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 36: Leading with Clarity: Casey Watts’ Educational Leadership Journey!
What happens when talented, dedicated educators feel stuck despite their best efforts? According to Casey Watts, the answer isn't about working harder—it's about seeing clearer.
After two decades in education as a teacher, coach, and district leader, Casey discovered that the persistent gap between administrators and classroom teachers wasn't due to lack of commitment or expertise. The missing element was clarity. When leaders say, "Nobody's getting on board with our initiative," while teachers simultaneously claim, "We have no idea what's going on," something fundamental is broken in the communication chain.
Casey's journey into education wasn't planned—in fact, she once declared she would "never be a teacher." But after navigating through music and psychology studies, she found herself in a classroom, initially struggling through a challenging first year before discovering her native genius in working with students. This experience shaped her understanding that many educators need support to move from merely surviving to genuinely thriving.
Through her Clarity Cycle Framework, Casey guides educational leaders through a systematic process that bridges communication gaps. The approach starts with identifying an area of focus, analyzing root causes, setting specific goals, and conducting "listening tours" to gain stakeholder insights. Rather than imposing top-down mandates, the framework empowers everyone to contribute to the vision while mapping clear paths forward.
Casey shares a powerful case study of a Los Angeles school where teachers were individually analyzing data but implementing vastly different strategies in isolation. This unintentionally widened achievement gaps as students moved between classrooms with inconsistent approaches. By applying the Clarity Cycle, the school established collective practices that dramatically improved both teacher confidence and student outcomes.
Today, Casey focuses on bringing clarity to three essential areas: organizational direction, leadership identity, and authentic collaboration. She challenges the "faux collaboration" prevalent in many schools and offers practical strategies for building truly cohesive, clarity-driven teams where everyone feels valued and empowered.
Ready to transform your educational leadership? Connect with Casey at catchingupwithcasey.com and discover how clarity can precede capacity in your organization. When everyone understands both the destination and the path to get there, remarkable progress becomes possible.
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Today I'm very excited to bring in my friend, casey Watts, to the show. Casey has spent 20 years in education as a teacher, coach and district leader, working alongside with talented educators who, despite their dedication, often felt stuck, overwhelmed or just going through the motions. She realized the problem wasn't effort or expertise, it was clarity. Through her clarity cycle framework, casey is helping school leaders cut through the noise, align their teams and turn collaboration into real progress. Today, casey will share her educational leadership journey insights and what she's learned about leading with purpose. Now let's get to the conversation with Casey Watts. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the educational leadership. Today I'm excited to bring in Casey Watts to the show. Casey, welcome.
Casey Watts:Hey, thanks for having me. I am pumped to be here, excited to have a conversation all about my journey in education and where I am now.
Principal JL:Awesome. Well, Casey, I'm going to ask you the same question. I ask everybody on the show what inspires you to become an educator?
Casey Watts:It is such an interesting question because I grew up saying no, I'm not ever going to do XYZ for a lot of different things, so I will never be. I'm not going to marry before I'm 26. I'm not going to be a soccer mom. I'm not going to have a min'm 26. I'm not going to be a soccer mom. I'm not going to have a minivan. I will never go into education. I'm not going to be a teacher. I don't even like kids. I said never to a lot of things, and all of those things somehow have become true.
Casey Watts:So I got married before I was 26, was the soccer mom, had the minivan, and, lo and behold, I became an educator. And so I actually started off my educational journey really thinking about, thinking that I was going to pursue music. So I went to a college that really excelled in their music program, and when I got there and started going through that music program, oh my goodness, they drilled music into you, and so it was so much more theory and you eat, breathe and live music all the time, and it just wasn't for me. I needed music to be a hobby instead, and so I was like, ok, well, I'm going to go into psychology, since I don't know what to do, let me just go into psychology. So I shifted my major to psychology and then realized that everything the psychology professor was teaching about I felt like was describing me and I was like, ok, no, psychology is not for me because I'm overanalyzing myself. And I decided to go into education. And you know, I enjoyed my classes, I excelled in my classes, graduated, and it wasn't till after my first year of teaching that I realized like education really is for me and being with students is for me.
Casey Watts:But it took that time of kind of muddling through all of these things that I said I was never going to do for me to realize, you know what, what my path really was going to be. And I don't know that there ever was a specific moment where I was like this is it Like this is meant for me? Because my first year teaching I taught fourth grade and it was miserable. I had moments where it was great and grand, but a lot of it was really hard, so much so that I decided I'm going to try to find a different profession and I couldn't find anything.
