Leading the Future: Technology and Innovation in Independent Schools

Narrator 00:02
Welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS, the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens. We'll hear stories from technology directors and other special guests from the Independent School community and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics. And now please welcome your host, Christina Lewellen.

Christina Lewellen 00:25
Hello and welcome back to Talking Technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen, the executive director of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. And

Bill Stites 00:34
I am Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy,

Hiram Cuevas 00:39
and I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of Information Systems and Academic Technology at St. Christopher's school in Richmond, Virginia. Hey,

Christina Lewellen 00:46
guys, welcome back to the pod. It's so great to see you again. This time virtually, we just spent some time together in person in Reno at the time of this recording, we're just a hot minute off of our annual conference. And that was pretty fun. So we did record some podcasts. We were on site in Reno, but how have you been doing since going back to the real world and leaving the ATLIS bubble?

Bill Stites 01:08
I'll tell you this much. I actually now want to be on stage when we do this. I mean, having been, you know, in front of everyone, while we were recording, I think that should be the new norms, the chairs were much more comfortable, you know, seeing everyone mill about was quite fun. But now coming back from an ATLIS conference, I always feel energized and ready to go. And then I come back and I sit down and I look at my inbox and everything that's been waiting for me since I've been away. And while the energy is still there, it's just slightly diminished by the fact that oh, yeah, I actually was away for a week. And we did now get back to things down.

Hiram Cuevas 01:43
I'm in a similar position as Bill. You know, it was a very cathartic event. For me, I'm actually feeling like, going through some sort of withdrawal, that I haven't had a chance to meet up with my peeps first thing in the morning and continue throughout the day and continue with all the learning and the sharing that goes on. And not to mention, you know, giving each other grief. That's always the most fun about this trip. Yeah, I did come back to a bevy of emails are trying to get all that ready as we move into the last stage of the academic year. Yeah,

Christina Lewellen 02:11
interestingly, what's different for me at ATLIS, compared to you guys, in your academic settings, is that coming back from conference is almost like the wrap up of our year, we're starting over, right like now, it's kind of like this unofficial end of the year, it's not the end of our fiscal year, it's not quite the end of our board service year. But it is the end of a big planning, push, where the team and I then kind of go into more of a long range view of the world. And we're looking at what comes next. And, you know, we don't have to quite start planning yet for the Atlanta conference. But every year when we wrap up a conference, that's sort of the end of a chapter for us. And one of the things that I need to do at this time of year is I start pulling together my self reflection, because I report to the ATLIS board of directors. And so it's really an incredible project for me annually. It never feels cumbersome, because I'm able to look back at all the progress we've made in the last year. And it's like starting a new year. So it always feels really good. That sparks my question for you today, guys. And I'm going to ask you guys to answer it now. And then later, we'll ask our guests to weigh in on the same question. How do you all keep track of your goals and accomplishments? Are you like a write it down person? Are you a keep track of IT person? Or does it sort of live up in your head? Do you have to do a self reflection annually?

Bill Stites 03:32
Yes. And sometimes more official than in other years. But I mean, in terms of like keeping track of like where I want to be in the things that I'm genuinely working on. I go old school analog, and I put stuff up on my whiteboard. And I keep track of the different project based things that I know we're gonna take time. From a big list guy, it was funny, I just prior to coming on to the podcast kind of put together our summer list, because whereas you're talking about your year kind of coming to an end, for most of us in the tech field, when you come into summer, that's when all of our projects get done because everyone's out of the building. And a lot of cases you can get a lot of that work done. So either in Google or on the whiteboard itself, that gives me a chance to it's right up here. By my side here gives me a chance to brainstorm things, make sure I've got them open, keep some visible things that will get lost on the screen or whatnot. But having that front and center is always a good grounding place for me.

Christina Lewellen 04:28
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm with you, Bill, I have a foot in each canoe on that I'm solidly a Gen X. And what that means is I grew up before the internet and so I love the satisfaction of like crossing something off a list and having it written down in front of me I love the feeling of like ah another thing checked off, but I also use Asana to organize my life so I need to probably just put both feet in one canoe but I'm not quite I'm not quite there yet. I it just still makes me very happy to have stuff written down.

