we like like at all schools have somebody that's a non-classroom based person. and we'll talk more about that another time about how

Jack Arend (32:08)
Yeah.

Tyler (32:09)
every person that's doing that is doing some form of coaching in our school to to use our resources creatively. and then we'll sub out one or two teammates. and sometimes that we have we're very strong like DeFor model PLC school. So each of our grade teams has a grade level lead. so sometimes we'll bring in the lead or, you know, importantly, if someone's going on a leave and it's planned, we like to

Get their voice because it's their classroom. And I believe they should

Jack Arend (32:34)
Yeah.

Tyler (32:34)
have a say. And I we always have this conversation. We say, listen, as a school leader, it is my job to make the decisions that are in the best interest of the school. 99% of the time it's going to be in your best interest too, but 1% of the time it's not. And so in the end, like I'm the one that's got to make the call when it comes to hiring. And I usually go with the crew and the team. And I just want to make sure I say that before I bring them on to the the the hiring piece because

We

don't have the mindset that I get to pick my successor, right? That's not something that we it's a it's a process. So

Jack Arend (33:02)
Right. Yeah.

Tyler (33:04)
so we say that, but they should still have a say. Absolutely. So usually if someone's going on a leave, if we can anticipate it, we'll we'll involve them in the process as well.

Jack Arend (33:13)
Yeah, that's great. man, what a cool what a cool system. Who and maybe there's no prep needed. I'm wondering who preps the kids? Like, hey, you're gonna have another guest teacher today and maybe it just happens enough in your school that the kids just get it. And I'm wondering what

Tyler (33:27)
Yeah.

Jack Arend (33:27)
that prep looks like for ki ki kindergarten. I had a

hard time spitting this word out.

Tyler (33:30)
Yeah, it it

basically it's we're gonna have a guest teacher. They're gonna come in and they're gonna teach in our school. We believe it's important the kids have input on the process. And so what we do is we say to kindergartners, you're gonna tell us what you like about this teacher. And they're a guest teacher, and we're gonna treat them like any other guest teacher in our building. and then afterward you're done with the lesson, we're gonna ask you questions. And we just keep it simple. Like keep things keep things simple. And to

Jack Arend (33:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (33:56)
me, like this process, I know it sounds complicated, but it, you know.

It's it's actually quite simple. It's just let's let's do what we do every day. Let's get in there, let's let's teach the babies, let's talk about teaching afterward, and let's really just

Jack Arend (34:07)
Yeah.

Tyler (34:08)
enjoy this process. So while there might be a lot of kind of intricacies and nuances to the system, it you know, a lot of folks when I tell them about it, they think, my gosh, how did you do that? Like union contracts and legal stuff and all these things. And it was actually quite simple. It just makes sense, right? When

Jack Arend (34:25)
Yeah.

Tyler (34:25)
you're hiring people for being great teachers, let's see them teach.

Jack Arend (34:29)
Yeah. one more kid question. So the kid or kids that take the teacher on a tour. which I love. And I think there's nothing more fun than to see a student very proud of their school walking an adult around and I just love that. Because I love to see what those kids show as a highlight, you know? I I just love that. are those kids then reporting back, hey, here's what we talked about, or like

Tyler (34:55)
Not as much.

That might be an opportunity. That's a good that's a good word there, Jack. you know, I think right now it's just like, hey, you've got ten minutes, show show all aspects of the school and take down and we

Jack Arend (35:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (35:05)
kind of have pre setup track that they go through. But that that would

Jack Arend (35:08)
Yeah, yeah.

Tyler (35:09)
be interesting to see. You know, it's tough because there's no adult with them, so I try to not like, you know,

Jack Arend (35:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (35:15)
hold anything against a candidate for what's happening when the other adults are around. But like, yeah, it's yeah. That's a good

Jack Arend (35:19)
That's fair. Yeah.

great. So what a what a cool, what a cool system. And I'm sure people listening to this, gosh, if you want to know more about this whole hiring process, reach out. I mean, we can connect you with Tyler and anyway. But I there's I'm not done yet with some questions. W how big of a sell was this to your HR department? Well well, let me back up.

Tyler (35:41)
Yeah.

Jack Arend (35:41)
Are the middle and high school doing this yet?