Casey Watts:So I ended up moving into a second-grade classroom and it was just that little shift, having one year under my belt that I needed in order to be able to thrive in the classroom. And so you know, when people say, is there a moment? There wasn't a specific moment, it was just all of these small moments that culminated to me realizing this is what I excel at and I've got some. This is where my native genius is is working with students, and that's all there was to it. From there, I've been in education ever since, and I've been in education for 20 years now.
Principal JL:Awesome. Well, you kind of hit on a couple of things there. I know, like a lot of people that I interview on this show, education may not have been the first thing. Some people, yeah, I mean yeah, they knew since they were like fourth grade, right. But a lot of us are like I don't want nothing to do with it. I wanted to be a physical therapist. I wanted to go train professional athletes.
Principal JL:That was my passion at the time and then I realized I really like coaching and then the coaching and teaching kind of all came together and I kind of realized, through a series of events, kind of like you and I think you also pointed out a couple of things there where that first year of teaching is tough because A you're coming out of you know college a lot of the times and you don't know what you don't know until you're in the role. And that's a lot of education, no matter where you're at. If it's your first year teaching, your first year in leadership, your first year at the district office, you don't know what you don't know until you have those experiences. And so I'm really glad that you stuck with it and you are now here, 20 years later, and it's worked out, because get through that first year. I say that first year is going to be tough.
Principal JL:I had a daughter that just finished her first year of fifth grade and she had her ups and downs. I'm like, get through the first year. The second year will be different and when you have that year in your belt, you just know, hey, this is what the expectations are and you just know what you need to do, and so I really appreciate you sharing that. So let's talk about your teaching a little bit. What about teaching helped you, or what are some moments in teaching that help you take the next step in leadership? You know, I believe you went from like teaching into coaching and kind of talk about that. You know, piece the teaching piece. But then how did it? How did you transfer into the coaching role?
Casey Watts:Yeah, I have been really, really fortunate in my experience as an educator. So I and I've been to several different campuses, several different districts and I have served in many different roles. But my teaching experience spans from first grade to fifth grade, both self-contained and departmentalized. But one of the schools that I worked at for probably the most of my career was a university charter school Charter School. It really truly was one of the best campuses that I've ever worked at, because there was such a high level of expectation and standards for our teaching the only campus that I've ever been at where the entire group of teachers held a very similar pedagogy and philosophy and were grounded in that.
Casey Watts:And you're constantly going into others' classrooms to learn about their craft, perfect your craft and we also had college students coming in to observe and student teachers, things like that.
Casey Watts:So when I started working at that campus and had student teachers coming into my classroom, it sparked a different kind of energy in me, because you're looking out at this sea of I'm talking like six to 12 college students in your classroom and you know they're about to go through the same thing that you have been through and you know there's so much for them to learn that they just don't know about no-transcript.
Casey Watts:But just because you're an adult doesn't mean that you've developed the social awareness and self-awareness skills to be able to manage yourself well in those really sticky situations. So that was probably one of the turning points that made me think OK, so many teachers are getting out into the field and they're crashing and burning or they're only surviving for a few years before they decide. This is not for me, and I want people to be able to thrive. And so that was the turning point that led me to move into instructional coaching and then leadership at the district level, because I feel so strongly that people should feel empowered and confident in their roles, because that's the only way that they're going to thrive instead of survive. So that was really probably one of the turning points that shifted my trajectory.
Principal JL:Yeah, I know, like for me, I've been in a lot of different schools. I've been in rural schools. I've also been in big metro schools in Omaha and for me, you know, I didn't see an instructional coach until I was in a bigger district. Because you don't have them at the rural schools here in Nebraska. You have to figure it out, have them at the rural schools here in Nebraska, you have to figure it out.
Principal JL:A lot of the instructional coaching comes from principals and they have to understand what good teaching is so they can help those teachers and, I think, instructors. So people understand instructional coaches at like a school district that's a bigger district that can't afford them, honestly, is kind of where we're at. They are kind of like that extension of a principal because they're helping teachers get better at their craft and their strategies. They're not there to, like, you know, we're going to play the gotcha game. They're not there to do that. They're there, hey, I'm trying to help you. So when the principal does come in and sees what you're doing, you have strategies, you have things, skills, so you can demonstrate, you know the quality of education that you're giving the kids, and so a lot of people think instructional coach oh my God, they're going to. They're going to, they're going to beat me up, but no, actually I would embrace them if I was a teacher, and I actually did.
