Jethro Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principle, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.
I am your host, Jethro Jones.
You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.
Welcome to Transformative Principal.
I am so excited to have Dr.
Lane Dillard on the program today.
She is dedicated over 27 years to transforming schools and empowering leaders to create environments where students thrive.
She was principal for 18 years and she led a high poverty school from an F to a B on the state report card earning recognition as A-C-L-A-S, banner School, and a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence.
And here's the real kicker.
Under her leadership, all third graders at her school achieved 100% proficiency in reading on state assessments.
And as we've talked about many times on this show, if kids can read, that's the gateway to all other learnings.
So it is very.
Worthwhile for that to be one of the goals.
Uh, she is a passionate speaker who loves motivating districts, schools, and educators to be the absolute best they can every single day.
And right now she spends her days, uh, as the edu educational Administrator in the Office of School Improvement with the Alabama State Department of Education.
So Lane, welcome to Transformative Principal.
Great to have you
Dr. Layne Dillard: Thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here with you today, Jethro.
I love your podcast, so super
excited to be a guest.
Jethro Jones: I am honored and it means the world to me.
Every time I can talk to somebody who actually knows what my podcast is, even though it's been around for so long.
I feel like, uh, every time I talk to someone, I'm like, oh, you know about it.
That's great.
Uh, because I've put a lot of energy and effort
into this.
So, um, tell me first about this idea of, uh, having a hundred percent of your third graders proficient on a reading.
I
mean, that just seems, uh, unreal.
Dr. Layne Dillard: You know, um, it was our big goal.
I mean, it was a goal that, I'm gonna be honest, like I love to cast a vision.
I think as a leader you've really gotta cast this vision.
You got people to believe that it can happen.
I.
But I'm gonna be honest with you, this is one that I cast and was just hoping that maybe that if I set that bar really high, we might come close, you know?
But I was like, if I set it at like, oh, 90%, I don't wanna do that.
I don't wanna say we want every single child.
And the school that I was leading, we were 92% poverty and um, we had a really high special ed population as well.
That class actually was 37% sped, about 11% el.
And so.
Yeah.
Yeah, we had a really high number in that grade level.
And so we had been, you know, this was, this was our goal.
This is something that we wanted to do.
Um, but you also have to remember, we had a pandemic in the midst of this.
And so this was, this third grade group was actually the group that were kindergartners.
During that time.
So they came through a odd first grade.
You know, part kindergarten got messed up anyway.
First grade was strange.
Second grade wasn't great.
You know, was second grade was just trying to get them to learn how to actually function together because they had been so socially distanced and things.
So this was a big deal for us.
But I'm gonna tell you, I think that thing that I think is the most rewarding about that is that.
We realize that we just changed lives.
I mean, when you think that you can read at grade level, at third grade, what we have just done is shifted the trajectory.
When you look at, you know, um, like generational poverty and just it's things like that.
A lot of times this child may be the only person in the house that can actually read.
I mean, when you look at just, they may be in an EL situation where they're the only person that could read English in their house, and we've just shifted everything.
And so it was so important to us because.
We just like, if, if we wanna make a difference in these kids' lives, they got to be able to do this.
And so there were seven schools in the state that, that accomplished that.
And I cannot tell you how excited we were when we realized we were one of those seven because we don't match up with most of those other schools that pulled that off.
We don't have the same kind of demographic.
And so it was super important and it, it was, it was really, it's just like I said, um, just because we know we change lives.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
That's, that's awesome.
And, and that really does change lives because it makes it possible for kids to do anything else and.
It removes those generational barriers of, of anything that could be preventing them and, and opens the door for their success.
And I think that's really amazing.
So tell me about how you actually did that
though, because it, it's easy to look back and be like, yeah, we did that.
That's great.
But you know, how did you do it?
Lots of obstacles obviously, but what frameworks and systems did you have in place to make that happen?
Dr. Layne Dillard: So one of the things that we did, so when I first came to, um, the school, we had an, um, after I had been there a year when the first State report card came out and we had a 51 on the state report card.
So that's terrible.
I mean, that, that's an f And we were already working really hard when we had that f It's not like we weren't working hard.
I mean, we were, but we realized, hey, we gotta figure something out.
Because I'm seeing a shift in the culture.
Uh, I'm seeing a shift in some things, but we're not getting enough change.
And what they're doing academically to feel like it's gonna be fast enough and so to, to be able to pull something off where we can get change.
