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In this episode of Moves Leaders Make, hosts Penny Kittle and Elaine Millen talk with Katy Inman, a school leader at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Founded by Nancie Atwell, the school is known for its deep commitment to reading, writing, and student-centered learning.
Katy shares how intentional rituals, shared faculty values, extended work time, and student-led portfolio conferences shape a culture where children feel seen, capable, and motivated. From daily morning meetings to goal-setting conferences beginning in kindergarten, this conversation explores how small structural moves create a school environment grounded in purpose, agency, and joy.
GUEST
Katy Inman — School leader at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• How daily morning meetings create belonging and shared purpose.
• Why faculty-selected annual values anchor school culture.
• The importance of long, uninterrupted work blocks for meaningful learning.
• How student goal-setting and portfolio conferences build ownership from kindergarten on.
• Moving away from grades toward narrative feedback and growth reflection.
• Designing a school intentionally small to function as a learning laboratory.
• Creating systems that welcome visiting educators to learn from practice.
BOOKS & REFERENCE
• Stoner by John Williams
• Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Katy shares how intentional rituals, shared faculty values, extended work time, and student-led portfolio conferences shape a culture where children feel seen, capable, and motivated. From daily morning meetings to goal-setting conferences beginning in kindergarten, this conversation explores how small structural moves create a school environment grounded in purpose, agency, and joy.
GUEST
Katy Inman — School leader at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• How daily morning meetings create belonging and shared purpose.
• Why faculty-selected annual values anchor school culture.
• The importance of long, uninterrupted work blocks for meaningful learning.
• How student goal-setting and portfolio conferences build ownership from kindergarten on.
• Moving away from grades toward narrative feedback and growth reflection.
• Designing a school intentionally small to function as a learning laboratory.
• Creating systems that welcome visiting educators to learn from practice.
BOOKS & REFERENCE
• Stoner by John Williams
• Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Moves Leaders Make — A Book Love Foundation Podcast; Hosted by Penny Kittle and Elaine Millen; Produced by Testwood Creative Studio; Music by ryanancona, licensed from Pond5; Learn more at booklovefoundation.org
Creators and Guests
Host
Penny Kittle
Penny is Chairman of the Book Love Foundation and is dedicated to helping students and teachers develop a passion for reading and writing. She has taught English and coached literacy in public schools for 34 years.
Guest
Katy Inman
School leader at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
What is The Book Love Foundation Podcast?
Celebrate the joy of reading with the Book Love Foundation podcast. This is a show filled with information and inspiration from teachers and leaders across grade levels, states, and school systems. We interviewed authors and educators for the first five years and now turn our attention to leaders in public, private, and charter schools. Find out more at booklovefoundation.org or join our book-love-community.mn.co of 2500 educators from 28 countries. We sustain joy together, one kid and one book at a time.
00:00:06:02 - 00:00:26:11
Penny
You are going to love this episode of Moves Leaders Make a Book Love podcast series for educators shaping change. We're grateful to donors like you who have generously contributed to the Book Club Foundation and made this series possible. Visit Book Club foundation.org to learn more.
00:00:26:12 - 00:00:42:09
Penny
Just want to mention I'm wearing my granddaughter's jewelry. The best jewelry anyone can have. Kind of a nod to the elementary principal we're going to talk to today, Katy Inman from Center For Teaching & Learning in Boothbay Harbor. Welcome, Katy. Nice to meet you, Katy.
00:00:42:10 - 00:00:44:22
Katy
Thank you so much for having me on. Nice to see you.
00:00:45:00 - 00:00:50:18
Penny
It's always good to see you. And look at that quilt behind you. Kindness. Creativity. What is that about?
00:00:50:23 - 00:01:10:09
Katy
My first year here, well, every year, the teachers identify four values for the year that they think will guide the faculty's work best. And then they make a gift of one of the smaller squares that you see for another teacher that talks about that person's strengths on the team. And that's like the way we start our faculty meetings for the year.
00:01:10:10 - 00:01:15:08
Katy
So that's the one from 19-20 but the other ones are around the room.