Principal JL:I embraced my instructional coach at Ralston, Mr Dan Bosser. If you're here listening to that Great guy. I learned a lot of different things. We did instructional rounds, different things like that, and so I never had that experience until I got into that school district and those things really opened my eyes to seeing a lot of different content areas and how they teach differently. But also you know how we do things similarly. So I really want to like let people know like instructional coaches are are great to have if you can have them, but also your principal or assistant principal at those small districts are your instructional coaches too. So let's talk about your instructional coaching. You have some stories about that. Um, some aha moments or things that kind of go. Yeah, this is what what I meant to do when it comes to leading in the classroom yeah, I will tell you my my very favorite thing is to work with teams of teachers.
Casey Watts:So I do appreciate and love the individual coaching, but it's when I was able to get teams of teachers together that I felt like my gosh. If I could do this every day, all day, I absolutely would and growing from each other, and it's incredible to see all of the different expertise being put out on the table up for grabs for other people. And so when I think about instructional coaching, those are the moments where I came alive is working with teams of teachers. But it was even more incredible to go back to classrooms and see teachers implementing what they had learned from others. I'll never forget one time we had a PD where we were thinking about how to encourage student discourse and one of the teachers brought to the PD hexagonal thinking, which, if you're not familiar with it, go to Cult of Pedagogy. She's got a whole blog post and episode about hexagonal thinking and there are lots of things out there about this strategy. But a teacher had implemented it in her classroom, she brought it to the PD, she shared it with everyone, she led the PD.
Casey Watts:We were only facilitators and then all of these teachers were thinking about ways they were going to implement this in their classroom, and it led to learning walks where we went to observe the different ways that people were implementing this strategy and just the look on their faces when they were seeing. You could just see people coming alive, you know, like you could see the light bulbs clicking, and that was one of the most powerful moments, where teachers took on the ownership of learning a new strategy and then were eager to go observe other teachers. Because you know, that's not always a comfortable thing and sometimes, as instructional leaders, it's hard to get teachers to a point where they want to go into classrooms or actually where they invite people into their own classrooms. So that's probably one of the most powerful moments for me as an instructional coach is seeing that moment come to life.
Principal JL:Yeah, I mean you say a lot of things that made me start to reflect on my teaching and going back and doing those instructional rounds or learning walks we called them that too, too. But when you get to see other teachers teach and you get to see quality teaching from different areas of and I was at a high school so I saw a lot of different content areas that opens your eyes like hey, that's interesting. I never thought of that and I think if you have that open mind or that growth mindset as an educator, you get a lot out of those things. I know people with fixed mindsets have a hard time with that because they're like leave me alone, I want to stay in my classroom, I don't want to do all this, I just leave me, let me do my thing.
Principal JL:But at the same time, you're not growing as an educator and I think part of our job as educational leaders is to help people grow. But I think having those relationships and those connections really help you get to know people but hopefully open them up to wanting to try new things, and I always say try something, don't be afraid of failure, because if you're not, you're not going to grow, you're not going to get better. So let's talk about from instructional coaching into the district leadership role. What was that district leadership role? What inspired that district leadership role? What inspired that move into that? You know what transpired for you for that opportunity.
Casey Watts:Yeah, Well, I'm going to be really honest with you. So first of all, the district role was district instructional specialist. So my role there was to partner with principals and teachers and really and truly it didn't start off this way, but it's really. What led to my book is bridging the gap between the adults on campuses, and so I served really as a coach for teachers, but also as a coach for principals and administrators, department heads, and trying to bridge that gap. Because it's so interesting. How you know, you hear from my experience, I hear from both narratives. So I hear the principal narrative who are they're saying we've got this initiative or we've got this program we're trying to implement, Nobody's getting on board. Or we've set the expectation and they're not following it. And then, on the other hand, you have the teams of teachers who are saying we have no idea what's going on. And I kept hearing that again and again and I was like, oh my gosh, we've got to bridge this gap, because until we bridge the gap between the adults on campus and until we're speaking the same language, then we're not going to see our student gaps decrease. And so that was really my role as an instructional specialist at the district level.
Casey Watts:But when I moved into that position I was truly trying to be a ladder climber and that was my goal, from being a teacher to being, you know, like you have all of these ideas of how you're going to climb the ladder. But it wasn't until I became like got into that role as a district instructional specialist, I was like, OK, wait, I've got to look at this ladder differently. We've got to lay the ladder down and instead of thinking about climbing the ladder, I want to think about how I'm just laterally going across the ladder and growing at each rung of the ladder. So how am I growing and developing people as a classroom teacher? I've done that. Now let's try instructional coaching.