So first of all, we just created urgency around why are we doing this?
Like, what is at the heart of why we're doing this?
It can't be the f.
It can't be a score.
Um, scores are results of things, but they're not your why.
You know?
I mean, it can't be your why.
Our why had to be that we really wanted to give these kids every opportunity they could to be successful.
If that's the case, what are we gonna have to do?
Well, we're gonna have to do things that are hard for adults and right for kids.
And so, um, basically we started with, you know, we've got to have tier one at grade level.
End of sentence.
How do you do that though, when you're at a school with an F, like, and the teachers are like, but they're like three grade levels behind.
We don't, we don't know how to do that.
And so, honestly, even now going in and working with schools that you know are priority schools or you know, that can have some struggles, we do with the exact same thing.
And I say, guys, this is the problem.
Tier one's gotta be at grade level, but how do you get to grade level if you don't?
If they can't do grade level, um, and I just say this, then you're gonna have to shift your schedule.
You're gonna have to find ways to do this so that you can teach at grade level.
One of the things I find in most places is that when we're struggling, and this is what we were doing when we were struggling, I.
Those third graders weren't seeing third grade content content, they were still seeing second grade content or first grade content.
How can we expect them to be proficient if they've never seen it at the level that they're going to have to be able to perform at?
So we made a commitment to that, that we're gonna shift our schedule so that we will teach grade level in tier one.
And that was a big shift for us.
So that was one shift.
One was the commitment to grade level teaching in tier one.
Jethro Jones: Okay, so why does that matter so much though that they see that grade level content go, go into the the reasons why
that matters?
Because people may be like, yeah, I get that, but if they're gonna fail every time they're exposed to it, then they're just gonna struggle continually.
So why?
Why make that a priority?
Dr. Layne Dillard: if they've never seen it, I can promise you they can't do it.
And so if we don't, we have, it's kind of like compounding interest.
So every year they don't see grade level.
The next year they're more, they're further behind than they were because now that fourth grade teacher's gonna get them and go, I.
Now they don't know third grade level.
We're not sure they know second grade level.
And then the fourth grade teacher's going, well, I'm gonna teach down.
And every year we get this cyclical problem.
I think it starts out where you think, oh, I'm just gonna fill in some skill gaps from last year.
Then you never get to this year, you know?
And so you've gotta have that commitment to how we gotta know where our kids are.
We've gotta start looking at data, like blood work and stop looking at it personally.
We've gotta start looking at it like, what are we doing right?
And what are we doing that we need to change?
Um, and it's not personal, it's just, it's just, it is what it is.
And so we started literally looking at each piece where we could, we could get down to that little nitty gritty and say.
Okay, these are our kids who can't do this.
These are our kids who can't do this.
These are our ones who can.
And instead of trying in every room to fix that, we started taking those kids that had common issues and putting them together for a portion of the day, like for 30 minutes every day.
Well, now I can cross grade levels, you know?
Now I can fill gaps across a grade level span.
And I'm not just looking at one teacher trying to figure out how am I gonna do this in my classroom?
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
'cause it's nearly impossible when you've got five different groups of kids for you as the teacher to meet all of their individual needs and, and that's the reality.
So you said something that you, that you, you probably say many times, look at data like
blood work, not like personal data.
What does that mean to
Dr. Layne Dillard: what it means to me is.
Data can feel like we're blaming people for things.
Um, data can feel, I, I think data can be used like a weapon and when it is, teachers are not embracing it.
I mean, no one is, you know, but when we look at it like this is feedback, this is just feedback on how we're doing what we're doing and are our kids learning.
So we look, I look at blood work like feedback.
I go get my blood work done.
I don't want my doctor to say.
I didn't wanna hurt her feelings, so I just didn't tell her this, you know, no, please tell me what I need to do.
Now I may not do it, but that's on me, you know?
Um, but I need you to tell me the truth so that we can come up with a plan.
And so that was the way we approached data.
It was never, and you know, I sometimes, we'll.
Even still going to a school.
I was in a school not long ago and I heard an administrator say, this is not all your fault.
I'm thinking, oh, I mean talking to teachers, it's my fault too.
She said, oh, I know that sound made her feel better.
'cause she said, Hey, it's not just your fault.
It's my fault too.
How about this?
It's nobody's fault.
It is what it is.
I mean, like who knows who's fault it is.
I mean, if we're gonna start doing like, whose fault is it?
We gotta go all the way back to birth.