00:01:15:09 - 00:01:19:21
Penny
Oh 2019 2020? Yes, that's 1920. I was like, wow, I know.
00:01:20:00 - 00:01:26:21
Katy
Oh no, that was so long. Yeah, from 2019-2020. But I have some of the other quilts are around the rest of the room.
00:01:26:22 - 00:01:47:00
Penny
I just love that, as a thought for how to start a school year connecting teachers to values that you're going to connect to the school. Yeah, that's quite impressive. Very cool. So, I was just there last week, and one of my absolute favorite things about your school is morning meeting. Could you describe that for people?
00:01:47:00 - 00:02:13:05
Katy
Well, we have a small enough school that we can all gather every day to hear announcements from the students, announcements from teachers, if there are any, and to read a poem and a song together, to read a poem and sing a song every morning and it's a great way to start the day. We do birthdays. So I think that the point is that in the morning we have a ritual so that each student feels welcome and like it matters that they're here.
00:02:13:06 - 00:02:28:13
Penny
Yeah. Well, one of the two things about this morning ritual, because I visited when Nancie Atwell was running the school, and I think more than once, actually, every time I've been there, I'm struck by these two things in morning meeting. Kids
00:02:28:13 - 00:02:38:11
Penny
sit with the, you know, smallest youngest kids in the front row all the way to the back, but you will see sprinkled throughout the room, older kids holding younger kids in their laps.
00:02:38:11 - 00:03:06:00
Penny
And you will see this ease to the beginning. So you walk in and there are people singing. There's usually somebody with a guitar or some other instruments that pass those out to kids and they're singing. And what that allows is kids are arriving what might be called late in a public school. They're arriving and just settling into morning meeting and there's no notice taken of it, you know, because parents have busy lives.
00:03:06:00 - 00:03:24:23
Penny
And if the kid has arrives late, they're just welcomed into this room because the room is welcoming and the teachers are in the room over on one side. And this sense of it being a joyful, engaged together opening to every school day is remarkable.
00:03:25:01 - 00:03:43:17
Katy
It's the thing that sold me on the school when I came to look at it. Once I was at morning meeting. I was texting my husband from the bathroom. I'm coming here. We're taking this job. You know, I do think that it's a nice way to motivate kids to want to be getting to school as quickly as possible too, people do have busy lives and lateness happens.
00:03:43:17 - 00:04:02:05
Katy
That's a part of elementary school, but in the morning it is a gentle entrance. But it's also something kids like to be a part of, so sometimes they are helping their families just get out the door a little more quickly because they're like, I don't want to miss morning meeting. I want to share about my pet. I want to share about when I saw a deer in the backyard.
00:04:02:05 - 00:04:05:03
Katy
I want to share about the hunting trip I'm going on with my dad this weekend.
00:04:05:03 - 00:04:24:13
Penny
You know what? There's patience there too, Katy. There's a, When you ask for student announcements, a kid might tell about their soccer game the night before to the room. And you think about how often we talked about speaking and listening and these important skills kids need to develop. Well, you have to, in order to do that spontaneously,
00:04:24:15 - 00:04:36:18
Penny
You have to practice. And that practice can sometimes not be smooth. And everyone waits and everyone listens. It's truly remarkable. It is, a value of your school.
00:04:36:21 - 00:04:54:12
Katy
Yeah. And it gives kids the strength to stand up and speak their their opinion, their truth in a number of different situations in the school as well. So it's like they're practicing in a situation that has a lot of control on it with the teachers. They're on the edge, etc. but it's the same group that's out on the playground.
00:04:54:12 - 00:05:20:12
Katy
And it happened, it was just yesterday, like some third through sixth graders were playing a game that was a little bit wild, and a kindergartner said, I don't think this fits our Bill of Rights. I don't feel like people's bodies are safe right now, and the older kids stopped. They stopped and they listened. And to think that, like our youngest kids can feel empowered to say, like we have certain agreements as a school about how we're going to be.
