Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Principal JL is an educational leader who explores various topics facing educational leaders today! The Mission of this podcast is to inform and inspire other Educational Leaders on how to be their best for their Schools by honing their skills and talents so they may impact their teachers, staff members, students, parents/guardians, and community members positively for their School District! Come with a Growth Mindset as we journey through Educational Leadership!
Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Episode 22: Collaborative Response: Insights from Kurtis Hewson on Transforming Schools Through Teamwork!
Kurtis Hewson's journey from classroom teacher to international education consultant reveals a startling truth about our schools: the isolation educators experience despite being surrounded by colleagues. As co-founder of Jigsaw Learning and co-author of "Collaborative Response," Kurtis shares how this recognition shaped his mission to ensure no teacher works alone and no student lacks a team of advocates.
The conversation unpacks a framework that's transforming schools across North America and beyond. Kurtis explains how the traditional Professional Learning Community model, while valuable, often leaves gaps that allow students to slip through the cracks. His Collaborative Response framework addresses these gaps through three interconnected components: collaborative structures and processes, data and evidence, and continuums of support.
What makes this approach revolutionary is the four-layer collaborative structure it introduces. While most schools have case-by-case meetings for struggling students, Kurtis introduces a game-changing middle layer—the collaborative team meeting—where teachers from different departments come together not to solve individual student problems but to expand their collective teaching toolboxes. The focus shifts from "what's wrong with this student?" to "what strategies might help with this type of challenge?"
The results speak volumes. One school district reported their referrals for specialized services dropped from 25-30 to just four after implementing this framework—not because student needs diminished, but because teachers felt better equipped to handle challenges. Teachers who were counting down to retirement found renewed passion for their work. Achievement scores climbed. All because the expertise already present in the building was being effectively leveraged.
Whether you're battling teacher burnout, struggling with intervention systems that don't seem to catch everyone, or simply looking to harness the collective wisdom in your building, Kurtis offers actionable insights for educational leaders. As he powerfully states, "Stop tiering kids. Tier your supports." This mindset shift alone could transform how we approach student needs in our schools.
Access an Overview of Collaborative Response article:
Access the introductory chapter of the bestseller Collaborative Response
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Hey there, educational leaders. It's great to be back for another episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast. In today's episode, I got the privilege and the honor to sit down with Kurtis Hewson. Kurtis is a award-winning former administrator and teacher, as well as a teaching faculty at the post-secondary level. He is the co-founder of Jigsaw Learning and co-author of the text Collaborative Response three fundamental components that transform how we respond to the needs of the learners. He currently works with school districts and schools nationally and internationally.
Principal JL:If I didn't mention, Kurtis is from Canada, where he will talk about his educational journey in Canada, but he also is reaching out and working internationally with other schools in other countries such as Australia, United States, and Canada, just to name a few of the countries that he has been working with in education and schools. And what's phenomenal about listening to Kurtis speak is about how he really talks about school and being collaborative and how we can all respond in education. No matter where we're at in the world, we can educate in a collaborative way Without further ado. Here is a conversation with Kurtis Hewson. Hey there, educational leaders. Today I'm excited to bring to you guys a special guest on the show today. His name is Kurtis Houston. Welcome, Kurtis, to the show.
Kurtis Hewson:Thanks, jeff, really excited to have a conversation with you.
Principal JL:All right, Kurtis. Now I always like to start. Why education. What propelled you to become an educator in the first place? And then, once you go through that, I'd like you to talk about your teaching career. And then what got you into school leadership?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, so I have family members. My mother was a teacher, grandmother, other family members. So I often say my first practicum was putting up bulletin board materials in my mother's classroom when I was 11 years old and I really came from a spot, jeff, that I just wanted to make a difference for kids and it seemed to me that the best place to do that was through education, and it's been the driving mantra all the way through of to where I am now. The work I'm doing is still about how can we make a considerable impact, make a difference for kids, and so classroom teaching began. It's a bit of a funny story.
Kurtis Hewson:I started oh, it's getting almost 30 years ago and at a time where it was difficult to find positions here in our home province of Alberta, I moved 12 hours north into northern Alberta for what was a six-month maternity leave teaching grade three. Six months turned into nine years and it moved into administration. I actually moved into administration quite early in my teaching career. The school division was really trying to grow their own leaders, being as far north as they were, and I was in a school with a fantastic veteran administrator who they said it'd be nice if we could have somebody that could learn from him. So it was actually my second year of teaching that they assigned me a small portion I think it was a 0.1. I think I maybe had two periods of admin duties per week, but they also helped to pay for some master's work.
Kurtis Hewson:So I got into my master's really early around educational leadership and then from there moved into principalship through a few different schools and it was through that work that I began what was the work that I do now in a very organic and unassuming way. But from that principalship I've also had the opportunity to teach at the university level in education departments here within the province at a couple different universities and it's led me to the place now where I get to work with schools and school districts across North America. I've worked with schools in Iceland, australia, all over the world. It's been super, super exciting and, yeah, it all comes back to the do it to make a difference. Just want to make a difference for kids.