I mean like, I dunno whose fault this is.
It doesn't matter whose fault it is.
How about this?
We're just gonna look at this like it's not a fault.
It's not a blame.
It is literally what do we need to do to get this better?
And not only that, you've got kids that even in a struggling environment, are doing well.
I mean, so you don't need to do this same, you need to take those and we need to be pushing those kids.
You cannot just focus on the kids that are struggling.
You've gotta take those kids that are at grade level or above, and you may not even have many, or you may have more than you think you do.
Depends on how you're using your data and say, Hey, you know what?
I'm pushing you even further.
And so everybody's moving.
It's not just interventions, it's true differentiation, like in my opinion, true differentiation is I'm taking this standard.
I'm helping you below, or I'm pushing you beyond, but I'm not watering things down or making it harder.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I'm actually like spiraling to different parts within it.
So that's what I mean by the blood work piece.
It's just not personal.
We've got to look at what we can do to fix things or make it, or, or, or continue doing what we're doing.
Jethro Jones: Yeah, I, I really like that and I think it's an appropriate way to look at it.
And the other aspect of that is that when you, when you see kids who are, are.
Down below where they should be.
It's, it's really easy for you to, uh, to, to make excuses or to say, this is why these things aren't happening.
But more important than that is when you are okay with it, you can start adjusting how you're doing things so that you are taking.
You, you're taking the kids out of a environment where they're not going to succeed and you're putting them in a place where they can succeed.
And, and when you're teaching, when tier one is at grade level, then you can say, here are the gaps.
And we can identify 'em and know who is missing what, and then we can put kids in the right place to get that support.
And it.
It's all hands on
deck.
You know it, it's not like, okay, here's our third graders.
All right, third grade team.
You're the only ones who are allowed to work with
these kids.
That is so crazy.
Why don't we put the kids who need help with the person who is best positioned to actually help them and, and maybe it's a first grade skill.
We go put 'em with the first grade teacher and give them.
That exposure, again, on a very specific thing, you can actually then tell how well they are achieving that specific thing or not.
And, and, and, and talk a little bit more about that and what your experience with that has been.
Dr. Layne Dillard: So, you know, one of the things that I would hear is, well, when you put like a, 'cause I was at that time, um, in a a K six, pre-K six environment.
So we went through sixth grade.
Um, what happens when you put a, a.
Third, a fourth grader and a sixth grader together.
Or a third grader.
And a first grader together.
I mean, how does this work?
Do they think I, I said, well, let me tell you what is interesting about this.
When you view teaching like we're teaching a skill and not like it's remediation.
You've gotta think for a minute.
I've got a kid who is a first grader who may have just jumped into a third grade world, like with, with third graders.
Those third graders may be behind, but they're with this super smart first grader.
These kids just think I'm in the smart group.
I mean, they don't even know.
They just, they cannot figure out because you've got the highs in one group with the lows of another.
But when we crisscross things and we start shifting.
It starts blending together.
So for one, it's, it's acceleration while at the exact same time for the other, it's remediation.
So it's no longer I'm just helping these kids who can't do this.
It we're intervening at their level.
Stop thinking of intervention as intervention brings somebody up.
I mean, like it's behind.
Intervention may be intervening to make you even better, you know?
So, I mean, intervention can be both sides.
Jethro Jones: Yeah, and and I appreciate that approach also because that is.
That is a very powerful way for everybody because then you're not cutting anybody out.
You're not making people feel dumb.
And I, I was in a school where we had, uh, kids who, who we had an afterschool program and the afterschool program and the summer school program was for the kids who were behind
grade level.
So these kids got told all day long, you're dumb.
And then we had 'em stay after school and they got told they were dumb again.
And then we had 'em come in the summer where they got told they were dumb again.
They don't
wanna succeed.
They don't want to progress.
They don't believe that they can because we've set them up for failure in that approach.
And, and it's not helpful to anybody.
And it is just, it is only destructive.
And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be that way.
And that's, that's an area where.
You know, if, if you're like, all right, these kids don't know how to do phonemic segmentation, anybody who doesn't know how to do phonemic segmentation is getting this support, whether they are in kindergarten or they're in sixth grade or even 12th grade.
This is the process that we're going through to help them, that is incredibly worthwhile and valuable to support them in that discreet skill, and, and there's no shame involved in that because.
It doesn't matter when you don't know how to do that.
When you don't know how to do that, then you need to learn
and it can be direct,
Dr. Layne Dillard: Yeah.