Tyler (35:43)
Yeah, the middle school's doing it right now. I know the high school has dabbled with it, so I think it's a work in

Jack Arend (35:45)
Okay. Okay.

Tyler (35:48)
progress. but yeah, our middle school does it every time. And in fact, this is the power of leaders connecting, is that not only did the middle school kind of copy it and make their own version of it, they started doing it with hiring of pareducators as well. So then there's

Jack Arend (36:04)
Fan. Yes.

Tyler (36:05)
like, hey, so Robert Kratzig is the principal at our middle school.

Jack Arend (36:09)
Yeah.

Tyler (36:09)
Him

and Jill Hammock, the assistant principal who used to do the process with us because she did her admin internship at our school before. It ended

Jack Arend (36:16)
Okay.

Tyler (36:16)
up creating this cross-pollination. So they started doing the process. And in fact, we invited Robert to come see it because we're like, hey, this is a really powerful tool. Come check it out. And he sat in on one and started doing it at his middle his middle school that he was the principal at. And so then they

Jack Arend (36:32)
Yeah.

Tyler (36:32)
started doing the para stuff. And then I'm like, okay, tell me what you're doing with the para, you know, demo, lesson higher process. So

What you're seeing is you're seeing that iron sharpens iron concept, right? Of like when someone does an effective practice, you spread it and then it spreads and it gets better and then it gets comes back to you even better than when than you had it when you originally, you know, founded it. and I think that's the other piece that I would really emphasize for a lot of school leaders is like share your effective practices because not only are you gonna help kids that because we're in the business of serving kids regardless of what school we're at, right?

But it's also gonna come back to you and help your school too. It's gonna make you better by sharing practices, that vulnerability. So and I think that's a that's that's an example of something that we're like, huh, we need to find a way to do that because seeing people interact with kids is magical. And you can tell when someone's got it. They can tell you they love kids, but when you see someone interact, there's no substitute for watching it.

Jack Arend (37:23)
Yeah, I and that really just goes so directly right back to the statement you said when you first started explaining this process is that you hire for potential. And I love that you mentioned, and I'm sure everybody listening can picture this for interviews. You can kind of tell when someone has got it or or gets it. I had a HR director that told me we hire the heart and we train the brain.

which I loved. I thought that was so great, especially as a high school teacher moving to an elementary school to be the the leader there, and all of a sudden realizing every teacher at every level has their own version of magic. But that elementary thing is pretty remarkable as we are sparking, as you said earlier, the love for learning. But there's nothing more magical than watching a kid learn how to read. and it's just it's amazing. So I just really appreciate how you've explained this process. And and so let me

Now I'm gonna go, I'm gonna ask questions about you and your leadership about the hiring process. What have you learned as you've implemented this system in your building and it's maybe catching, catching on at the middle and eventually the high school level? You obviously had to do a lot of negotiating with HR or explaining what this is. You had to fit it within a budget, you had to do all these things, but Tyler, what have you learned about your leadership through this process?

Tyler (38:50)
I

think there's two or three things is one is one is teach and insist. So sometimes when we have ideas about something that we think can have a substantial impact on our school, we can kind of get you know dissuaded or you know at a blocker with potential constraints. And so

At least if there's one thing that I know, it's like be creative. Like find ways to be creative. Don't think about just because we've done things the way we've done them before, we still have to continue to do them the same. So while this helps in a lot of ways, it can also be a a risk, but just I question things. Like, why do we do this this way? Like, talk to me about this. so I have to be careful there, right? I don't want to step on toes when I question everything. but that's the one thing, be creative. And I think that was one big leadership lesson. go slow to go fast.

That was a hard one for me and I've gotten better at that. But one of the things that we did when we first launched this process, I went to our, you know, our assistant superintendent who focuses in the HR in our district. It's a small district, so he kind of has a wears many hats. And I said, Hey, I know this is legal. Let me explain this process. It's defensible, it's fair, it's rigorous, it's consistent. We would do it with everybody, it follows all the laws. It's just gonna be different. I would love you to be a part of it. Could we try it out? Let me tell you what my plan is.

This is what I believe the impact is gonna be. And I ha he came in and he was a part of the process and he watched it. And what was beautiful about it was to hear the people who were part of it talk about the process for the first time, not me. So what sold him really on it was everyone being like, my gosh, like this is so much better than the classic interview process. And we weren't trying to disrespect it at all, but it just was improvement. And you could tell the person we hired, it was for PE.