Reshan Richards 04:57
So for quite some time

Hiram Cuevas 04:58
I've been able to keep Have everything upstairs. And I'm at a point now where the the hard drive is starting to get full. And as a result, not being as efficient as it used to be so much like Bill, I have a whiteboard with a lot of my long term items that I have on my to do list. And then I also have a notebook. I like keeping a notebook where I can go back and review some of the things that I need to do. I think most schools would say that they struggle with documentation. And some of that is true here. You know, you've got a lot of that stuff in the brain. And I rely on that. But I do do one self reflection, mainly because our Head of School requests one, and it's a really good opportunity to kind of get an aggregation of all those different components and assembling them, so that I can sit back and go, Wow, we did an awful lot this year. And guess what we're going to do a lot next year doesn't seem to slow down. It's a time to celebrate, too, because you sit there and you look at you know where you've been able to push to school, and it's an opportunity to keep on moving forward. Yeah,

Christina Lewellen 06:04
I mean, I think that some people find it tedious. And obviously committing to goals is always a little scary, because once you write them down or say them out loud, then there's this accountability factor. But I also think that it at least for me, I feel really energized by it. And I like taking a hot minute to reflect, because I don't always do enough of that. So reflecting on the year and what you accomplished is always a good thing. We are going to now transition to our guests today. And Bill I think where I usually say Hi, and welcome everybody. I think that this podcast today is a bit of an MKA reunion. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the folks that we are welcoming on today's podcast.

Bill Stites 06:42
I'm actually very excited and pleased and actually somewhat nervous because these people know an awful lot about me and I'm in a public forum and I don't know how this is going to actually come out. This is going to be great. The two people that are joining us are Reshan Richards and Steve Valentine, Reshan, I'm sorry if I should go with Dr. Reshan. Richards.

Reshan Richards 07:03
You always include Dr. At every possible moment, please. Thank you. I'm

Bill Stites 07:07
sorry Dr. Richards. Reshan is a former colleague of mine who helped us here at MKA many moons ago. As our Director of Educational Technology. He is most recently served as a member of our Board of Trustees for quite some time. So once he left they kind of sucked him back in kind of like any good North Jersey family would do with sucky right back in. So He has not left MKA and the other person is his cohort. His buddy here is Steve Valentine. I refer to him as Reshan's buddy, because I don't think Steve would like me to refer to him as my buddy. But Steve is our and Steve, I'm gonna mess up the title because I always do assistant head of school as a decision or associate. I always get those confused.

Steve Valentine 07:56
Yeah, you did mess up the title. That's awesome. So what I'm gonna do, now that I know that you keep your notes on the whiteboard, and all of your plans. I'm just announcing this I'm gonna go in there after hours. And I'm gonna start just erasing a word here. A line there.

Christina Lewellen 08:14
I would add more to it. Steve, I don't think I would erase I think I'd pull out the permanent marker and start adding some stuff to it.

Steve Valentine 08:21
Yeah. So Associate Head of School. But thanks, Bill. There

Bill Stites 08:25
you go. So Steve's a big wig here at MKA he sits in the the Head of School suite and helps guide the school masterfully all jokes aside, both were Reshan and Steve are two of the most dedicated and intelligent people that I've ever had the pleasure of working with regret saying that about Steve for the rest of my career. But now they are two very thoughtful leaders in education in general. And I think what we'll find here on the podcast is both of them have a deep respect and love for all that we can do with technology to make not only education better, but I think leadership in schools and how we can benefit from the use of technology in that area as well. So with that, my heartfelt welcome really to both Steve and reshot Dr. Richards. All jokes aside,

Reshan Richards 09:12
thanks very much for having us. Thank you.

Christina Lewellen 09:13
Thank you guys for joining us. So why don't we start here? Why don't we have you guys now introduce yourselves a bit and just tell us a little bit about your journey and what brought you into education? That's always one of my, where you started and where you landed? is always quite a journey for most folks on this podcast. So Dr. Richards, how about you first? Sure.