Principal JL:Great and I think that's where a lot of educators I mean they get into this to make impact. Right, they want to impact, you know, other people, they have that drive, they have that, that passion for that and that's what makes education so unique, to where you get to have an impact on people because, like here in America, everybody you know is required to to go through public education or, you know, private education. Some sort of education, yeah, touches on everyone, yeah, and we're trying to, like, get these people in and help them learn, but, at the same time, the impact and the drive that you can make on the future of your country in your case, Canada, for us it's the US, you know and to have that impact and to be able to inspire those learners and to help them learn and grow, it makes it all worth it right.
Kurtis Hewson:Jeff, that it's a cascading effect, right, like if I can have the impact on a student, a child, a teacher, that just cascades across, like you say, to impact a country, a society. It's exciting.
Principal JL:Yeah, we have a saying here that we have societal issues that will come to our doorstep and we have to help solve them and help get people and to make them better so they can go out and help maybe solve some of those societal issues as well. And so that's something we kind of take seriously, because we get to see those things firsthand and how are we impacting and helping those well, and so that's something we kind of take seriously because you know we get to see those things firsthand and how are we impacted in helping those kids, and so that's what I love about education. No matter where you're at right, I kind of hear the same stories that you have told. You know, here in the US, there in Canada, and education is very similar. How we educate and how we help kids learn is very similar. And so let's talk about you know you went from teaching into school leadership. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah. So I think, first off, I never understood how isolating teaching was in the classroom, and that was something I never experienced as an observer, seeing particularly my mother as a teacher. I got into the classroom and I did not. I assumed we're all together, we are around people all the time, but it was isolating in that classroom to be able to connect with colleagues. Sometimes there was days where it didn't feel like I got to connect with another adult in the building until the very end of the day.
Kurtis Hewson:And so, as I shifted into leadership, there were two thoughts or driving aspects of it. The first was how can we make this more collaborative? How could we be learning from one another? And especially for me as a young administrator, I certainly did not have the solutions and I tried to adopt the Superman syndrome of if people bring me a problem, I'll try and fix it. But it was evident very quickly that I didn't have the skill set to be able to fix that.
Kurtis Hewson:The experience and I think it helped me tremendously become a way more effective leader in time, because I learned early on don't have the answers, but set up structures to determine the answers. How can we bring the solutions, the people with the difficulties. If we could bring the challenges, if we could bring them together to work through it, that is way more powerful than trying to solve that all by myself. I heard somebody call it as goose leadership the idea that somebody comes into your office, squawks, dumps a load and then leaves for you to clean up. And again, I found out very early that wasn't going to work for me.
Kurtis Hewson:So I think the challenges that I experienced early on, coming from this mindset, was how, how do we create structures, possibilities, ways that people could work that would then just become culture, that it's just natural that we are working together, and in the last school that I went in as principal, I often say it was an amazing school great teachers, great staff doing great things for kids, but isolated islands of excellence. Sometimes the challenge one person was having in the room. The solution was three doors down and we didn't know because we didn't have ways for people to interact effectively with one another. So we that was really the impetus that has become the work that I do now, working with schools and school jurisdictions, about setting up what we call a collaborative response, that we're responding to the needs of students, but nobody is doing this on their own. We have very, very intentional and strategic ways of organizing ourselves. To do that.
Principal JL:Yeah, you really hit on a few things there that I even was thinking about. To my you know my experience as a teacher, where there's times where you're so classroom focused and you're just trying to get the things done in your room and trying to do the best you can, you sometimes forget, hey, you have a neighbor that you know, in my, my case, teach math. You have a neighbor that teaches math too. So, um, how you collaborate and and I kind of we here in America, we, we talk about professional learning communities a lot. It's kind of what we do or that's kind of the buzzword in America and you know, with your collaborative responses and everything, it really it really kind of fits some of that. You know. We, we got to collaborate with each other and how we do that, you know.
Principal JL:Going from that, I mean, you kind of taught, kind of alluded to it a little bit. You kind of saw a problem and you started figuring out this issue or trying to find a solution to the issue. So what was that issue? And if I'm going to take a leap here and I'm going to, you know, this is kind of maybe where you started getting into finding that solution and maybe going into co-founding the Jigsaw Learning. Is that right on that? So kind of take us through that and how that all evolved and what inspired the co-founding of Jigsaw Learning and the vision behind it.
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah. So again that last school that I mentioned as the principal of it we really started to think about how could we be working together in more effective ways and it was founded initially on professional learning communities more effective ways, and it was founded initially on professional learning communities. The work of Richard Dufour and Rebecca Dufour were really impactful and inspirational, but we actually found it wasn't enough. We were establishing strong PLC structures and we found that there were still students slipping through the cracks, not by anyone's lack of attention or passion, it was just systems that weren't strongly established. So we began to look and operate in some very different ways that I'd love to describe for you here in a little bit and started to connect some of the literature that was beginning and started to connect some of the literature that was beginning. This was mid-2000s, some of the literature that was just coming out around, response to intervention and then later on, multi-tiered systems of supports and how could that lend itself? And as we got going, just by people talking, we started to see not only success for students our achievement rates started to climb, and quickly and significantly but our staff satisfaction rates started to increase the teachers that were trying to ensure success for their kids, but on their own. And at the cusp of burnout, we saw people starting to get refreshed. We saw that passion coming back in and so we, just by people talking, we started to have some schools come to visit.