And the kids like he was like a p kid magnet and you would never have seen that in an interview. And the kids just like came to him. There was an energy and you just saw the kid magnetism about this person. And it was just unanimous. Everyone knew that person was the best person for the job. And he's been incredible since. And I think that was powerful. And then the last thing I think is trust is really important. And what I learned is when you develop a rigorous process for hiring, you bake in trust.

for that person who's being hired. They now know that that process is so rigorous that and it's public and that it's with kids, right? They know that when they get the job, that person who got the job got the job because they earned it, not because it was, you know, the hockey team that Tyler plays on with you or the church you go to. There's no question, there's no

Jack Arend (41:30)
Right. Right.

Tyler (41:31)
question that that person deserved that job.

And

so I think that's the other part too is when you develop these rigorous processes that are very public and open and transparent, it builds stronger school culture of trust.

Jack Arend (41:46)
Did you, God, I'm just thinking, I have so many questions. Did you experience any pushback, any barriers that you had to work through?

Tyler (41:55)
You would think Jack, but it was actually not a lot of pushback. It was it just was

Jack Arend (41:59)
good, good, good.

Tyler (42:00)
it was I was I think there's two pieces to it, I think very lucky and fortunate to work in the district I I work in in terms of the support.

Jack Arend (42:06)
Yes.

Tyler (42:07)
so that's number one. And number two is the process just made sense. It just made sense. So I think to me

Jack Arend (42:13)
Yeah.

Tyler (42:13)
that that simplicity of common sense really I think is a piece that allowed it to go a lot smoother than what we had anticipated.

Jack Arend (42:21)
Yeah. You know, a a quote that I love by Alyssa Gallagher. She's the BTS Spark Executive Coaching North American, I don't know, CEO, global leader. She's phenomenal. She does some webinars for with us at AWS P and what one of the things she said at our last session was, school leaders, stop waiting for permission to be problem solvers.

Just stop waiting because we are so busy in sometimes the managerial positions we think that a a massive idea like yours, which would solve a problem of a very what's the word I'm like a predictable interview process.

That's so in it that you didn't wait, you developed something and then presented and just kept going. So I love that. Stop waiting for permission to be a problem solver. You were hired to lead. Now let's use your common sense and lead. And

Tyler (43:13)
Yes.

Jack Arend (43:13)
the other piece of that that I'm just really tuned into from our conversation is you're not doing this alone. Sometimes we can silo ourselves as leaders, especially at the elementary level. Not the size of yours, but many elementary leaders are it in the building. And

But sh this job shouldn't be lonely. We got

Tyler (43:32)
No.

Jack Arend (43:33)
things like we can listen to a podcast, we can hop on an AWSP leadership network. We can we can there's so many things we can do. we just have to make the choice to do them, which is helping solve a problem like I need I need a thought partner. Right. So that that's that's fantastic.

Tyler (43:49)
You know, now now

that you say that, Jack, I think a thing to add is, you know, I our school in the lat you know, my I did my entry plan my first year five years ago. And I went through and just listened and interviewed everybody and tell me about yourself, what's your story, same kind of stuff, get to know people. And one person came up and said, You know, you're the you're the seventeenth principal that I've had in the last thirty years.

And and I go, Huh, okay. And so then you know the human nature, I'm like, this job is hard.

And you're

Jack Arend (44:18)
Okay.

Tyler (44:19)
hearing you're hearing about a lot of school leaders struggling with, you know, the longevity of their careers. And I think

Jack Arend (44:24)
Yeah.

Tyler (44:25)
that's another leadership lesson is not only teach and insist, but engage your lifelines. And I think a thing that we've done is connecting with other school leaders. We are all always reaching out as a school leadership team in Meridian of like, let's go visit other schools, let's connect with other people. The other piece is that since we're building our bench depth.

You know, you can start to, you know, not that you're tapping people on the shoulder totally, but you're trying to create as many potential school leaders in the in the in the network of in the bench depth of our school. and so I think that's really important too, because what happens is I feel like my cup is filled and I get support with that thought partnership. And so

You know, it was, you know, a woman named Jill Hammock, who's now the assistant principal, which she's the person that I met and co-designed. And now it's Rebecca Kratzig and Holly Lee who are now assistant principals. It's Natalie Eining. It's like all these people that I work with are the backbone of our school in developing these systems and providing input and the teachers as well. Cause we ask feedback from teachers about this process to sharpen

Jack Arend (45:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (45:25)
it too. So to me, that's that's a good leadership lesson there.