Reshan Richards 09:32
So the first job I took out of college at an independent school, I actually was hired as like a math intern. So just to teach like to middle school sections, but then I was just like, they looked at me or what they're like, Oh, you probably know computers. Our tech department needs some help, too. And I was like, I don't really know. They're like, we're gonna pay you this much more. I was like, Sign me up. So I ended up being this kind of tech assistant slash math intern. And the best thing about it was a couple of things. One I had really great mentors, both on the tech side and in the math side. And then, early in my career, I got to see this intersection of like, learning how to teach and like academic program, and really understanding like school infrastructure and technology. And now this is like early 2000. So like also kind of an early ish phase of like, really ubiquitous technology. on the academic side, I think there was much more happening on the back end, still at that point. And then, you know, I was in positions of teacher at Tech coordinator, eventually director of ed tech at MKA working with Bill and Steve. And that's where we collaborated quite well and did a bunch of cool work together. And then I've always been, again, around ed tech, I ended up starting, like, as a side this like software company, and then that started taking more of my attention. And so I stopped working at schools for a number of years as I focused on that. And then I came back to working in a school a few years ago, the first COVID Year 1920. But this time, we're on the curriculum site as Director of Studies, you know, still very adjacent to every all things, ed tech. So that's kind of the short version of my ed tech career.

Christina Lewellen 11:05
That's cool. And so before we go to Steve, can you tell me what were your degrees in, that landed you in these coaching slash teaching? You said you weren't planning to be a teacher or go into education? What are your degrees in?

Reshan Richards 11:16
Okay, so my, my undergraduate, which has nothing to do with math or technology, I was a music major, I studied composition,

Christina Lewellen 11:25
that actually has a lot to do with math. As it turns out,

Reshan Richards 11:29
it does so well, yes, it's true. It is true. There's a lot in the patterns and things like that. But you know, on that surface level, you wouldn't think, you know, I was still trying to be this kind of fine arts person. My master's in education is in teaching and learning with the focus on technology, and then my doctorates in instructional technology and media. Love it. How

Christina Lewellen 11:48
about you, Steve, tell us a little bit about your journey. Did you also major in some kind of random music, fine arts plays, because that's where Bill came from, too. So tell us about your journey.

Steve Valentine 11:58
I think it's a little bit more straightforward, in that, for me, writing always came first, since I was a little kid just always enjoyed writing and reading. So that's what I studied, basically studied English, got to the end of my bachelor's degree, and literally went directly to a master's program, because I said, I just want to keep going, I want to keep doing what I'm doing. I didn't feel like I was finished. And so essentially, English degrees all the way through. And when it came time to start to figure out the next step, I went into, essentially a journalism classroom as an intern, and got very lucky because I was doing that at the Phillips Exeter summer school program. And I remember walking into that type of classroom where we were sitting around a Harkness table and was like, this is where it's at, like, this is where I want to be, I want to be in a place where young people are still goofy, and fun and doing all the things that young people do, but also having the capacity to really pay attention to what I was trying to teach them. That's where I started. And then that rolled into my first job. And I had some choices. My first job and I remember, I picked the school that I started at, which was the Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale. Because they at that time, they basically were like, we're going to figure out laptops, I'd have to check my history here. But I believe they were kind of out in front at that time of what schools were doing. And I remember I had this, I don't know where this insight came from. But I was like, what I want to do with writing and teaching is never going to be separate from computers, and laptops and technology. For some reason, I just knew that. And so I'm like, I'm going to go teach at the school that is proposing to sort of marry these things. And I'm going to figure out what that means.

Christina Lewellen 13:49
So now the three of you from MKA, you mentioned that you've worked on some cool projects together. And it sounds like you collaborated to kind of drive some of this technology strategy. Can any of you think of a couple of examples just to ground everybody in the type of work that you were doing in terms of just making sure that your school was a leader in the space, and also how you work together to get it done.