Casey Watts:How am I growing myself and other people as an instructional coach, Now a district instructional specialist. And then, of course, you know, I moved from district instructional specialist into speaking and consulting and so I've started to think about my career differently because of those things. But so I'm not really thinking about climbing the ladder anymore. It's not about that, it's about growing and developing over time. And that's not the question you asked at all. But really, truly, I mean, that's how it kind of, that's how it transpired from instructional coaching to district instructional specialists is just how am I going to make an impact not just on teachers, but on instructional leaders as well?
Principal JL:Yeah. So, getting into that district role, you started seeing the gap. You started seeing, you know, the unclarity. Yeah, that kind of inspired you to take that next step right. You started seeing some, hey, there's something here that's not quite right, there's miscommunication, people don't know what they're doing. And that's really important for people to understand. When you're in a leadership role and you're not being clear with your staff, you need to bring clarity so they understand, because it's not like they don't want to do things. And I think when you build those relationships and you bring clarity, you are able to deliver things so they understand it to where it's not just hey, we have to do this because the district office is shoving it down our throats. That happens, we all know that. But at the same time, you know how could you take something and make it to where we can own this initiative or the things we need to do? A to satisfy the requirement, because we get things from state and federal government level too that get rammed down our throats.
Principal JL:I'll talk about this. Last year, every senior had to fill out a FAFSA before they got as a part of our graduation requirement. And I tell you, not every senior filled one out, but then you had to look at signing a waiver. And if they didn't sign a waiver, guess who was signing waivers at the end of the year for seniors that didn't do any of those things Me, the principal, because I had to comply to this thing.
Principal JL:Now I try to make it easy on my staff, like, okay, we're going to do it this way, we're not going to worry about if they get it in or not, because I have the ultimate veto power to sign away what I need to sign. So we did that. So there's things that you just have to comply to. But I think when you're able to bring something and bring clarity to it and being able to get everybody together on it, even if you disagree with it, at least you're together and moving forward with whatever initiative that is. So let's talk about that a little bit. You started seeing this gap and so it inspired you to take that next step. But you know, is this part of where you have the creation of the Clarity Cycle Framework. Talk about that a little bit and kind of how that all evolved in that role as a district instructional leader.
Casey Watts:Yeah, oh, and I'll also talk a little bit about how I shifted into consulting around the Clarity Cycle Framework too. But you know, I started consulting probably seven years ago and I really was focused on literacy as a consultant. And even then, you know, I think hindsight you can see these things that you didn't see originally. But after working in my role as an instructional specialist with the district, I was able to look back on all of these times that I met with teachers to focus on literacy now, seeing that disconnect between the teachers and the administrators. And so you know, when you, when that light bulb comes on, it's like you're reflecting on all of the times in the past where these things were probably pretty prevalent. But when I started working as an instructional specialist and I was trying to, I was noticing these different narratives. The thing that I kept hearing everyone say, myself included, is we've got to get on the same page, but no one was doing anything about it. You know, like we're saying let's get on the same page, we've got to be on the same page, but it's really easy to say that and it's even easy to say, ok, our strategy for getting on the same page is we're going to implement the same, everybody's going to use the same curriculum. Or, in order to get on the same page, we're going to make sure that everybody has this much planning, like a two-hour planning block every month. That's a strategy. But until you bring clarity to that strategy, really nothing changes. It's kind of like you know, I recall one time a principal wanted her teachers to have more effective PLCs. Well, her strategy for improving PLCs was we're going to have everybody create an agenda and they're going to turn that agenda in Great fine D&D. But agenda means something different to everybody. And just because you have an agenda does not mean that you're going to see effective collaboration. And sure enough, we go into classrooms and somebody puts up an agenda and on that agenda it said copies, grades, lesson plans, that's it, that was what was on the agenda. That's not an effective PLC.
Casey Watts:And when I started seeing these things again and again the strategy, but disconnected from actually making progress I was like, okay, we've got to zoom out to see the big picture, and then we've got to zoom in and script the critical moves to get to that big picture goal. So this is what we're wanting. What does that mean? Like, how can we leverage the strengths that we have and what are the improvements that need to be made. Along the way and I was reading the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. It's how to change things when change is hard, and they talk a lot about casting vision and scripting critical moves. So I started implementing the things that I learned from that book and other books, like from Simon Sinek and Andy Stanley, john Maxwell. I put all of those things together and created a map for our campuses, for teachers, to get to an area of focus or goals that the principal had said this is what we want to work on. And that too, that in and of itself was kind of a challenge, like I would go into principals offices and tell and say, tell me what your instructional focus is this year. And it would be either crickets or them saying, well, I'm not sure like what do you mean by that? And so we had to develop an area of focus before we could script the critical moves to get to that, to the goals under that focus.