Kurtis Hewson:I started to get requests to come out and explain and share. It was never work that was intended to be shared beyond our school. It was just how we were trying to structure and organize ourselves. And so, as I moved from that school and moved into um a role at a local university uh, teaching, beginning teachers in the education program the calls kept coming in of can you come out and share this? Come tell us how you did this. I started to get requests to present at conferences and that and at that point, it was myself and my later wife, lorna, who we decided there's a point where the calls coming in are starting to get more and more and we should be writing some more and talking about this and really formulating our ideas.
Kurtis Hewson:And it just took on a life of its own, to the point where I think it was 2013 where we formed this organization called jigsaw learning. That was just the two of us branded it that way to be able to engage in this work and then it was in 2016 that I moved into it full-time I it couldn't be something off the side of the plate. It was now at a place where it wasn't schools reaching out, it was school districts reaching out and saying how can you help share some of this work, this collaborative and we came to call it collaborative response, because saying, well, it's kind of like PLCs with an RTI element and some other things in it wasn't a really great way to describe the framework or what we've now come to understand is really a mindset, it's a way of thinking in your school. So it took off and then just it was exciting to begin working with different systems and jurisdictions. We've had chance now to work with different ministries around.
Kurtis Hewson:How could we utilize this as a driving overall way of of, uh, engaging in schools and going back to where you started, jeff. Usually schools that have engaged in PLC work, when they see this, they go oh, my goodness, this is our next step. This would take us even further than the success we're seeing in PLCs. I love it when a school says we're interested in this, but we're already doing PLC work, and I say, oh great, then you are incredibly well poised. You're not going to give up that work, but we're going to add another layer to it.
Principal JL:Yeah, no, and so we are a PLC school and we're very good about setting that time apart. This is what we do. It goes per student, by target. You know we're trying to make sure kids are getting the interventions, because our PLC works really driven around, you know, helping kids intervening into kid's education, and we set intervention time, you know, aside every day, except for Wednesday because that's our PLC day. But on Monday, tuesday, thursday, friday, we have dedicated intervention time to where teachers can request students can request teachers, and we're doing this at a building of a thousand students and so, and so we have to have a particular system in place to get people to where they need to go, cause it's, it's a whole thing. We could, we could talk about that for days, but I love how it's collaborative response and kind of like how you've taken that and really elevated that PLC work. And so your book, collaborative Response, outlines three foundational components. Can you take us through these and why they're essential for schools?
Kurtis Hewson:Absolutely.
Kurtis Hewson:And, jeff, when I follow up, I'm going to share with you a overview of Collaborative Response article that, if anyone's interested can access that. It's available at our website, jigsawlearningca as well. I'm also going to share with you an introductory chapter of the book that anyone can download to explore more. In both of those we talk about three foundational components, the first being collaborative structures and processes, the second being data and evidence. Evidence and the third being continuum of supports. And our visual actually is three puzzle pieces where these are connected, because separately I would say they have less impact than when we start connecting all of those pieces together in a really thoughtful and aligned system.
Kurtis Hewson:We often say to schools when you're in beginning your collaborative response work, buckle in, because you're, it's going to be two, three, four, five years of implementation. It's not that you're going to read the book and say, awesome, we're going to have this established by next month. It takes time as, as you're building out, we often say you're, you're establishing a culture of collaborative response and culture doesn't just shift overnight. So each of those three pieces, I'm going to break them down. The first is collaborative structures and processes, and in the little graphic it's twice as large as the other pieces, because I believe, and just like you're saying, you have to create structured and intentional collaboration within your building. But we talk about four layers and I've worked with schools that have 25 students and I've worked with schools that have 2,500 students and these four layers always they apply and think of them as categories. So I'm going to walk us through what these are as quickly as possible. The first layer we refer to it as collaborative planning and, again, think of these as overarching categories. If you're doing PLC work, boom, it fits into collaborative planning, the idea that we want teachers coming together working on things that will impact all students and that designation of you're probably not looking at individual students in those conversations. You're looking at overall cohorts. We're examining data, determining what steps we're going to take. Typically, in that collaborative planning layer, you're often doing it with colleagues who share a similar teaching assignment or a similar grade level. If you're in elementary high school, I want a math department that's working together, a science department. We have seen some schools, though, that also set up other structures that still fit within that category of teachers working together to benefit all students. Okay, I'm going to skip the second layer and I'm going to go to the third, I'll come back to the second.
Kurtis Hewson:The third layer is what we call a school support team. So in my own school it was myself as principal, our assistant principal, our learning support teacher. Own school it was myself as principal, our assistant principal, our learning support teacher, and we had a family school wellness coordinator that we shared with our high school. In our community the four of us every Thursday morning would meet and determine who are the students needing supports beyond the classroom. Now, in a school your size, jeff, you might not have one team. That's at that level. You might have several. I worked with a large school of 2000 here, that's not too far from our home, and in their school of grade 10 to 12, there's a grade 10 team and 11 team and a 12 team and they cycle with the students. But essentially that layer is what are we doing for students who need support beyond the classroom? And in time it's students land on that agenda through referral processes and systems that are in place.