Reshan Richards 14:11
I remember I came in after, I think year one of the laptop program having been rolled out the one to one for all from our fourth grade through the high school, every student receiving a laptop. So I think Bill and my predecessor had been kind of spearheading, that it got implemented and rolled out. And then I joined in, in the kind of the second year of the first phase of like that laptop deployment. And I think one of the best structures which I inherited, I can't take any credit for its conception or how it got started and how it became an institutional dimension was kind of a co requisite to the laptop initiative, as it was called then was having these two student leader groups in our middle school, which was grades four through eight and then in our highest School who were had like this multifaceted roles, including they came to the cop, many of them came to the conference, that 2012 event that you referenced. So one, they were consultants, they were kind of the life subject matter experts of learners of that age to give feedback on not only like the machine software, policy, like all sorts of things, they served as a sounding board and group of experts of what none of the adults could possibly manufacture or engineer or study up on, like, we are not going to be able to turn back into our 12 year old selves, I'm in second, many of these students also became trained or certified, even technicians who helped out on the actual maintenance of machines. But then they were also these ambassadors in the community, like you would see teachers and peers coming up to students just to say, like, hey, we need help with this. And when you're at an institution that's going from just the faculty and staff having computers, and yeah, maybe there were some bring your own to now like a multiple of, you know, several 100, maybe 1000 plus new piece of hardware all at once, and like your school is not going to scale up in headcount all of that quickly. And it may not need to, because a lot of the needs are gonna be very front loaded at the top and then kind of evened out. And the student engagement here, I just like it was great. And like I was thrilled to then continue partnering with Bill and other school leaders on fostering that program during my tenure, and then continuing to see it develop,

Steve Valentine 16:28
I can add a few things. And one of the things that Reshan and I talk about a lot is, you know, in leadership, you have to point your rocket very intentionally, because it's going to it's going to land on a totally different planet, depending on where you point it. And when I think back to early moves that the institution was making. And you know, a lot of this was coming from Bill's leadership, and from this sort of massive committee that we had that actually still exists to this day. But we made some very important decisions, like first of all, like, everybody's going to get the same thing. You know, like back then kids were bringing all different kinds of devices, where they were starting to, and they were just appear in classrooms. So everyone's going to get the same thing. And we're going to be on a renewal cycle that is going to ensure that the machines never feel stale, right. So that that's pretty ambitious, if you think about it. So it's this every couple of year project. And then from the beginning, it was always this like two headed monster of like tech, and ed tech, Tech, and ed tech. So every decision we were making on the tech side, again, because of that partnership was always connected to our pedagogical goals, our learning goals and the way we wanted to design classrooms. Again, these were foundational, early decisions that took a lot of effort to get to, but we have not deviated from us. Whenever we feel like changing or moving a different direction, all of the kind of old school participants in that committee, we just instinctively like have these guardrails that we stick to now would those things ever need to be updated? I mean, maybe someday, but for now, like we've got those things. And then we were running this amazing summer conference for ourselves that we were resisting shipping out or making any money on, in fact, we were losing money on it. Because we just believe that we could run this great conference ourselves. Every summer, it was basically an institute where we were doing the work of learning how to play with technology, learn technology, connected to teaching connected to learning, there was John ran a bunch of those Bill was always involved. So those seem foundational to me.

Bill Stites 18:36
I'm glad that two of you brought those two pieces up because when Christina asked that question, that's right where I went. And I think, to me, just to prove how much those two programs really influenced what we were doing, but still hold true today was when I was just in Reno last week at the conference, one of the sessions I went to was on how to redo a Responsible Use Policy, and unacceptable use possibly Responsible Use Policy. And we talked about how you need to engage with students and the community and people were talking about just how they bring them together and what a struggle they have. Actually, in doing that. I came up and I shared the examples of what are now referred to as our student ed tech leaders. You know, what is the committee, Steve mentioned the implementation of it to me, and those things that we did back then still ring true to people today, they still have meaning for people today. They're still examples that people can point to today that I think really just speak to the quality of the work when you apply. And Steve, you just use the word and I actually wrote it down when you were talking about it early. When you apply really focused intentionality in terms of what it is you want to do. What are your goals and then how do you look at all of that from a leadership perspective to make sure you meet you reach those goals because as it related to the one to one It was a huge budget item, it was fraught with all of these questions about how are we going to prove that it was meaningful? How are we going to prove that it actually did all of these things. And it was through those intentional efforts that we made to really define what it was our goals were, how we were going to measure it, how we were going to support it. And all of those different pieces came out into that. And that's the one thing that I really, to this day respect between the two of you and the work that you do now around leadership, you know, in some of the work where technology focuses on this is around this idea of intentionality, like, what is it you want to do, and I would love for you guys to just expand a little bit in terms of the work that you two are doing now in the leadership space, and how you are applying that level of intentionality to that work, so that you can better inform school leaders.

