Building a School Culture Blueprint that Actually Works

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And who's going to be guiding us through that conversation today? We are joined by Chris Piper, who is in his seventh year as superintendent of the Troy city schools, a district serving approximately 4, 200 students in Troy, Ohio. Prior to joining Troy, Chris was the superintendent of the Triad Local Schools, a rural district in central Ohio.

And then during his time in [: 00:01:00

[00:01:26] Chris Piper: appreciate you having me, thanks for having me.

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[00:02:08] Chris Piper: I think for one thing, I've had the great fortune of working with some really excellent people throughout my career from the time that I was a classroom teacher in a small rural district here in Ohio really formed close relationships with our administrative team. And they were just really high quality leaders that understood.

That school strategy is important, but what underlies that the culture of the district is really what drives a school's progress. So very fortunate to work with great people, smart people, and I've had a variety of experiences. So from my time as a classroom teacher in a high school coaching baseball, basketball, golf then moving into high school administration.

Over to middle school administration and then into the superintendency. I just had a wide range of experiences and a great fortune to work with a lot of great people.

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[00:03:07] Chris Piper: I think there's a lot of benefit to working in a rural district. One thing you have to play several roles and wear many different hats and in doing so you get to work closely with a lot of different kinds of people within the organization. For example when I was a middle school principal, I was also our transportation director for that for a school year.

So I got to work very closely with our bus drivers. Being a building principal get to work very closely with teachers and custodians moving into the superintendency in a small rural district didn't have a lot of central office staff. That would be specialized in different areas. So I was the HR director.

I was the superintendent. I was in charge of our school data collection. So I think working in those rural districts really gives leaders a great foundation and a wide range of experiences that really gives them the full picture of what schools do and how they run whereas sometimes I feel like if you're in a larger district, you may be pigeonholed or just be in a narrow area of focus for your leadership.

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[00:04:36] Chris Piper: It's difficult. The job can be overwhelming to some degree. So you have to be organized. You have to lean on people that are surrounding you, even if they're in different capacities within the small district. For example there were often calls that I had to make a superintendent, but I still checked in with my building principals to help inform my decisions to find that kind of support and also leaning on colleagues that you get to know outside of your district.

re were unique questions, or [: 00:05:00

[00:05:06] Dr. Jim: one of the interesting things about what you mentioned was how you had to lean on people within the district and also even outside the district in your network to help. Spread the load out. One of the things that I'm curious about is what role did your building level leaders play in helping you share the load or spread the load out that helped develop them into future future Senior leaders within a district.

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Not that there weren't many decisions that he made independently, but he really pulled us in and got us involved. And sometimes it was simply just asking the [00:06:00] question, what should the school calendar look like? How should we design this new building? Those kinds of things. So I've tried to carry that forward in my work as superintendent and have tried to include my building administrators, Different area supervisors and just helping make decisions at the district level, not that they, you have to balance that with understanding that they're also busy in their work, but I feel like they're more connected to the strategic plan to the culture of the district when they're deeply involved, even on a day to day basis, if possible.

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[00:07:03] Chris Piper: That's a great question. And one of the things that I did when I first came to Troy City Schools was I spent about an hour with every building principal with every director and we have several. But I just wanted to get to know them, and I wanted to hear from them what their perception was of their work, how it would relate to my work.

And one thing that I heard consistently across the district where I am now, Troy City Schools, is that They felt like they were a bit micromanaged previously. So everyone, it was almost like they got together as a team and said, here's the answer we're going to give him because it was so consistent.

But everyone told me that they really wanted the opportunity to do their job and to be involved in district decisions, but really given the ability to do what they needed to do. Which was music to my ears because that's how I tend to operate. Certainly expect them to carry out their duties. But also want to invite involved in the district.

culture you have and that's [: 00:08:00

[00:08:01] Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that they were that transparent with you because I think it's more natural for people when a new leader comes in and I'm just going to keep my mouth shut and my head down because I don't want to be the first one that gets whacked. If I irritate this guy what do you think drove, That level of openness in an early stage conversation with you.

Was there any behind the scenes stuff that you learned after the fact that informed, the position that they took?

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And I didn't come with a lot of questions. So I think when you have few questions and give more space for them to answer, sometimes, just asking a question [00:09:00] and allowing them space to answer, you'll get to the truth, which is, I think, what happened here in Troy.