Kurtis Hewson:The fourth layer we call the case consult and it's an overarching umbrella. All of these are categories but this one's probably the easiest to understand and it's the one that's most prevalent in schools. We refer to any time we're meeting about one student, it falls into that layer. Refer to any time we're meeting about one student. It falls into that layer. Okay, so when we have a crisis that has happened with a student and we're bringing in external supports and services to be at the table, that would fall into that layer. When we are planning a specialized program for a student with some more exceptional needs and the parents are at the table, that falls into that layer.
Kurtis Hewson:I worked with one school, a larger high school, when they looked at these four layers and held up what they did in their school, they found out that most of the things and really good structures, but most of them fell into that case consult layer that fourth layer, and they went oh, this is why we feel exhausted, overwhelmed. It feels like we're playing whack-a-mole, one kid at a time. You're always going to have a need to come around the table, around certain students, but through this layering we ensure less and less students get there and the ones that do are the ones that need to. So we had these in place within our school, but there was still something missing. There was still something that was not quite there and even though we were a school of around 350, 350 students.
Kurtis Hewson:The structures at the third and fourth layer that school support team and case consult it felt overwhelming. We felt like we weren't keeping up with what the needs were. Overwhelming. We felt like we weren't keeping up with what the needs were. And you know, sometimes a teacher would say, oh, I've done everything. And we would have to have a conversation of what do you mean by everything? Because sometimes that absolutely was the case, sometimes not so much. And so we introduce a second layer of team and this radically changed everything. In fact, we often, when introducing this to schools, will say we're going to reduce the number of meetings in your school by adding one more, and it's the second layer. We call it the collaborative team meeting. And the collaborative team meeting, jeff, it looks like you're talking about kids, but you're not. You're using it as a opportunity to examine practice. So do you mind if I take just a couple moments and describe just the basic structure of what that looks like?
Principal JL:no, go right ahead yeah.
Kurtis Hewson:So what we do is, let's say, in my school I, let's say in your school, you have plcs that are set up and and I've done this with many high schools where typically that's happening in departments or people that are teaching similar teaching assignments when we get into the collaborative team meeting we actually mix those people up. So I engage in collaborative planning which in your case you call PLCs with those that I'm teaching a similar assignment, your case you call PLCs, with those that I'm teaching a similar assignment. In elementaries it's often in grade level teams or, you know, multi-grade level teams, and maybe there's a one, two team, a three, four team. In the collaborative team meeting we start looking for opportunities to mix those people and the way we do it is through this particular process. So let's imagine you and I are sitting at the collaborative team meeting table and we start off by saying Jeff, who's a student you've brought to celebrate, and there's all sorts of meeting structures in place. You know the roles and norms, all of these really highly structured elements to ensure that we are maximizing our time together. But we go, jeff who's a student to celebrate, and you say well, I have this one student and this is a great celebration. I've seen we instantly turn and say, all right, what do you think you did that led to that success? And so by starting with that celebration and really getting teachers talking about their practice what is the things that they've done that has led to success, which we know. By doing that over and over again, we're creating high levels of collective efficacy. Someone in the room when Jeff says, oh, one of the things I did is I created a little locker checklist and it helps the kid get organized for class. Someone else in that room is going to go. That's brilliant. I'd love to see a copy of that. Just simple little things that start sharing.
Kurtis Hewson:After a few minutes of that celebration, then we come and focus on a key issue. So this is what it looks like and everyone's asked to come ready. There's a pre-meeting organizer that you quickly determine and in time, we want that pre-meeting organizer connected to our data and evidence. I'll come back to that in a second and we say, jeff, who's the student you've brought? And, 20 seconds or less, what's the key issue? And you identify that I have this student. My key issue is assignment completion. They just I can't get them to complete assignments on time and we go okay, great, who else in this room has a student that is struggling with assignment completion? And inevitably other people will go, uh-huh, yep, and we make note of names.
Kurtis Hewson:But the whole idea is we're trying to get the attention off you, jeff, as the teacher, and off one kid, and onto what is something that we share. And then we've start brainstorming and we start and, and there's more structure. I'm being quite quick or overarching with the explanation, but we just start throwing out ideas. You know, in my classroom here's one of the things I do and you go interesting in mine I do this and during this conversation there's no judging of ideas. There's no opportunity for Jeff to say, oh, I've tried, that that wouldn't work in my classroom. We just it opens up a space for innovation and sharing of practice.
Kurtis Hewson:And then we come back and say all right, jeff, for Marcus, what's one thing that you're willing to take away? So, like we said, it's sometimes for someone that's watching this meeting from afar, it looks like you're talking about kids, but you're not. You're just using the kid to leverage a conversation about practice. And it's highly solutions focused, highly action oriented, and we found through this it makes the PLC work even stronger. It ensures that we have schools that say we have less and less students making their ways to the referral systems that we have in place because teachers' toolboxes are growing for us. So that's the collaborative structures and processes really powerful process and we often say to schools you're going to get highly intentional and thoughtful on how you create your teams. But look at these four layers. The collaborative team meeting becomes the difference maker.