Reshan Richards 20:54
I want to just tell a quick anecdote which then I'm going to give Steve the challenge of transitioning from my anecdote which he doesn't know what it is yet, though. He's a part of it into the broader response around intentionality. It's all connected. So there's a challenge that I helped to problem solve not a real challenge, again, just day to day at tech school thing, but it's the same exact question that came up like 12 years ago when I was at MK, which is the question about, you know, the school having a certain kind of mobile phone or cell phone policy, and what teachers were not expecting, or assuming that students had access to when creating like activities in class that might require a phone going back 2012 2013. And it was just a fuzzy spot about like, Hey, can a teacher tell kids to just say, take a picture of the notes on the board after class as like a standard practice? And there would be the debate of like, well, we won't encourage that that's like innovative, like that's really thinking ahead about it. But at the same time, it's building in these assumptions, which the one to one program, its mindset around like equity and access, there was a bit of a conflict there. So like, how do you both promote innovation, while at the same time like maintaining, you know, your vision or ideals or principles around student equitability and access? So we came up with a policy. And again, there were some who might say that what we did was still like feeling stifling. But we would always go back at the committee level, I think this came to the implementation committee. And we said, we have to look at it from the student perspective first. And like, that's what informed it now, of course, I'm sure that's evolved. Last fall in my current environment, there's a digital photography class as an elective for our older Middle School and young, ninth grade students. And it's like, Well, let's think about the equipment. And there was a mindset, well, all these kids have phones, but do they right? And do they have the same phone? Or is that like, but don't we also have a school policy where kids are not supposed to have their phones out between arrival and dismissal? So how do we reconcile that? Oh, we can just let them get them just for the purpose of this class? It's like, no, no, this is not the way to go about it. But what was great is our arts director, our tech director, we all came together, we're like, let's think about like, what are we trying to do? Like, oh, it is important to teach the kids how to use the types of cameras, they're more likely going to have right not these SLRs or point and click things which we could do, right. But that's feeling a little bit less authentic. So all we did was like, we found because we only needed like a dozen, we found a bunch of iPhones that we could get the same model of that were relatively new, we're running the more recent OS. And these were just going to be school owned iPhones that were just using his cameras managed the same way we manage all of our other mobile devices by our tech department, having this tool software ActionAid. Yeah, there's still some jokers and knuckleheads you'll see there on YouTube, instead of like taking picture of like the foliage in the fall, but like you're having that anyway. Right. So like, at least, it was just a small conversation that we like, hey, let's get aligned on the goals that are reasonable. Like, yeah, we want to learn kids how to take good pictures and edit using contemporary smartphones. But we don't have to do that against what our beliefs are about, like, what's appropriate for a child to get through the school day, like what do they adult they need to have? Or what blurry lines? Are they incapable of navigating? Why do we want to put them in a position to fail and be like, Hey, you can get your phone, but don't check your text messages. That is an unreasonable request of a 13 year old, right? We shouldn't even be putting them in that position. So it's just amazing that a very similar tangible, like ed tech student learning student development intersection, that like you can still stick to those same principles, right, as long as you're having kind of the right order of operations, and then still get to an actual outcome that is student centered, right? That's like ultimately gonna be what's best for the students. Good luck, Steve. Well,

Steve Valentine 24:46
what I heard, actually, as you were unfurling those two stories, Yes, I heard intentionality for sure. Like in both cases, the schools had established things that they wanted to be clear about things that we're driving their intentionality, the intentionality, that doesn't really mean anything without the discipline attached. So I think a lot of times, like it's easy to kind of write down a mission statement or a purpose. If you don't have that sort of leader in the room is going to say, Well, let's look back at that let's actually goes through the process, then the intentions don't actually matter that much like I would argue that by going through your process at the school, you're at now, you actually came to a better outcome than you would have, if you just would have either abandon the intentionality or just sort of like, found an easy way around it. If the students knew what you did, which they might like you've taught them this other really cool lesson about equity, or you've taught them this lesson about discipline, or I just think going through the process to make your intentions known, especially as you have newer teachers, newer administrators like turnover, that's where I think you get really special outcomes. So not just having a nifty intention, but sticking with it.