Casey Watts:And a couple of years after being in this role, I had a kindergarten teacher come up to me and she was pursuing her master's, getting her principal certification, and she said I just how did you do it? Like, how did you go about getting everybody on the same page? And to me it just felt natural to do these things and so I said, well, I just zoomed out, see like where is everybody, and then just kind of zoomed in again to map it out. And she said, okay, but that's not good enough because that doesn't tell me exactly the steps that you took. And that's where the Clarity Psychical Framework was born.
Casey Watts:I started thinking about what she was asking for and I said, okay, let me just take a moment to reflect on how we did get everyone on the same page and I'm going to map it out, I'm going to create this framework that displays what that actually looks like, how you go from the strategy to the complexity of clarity paired with that strategy. And so there you have it. I started working with those campuses where I was with the Clarity Cycle Framework and it ended up branching out into the consulting that I did with campuses across the nation, and every campus has the same problems. And because I was seeing the same problems again and again, I was like what is it that we're missing? It's clarity that we are missing.
Principal JL:Awesome, yeah, and that's you know, a lot of you know. With clarity, I mean, it's really important I think I've talked about it a few times as we're going through the episode but, understanding, you have to have that clarity. So you talk about the clarity cycle framework. Could you give an example what that might look like for a school district to where hey, here's the thing we need to bring clarity to, and kind of walk us through what that looks like, just so we can kind of get an idea?
Casey Watts:Yeah, A lot of the time I will, actually I will say most of the time when I work with districts or campuses, they are wanting to. They have the issue of overwhelming numbers of students in tiers two and three. And when we look at that and they're like how do we fix this? We realize it's a tier one problem, right Like we're lacking high quality tier one instruction, Right Like we're lacking high quality tier one instruction, and we make the assumption that that people understand what we mean when we say high quality tier one instruction. But that's an assumption that can't be made. Just because you are in education, even if you've been in it for many years, doesn't mean we all share the same common definition of high-quality Tier 1 instruction. Some people don't even know exactly what Tier 1 means. So we have to be sure that we've got a common language there.
Casey Watts:So we start with an area of focus, Like if we like Tier 1 instruction, that's our area of focus. It's like a big umbrella and it should fit underneath the campus or district mission and vision. When we have that area of focus, we analyze it at great lengths because, as I mentioned earlier, we can see a problem. But unless we get to the root of the problem. We're just slapping on band-aid fixes again and again, like a PLC agenda or another product or program that we hope is going to fix this Tier 1 instruction. So we analyze that area of focus, the problem, and when we analyze it we start to notice these consistencies and patterns. Those consistencies and patterns become our goals. So it's like we're starting with macro and then we're going to micro.
Casey Watts:We've got these couple of one or two goals that we're really going to focus on to improve Tier 1 instruction.
Casey Watts:Then we don't stop there.
Casey Watts:We're going to go at an even more micro level and in order to script out the critical moves to reach these goals, I have instructional leaders go on listening tours and they're gaining insight from stakeholders about this area of focus and these goals that we've set.
Casey Watts:Because we want them to take ownership of these goals. We want to hear from them because we might hear from our stakeholders and realize maybe our goals need to shift a little bit. Maybe what we thought were goals aren't really the goals we need to be working toward and we also can see what are strengths we can leverage right now. And then, after we've gained insight from stakeholders about this area of focus and goals. We then actually start to cast vision, map out the critical moves to get there, and then we start thinking about how we're going to provide feedback regularly and celebrate systematically, solely focused on this area of focusing goals. And then, finally, the very last step of the clarity cycle framework is to consider how we're going to calibrate and sustain progress so it doesn't fall flat over time and become just that other thing that's on the plate.
Principal JL:Yeah, what I love about listening to the clarity cycle is it's a systematic approach. It's hey, this is where we're at. Here are some things we've identified. We're going to take what we identify and this is how we're going to get there. But we're not just start, you know, stopping there. We're actually going to have follow-ups. We're going to gain more feedback, more information, more data and then utilize that to make shifts if we need to. But then celebrating wins and, you know, looking at, hey, what's the progress, look like, how are we doing. I think those things are really important because then it shows people, hey, we are making progress towards the goals we have.