Principal JL:Yeah, it sounds like basically the schools that are out there doing the PLC work, which are a ton of them.
Principal JL:This will be, you know, like you said earlier, it'd be maybe that next step to strengthen kind of what you do and elevate it to where you're maybe having less people fall through the cracks. And it's really interesting to hear a lot of the systematic approaches and the different ways of doing it. I really like the idea of getting people out of their departments and cross, you know, disciplining problems. We kind of do that with our school improvement team. I kind of require to have a person from each department represented on the team, so everybody that's at the table when we're trying to find solutions to an issue are having a seat at the table to where they can go back to their particular departments and bring back some different feedback and different things. And so I mean we kind of it sounds like, you know, I'm kind of thinking through the things we do. We kind of like do some of this stuff, but I mean this might be something we definitely for sure look at, maybe strengthen what we do, even better.
Principal JL:And.
Kurtis Hewson:Jeff, we sometimes have some schools say so, do we stop doing our PLC meetings and do these meetings instead? And we say no, no, no, you keep your PLC work. That's really powerful, but what we're going to do is every usually it's four to five weeks we're going to infuse this approach in as well. So when we first started in my school, we had grade level PLCs. We had embedded time weekly in the timetable and we'd say, all right, every fourth meeting you can expect the principal to come join the learning support teacher to come join some other, our family school liaison. We're going to create um, a conversation that looks like what I described, but we started it within our regular teams. But what we found over time is because the focus is on key issues.
Kurtis Hewson:We were struggling before when it was well, I want to talk about bradley and the people around the table when it was in grade level teams, they'd be aware of Bradley just because of the work that they're doing.
Kurtis Hewson:But when we started to mix teams and especially at a high school, where if I'm in a mixed team conversation and I bring up Bradley, I'm going to have four people around the table completely disengaged, because not only do I not teach Bradley.
Kurtis Hewson:I don't even know what that kid looks like right now, but when you focus it on the key issue, now we can start mixing those teams. So it's, it just creates one more layer and, especially thinking about your high school, it becomes exciting when somebody shares. You know, one of the things I do in the gym is this and someone else says that's interesting. How could I look at that in my my english classroom for how I do this? Like it just starts opening up different possibilities and different conversations. I had one high school that's where a teacher had said I've been in the school a long time, I'm I'm friendly with all of my colleagues, but I've never had a conversation about practice with someone from that wing of the building. In fact, I don't even often go down that wing of the building because it just I don't need to. It creates multiple networks and then we know this creates huge impact on teacher well-being, teacher connectedness. No one's isolated in this work.
Principal JL:Yeah, I really, I really love how trying to bring everybody together across the building is a powerful way to really collaborate and to help themselves get better, but also, you know they're going to help student learning in the process of that. So what advice would you give to principals, district leaders that are out there listening, that want to maybe start implementing collaborative response practices but aren't sure where to begin, like what? What advice would you give them on that?
Kurtis Hewson:yeah, I would definitely say check out jigsawlearningca. We have a ton of resources that are available there, including a page that is specifically about introducing collaborative response in your school. It's overwhelming when you see all of the pieces come together because, on top of what I've just shared with you in time, we want that the data and evidence is informing every one of those conversations and in fact, we start color coding our data so that in the collaborative team meeting I'm not bringing students with key issues that are my most at risk students. In fact, we know they're already being attended to in one of our other layers. We actually say, if you're going to color code your data, let's say red, yellow, green, red being not yet meeting expectations, yellow being they're getting close and green being meeting expectation, and then we also have a blue of exceeding expectations. Then we're going to focus on the yellow and we had one high school that said we've determined a yellow criteria as a kid who's sitting with a 40 to 60% in their classes right now, or you might say a kid that's sitting at a C level.
Kurtis Hewson:If we're looking at alphanumeric grading, we're not looking at our most intensive needs students. They're already there, they're already being attended in one of our other layers. What we're trying to do is those kids that are on the cusp, on the bubble, what could we do that would have impact for them in the classroom, which we know then impacts all other students. And then in time we start connecting a continuum of supports so that when we say so, what should we do, it's not always just brainstorming, it's referencing our continuums and saying have we tried this, have we tried this? And getting crystal clear on what are the non-negotiable expectations for instruction in our school that we've determined and what are the other things we could do. And these tiers of the continuum start to align to the four different layers of team. And through this we say stop tiering kids, tier your supports I love that.
Principal JL:Stop tiering kids. Tier your supports, that's, you know. That's. That's a very great thing to think about, because I think your supports are what's going to get those kids where they need to go, instead of focusing on the individual kids all the time. What supports do we have so when the kids run through these systems, they are getting the supports they needed?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, and going back to your original question of getting started, we say there's those three foundational components. In time we want them all to connect. But your starting place is probably looking at your collaborative structures and process. And we often say for schools like your school that already has some systems in place awesome, let's start introducing the collaborative team meeting in and start seeing the impact that that one structure once a month will have. And again we say to schools start small impact that that one structure once a month will have. And again we say to schools start small, start with a pilot group that can try this. The collaborative team meeting is very tightly facilitated but in time, when we can spread it out across our entire school population, it transforms the way you're talking, thinking and responding to kids.