00:05:20:12 - 00:05:32:15
Katy
And I do feel like I can talk to you. It was it was a surprising moment. It was like everyone was all the. There was a couple grownups on the playground who saw it happen, and everyone had to talk about it afterward because it was like, that was interesting.
00:05:32:17 - 00:05:44:19
Penny
Yeah. Well, you have the kids from pre-K through eight, right? A lot. Yes, kids do come in at different grade levels, but there are always kids who've been there from the beginning that can carry those values.
00:05:44:21 - 00:06:00:13
Elaine
And it's our authentic experience, you know, rather than teaching those skills in an isolate or through examples the kids are experiencing, you know, the authentic experience. That's fascinating. Really.
00:06:00:15 - 00:06:20:06
Katy
Yeah. It's been and we were using it internally as an example of the difference it's made because we recently added pre-K. And so this is our first year of kindergartners who've already been here for a year. And their pre-K focus is nonacademic. It's strictly on our community agreements, which we call our Bill of Rights, of what students can expect when they come to this school.
00:06:20:06 - 00:06:39:10
Katy
So to hear just a child who's only five really be able to speak his mind about what that means was just it was very interesting. That pre-K impact is what we hoped is that it would have deepened kids understanding of, like our culture, the community. And that's what we saw evidence of yesterday.
00:06:39:12 - 00:06:43:18
Penny
What a way to celebrate. Celebrate what you how the hard work you've been doing has paid off
00:06:43:19 - 00:06:59:02
Elaine
you created a structure. You write about that. It's a structure of support, one of those pieces, but it's also a structure that has ongoing modeling for all kids. And again, it goes back to that. Nothing's artificial about it. It's all authentic.
00:06:59:02 - 00:07:05:23
Elaine
And it's very interesting. As I said to our viewers, I've not been to the school, so now I can't wait to come.
00:07:05:23 - 00:07:06:12
Katy
You’re invited.
00:07:06:12 - 00:07:10:14
Elaine
To participate in the morning meeting!
00:07:10:14 - 00:07:38:12
Penny
I love how a kid will say their announcement is, I lost a tooth, right? And everyone's like, wow, right? There's just this beautiful everydayness to the experience of humans in and out of school that becomes elevated there because it's all part of we're all part of this community. We know each other. And I have actually sat beside kids in the several visits I've made that have come in from public schools and been really amazed at the time
00:07:38:12 - 00:07:45:04
Penny
they have to continue work. Right. The pace is different in your school. Could you talk about that?
00:07:45:04 - 00:08:06:21
Katy
Well, we do try to limit transitions and keep the opportunity for long blocks of time where the teacher is making the choice about how to move from activity to activity. And we try to have extended periods where kids can do the work, not like practice for the work that they might do someday, but do work right now.
00:08:06:21 - 00:08:22:06
Katy
So it's writing time. Kids are writing books or pieces that they have a real audience for, and they're going to share those with that audience. It's part of the choice and agency that's a component of kids feeling really motivated to do their best.
00:08:22:06 - 00:08:28:18
Penny
And it isn't grounded in grades. Can you talk about like, what is the evaluation process for kids?
00:08:28:18 - 00:08:54:22
Katy
Yeah, we have kids with the help of their teacher, set goals in each academic area for themselves and then work to achieve those goals. Collect evidence in a portfolio that shows how they've made progress on their goals, and then they do a 45 minute presentation starting in kindergarten for their teachers and their parents twice a year, using the portfolio as their base and sharing their goals,
00:08:54:22 - 00:09:08:01
Katy
and then showing that evidence. And the teachers write a narrative of their reflections on how the student grew and made progress. And then where we're going next. So that informs, like the next set of goals for the next trimester.
00:09:08:01 - 00:09:48:19
Penny
And you want your kids there, right? That's the immediate feel, is I want my grandchildren to experience. One of the things that has always struck me as important about all of this is that we get caught up in a system of grades that we believe often in this culture matter in order to get to the next place. And as I've shared with you, my sister in law, as chairman of the board of a exclusive private school in Portland, Maine, talked about your school and the applicants from the school that always had a seat because they came in as such thoughtful, collaborative, problem solving kids.
