From Silos to Synergy: Denny Waters on Uniting Schools for Impact

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I'm your host for today, Chee Tung, or CT from EngageRocket. We are a leadership listening and insights tool to help school district leaders improve teacher retention and ultimately, student achievement outcomes. In the studio today, it's a great privilege for me to be speaking with Denny Waters, superintendent of Battleground Public Schools.

Denny, welcome to the show.

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e in the south it's a little [: 00:02:00

But we find our commonalities and we come to agreement on the most important things, which is, I think everybody agrees that we want the best quality of education for the kids, the students who live in our district. We've been able to do some really positive things and overall it's home for me and that's why it's a privilege and an honor to actually be the superintendent of this district that I call home.

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And I understand that you went through quite a process to be able to get that plan together. Maybe if you could walk us through a little bit of what that process looked like.

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district was that we weren't [: 00:04:00

ic plan prior to that but it [: 00:05:00

And then at the end, this kind of consensus document emerges. That's your strategic plan. Oftentimes, then the strategic plan goes in a drawer somewhere and you never hear from it again, or see it again. That wasn't our intent in doing this. Our initial intent was to get us focused into doing the things that are most important for us.

uinn. And it was published in: 2016

We need to do this. We need to do that. And the premise of the book is that we really need to go back and focus on what is most important for us. So as I was saying I didn't go into it with the idea of developing a district strategic plan. I went into it with just Hey guys, we got to get on the same page.

gh all of our departments, I [: 00:07:00

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We need to do what's right for our families and we need to do what's right for our community. We're supposed to be preparing kids so that they can have a successful future. And so that's what we went back to and doing it in just the district office. We realized that there were only really two things that we should be working on.

students. And that's what we [: 00:08:00

And we brought them back into a room and we talked about this idea of high quality instruction and the social emotional needs of kids. And from there, that got refined. So we had this great, beginning of it. From there, we brought that out to our teachers. It was actually the group members who went out to each individual building and presented this idea.

eant to become the strategic [: 00:09:00

A year after we started this, we jumped into COVID. So that kind of sidetracked us. We had more important things to do. But I will tell you just that work, that idea of the social emotional learning, the focus on the social emotional learning and the focus on high quality instruction, you can imagine how that helps steer us through the COVID pandemic because it really made us bear down on those two things, which were probably, if you go back and think about it, were the two most important things that you had to think about, how were you going to deliver high quality instruction when we were remote and all the other questions associated with that. And, how were you going to take care of kids social, emotional needs through this pandemic and everything that they were going through.

ed right back into the work. [: 00:10:00

And It was them that they said, this could be a great strategic plan. Can we help with this? And our plan, as I said, four pages long, eight goals, whole bunch of objectives needed to be revised. So we took that as a foundation and we brought that to our parents and our parents added different pieces to it.

ll of those kinds of things, [: 00:11:00

We change social, emotional, the more language that, a community would understand. Social, emotional learning became safe and caring environment and high quality instruction stayed at high quality instruction. And then the last one became collaboration that cultivates trust.

And now we took that. We have student improvement plans in the state of Washington, which we're required to do. We align that with our strategic plan. Now when we publish our school improvement plans, they're all aligned to our strategic plan and it shows our community how we're meeting those goals.

d with our community because [: 00:12:00

We did thought exchanges along the way, and we worked with our board. Our board got the final approval of the strategic plan. They made some switches and modifications to it. And they even their board goals align with our strategic plan too. So overall, it's just been fantastic for us because it's really focuses our direction to what we're working on.

We're beginning to see results because we're not spread all over the place trying to do everything. We're just focused on the main goals here. And those main goals are bearing fruit for us.

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And then also that collaboration that fosters trust. What I'm curious about is what were some of the projects and initiatives that got shelved because it sounds like almost every project would fit into these like similar objectives, different tools, different approaches, as you mentioned, like even COVID like all of these would still have been relevant in COVID, just same objectives, different methods, right?

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tudents or your multilingual [: 00:14:00

And this way of teaching and these tools that you can use, Hey, if you want to be effective with, your kids that are experienced homelessness, here's these tools. Imagine that you're a teacher. And, not only you're trying to figure all of this out and go through all of these trainings and get all these different tool belts, but it's just overwhelming you in the sense that, I've got a lot of things that I need to do.

So this idea that, we should focus on the things that are going to be successful with all kids. Rather than focusing on, hey, these are the things that will be successful with this group, or this group, or that group. That was one of the aha moments that came out of this coherence work that we were doing.

High leverage practices are [: 00:15:00

No matter what their experience is, this is just good quality teaching. So it doesn't have to be, broken down into this is the teaching for this group, and this is the teaching for this group. So to your point, that's some of the stuff that we learned that would just be more effective. We've spent a lot of time, for instance, on guaranteed and viable curriculum on updating our curriculum on making sure our teachers have the best resources. We've spent a lot of time on our P. L. C. Work, professional learning communities so that teachers can work together and learn from themselves.

tarted out was what I wanted [: 00:16:00

I didn't want it to be the luck of the roll onto which teacher you got, or which school you happen to go to. I wanted to assure that it didn't matter if you were in Mrs. Smith's class at school a or Mr. Jones class at school B, you were still going to get that same quality of education, so that consistency and again, that's where that word coherence fits in. This idea that across the system, we're all focused, all directed, all headed to the same end goal, which is trying to provide kids with the best education that we can provide them.

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We'll be talking about that this is important to us. This is our strategic plan. These are the things we're working on. And the unions will say, yeah, you're right. That's what we stand for. It has made our teachers feel like they're part of it.

One of the important parts of the book is this idea of from the middle. You can't be a top down organization and tell people, how they're going to do it, or the way they're going to do it.