Principal JL:Yeah, so how do you? This is a question that came up how do you battle the mindset of oh, this is just another thing they're making me do another agenda, a checklist that I got to do. How do we have the staff buy into these different supports? Because you talked about a tightly knit, facilitated, collaborative process, but also the buy-in's got to be there too. So how do you help people with the buy-in?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, and actually I I always take this from another perspective. I've learned through my leadership career that I'm not worried about buy-in, because buy-in in my mind is I'm trying to sell something and I need you to to buy it, to sell something and I need you to to buy it. I instead want to move towards. How do I get commitment, um, to what is happening and I actually I'm not worried about seeing whole school commitment initially, I know that's not possible for us. I I want to start with who are the people that I know can help to champion? How can I start planting some seeds with them? How can we start developing and trying some of these ideas within our school and then allow people to enter when they are ready? But I also believe that as a leader, I cannot force you to think or change your beliefs on anything for an individual, but I can set expectations for how we are going to engage in our school. I can say, um, we're going to have a collaborative team meeting and I expect everyone to come ready for that and there might be some P in fact, I saw it in my own eyes of staff members that came into that first meeting and if someone's listening to the audio. You're not seeing me folding my arms across my chest very closed. Who, in time, when they discovered this is not about judging or adding one more thing onto your plate. It's actually a conversation that is going to start taking some things off your plate in time it's. It's going to give you thoughts and possibilities and, man, it starts to become exciting when I share out an idea and someone else in the room goes that's gold Kurtis, that's a great idea.
Kurtis Hewson:I've seen people transform the way they're going about supporting students by just being part of these conversations. So I would say to leaders don't worry, if not everyone's on board to start, that's okay, just start, just get going, and actually you're going to shift and move and change. I'm a big subscriber to the change philosophy of ready fire, aim, ready, you know. Plant some seeds, start with people who you know are going to be okay and help you get through some muddy parts of the process, because it's muddy, it is muddy, but then fire, just fire, get started, and then we can come and aim, we can adjust, we can change. We may realize that we're doing these meetings too frequently, not frequently enough. There's lots of navigation that we're going to have to do, but as a leader, not being afraid to fire. From our conversations, jeff, you've lived that idea of we're going to fire, we're going to learn as we go through and through that process you're going to have people come in at different entry points.
Principal JL:No, yeah, definitely, I know. You know, when you are trying to build collaboration within your school and build that culture, it does take a lot of work. It takes people to, you know, see it. But then once you do the work and they start seeing success from the collaboration that you get, then that motivates them more. And I'll tell you, my first year here as a principal, we really focused in on the school improvement team and really they were like well, man, we've done the school improvement stuff forever, but we've never seen any fruits of our labor. Well, within my first year, we solved a. We found a solution to an issue that they said this is an issue, we got to solve it, we've solved it. Then we implemented change and we solved the effects of it the next year. And it was them saying you know what? This is the first time that we have actually did something. We said we're going to do, we followed the rule and we could see the effects of the changes. So that motivated them even for the next year. It's motivating them right now because we're right now trying to find a solution to an issue that is important to us, and these issues aren't necessarily, you know, we have to score so high on a certain test.
Principal JL:In this, you know, content area, our issues are how do we get kids in class, how do we engage kids? How do we, you know, transition kids from the eighth grade into the ninth grade? These are some of the things we're trying to build because that's part of our culture and the welcoming piece and wanting people to feel welcomed and wanted into our school. That's really important, because I don't think you're going to have success on the other ends if you don't have that. And, of course, the way to do that is to collaborate. And so that's really neat to just to hear how this system works. And if people don't have something, this is something that they can maybe look at bringing in and helping them produce systems if they don't have anything in place. And also, how could this elevate what you already do?
Kurtis Hewson:Of that collaborative team meeting structure I talked about. It's actually taking what you're doing. Of that collaborative team meeting structure I talked about. It's actually taking what you're doing at the macro level, at the school level, of what are some school issues and let's bring people around to help solve the CTM. Focus then on the micro, of what are some issues that you individually are seeing in your classroom and how could we help to support. But it's not putting people on the hot seat, it's through the facilitated structures being able to say, okay, this is actually a shared issue that we're seeing across some different classrooms. What do you do in your room, what do I do in mine? And it's it's taking exactly what you're doing to try and create change at your school level and bringing it down to the micro level. So I often say to schools you can't avoid the macro and the micro like, do them both. How can we put both in place?
Principal JL:No, I really like that. I think that's kind of one piece that we maybe got to look at is how can we help teachers learn from other teachers to help practices? How do we elevate their practices? I'll be honest, my vision for next year is how can teachers help student engagement in the classroom, and so that's going to be a piece. How do teachers learn from each other? And I've thought of some things. I won't get into it on the podcast. Maybe we could talk after on some things that I've thought about to help with that. But really this collaborative response, the things that you have thought about to help with that but really this you know collaborative response, you know the things that you have in here really kind of speaks to those things, and I really would encourage people to take a look at what you do. Is there any success stories that really stand out from this work that people have implemented that you'd like to share?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, absolutely. So maybe I'll start from. I'll go back to the micro and move to the macro. We've seen numerous schools that have said the culture has changed. One is I heard from a teacher who said I was looking forward to counting my days for retirement and I'm not anymore. This, it's, re reignited my passion for what it is that I'm doing, because we've understood now that the solutions to the challenges we're having aren't outside, they're inside there.