00:09:48:19 - 00:09:59:12
Penny
They knew that's what a school can create is an identity that you hear the name and you go, oh, I know what those kids are doing at that school. And it is about choice and about agency.
00:09:59:13 - 00:10:17:18
Katy
Yeah, we've been very lucky. You know, the school was founded in 1990 by Nancie Atwell and the reputation that we have is built on the backs of our graduates who have gone out into the world and really proven themselves to be the thoughtful, curious kids that we are. That's our intention with the way we've set the program up here.
00:10:17:18 - 00:10:41:14
Katy
So I just really feel that my, my personal feeling is that grades encourage kids to see life and learning in a laddered way where like, they have to be above someone and everyone's like getting ranked. And I just think that's very inauthentic to how the world works for grown ups, where there's a lot more focus on teamwork and collaboration in a work environment.
00:10:41:14 - 00:11:05:13
Katy
And I just don't think that we should be- it's too easy for that grade to move on to the kid like they're an “A”, not that they got an A. And, I just think that when kids are assessed with real data about exactly what they did and like comments about the exact piece of writing or the exact project in science, it's more focused on, like everybody has somewhere to grow and everybody did something cool.
00:11:05:13 - 00:11:22:12
Katy
So if we talk about learning in that way, they just get the sense from the beginning that their goal is to do their best, that we're all on our own journey. And it's really not about like ranking people. People are not supposed to be compared to their friends and their peers. They're supposed to work with them so that everybody grows.
00:11:22:12 - 00:11:41:02
Penny
Which of course translates to kids who, in class, as I'm sitting beside one kid working on a poem, another kid is saying, "I really like that image. Have you thought about this?" That natural collaboration and lifting each other up is more likely when I don't see you as competition.
00:11:41:02 - 00:11:41:16
Katy
Yeah.
00:11:41:18 - 00:12:11:00
Elaine
What I appreciate is, and what I get concerned about as someone who has worked in public schools for more years than I would like to admit, is that it's that comparison- comparing kid to kid from a teacher perspective, and you see that just really to be really concerning when you see kids doing that as well. And I think that's part of our issue, just the perfection issue that we have, the concerns that in our culture about that, that whole model.
00:12:11:00 - 00:12:38:01
Elaine
And I think, what I would like to see, and maybe you can help us with this, if for those of us who are listening, how how could someone, a principal model some of the things that you're talking about, even if they're not in a school with 80 kids and multi grades connections, what advice could you give them? Because I think what you've just talked about is something that can be replicated in any educational environment with the leadership that we're looking for.
00:12:38:02 - 00:13:15:15
Katy
Yes, I would agree with that. And I think there's a lot that any type of school can do to help kids feel like they belong. And I think that that's like the center. We want kids to think that learning is for them and school is their place. And so that can mean everything from like advisory groups where kids and teachers have a little pod of people who do know them better and where they have like, resources to go back to when something doesn't go right, someone who can advocate for them, someone who knows that kid well. I think that the more that we lean on narrative and descriptive feedback about kids work and lean a
00:13:15:15 - 00:13:36:01
Katy
little less, I mean, some environments are going to have grades like that's fine, but the more that teachers can be given time and resources so that they have the ability to comment on exactly why they're ranking a kid in a certain way, it's going to be more meaningful to the kid and more clear how the kid can make changes to grow more and be more successful.
00:13:36:02 - 00:14:15:20
Penny
You know, I was thinking of how kids who set their own goals are more likely to reach them. That's a basic tenet of a lot of assessment research, and how when I ask my kids to set goals every quarter as readers, how do you want to challenge yourself? Because that is such an individual question. I want to read the Martin Luther King autobiography, King, but it's this big, and I have to make the decision that that is going to be okay in an environment where the total number of books you read or celebrated or and just talking to students about how you challenge yourself is maybe a different genre.