Principal JL:And I can speak to just this past year we implemented a new attendance policy. We got everybody hey, this is what we're doing, this is what we're on board, this is your role, this is our role. And what I would do is I'd give updates. I would say, hey, this is where we're at on our daily average attendance, this is where we're at on our chronic baptism, and I would give them every six to nine weeks, about every quarter I'd give an update. But I wouldn't just give an update to my teachers, but I give update to everybody my administrators, my staff, my district office leaders, so they could share with the board kind of the progress as we're going through the year, cause I would compare last year, this last year's data, with the year before just to show, hey, this is where our growth is at, Because if you didn't let them know how we're doing, it wouldn't encourage them to keep doing the things they're they need to keep doing.
Principal JL:And so that that's kind of one just example just in this past year how I kind of did some similar maybe it's not the clarity cycle, but it's just those little things to help people know that, hey, we're working together on this, we're making progress, let's keep up the good work. Because, I'm telling you, my assistant principals were probably the ones that worked the hardest because they had the most responsibility. Now, teachers had their responsibility for classroom and different things like that, but I saw everybody. But I really wanted to make sure my assistant principals knew, hey, I really appreciate all the hard work they're doing, because they were taking on a piece that was probably the biggest piece out of all of it, and I wanted them to have motivation or understand this is where we're at. What you're doing matters and what you're doing is working. I think that's really important. So let's talk about yeah, go ahead.
Casey Watts:I was just going to say. I mean, you just described the clarity cycle in action, actually, and what I love about what you said is how you're actually including an accountability piece, because you are communicating with people like outside of the campus, so district level leaders, et cetera and that's an accountability measure for yourself. You know, even if they're not asking for it, you're putting that in place for yourself so that you can continue to make progress. It's awesome.
Principal JL:Well, and the reason why I did that with the district level people is because they were a part of this getting implemented. I had to go through a process to get district level approval and school board approval, because we have things in place with this accountability piece for our attendance and it's actually we basically created a three-tier MTSS system for attendance. Hey, this is our level one, this is what it looks like and this is what our responsibilities are at level one, here's our level two and then here's our level three. But they needed to know what was going on and the progress we're making, because if things got to them, at least they could say, hey, they're making progress because they are a part of the accountability piece when it came to our attendance policy. Because they would have, if we had to go to a hearing or, you know, if they didn't like the decision that was made on our building level, they'd have to go to the district level. If they didn't like what they said, then they can go to the school board. So we have this whole systematic approach, but yet I wanted them to know what's going on. And then, of course, they reported to the school board just to say like, hey, thank you guys for supporting us on this and this is the progress we're making and I just I thought I felt that was just important from a building level, principal standpoint, to let them know. You know, hey, I didn't want to just share the wins inside our building, but I wanted to share it out with our district leaders because they were a big, huge part of allowing us to do what we were doing and so that was the best part. So that's kind of like the background or why I did that as well.
Principal JL:But, like you said, it was an accountability piece as well. But I just want to make sure everybody was on the same page. Oh boy, so let's talk about. You got into consulting, you're speaking, you have your clarity framework. What got you and what got you to step away from that district leadership role, to go into that? You probably might have talked a lot, a little bit about it, but I really wanted to get the full picture of what led you to make that decision to step into the role you're doing and then talk about some of the things you're doing right now, Cause I see you all over the place like, hey, I'm going here, speaking here and doing all these cool things and I just want you to kind of share what got you into that and then you know what you're up to right now.
Casey Watts:To share what got you into that and then you know what you're up to right now. Yeah, I, you know. Like I told you, I've been consulting for a while but in the last five years it transitioned from like literacy, a literacy focus, to instructional leadership and leadership in general. But when I, when I started to notice like hey, even even down to like yes in my conversation. So I love going to conferences and presenting, I love interacting with the audience.
Casey Watts:You hear all of these stories and it's like this, it's like it's on repeat. You know the same stories again and again, with this disconnect between, you know, administration and teachers, or teachers and parents or administration in the community, just all of these different narratives. And I, when I completed, like when I completed the book and I had the Clarity Cycle Framework it was, it's been implemented in several different campuses across the nation two things I realized Number one, I can't do two jobs at one time anymore. And number two, this is what I'm most passionate about having an impact on is that bridge between administrators, teachers or just the different adults on a campus, in an organization. And so clarity preceding capacity became my mantra. Like I, just, I find it so crucial that people understand that clarity precedes capacity in every way, no matter where you go, but we don't always know exactly how to create clarity. That's kind of where I am now.