Christina Lewellen 25:59
So you guys have this foundation of being intentional having some discipline, we've been kind of looking back and reminiscing a bit about where this came from and what the foundation was. But c
an you now tell me how this applies to some of the challenges that we're wrestling today? What's in front of you, either at MKA or elsewhere, but what is sort of in front of you in terms of how you apply that discipline and intentionality to the work that's happening in today's classroom,

Reshan Richards 26:26
there has been in the last four years, three big waves of new scary tech that schools have to deal with. So one, of course, everything around distance and crisis planning of school, there was one another one, which is thankfully, kind of and in its severity, everything around like blockchain and NFT's and that whole area, but it started to bump against the fringes of like, Ooh, is this something that's going to be disruptive. And then, of course, all of the NFT fans were disappointed when, Hey, AI just completely took the attention share. But I think in all three cases of like anything kind of new coming to school leaders, or schools or you know, a tech professionals, tech professionals, it still comes down to like, what we believe about, like how kids learn and develop, because it's gonna, of course, evolve and change at a much slower rate than any of these exponentially accelerating change that we're seeing as far as what we as consumers have access to, but like, it's just not going to change, right? Like, it's still going to take around nine months for a human baby to develop before it's ready to emerge onto the oxygen facing world, right? Like, there's certain milestones between birth and two years old, and then to, you know, to seven. And so you know, like, that's not going to change, right? The things that also aren't going to change, if you're a progressive school, or one that takes a social constructivist approach is that like, you know, we are a community and socially driven species, so that like our mindsets about the relevance of what we're learning and experiencing, it's all about people being together. Being an effective member within a community or society being impactful being a contributor, someone who benefits and contributes to, that also won't change. And so if you have like those mindsets, I'll clear when something like aI comes in and like, feels like, oh, this might disrupt how we normally do our English assignments, like, yeah, okay, fine. But it's not really going to change our mindset about like, what's important for like a 15, or 16 year old to be engaging in every day in order for them to be like a better human when they leave our care. So I think whenever these things come in, it invites that level of reflection, which I would say, prior to the pandemic, because that was such a big disruption that forced a lot of that or made it clear that people were not answering or looking at those things clearly, that now I think there is a new muscle or habit from like the leaders who live through that to realize we do need to be centered around like what we absolutely believe about childhood development and learning. And when you do that, and then you just get thoughtful, aligned people together at the table. These things are completely manageable. Reshan,

Hiram Cuevas 29:10
what's interesting for me and listening to you all, first, I think it's really important that people understand that there are a lot of really good schools out there that do good work in the field of technology. The work that you all have done at MKA over the years has been superior, and it's a model for many, many schools that are out there. And while you are describing this journey, I love the fact that you use the word habit in your description, and I'm going to actually quote Matt Scully as best I can because at the ATLIS conference, he mentioned something that really stuck with me. And essentially, you will develop routines very early on, including student voice, including everybody in the conversation. To his point Matt then says those routines become habits and it's something that you all are doing can certainly you've taken that routine, it's now become a habit, everybody's reflecting on what needs to happen. But now today, what doesn't surprise you in terms of disruptive technology has become, in his words, your ritual. And so he says that, you know, you're going from your routine to a habit to a ritual, I absolutely love this description, I plan on using it often. It's just so great to see the evolution of your respective programs go through this, to continue to do superior work with your communities. And

Reshan Richards 30:33
I would even add one extension, and I'm not familiar with Matt Scully’s words on this topic. But even from the ritual like that one level up where it's like instinct, right? So now this is actually like, woven into like the human condition to operate or behave in a way. So like, you go from this state of practice, or routine, to a habit where it's like, yeah, it's on autopilot. But it's still like, you feel something is missing, you're reminded, therefore, I'm gonna go do something to fix the habit versus like, instinct, right? Like, don't look at the sun. Because humans are not trained to naturally stare directly at the sun, right? That is an instinct of like ours, and we do everything to fight against ever making direct contact. And like, that's to me like even that one step above, like the collective ritual where it's so ingrained that like, this is a must have and must way of being, but that's still very like society and community driven to the actual like anthropological or DNA based change in human behavior.

Christina Lewellen 31:31
So it sounds like you guys have been experimenters, and innovators and much to the benefit of MKA and the other organizations that you've worked with and for, but I know that each of you have now taken some leadership roles in how you communicate back out to the marketplace, some of your findings, like any good inventor or innovator, you're starting to share, right? So Steve, you have some vehicles that you're involved in both a podcast also being an editor and kind of giving back to the higher education space for Sean you as well. Can you guys tell me a little bit about the ways in which you are now sharing, and becoming a leader in your space with some of the cool stuff that you've learned over your time, both with MKA and other organizations.