00:14:15:20 - 00:14:40:07
Penny
I am not one who ever reads horror, so maybe what I'm missing is that there's a whole fantasy kind of genre that I haven't explored a lot, because I don't like the way they dip into violence. Maybe with some right recommendations, I could stretch myself in a different genre. So what happened in my classroom is every time I ask kids to do that, they would set higher goals than I would have set.
00:14:40:09 - 00:14:56:16
Penny
I would be amazed. There's a ninth grade interview with a kid at the semester mark where I say, you know, what are you going to challenge yourself to do next semester or next quarter? And he says, well, I now want to read harder books like Romeo and Juliet. I want to read the classics, the ones that people talk about.
00:14:56:18 - 00:15:15:15
Penny
And I'm like, this is a kid who didn't want to read at the start of the year, but now wants to know what this thing is. And I think we underestimate that. No matter if you're graded or not, kids setting goals is a different way to think about who's deciding what's next for me.
00:15:15:17 - 00:15:41:15
Katy
Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think setting the goals is one thing that you have to build in the time for. And then reflecting in a way that's like non punitive, but encourages kids to be realistic about their strengths. And what comes next is just another piece that if administration can carve the time out for teachers and kids to do that, I think the research suggests that that self-reflection is the other crucial piece with goal setting.
00:15:41:15 - 00:16:04:02
Penny
Absolutely, absolutely. Because every reader should be allowed to abandon books. I see that in your school. It was definitely true in my classroom because you got started on it and changed your mind. But reflecting when you've become a serial abandoner. I've abandoned the last four books I've started. What is going on with me as a reader is way more powerful than if you don't finish a book,
00:16:04:02 - 00:16:04:12
Penny
right?
00:16:04:12 - 00:16:29:09
Penny
And so it doesn't matter if your school is enormous or not. What you're coaching teachers to do is to think really intentionally about how they set up those boundaries in classrooms. Right? Because the first grade classroom is different from the eighth grade. And so I would love to shift this conversation a little to one thing we both found amazing in your work, and that is your notes in your notebook about your observations of teachers.
00:16:29:09 - 00:16:31:00
Penny
Can you talk about that?
Katy
Sure.
00:16:31:01 - 00:16:55:01
Katy
I think that it's really important to come from a place as an administrator where you believe that no matter who you're working with, they probably are coming in with good intentions and trying to do their best. People like to be successful, and if they are not finding success with you or with whatever their job is, then that's a question that needs to be figured out together in a collaborative way.
00:16:55:01 - 00:17:16:00
Katy
So I would just say like our goal here at CTL is to actually model top to bottom, the same kind of assessment procedure. So our teachers set goals for themselves throughout the year. And then we meet together and think about how they can collect evidence and grow in that way, and then have spaces for teachers to self-reflect.
00:17:16:00 - 00:17:20:16
Katy
Very similar to the process that we do with the students, because we think it's research based.
00:17:20:18 - 00:17:45:13
Elaine
And I love, you had written some work, an essay for us, for the work that Penny and I were doing, and you shared a sample of your notebook and what you had recorded, some of the things that you had talked with the teachers about and then the reflection piece. If you could just talk a little bit about how that supports you, even in your communication with teachers, because I loved your comments there.
00:17:45:14 - 00:18:10:03
Katy
Yeah, absolutely. I just feel like when, like one of the things that helps center me is like remembering people's intentions and like all the things that they do that help them be successful. So when I have like a notebook and when people do things that I think are great or that help the school or that help the team, or that works really well for the students, I just try to flip to the pages that I have indexed for them and like write it down.
00:18:10:03 - 00:18:34:18
Katy
And if I have to have a hard conversation with someone- before I go into the conversation, I just open to their pages and I just read them. And the more often I read them, the more I almost like memorize them. And I think it helps orient me toward their strengths. And it gives me, I come from a position of more of confidence myself, knowing that like I do believe in them and I see the good that they do on our team.
00:18:34:20 - 00:18:39:18
Katy
So I feel more confident bringing up the areas where I think we could see improvement.
