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Before this week’s interview, Jen Schwanke and Will Parker answer a listener question with a five minute response. 

The question is: How can we build stronger partnerships with community organizations?

Listen in to hear their response and thank you for doing what matters!

T.J. Vari is the Senior Director of Product Strategy at MaiaLearning and a former Deputy Superintendent, Principal, Assistant Principal, and High School English Teacher. He spent 20 years in public education before transitioning to the position he currently holds. His master’s degree is in School Leadership and his doctorate is in Innovation and Leadership. He holds several honors and distinctions, including his past appointment as President of the Delaware Association for School Administrators and the Paul Carlson Administrator of the Year Award. He teaches educational leadership courses at the master’s and doctoral levels. 

T.J’s passion is college and career readiness. He has co-authored 6 books, including his latest two 7 Mindshifts for School Leaders and Invest In Your Best. He is a national presenter on school leadership and college and career readiness,  and he’s the co-founder of TheSchoolHouse302, a leadership development institute.

Dr. Vari strongly believes that it is important to ensure that every student has a post-secondary plan. It is important for educators to recognize that this is an equity problem: privileged kids are talking about their post-secondary plans very young whereas other kids are not. One method that helps students create a post-secondary plan is advisory periods, ensuring that there is space in the student day to do some work making post-secondary plans. T.J. calls educators to think about how they are intentionally introducing these conversations with their students. 

As a coach and leader of leaders, Dr. Vari says that the answer to helping students reach their best outcomes is through school leadership. He often works with school leaders to build their capacity to change things. This work is important because the education system was never built to do what is best for all students. The education system, as it works currently, was built to dole out privilege. It takes a leader who is willing to challenge the status quo and is willing to make change happen for the system to benefit all students. T.J. coaches leaders to read about change in order to understand management and change models. He emphasizes that change is not going to happen naturally, leaders need to learn how to make change happen if they want everyone of their students to benefit from school. 

T.J. discusses why examining and reflecting on one’s motivations can be a helpful practice when it comes to decision making. His personal philosophy is that “Somebody’s going to have to go first, so it might as well be me”. There are a lot of people waiting around for someone to tell them to change instead of actually changing. The job of a leader is to make incremental changes each day that will eventually lead to massive change. Part of making that change in education is asking what kids really need to be successful in life. One big area that educators need to focus on is helping students learn how to read. A lot of people who are in trouble in this country either do not read well or cannot read at all. Another need that students have is a need to feel valued and that they have a purpose. This need can be met through using career exploration as a part of SEL. Understanding what students need in order to be successful can make decision making for leaders easier in the long run. 

Dr. Vari offers up three pieces of advice for new and aspiring school leaders. The first is time blocking. Every leader has a vision for what their day is supposed to look like. Time blocking allows leaders to use their time for a specific task. In order to successfully time block, everything needs to go on the calendar, and leaders should try to block their whole day or even their whole week out in advance. The second piece of advice T.J. offers is the strategy of reverse time blocking. To do this, leaders need to take out what was going to be in a calendar block and put what actually happened there. This requires a time of reflection each week to figure out what is derailing the leader’s schedule. T.J. emphasizes that reflection is what will help leaders improve how they are using their time. Finally, T.J tells leaders to ask themselves if they should really be the person to do all the things in their calendar. This helps determine what tasks can be delegated to other people on your team and will allow leaders to fill up their calendars with the things they really want to be doing. 

Resource: The Happiness Box by Sam Horn

The post PMP443: Why Every Student Deserves a Pathway with Dr. T.J. Vari appeared first on Principal Matters.