Jack Arend (45:30)
Whew. so good. I said at the beginning of the this our talk, this whole series is about connecting great leadership moves, leadership impact to the framework. And so for people that are listening, I don't know if you're in your car or you're on your morning walk or your whatever that is that you're doing, I'm struggling to find a criterion this doesn't fit in. This whole idea of hiring.

Tyler (45:53)
Good.

Jack Arend (45:54)
I mean, but let's be honest, I we heard from Tyler they use their own school data.

To do this, well, there's criterion three, right? it's the culture of the building. Okay, you know Jack's favorite thing. Culture is what the leader allows. That's my favorite quote. Thank you, Lacey Griffiths, for that quote. And that's we heard over and over in your answers, Tyler, that the culture of the building. Teachers talk about teaching. It's just fantastic. Then I think about managing your resources. Holy cow, yes.

Hiring a teacher is expensive and we don't want to be doing it all the time for the same position. We want to invest in that teacher, which this process does. It's improving instruction, right? Wow, it's just amazing. And ultimately, then what are we all trying to do is close the gap. So I just listed off six of the eight criteria, and I'm sure that the other two are in there as well. But this is such a wonderful example about how one idea.

One innovative idea, how can we switch up our hiring to have more of an impact and to really know we're hiring the right person is a leadership move that crosses all criteria. And I know as leaders, we don't do our jobs practicing at the top of our certificate to get boxes checked in our evaluation. However,

In our state, with this framework that was written by school leaders, how cool is that? That we can say, my work is all over that. And so for you principals and assistant principals listening and any principal supervisors out there, don't be humble with your evaluation. Each one of everybody's doing cool stuff, right? You just heard some really cool stuff from Tyler and the meridian magic that is sprinkled all over there up by Canada. but what are you doing that's magical?

And how can you connect that to multiple criterion? And then, folks, it's about how we share our impact. It's how we share that. it's not boasting, it's saying we're working hard for kids, and here's what I've done. I love that. I got one more question. Are you up for it? Okay.

Tyler (48:07)
Absolutely, Jack. Shoot.

Jack Arend (48:09)
Tyler, if you could offer one piece of leadership advice to other principals and assistant principals listening today, what would it be?

Tyler (48:17)
Build

your team.

Jack Arend (48:19)
Ooh, say more.

Tyler (48:21)
I've I've heard once from the the great Jack Arend that the smartest person in the room is the room. and I think that you are you are going to make yourself better by putting people who are better than you around you. And I think that I've been very fortunate to have some really amazing people around me to give me feedback and help me get better. And so the part is, you know, school leadership, there's some ego to it, always.

Right. Like you have to have some level of like, I think I can do this. Right. however, you have to suspend that ego to be able to recognize that it's important to have people that are better than you around you. And I think I'm very fortunate to have really amazing people to work with that make me better. And so I'd say that's number one.

Jack Arend (49:05)
Build your team. I love that. Build your team. In a last year's summer conference, the thing was better together. And we are all better when we just hold hands and do this work together, right? That's so, so good. Well, I have pages of notes about engage your lifelines and hire for potential and use your own data and find ways to be creative. And the one that's really top my list is the culture of the school drips from the walls. And if you're listening, folks.

And you walk down your hallway today, think about that. What are the walls telling ya? Because that's the culture. Thank you for that. That's a gym, Tyler Dockins. That is a gym. I can't thank you enough for carving out time from your busy Irene Reither community. I don't know, people listening are maybe they're feeling like I do. I just wanna, like I said earlier, hop in the car and get up there and see that. Don't be surprised. There's a little knock knock on the door, Tyler.

Tyler (50:03)
Come by any time, Jack. I appreciate it. Thank

you so much.

Jack Arend (50:05)
Thank you.

Thank you for your leadership. And folks, reach out. Reach out. Thank you. What a great what a great episode as we kind of wrap up another episode of the principal podcast, A Matter of Principals and talking with great leaders across our state. Tyler, thank you.

Tyler (50:23)
Thank you, Jack. I appreciate you having me.