00:18:39:18 - 00:18:59:07
Penny
Wow, that's a pretty huge thing you just said, I think, right? There, there's the procedural part. Okay. My classroom, I always have a conferring notebook, two pages for each kid so that I can slip there and glance at it before I start talking. It's the same pattern that you've set up. Yeah, but many, many leaders don't have any kind of handwritten.
00:18:59:07 - 00:19:19:08
Penny
It's all like I'm typing this because that's faster, but I have a harder time going back and reading all my typed observations of people, because I was the coach for 12 years, and that piece wasn't the same as the quick little notes in my notebook. That really helped me like, remind myself just what you said of their strengths, of their heart.
00:19:19:10 - 00:19:41:13
Elaine
Yeah. And that I'm a person that I believe in, a strength-based model throughout. You know, I think we need to really focus on the strengths of kids, the strengths of teachers, because the more we do that, the more they replicate that action. And and I think that's where the growth comes in. And that's just a belief that, that I have.
00:19:41:16 - 00:19:49:11
Elaine
So I loved that example of that you gave us and what you're modeling for the teachers to do with their kids. So true.
00:19:49:14 - 00:20:07:11
Katy
Yeah, I started it a long time ago in the classroom myself. And so I did it with my students for years, and I found that it helped me a lot. And when I moved here now, I kind of see the whole school as my class and I do it for teachers. And then I also sometimes do it for parents.
00:20:07:11 - 00:20:27:03
Penny
You know what? What you said that I have to jump on and repeat is that idea that when you tell somebody what they're good at, they do it more often. My tennis coach would say, you do this really well, and I kept that because we keep those in our head. We need all that positive. Exactly. And I would do it again.
00:20:27:03 - 00:20:51:04
Penny
And that's the thing when we focus on strengths it's so powerful. So there are so many moves you've talked about making as a leader. But I have to say, in the environment of your school, you cannot miss that every classroom is filled with books and space is filled with books, and the teachers are readers. Everyone's reading. Right. That is one of the values that you just feel when you're in the school.
00:20:51:05 - 00:20:59:01
Penny
And so it feels so just particularly important that we ask you how we close all of our podcasts with what are you currently reading?
00:20:59:01 - 00:21:26:15
Katy
Well, I just finished the book Stoner by John Williams, and so that's a mid-century book. And it's like, I thought it was a really beautiful book. It was really interesting, almost like a very unemotional narrative that creates intense feelings in the reader about, like, this ordinary everyman and then, like, in what ways is that heroic? So that's just a book that I just finished, but I could I would be remiss.
00:21:26:15 - 00:21:48:01
Katy
Oh, got to write it down. I have to give a plug to a Maine author. Probably the best book I've read in the last couple of years is Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty. And if you're someone who's interested in Native American literature, I would say his contribution to contemporary literature about the Native American experience is really profound.
00:21:48:01 - 00:21:54:22
Elaine
When can I Come and visit? Penny's been able to come and I've been sort of on the outskirts here.
00:21:55:00 - 00:21:56:13
Katy
Elaine, you're invited.
00:21:56:13 - 00:22:15:16
Katy
I would say, we are lucky. A lot of schools do a lot of things really well, and I wish for every school that they had a system to welcome other teachers and show them what they do well. CTL is a school that runs and we call it an internship program that welcomes both experienced teachers and pre-service teachers to our school for one week at a time.
00:22:15:16 - 00:22:40:16
Katy
And so I can let you come, Elaine, any time. But any teachers who'd like to see this in action can go on our website and learn about our program to welcome teachers here, and help them learn about moves that they might want to take back to their schools. We're here to...we keep the school small on purpose in order to make it a laboratory for thinking about different ways that we can help kids become their best selves.
00:22:40:17 - 00:22:41:14
Penny
Beautiful.
00:22:41:19 - 00:22:49:22
Elaine
It is good to leave right on that note. Katy, thank you. Thank you so very much. It was such a privilege and a pleasure to talk to you.
00:22:50:00 - 00:22:54:10
Katy
Well, it was absolutely wonderful to be here with you today. Thank you very much for having me on.