Kurtis Hewson:We often say, like in your building, jeff, you have centuries of teaching experience in there. If you're looking for how do we improve student engagement, I'm willing to bet you have experts in your building that are phenomenal at that. How do we leverage them as effectively as we can? So those are the kind of success stories that I've heard from teachers where it feels like and it goes right back to where we started. I want to make a difference, but if I can feel like I'm making. We often say to, to to teachers. This isn't going to make your work less like. You're not going to be able to go home half hour earlier than normal, but you are going to feel like your efforts are going much further than they ever have before.
Kurtis Hewson:At the macro level, we've been working. I'll just share one system here in our province of. Calgary is our largest city and their entire public system is about 150,000 students, 250 schools have all adopted this framework and of course it's been through phases and and trying to introduce something large scale has been really complex and exciting. But we're seeing now success stories that are coming from those schools for students and I'll share one rural school division, a division of about 2 000 students or so here in our province that implemented and in their fourth year of every school getting common language, common understanding, utilizing, of course, not the same structures, because their high school of 700, that's not going to look the same as a kindergarten to grade 12 of 100 students, but we can still use some the common framework together.
Kurtis Hewson:Their director of of uh student services at the divisional level said uh, it was not unusual, and this was in November when she was talking, so just within the first quarter of the year. She said by this time last year we had somewhere between 25 to 30 referrals coming in for district level services beyond the school. She said this year we've had four. Four Because the schools it's not that they're all of a sudden got better students coming through the door? Not at all.
Kurtis Hewson:They have still their same student population. It's just the schools are way more equipped to be able to address the challenges that they're seeing. It's not that we have less needs, we just feel better equipped to handle those needs. So those are some of the success stories that have been phenomenal. And of course, then we do have the quantitative data that shows student achievement results within our school. Within two years we shot up literacy achievement by 13 percent higher for students at at benchmark based on our screen, which was again you talk about seeing those wins as soon as you saw that it, man, it opened up the desire to let's do more.
Principal JL:Yeah, when you see success, you know, and you see the solutions that you come up with provide the success from that, it does motivate you to be like, oh, let's keep doing this work, because we've seen some of that, you know, within our building and I know, you know, other people can have those successes if they have these type of processes and systems in place for them as well. And and honestly, I'd love to see more people get into not being afraid to put these types of things in the place because they get worried about it and, oh my gosh, you know, will they? Will this be effective? And so I think, when you have those success stories and you have the people that have done the work and they can say, hey, if it could work for us, it could work for you, you just got, like you said, kind of roll up your sleeve and do the work, and it's not easy work, but it's work that's worth doing If you put the time and effort in.
Principal JL:I want to kind of talk about your building a culture of collaboration podcast. That's something that I ran, you know, kind of getting to know you guys, you know your work as well as your podcast. So what kind of led you to start that building of culture collaboration podcast.
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, so of course, as we've been working through, I've learned more from engaging with schools and divisions than I'm sure I've taught those schools and divisions. Just, you'll come into a school that are utilizing the structures and processes, but they've made one tiny addition or tweak and you go. That's genius. So we wanted a way to start sharing out those stories and those success, and we have another podcast called Leading Collaborative Response that is directly connected to this work of leaders coming on and sharing what they've done, what they've learned through the process. And then myself and Lorna, who co-author of the book and co-founder of Jigsaw Learning sometimes we just sit down and share. You know, here's a strategy, here's a tip, here's how you can do this. But what we were finding is sometimes and it goes exactly to what you said, jeff sometimes people would potentially lack confidence, or sometimes even, you know, I know I need to put this in place, but I don't know how to introduce it. I don't, I'm not quite sure how I would move forward. And what we found is there's some skill sets around building culture and having people work in teams that are bigger than this collaborative response work. They're they and they. They span across different industries. So we really wanted to a chance to break down what are the tenets of effective collaboration in business, in education, in healthcare and all these different factors. And that's really our purpose of the Building a Culture Collaboration podcast. Yeah, we bring in educators and educational leaders, but we've also tried to expand beyond education to just what are things that we know about building effective teams.
Kurtis Hewson:I'm a huge believer that in this world if we're trying to do it alone, it's going to be way more difficult than collaborating. But collaborating doesn't always lead to success. We know that there's ineffective forms of collaboration where you go oh that's 45 minutes of my life I will never get back. I could have got done more on my own, but I hope everyone's had instances of true, meaningful, purposeful collaboration where you come out and go oh, my goodness, we just accomplished something that is remarkable here for us. So that's the emphasis of that podcast and I've often said that a little bit selfishly it gives us a chance to pick other people's brains to learn. I see it as a tremendous professional learning opportunity for myself, but then I also hope that it benefits others listening and either confirming things that they are already doing and putting in place or offering a new idea or a new mindset.