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[00:09:21] Chris Piper: I would love to tell you that it was very intentional from the beginning but I feel like really things just came together in a very organic way here in Troy. So the conversations that I referred to that I felt were pretty illuminating about how people perceived our district culture and the work they did. At the same time, we read, we collectively read a book study with our administrative team here. And I believe the name of that book was above the line by Tim Kite. It's based on the Ohio State Buckeyes, which, we're Ohio. That book is about developing a culture blueprint. At around the same time, I came across an article in the Harvard business review that was Very illuminating about different kinds of corporate cultures and how [00:10:00] they're in very intentional.

So the star was aligned for us between those conversations. The book study, we did the Harvard business review. It came together and it became our focus. My focus to help us understand where we currently were as a district culture and what our ideal culture would be and how we bridge the gap from one to the other.

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[00:10:36] Chris Piper: Yeah, they were very open to it. And I thought very enthused to go through that process. It is not something that they had done before. Honestly, it's not something that I had done before. We had talked about district culture in my previous districts, but we hadn't been, I would say, very intentional 321.

it was some of our best work [: 00:11:00

And I would say excited to define what culture we wanted to build here in Troy.

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[00:11:40] Chris Piper: I think you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast when you said culture each strategy for breakfast. And that's a conversation that we had. And that was also something that's clear in the book that we were reading together, that you can have a beautiful strategic plan with excellent Steps that are clearly outlined for and task for everyone to accomplish and very clear goals.

And that's important to have [: 00:12:00

Because I think if we step back and take a clear look at our district culture, first, do we even really truly understand what the culture is but it's such a driving force in what we're able to accomplish.

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[00:12:39] Chris Piper: Yeah, it was really interesting. As we use the Harvard Business Review to understand the different kinds of cultures that can exist and how different companies demonstrate those characteristics. We started to analyze ourselves through conversation and a little activity that we did, and what was revealed through that activity matched perfectly with the conversations that I [00:13:00] had with people on a one on one basis.

What was revealed is that here the district culture was very focused on safety, and I don't mean student safety, I mean making sure the day to day was managed well. That there weren't a lot of disruptions, positive or negative disruptions. Just maintaining the status quo was the expectation.

There was a focus on students, of course, but really making sure that things were orderly, things were safe, and we got through the day without much fuss. That was the district culture that, as it existed.

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So what did you do there?

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But it was an exciting conversation because where we landed was, I feel like a really important place and a place that I completely agree with. And that is that, the work that we do with kids is extremely important work. So there's a lot of purpose behind what we do. And whenever we feel down or, things, the year trudges on or we're faced with difficult challenges, we have to remember that the work we do is very important and purposeful work.

So that was a component of our new culture that we wanted to build. And that wasn't difficult to sell. We all bought into that very quickly, and we all believe that. The second part of it was, Yeah. That we are a team of adults that care for each other and care for kids and we're here to help each other.

also very excited about was. [: 00:15:00

And when we have fun and we have helped students have fun and learning that we can learn at much higher levels because students are so engaged in the work. So we move from that safety order. Taking care of daily business to really understanding it was deep purpose to our work, and it was fun to do.

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Like you just mentioned, how did you get to those key pillars when you have so many different visions of what a good culture can look like?

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One of my favorite parts of that conversation was the conversation about. Should we identify fun as one of our top three culture goals? And I remember our HR director. If you think about your organization you wouldn't expect your HR director to be pushing for fun, but he was very adamant that we should absolutely be having fun in our jobs and having fun with kids because learning is inherently fun.

So there was structure to our activity. We provided people the opportunity to have input and then we literally sat down and argued. In a very positive way which one should be our priority. And I think when the dust all settled, we were all very happy with the final product. And I know that because even now, seven years later, six years later when I walk around our district, I see our culture blueprint that is printed on paper hanging in many offices, in many classrooms around our district.

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So how did you make sure that in that building consensus effort, nobody was really left behind on something that they felt strongly was the better direction. How did you deal with those conflicts and resolve those?

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That I joined had been together for several years. There weren't many new members of that team, so they had trust in each other. And then, I had done what I could that first year to build trust with them. And I think that's one of the most important things any leader can do that first year is just.

calize that it was important [: 00:18:00

Where are you with this? So we try to be very inclusive in our conversations.

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[00:18:32] Chris Piper: When we put our culture blueprint on paper, we talked very clearly about the behaviors. So we certainly believe things inherently, but it is the behaviors that we demonstrate that really help you understand if our beliefs are coming through. So in our culture blueprint, we were very specific about the behaviors that we would expect to see from people.

should be modeling that same [: 00:19:00

We were trying. To make sure that we demonstrated those behaviors and also communicated that this is what we're looking for. And this is the expectation.