And especially like when you start looking at math, math is so interesting.
I mean, it's such a different process than reading, uh, in my opinion.
Now I've got an ELA background, actually, I'm secondary by trade, so I taught high school, middle school.
I mean, that's, that's what I did.
And, but I, and I've led that level, but I've led elementary too.
And I absolutely love leading elementary, but I can tell you.
Math is just different.
Uh, math has these skills that if I fill one gap, I may have then filled a hole that that allowed me to jump up three or four notches.
Like if they just don't understand fractions and how to manipulate fractions.
Think about how that's affecting algebra and how it's affecting geometry and how it affects all of our upper level, upper level maths when it's a low level math skill.
But I'm gonna tell you, if we don't go back and fix that, if that does not get addressed, that child is going to struggle all the way through high math when all they really may have been missing was one skill.
So when we can find those skills, it's, I say it's like magic, but it kind of is.
It's like, oh my goodness, we filled a gap and it filled four other gaps.
I mean, it, it's just amazing.
And so when you can get to that real granular level.
But you've gotta know your data to do that, you've gotta really know your kid.
You've got to look at this stuff, and you're gonna have to sit down and go, okay, who is it that's missing this skill?
And then you've gotta have that time to, you've gotta figure out how, how, how to do this.
And so, um, small schools, it looks one way.
Large schools, it looks another, but everybody can do it.
It's just gonna, like, I just say, it's kinda like a skeleton, you know, like if you, if you find a skeleton, we can't tell who it is.
I mean, they, it, I mean they all kind of look the same, but when you flesh them out, they look different.
There's a skeleton to this and that skeleton's gonna look the same.
You know, like, I mean, so now you flesh it out for, do you have 14 sections of fourth grade or do you have one section of fourth grade?
I mean, it doesn't matter.
You've gotta flesh that thing out for what works for your school.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Boy, I, I love that analogy of your data's like skeleton that really, uh.
We all share that it's the same between all of us.
And once those building blocks are in place, then, then we can add in the unique features on top of that.
I like that.
I've never heard of it that way.
So that's, that's good.
Um, alright, so surely there must have been more than just looking at your why and having tier one at grade level.
What else went into this?
Dr. Layne Dillard: I'm gonna tell you that, um, just turning the school around, you know, going from an F to a B is a journey.
And you know, we were talking a while ago just about, you know, um, you said, you know, really you were talking about ownership.
I mean, you know, everybody has to own this.
And so that was one of our collective things is if we wanna turn this around, I think we're gonna have to all own this place.
We're gonna have to own our success, and we're gonna have to own our failure.
We're gonna have to just own it.
And you know, I hear a lot of people talk about buy-in and I'm like, I really don't want buy-in.
I don't want you to rent.
I want you to own, I mean, I want you to say, this is mine.
Okay.
This is, everyone owns this.
So we bought into that ownership piece of that.
Um, the vision was a big piece of it.
Um, but I'm gonna say engaged instruction, really engaging students in instruction, not just.
That ritualistic engagement where they're sitting there, but really saying, we are going to commit to what does good instruction look like?
What does high quality instruction look like?
How can we engage our students and um, and how can we have them in these lessons so that.
Our goal every day and we would, you know, I wanna know what you're gonna do today that makes them where they cannot wait to get back tomorrow.
And so that fixes attendance.
You know, we start changing attendance when they can't wait to come back to school because they're loving what we're doing.
So we really made these commitments to just high quality lessons and high quality engagement and um, and helping each other.
So we had this very open door policy at school.
Like if I have a teacher who's fantastic at teaching math, I want everybody.
To be able to go in and watch her teach math.
You know, I'm gonna find my bright spots in this building and we're gonna replicate those bright spots.
Um, yeah, and that's, that's literally like, what, what, what we did.
And then not only would they go watch this teacher teach, I would say, okay, here's what I want you to do.
I want you to plan, I want this teacher to come teach your math class
so that, because sometimes we think.
Well, it looks like that in their class, but that's not what my kids act like, you know, that's not what my kids are like.
But when you see them bring that same lesson into that other room, you realize, hey, this does work.
You know, what they're doing actually works.
So just really just being collective and owning and it never, never feeling like somebody was the queen bee.
There's no queen bees here we are, we're all on the same team.
We all wear a jersey.
Um, and we're all here for the same reason.
And that's so that every single kid here.
Can reach their absolute full potential regardless of what barriers they have.