Steve Valentine 32:19
That's another one of those, I would say, very foundational, it's a habit. And it's been a long time, like Reshan and I have been sharing with each other and then always making a habit of sharing out into the world for a really long time. So to be specific as to right now, if we're going to talk about experimentation, you can experiment within your school within your day job space. I think that Reshan and I have always kept up what for lack of a better word is like side projects, because that becomes your best sandbox. In a side project. If there's something that you don't know how to do in your day job, you don't always want to sort of fail around people that you see every single day, you don't always want to try something. But in terms of learning about marketing, learning about branding, learning about communication, learning about how to combine images with words, learning how to podcast, learning how to publish, these are all things that are shot. And I learned through these other things we were doing so outside of the institution, and then immediately being able to bring them back in. So whenever we're experimenting, I think I can speak for him on this. We're always doing it in order to learn. We're putting something out a because as we learn, we like to share with teachers, but then we're also interested in what's going to come back as a result of it. Are we going to meet new people? Are we going to get feedback that is going to then teach us something?

Christina Lewellen 33:47
Can you tell us specifically like where people can find this, like give us some specific examples of where they can find you out in the wide world so that they can interact? If they care to,

Steve Valentine 33:58
I would say, first of the month, every month, I work with the clean Student Center to put out something called Clean brief. It's a group of editors from all over the country. We read submissions, and you know, again, if you know what clean brief is, it's basically we try to pull together between seven and 10 things that we think the Independent School community and or the International School community might want to pay attention to that particular month. So that's sort of an editing function where I'm trying to sort of sift through with my team, all of the ideas that are out there and figure out which ones should we curate for people to pay attention to also the first of every month, and I'll let Reshan talk a little bit more about this in a second. But Reshan and I are also trying to put out every month something called making the case, which is, you know, we have decided to talk about focus that we wanted to really, really write into the space between trustees, board presidents and heads of school and For senior leaders, because we find that to be a space that is very high leverage, like if we can sort of educate into that space, and think in that space and get those groups really working together, we believe that schools can really change for the better. So those are two ways that we're sort of systematically out there in the world. Yeah,

Reshan Richards 35:20
the making the case newsletter was born out of our prior regular newsletters that we built our subscriber bases, just from our books and other adventures. But I think this focus has especially resonated, because it taps into a space where there isn't, in my opinion, the right kind of education. Sure, there's like trustee workshops, and Trustee days, and there's some trustee retreats, where speakers are brought in, or there's leadership team, things like that, but like we wanted to have a very, it's like passive slash active, it's passive in that, as the recipient, it just kind of arrives to your inbox kind of thing. But the active part is that whoever is kind of the leader, whether it's a board chair or head of school, they have to have kind of intentionally committed that like this is a form of professional learning that is scalable and accessible to their team. So we've tried to really like position it that way. And it's resonated quite well. Is

Christina Lewellen 36:19
it about technology? Is it about governance, and all sorts of things that schools are wrestling? What are the topics you cover on that? Everything

Reshan Richards 36:26
you can imagine, our last issue was making the case for alignment mapping. So aligning vision and values of teams, making the case for human ingenuity that say, consideration of AI in the face of human creativity, making the case for Board education, making a case for growing the endowment, making the case for getting one's house in order, making the case for exit interviews, making the case for reflection. So some very specific topics, some bigger ones, our next addition is actually going to have a big focus on interscholastic sports, and why those are good for kids and good for schools.

Christina Lewellen 37:06
You hit on reflection, and that's sort of where I started this podcast. So let me bring that question back up to both of you. Since we're on that topic, I asked Bill and Hiram, how they track their goals or accomplishments. And I was talking about my own efforts that reflection, and you know, obviously, there's a deadline that I have. So it's artificial in terms of making sure I get that done. But I love it, I actually look forward to it, because the reflection piece is very fulfilling. So let me ask that question of you, too. How do you track your goals and your accomplishments?

Reshan Richards 37:36
See if I'll let you go first, because my response will come off as snarky, even though it's the truth. But I want to let Steve give a good response first.