Casey Watts:I focus on bringing clarity to many different things, but there are three primary areas of focus. When I talk about clarity, obviously I have the Clarity Cycle Framework, and that is really clarity of direction, where we're headed and how we're going to get there. But I also started recognizing that we're lacking clarity in a couple of other areas too. We're lacking clarity on our identity as leaders, so we lack emotional clarity, goal clarity and social clarity. So I work with leaders for leadership training so that they can become reflective leaders.
Casey Watts:And then the last thing that I bring clarity to is collaboration. We are I think most of us probably will only ever experience faux collaboration, which is to say, fake collaboration, and I work with campuses to foster effective collaboration so that they can reach that collective efficacy that we're always hearing and talking about but can't seem to get there. And so I help teams to implement norms, protocols and models for their meetings and collaborative planning times. They're going to help them to effectively collaborate so everyone feels valued, inspired and empowered, and that's that's what I'm talking about when I'm on stages or at workshops or conferences. I'm talking about clarity around those three things every single time.
Principal JL:Awesome. Hey, do you have a story about? Hey, I came in to work with this school. Have a hundred of them, but just pick one.
Casey Watts:I wish I could. I wish I could show you like I'm just going to try to paint a picture but a school that I started working with in Los Angeles last year. We started working together in August of last year and the focus was tier one high quality, tier one instruction. The focus was tier one high quality, tier one instruction. But underneath that area of focus, they really wanted to. The principal who initiated contact with me and we started working together. We she really wanted teachers to be able to collectively analyze data and what was happening is they were individually analyzing data, but all going back to their classrooms and implementing a wide variety of strategies, just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall to help students make progress. And there was no sharing of the data. It was just we're going to analyze it individually. I, as a principal, I'm going to talk to you about your data and hear what your goals are.
Casey Watts:But you know, the thing about that is when teachers go to their different classrooms, it's like you said. We have so many people going in, closing their door and doing what they feel is best for their students and what is comfortable to them. But the problem with that is that if teacher A is going into a classroom, teacher B is going to classroom, teacher C is going to the classroom and they're closing the door and doing what they feel like is best for students. Then you've got students receiving all kinds of different methods of instruction and we're unintentionally creating the larger gaps and we're having students. Students are moving from one classroom to another. This is what the whole campus was experiencing. Students are moving from one classroom to another, or this is what the whole campus was experiencing Students are moving from one classroom to another or from one grade level to another, not only having to learn new content, but also have to having to learn a new way of learning, and so it was really impacting the student, student confidence. It was significantly impacting teacher confidence, which was the other goal. She wanted teachers to confidently implement high-quality instructional strategies and track progress with those, and so those two goals are what we focused on.
Casey Watts:Over time, we went through the clarity cycle framework with the campus leadership team. They brought me in to work with teachers on high-quality instructional strategies. I was able to observe in classrooms and gather data on their instructional practices and over time, like we took together with my clients, I usually create a slide deck that they are able to go in and add to over time. And oh my gosh, these. If you could just see these slides there's probably 70 plus slides in this slide deck where every time the principal is meeting with teachers to analyze data or to analyze instructional and practices, she's adding to those slides so that not only can she see where they've started and how far they've come, but the teachers can see that as well.
Casey Watts:The other day she sent me we kind of go back and forth on this app called Marco Polo and she will send me Marco Polo videos of her staff collaborating together. They are noticing significant improvement in teacher confidence, but also in student learning, and it's been extremely powerful. So she's gone through the Clarity Cycle Framework. She started to develop these clarity-driven habits of leadership and next year we're just going to work through coaching, like I'm just going to do some leadership coaching with her so that she can maintain that progress with her campus. So that's just one story of several, but it's my favorite.
Principal JL:You bet yeah, no, and I think your story really shows, you know, kind of like this is where they're at, here's some issues. You kind of took us through that clarity cycle and framework with that story so we could kind of see it. You see it in real time there, just so we go. Okay, I can see how this could work. The whole goal is we're going to probably have some reflective administrators listening to the show and I want them to get that picture of what it may look like and how could that be implemented and utilized for their school to bring clarity and to help them proceed and be productive and collaborate effectively. I think you talked about something you got to collaborate, but you got to be effective at it. You can't just say, yeah, we're meeting and we're collaborating, but you actually have to bring people to the table, bring ideas and then have those real conversations, not just fluff, you don't just speak and do engagements and do consulting.