And I'm just gonna tell you, they bought into it.
And when they bought into it, they owned it.
And that's what I was waiting on, is I want you to own this thing, own this process.
And so that was really the next piece was just the instructional piece, like the engaged instruction.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Well, and that's exactly what has to happen is they, they have to see that they are.
Part of the solution, even if they don't see that they're part of the problem, you know?
And, and if they can recognize that, if they can see I have an impact here, then they can make amazing things happen.
But if they feel like it's outta their hands or out of their control, or, you know, we can't fight this generational poverty, there's just, you know, no way to overcome it.
It, uh, it just makes it really difficult for us to, um, to do that.
And so, you know, I, I love that approach of, of having everybody know that they are part of the same team.
We're all together and, you know, we, we, do this together.
And like, even if one of us is great, we still have to be, we have to be awesome, uh, each one of us and, and, and do it together.
And yeah, I think that's really powerful.
So my last question is what, what is, we've talked about a lot of stuff and we didn't even barely scratch the surface.
That's, that's the nature of short podcasts.
Right?
Um, so what is one thing that someone can do this week to be a Transformative leader like you Lane.
Dr. Layne Dillard: I didn't even get into culture really.
I mean, I guess everything I mentioned was culture, because
it is a culture.
It is culture.
but but I'm just gonna say this.
Um, I think the one thing that they could do, if, if there was one thing I could say today, do this or tomorrow do this, get a clipboard out and go down your halls.
And, and, and I don't want it to be in an evaluative way.
I don't want, you're not evaluating.
I want you to look for everything in your building that's going right.
Because we tend to look at things that go wrong.
It is just the nature.
We, we just go, well, that's not right.
And that, um, I mean, we see those things, but I really want you to walk down those halls and really just be like authentic about, just, just be authentic and go out there and say, I'm going to find everything that's right.
And when you go down there, go with that clipboard and everything you saw, that was good.
Write it down and then I want you to celebrate it.
Even if it is the tiniest thing, like even if it's small.
'cause I'm gonna tell you when you're struggling, when we had that 51, I had to stretch to find things for us to celebrate.
But there are always things to celebrate, you know?
I mean, there are, and I don't mean celebrate, I don't mean having a party.
I mean, send them an email, send them a text.
Literally.
I want you to know I walked by your room today and I was so excited when I saw this.
Now that's that personal piece.
That you do with the teacher and they need to get that from you.
Um, that's the personal thing you're gonna do with the custodian when you say, you're making our school look so great.
Thank you so much for the time you spent.
When I walk in, you're, you're our first impression.
You know, they need that personal, but they also need to hear it said out loud.
Other people need to hear that.
And I think when you start doing those things, when you start looking for what's going right, you can start replicating good things and then you've just created that as the incentive.
Why do I wanna do this?
Because it's making the school better, you know?
And when you see kids doing things that are right, that same thing for them, you know, like we're not just looking for the adults, what they're doing well in the building, we're looking for the kids too.
So I would just say get outta clipboard and look for the things that are going right and celebrate that stuff.
Jethro Jones: Oh, I love it.
I think that's so good.
Literally getting out a clipboard and writing down the things, uh, would be huge.
And so if you have not done that, get out there and do it.
That is totally a worthwhile thing to do, and hopefully I.
You fill out multiple pages, and if you don't, wherever you're at, go notice, recognize, acknowledge, and and move on with that.
That's great.
Uh, Elaine, how should people get in touch with you and learn more about the work you do?
Dr. Layne Dillard: Um, well, they can, um, reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I'm pretty active on there.
I do, um, put a lot of, I try to put articles out and things that might actually help principals and leaders.
So I'm there also.
Um, my website is Lane, L-A-Y-N-E.
Have a y in my name, uh, lane Dillard, uh, uh.com so they can find me there too.
So Lane dot, I'm sorry.
Yeah, lane dealer.com.
Sometimes it's just Lane Dillard and I can't remember which one it is, but I think that's it.
So yeah, those are great ways.
To reach
Jethro Jones: Uh, lane dillard.com is the right website.
Um, so, uh, please do check her out.
Uh, I've got links to all of her, uh, information, including the lead framework article on LinkedIn, which is fantastic.
You should definitely go read it.
Um, you can find those show notes at Transformative principle.org.
And Lane.
Thank you so much for being part of Transformative
Dr. Layne Dillard: Thank you for asking me.
I had a ball.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jethro.