Principal JL:I agree with the whole like learning from other people, and that's kind of what I do through this podcast. I'm actually, you know, having my own professional development by talking to other people in the profession and what they're doing and, honestly, I wouldn't have ran across your work of collaborative response without um re, you know, really reigniting and this uh passion for trying to help other educational leaders. And so, you know, one way we ended up connecting was me going on social media and throwing out stuff and just saying, hey, I podcast, and I think you kind of responded to one of my posts and then we got the talk in and next thing, you know, we're collaborating and working together and just telling each other stories, which you know I appreciate. You know those things cause those are things I would have never thought would happen. You know, two, three months ago I was just thinking how do I do all this stuff? I want I know why what I want to do is I kind of have an idea, but then it's really kind of blown up over the last two to three months of working with other people and learning from them what they got to offer, and then, huh, I really liked that. I think I'm going to think about how can I implement those things into my current practices with my, with my teachers, my staff and my students as well.
Principal JL:And so you've accomplished a lot, right From teaching the leadership co-founding, jake saw learning, you know. You got you published a book. Now you're podcasting. So what's next for Curtis, and maybe for Lorna as well? What's next for you guys? To continue this journey?
Kurtis Hewson:Well, we're super excited. Every year we host what's become a retreat now around this work where we bring educators and teams from schools and school jurisdictions here to our home community of Lacombe, alberta. It's a small group we cap the numbers at 140, but it's happening in May and it's a really powerful learning and networking experience. So that's coming up. We're actually just working on a new book I'd say we're about two-thirds of the way through it that is focusing specifically on that collaborative team meeting structure. We know that the book Collaborative Response looks at the overall, but the new book that we have coming out is going to deep dive that meeting structure because it is so powerful. It's one part of our collaborative response but it's a pretty powerful one, and we just actually yesterday released an online course that is focused on understanding and facilitating the collaborative team meeting.
Kurtis Hewson:So if anyone's listening and wants to learn more about that and learn how to really effectively facilitate and I would argue there's strategies and ideas in it that's not just about the collaborative team meeting but facilitating any meeting that can be really powerful. So those are some of the things that are out and again, all of them with the intent of how can we continue to expand this work that we know can have impact for kids and for teachers. We share that our driving mantra is every child deserves a team. For teachers, we share that our driving mantra is every child deserves a team, and I actually believe every staff member deserves a team too, and I just want to play a small role in helping to transform our system so that nobody's ever isolated and no child is ever the sole responsibility of one individual in any school. It's, they're our kids, and how do we help ensure their success?
Principal JL:I love that. I love that how you know every child has a team, but how every educator has a team around them as well, so no one's doing the work alone. They're not being isolated. I really want to drive home that you know we do get tend to get isolated in education, but how can we not be isolated? How can we collaborate with those around us? Because every school's got people around them. It's. How do we engage with them? How do we start those conversations and how do we have meaningful conversations to help us learn and grow? But also, you know, with us learning and growing, it will help our students in the long run, as it goes. So the last thing I'd like to ask is how can the audience connect with you guys and learn more about Jigsaw Learning, the collaborative response and your podcast?
Kurtis Hewson:Yeah, so I'm personally on all the socials. You can search out Jigsaw Learning on any of those socials as well to be able to connect. We're continuously sharing and engaging with people there. Our home base is the website, so jigsawlearningca. That's a ca on there and it's filled with free webinars, resources, the podcast links or search collaborative response, and it'll get you there as well. I would love to reach out and help support in any way that we can around this work.
Principal JL:Great, and I will have that information in the show notes so make it easy for people that are listening to the show to really get connected with you guys and the work you do. Well, curtis, this has been a, I would say, awesome conversation. I've learned so much just by listening to your journey, your story and kind of how you guys are helping. You know education not just in Canada, but now you guys are coming down and helping schools in the US as well, and so I would really strongly encourage you guys to connect with Curtis and Lorna and the work they do, because I really believe the work they're doing will impact what you guys do and help you guys not be isolated and be that collaborative team that you guys deserve to be. And so I really think the time and and I'm really humbled for you to come on this podcast today and thank you for for being here.
Kurtis Hewson:Thanks, jeff, and I would encourage anyone search out the book collaborative response. It is filled with resources. There's a companion website that goes with it. I think it will help not only confirm things that you're doing, but that I think it will help not only confirm things that you're doing, but share some further thoughts on how we can really make the work we do together as impactful as possible and make as great a difference for kids as we possibly can. Jeff, I love any chance we get to have a conversation, love the work you're doing and um just trying to lift up others and engaging in your own professional learning. So thank you for all you do, my friend.
Principal JL:You bet I appreciate you too, Kurtis. Hey, have a great day.
Kurtis Hewson:You too.
Principal JL:I hope you guys enjoyed this episode as much as I did recording it. Kurtis was a phenomenal guest and I really enjoyed his insights on his educational journey. We will have more information about Kurtis and how you connect with him at the bottom of the show notes here on this episode. We're also giving you access to an overview of Collaborative Response article, but as well as an introductory chapter of his bestseller Collaborative Response. I encourage you guys to check it out and until next time, always look to be 1% better.