Principal JL:You also have a podcast called Catching Up with Casey, and so what inspired the podcast and what do you? What is the purpose, what is the goal of your podcast that you have called Catching Up with Casey?
Casey Watts:It's kind of transitioned over time. You know, I started the podcast I don't even know how many years ago and when I first started it my purpose was to share great instructional practices that I was implementing in my classroom. So that's how long ago. It started is when I was a classroom teacher. And then you know you have those big pockets of time where you're not coming back to the podcast. But it's so interesting to see how the podcast has evolved over time with how I've evolved as a leader and practitioner.
Casey Watts:But now the whole the sole purpose of the show is to help leaders understand how clarity precedes capacity and because of that on the show we bring clarity to all things leadership. So when I visit with people I have guests on the show and I love connecting with other people because people have so many great things to share. But we're bringing clarity to what hope looks like on a campus. We're bringing clarity to what our definitions of different common terms are. We're bringing clarity to the habits of leadership. So it is a clarity driven leadership podcast so that leaders can build cohesive, clarity driven teams.
Principal JL:Awesome. I love how you talk about the clarity piece, right, how can we read clarity to these different pieces and leadership? And I'd give people you know I encourage them to come listen to your podcast. I've listened to it. There's some great content on there and she has some good reels, and so I would say, definitely check out the Catching Up with Casey podcast and make that a part of your educational leadership, as well as this one right Routine when it comes to listening to podcasts and getting some more professional development. Now, we talked about a lot of things today.
Casey Watts:If you could give you know leaders advice, or maybe inspiring leaders or people that are currently in the role in leadership. What advice would that be that you've seen that would be really effective or really helpful for them to know and understand? My number one piece of advice that's coming to mind, based on what we talked about, is to let go of assumptions and lead with clarity. Let go of assumptions meaning we can't make assumptions about the adults on a campus, on our campus, just because they are adults and just because they are in education. Instead, we want to bring clarity to all things on our campus that deserve clarity, that are going to impact student learning. So just take a step back and look at your campus and think is there clarity around our systems, our procedures, the logistics behind our organization? And then also step back and think is there clarity around our philosophy and our pedagogy on this campus? So that's my primary piece of advice to leaders.
Principal JL:Awesome. I really appreciate that advice because I'll tell you, being a building principal, when things aren't clear, it's not like they don't want to do it, it's not like they're not doing it because they don't want to. A lot of it's because they're not understanding. And if you can bring the clarity or the why to what we're doing, I think that's really important. I learned that as a coach like I'm going to let my, my, my athletes know this is why we're doing what we're doing. It may suck at times, but you know we got to do certain things to get to where we want to be when it came to just being a coach and an athlete Same thing as a principal with teachers. Hey, there's going to be things we don't like to do, but I think they're important because it will bring us to where we want to go. But at the same time, we want to enjoy the process. We want to understand and have clarity with what we're doing so they can get to where they need to go. Because if everybody's getting where they need to go in the process, then we're going to be able to better every day. You know, one little thing here will build over time to get us to these big picture goals that we have for ourselves. So that's really great advice.
Principal JL:I really appreciate you. You know bringing that out and that clarity piece is really important, especially if you're a first year or a new leader. That's going to be your biggest thing is being clear with everything so they understand what the expectations from you to them are, but also it just helps everybody stay on the same page. So, casey, we talked about a lot of things. We're kind of winding down on the show today. I really appreciate you being on. If people want to reach out and connect with you, how could they do that? How could they learn more about Casey and the work?
Casey Watts:Yeah, the best place to go is, first and foremost, my website, catchingupwithcaseycom, and then you also can find me on most social media platforms. I will say I am most prevalent on LinkedIn, so my social media handle is catch up with Casey. So just imagine you're catching up with me over a cup of coffee and we're going to talk about all things. Clarity.
Principal JL:You bet, and we're going to have those things in the show notes for everybody. Casey, it was great having you on the show. Do you have anything to say before we go?
Casey Watts:I don't think so. I appreciate you having me on. This has been a great conversation.
Principal JL:What a great conversation with Casey Watts. Her insights about bringing clarity as an educational leader is impactful. Her passion for helping leaders move from stuck to productive leadership is contagious. If you took something away from this episode, I would love for you to share it with someone you know that needs to share it with someone you know that needs to hear it. If you're wanting to know how to bring clarity into your leadership, I would love for you to connect with Casey. Her contact information will be in the show notes Until next time. Be 1% better.