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[00:19:42] Chris Piper: It was very important to, to clearly identify the behaviors that we were looking for and actually articulate them, put them on paper. And then also to communicate those expectations with staff. I think that, without that, you're left with just trying to encourage people to [00:20:00] believe a certain thing.

So I think just in the practice of articulating what expectations are there's great power in that. Take, learning is fun. For example, we often get so frustrated in schools because students don't do their homework. And we wonder why that is. I think part of the answer is student engagement.

And I think that because if when you when I get into the skate park in town, I see some of those same students that struggle to do their homework. And if you watch closely, you'll see one of those children practice the same, almost dangerous stunt many times and fall down and sometimes hurt themselves and they continue to practice that skill until they get it, even though sometimes it's physically hurting them.

Why would that student do that? And then not do their math homework. I think part of the answer is there's a reward for them in practicing and mastering that skill to skate park. And sometimes we don't make sure that our schoolwork is engaging enough or that we celebrate successes enough with our kids.

Sometimes, We have to really be focused that learning is fun and it's our job to make sure that it's fun.

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[00:21:31] Chris Piper: I think from a leadership perspective there's so much power in giving people permission. Especially I'm going to talk about the fun part again. What I saw happen here in Troy City Schools was it seemed to be that when we gave staff permission to have fun and permission to celebrate that they took advantage of that.

t with student learning, our [: 00:22:00

Our high school has been ranked number 3. Number one and number two. Now, this year in the state of Ohio for student growth scores and one of the leading departments in our high school is our math department. And I think there's probably from what I've seen, there's probably no better department or school in our district that does a better job of celebrating student success than our math department. Much of it is organic. It's in the day to day. Whether it's a homework assignment, a problem quiz, a test, making sure that they're taking time in class to recognize achievement to celebrate those successes. They talk about team math and they live that there's also very formal ways in the hallways. They have posted student scores and who has achieved certain levels on the or different kinds of tests that we take.

es, which if you think about [: 00:23:00

And our students have bought in because our teachers celebrate them on a day to day basis.

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[00:23:37] Chris Piper: I think that our culture blueprint has certainly strengthened us as an organization and certainly, I think made this a place that people want to be. We see that with our current staff and the way they talk about the work they do. We've seen that with new staff that we've hired. I've talked to some of the new teachers that we've hired.

ool districts around us. And [: 00:24:00

And it's infectious. I think that our staff does have fun. I think that it's really paying dividends in our retention of staff and also our ability to attract new staff.

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What are the three, four things that they need to keep in mind as they do this type of work within their district?

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And if you have been in an organization for a while, that can sometimes be difficult to hear, what you want to hear and what you actually hear may not. Line up with what you want it to be. So you have to be open to that conversation and listening to people. And I think giving people the freedom to identify what they want the culture to be.

It's not my district culture. I'm the superintendent for our school district, but I didn't drive and I didn't dictate what our culture is going to be or should be. And I think it's important for a leader to do that. You may have a clear understanding of what you want it to be, and I think it's okay to share that, but you certainly have to make sure that your team is developed, is building your ideal culture, not just you and giving them the space to do that.

icts around Ohio, even there [: 00:26:00

And that's really what drives them as a school district. And that's what drives their staff. And that's what their community expects. And that's great for them. There are other districts where You know, they're very innovative and project based learning is their thing. And if you try to take that away from them, you might have a right on your hands.

So I think one is maybe learning about what different cultures may look like and the different benefits and detriments that having a strong culture like that can bring with it. And that's one of the things that article eliminated for us. We looked at different companies and how they.

Attack their business. And, every choice you make, there's a benefit to it, and there's a consequence for it, possibly. So you have to make sure that you clearly understand what different cultures can look like. So be informed ask the questions, but be informed, certainly. So I think those three things, listen intently, be informed with your decision making, and give people voice in the process.

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[00:26:59] Chris Piper: By email would be, [00:27:00] feel free to reach out to me by email. I'd be happy to share.

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Now, a lot of times when we talk about this culture building stuff in general, People that are out there in the audience listening to this stuff can look at it and roll their eyes a little bit because everybody talks about culture in this theoretical perspective. And the reality of it is the reason why a lot of people roll their eyes in these culture conversations is because it's really difficult to bring it into practice.

And what I like about the process that you took or you did as a district. And as a leadership team was that you collaborated to identify the things that matter the most the people that were involved in the discussion. And then you took the steps to define what good behavior and good alignment looks like that's consistent with those cultural pillars.

And I [: 00:28:00

For those of you who have been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. If you liked the discussion, make sure you leave us a review. And if you haven't already done so make sure you join our community

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