It has to come from them, their ideas. And just this idea of being on the same page not only has it impacted the learning, it's just impacted the culture and the climate of our entire district, which has been really cool to watch.

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And you're looking for best practices across all of the different domains and just simplifying things for leaders and educators along the chain.

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at's what you take advantage [: 00:19:00

So that people didn't feel like they were being told how to teach. They could move around and there was space to still be them. But I think one of the most important things for any organization to do is to then look at the results and celebrate those results.

So we would find our teachers or our classrooms or our buildings that were being really successful and it's shown great gains and we would celebrate that. We would recognize them in board meetings, we would put articles out through our communications department.

y, be like them. But what we [: 00:20:00

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end a lot of time unpacking, [: 00:21:00

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learn from our failures and [: 00:22:00

And as a system we achieve at a greater level. And it's not because I told you what to do. It's because we all learned from each other. We're better working together.

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But what made you say yes when you were tapped on the shoulder?

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I was happy having my bachelor's degree and just teaching and coaching football and doing all those kinds of things. They came in time where I knew I had to increase my salary. I'd reached the top of the salary scale as far as I could go with my bachelor's degree. And I went back to get my master's and I had already had a number of classes in special education.

So when I went to get my master's in SPED, they told me that, Hey, you've got these holes In your graduate program, you need to fill it with something and here's some choices. And one of the choices was to go into admin. So I said, Yeah, I'll do that. Swear to everybody listening to this. No intent that I was ever going to become an administrator.

The more I took the classes, the more I enjoyed the idea of thinking, huh, maybe I could make a difference. Like I said, at that time I'd spent 17, 16, 17 years in the classroom and, I was frustrated with, why don't we just do this?

I had [: 00:24:00

I'll be a principal and I never was a principal because they tapped me on the shoulder because of my special ed background and said, Hey, we want you to be the executive director of special ed. So I did that after leaving as an assistant principal did that for five years. And then they tapped me on my shoulder at that point and said, Hey, you're going to be the deputy superintendent.

From there, once you're deputy superintendent, it's like you're expected to be the superintendent unless you screw it up. So I never went looking for it, but it's been a wonderful ride. And even with all the challenges, it still is the greatest honor and greatest privilege I can have for sure.

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So that was cool having your kids at the same school.

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My first admin class that I ever took the professor that was there, she was ex superintendent, Mike Hauser, it was her name. Still remember, haven't seen Mike in 20 years, but I remember the first day I came in, she said, I'm going to offer you guys the secret for being a successful administrator.

me get a pen and write this [: 00:26:00

I just realized that, the relationships that you can develop, when I was a teacher, the best part of the job was the relationships with the kids. And then as a leader, the best part of the job is the relationships. And now I'm superintendent, the best part of the job is the relationships with the people that I work with, the relationships with all the buildings and the staff, the relationships that I still have, try to keep up with students.

And you just add, when you become superintendent, the relationships you have with the board and the relationships that you have with your community. Relationships.

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In that first leadership role, as a vice principal, what was one or two things that you found that you had to adjust to that was different than being a special ed teacher for 19 years?

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l, it even becomes you know, [: 00:28:00

but overall, the job is it's [: 00:29:00

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There's coherence across their efforts. How are you deliberately engaging and growing the next generation of leaders within the district within the school buildings?

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ey talk about coaching trees [: 00:30:00

And even if they were just starting as ground zero, how were they going to lead that work? But what if that wasn't their beliefs and they wanted to change the direction of the organization, what that does to an organization in terms of its ability to grow and continue to improve and do better and serve well.

I think that makes this idea that you have to grow the capacity within your own organization so that, if I do decide to leave or it's my turn to to step aside, that there's somebody in the organization who can continue the work, continue to take us in the direction that we need to go.

And we're not starting over and over and over again.

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My approach is you have to be intentional about it, so being intentional to me means that, number one, we're going to be transparent. So we're going to show you, we're going to pull up the curtain and show you how it works, so if anybody wants an idea of what it's like to be the superintendent or what goes on here at district office, or, we're going to make sure that, it's transparent in that way.

mean anybody can pick up the [: 00:33:00

I love the fact that I can walk into an office and people can go, Hey, Denny, how are you? It's not superintendent waters or anything like that. So being approachable, being transparent, and then I think being encouraging, I think there's a lot of people out there who have the capability of being a leader, but they're not sure, and it's themselves that's holding them back.

It's not because they don't have the ability or skill set. And somebody tapping them on the shoulder and saying, Hey, have you ever thought about this? Is one of the things. So I think in terms of building leadership, we have to be intentional and being intentional means we need to have systems in place.

admin program meetings with [: 00:34:00

So we do a lot of that kind of stuff on the bottom end. Once they're in program, we have a strong mentoring program that we do. Once we hire them, we have connections with Association of Washington School Principals and the Washington Association of School Administrators, AWSP and WASA, and we work closely with them to help build leadership capacity.

If we have administrators that are struggling, we develop plans of improvement. We get them mentors. I have made it an effort myself and Shelley, our deputy superintendent, we meet with our leaders on a regular basis, trying to promote the idea of, Hey, let's look at different experiences that you can have.

people, in an organization, [: 00:35:00

So I trust people. I let people do things their way, I'll offer them advice along the way, I'll provide them with feedback, I'll tell them things that, maybe they could have thought about, but, I think you learn from mistakes, and so it's just being intentional and it's just providing people with opportunity.

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ment from the superintendent [: 00:36:00

Thank you very much, Denny, for being on the show and because there's so many threads here that I can imagine our listeners might want to pull on and further the conversation.

What's the best way for them to reach you if they're listening right now?

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great pleasure speaking with [: 00:37:00