Steve Valentine 37:43
Yeah, my accomplishments I write on Bill's whiteboard, just so he can see them when he comes in. And I think

Christina Lewellen 37:49
we should all start doing that, actually. Yeah,

Steve Valentine 37:51
and feel smaller. All I want

Bill Stites 37:53
to say Steve's got a book that I'm going to now take off his desk and write in constantly. That's what I'm gonna go, thanks.

Steve Valentine 37:58
That's fine. Okay, so it's become pretty simple. For me. I like to take really messy notes, like make a mess. But I also always build in time to clean things up, and to sort of make them meaningful and purposeful. So that could be again, like today's challenges, things I'm going through, usually, they're going to come out really messy and really, deliberately messy, right? Because if I look at it, and it makes perfect sense to me, then I haven't actually gone through the process of refining it, and actually reflecting and making meaning out of it. So this messy need or this sort of make a mess, clean things up process is also how writing happens. It's also how achievements happen. It's also how publication happens it sort of how everything happens. Because if all you ever do is make a mess, and you never actually make sense of it, or you never go back and prioritize you never go back and say, Yeah, that's interesting, but it's not what I'm being paid to work on or what I should be working on. Then in that case, you You never even get to the point where you're producing output that you can sort of count and sort of keep track of so I'm answering your question in a very abstract way. But that's how I sort of process through the year, every now and then I will sort of like say, Alright, so what have we done? What have we done in the last eight to 10 months. And by we, again, that could be looking back at stuff that I've put out with Reshan and organizing it on a blog, or it could be within MKA and actually like taking stock and maybe having a meeting with a person and saying like, let's make sure that we look back and celebrate all the things that we've done. So yeah, it's like going from messy to clean, either in the day, the week, the month or the year. Now to Reshan's snarky response. I have multiple

Reshan Richards 39:49
layers to this because there's a difference between like goals and like tasks, right. So I've pretty deliberate systems around just how I organize stuff that needs to get done. But when I think about like the bigger goals, I'm probably like, disappointingly, not very ambitious. Like, I want to figure out what is the least amount of effort I need to put forth that, like, I can just go home and like, well see that my kids and family and my parents and stuff are like, all okay, and like, I can like play my guitar, drums in video games. And so anything I do professionally, or decide to get involved in, whether it's like, yeah, active here, I'm sitting as an administrator as a school, or working on making the case or doing anything like that. There's always some thread that's coming back to like, having a good sense of like, what my sense of just like life fulfillment is, and like, I can connect things back to that. So in many cases, I just have like one goal, which is that like, it's not to achieve some professional status or have this or that kind of success. But like, you have to understand when the Powerball or Mega Millions hits a certain level, like, I stopped at the Mobil gas station and get that because I see oh, here's a potential low effort way, because I'm already driving by to potentially get to that goal. But I don't go buy a lottery ticket every day. That's too much effort.

Christina Lewellen 41:11
Got it. I got it. I think I'm starting to unpack this.

Reshan Richards 41:15
But I know it sounds like a maniac talking. But like, it really boils out of that I've like accidentally walked into like most of the you know, maybe perceived successful situations I've been in, but like, I didn't want to be a faculty member at Columbia. This wasn't like something I was seeking to do. But like somebody asked, I said, like, what does that actually take? Like, okay, this tracks to like, something I eventually want to be doing. So I was like, alright, I'll do that. But like the second I get a sense that it's in conflict, I'll be like, Okay, no, thank you. Starting the app company, same thing. I was like, if I do this, I can finish graduate school sooner. Good. So like, that's the only reason I didn't want to start a business or be like, I want to be an entrepreneur or anything like that. Like, I care about

Christina Lewellen 41:58
that, like, accidental goals. Yeah. But I wanted, you know, I've

Reshan Richards 42:03
enjoyed working in school settings, human development, and societal development are very important to me, working in a school and sharing, I see our ways that like, I feel like if I'm doing that kind of work, when I'm sitting at home, strumming my guitar, I know that I've got these active threads that are doing that work for me, while I'm strumming my guitar.

Bill Stites 42:23
I'm laughing as you're talking about, explain everything off the ground. Because I can remember just walking into your office and being like, what do you think of this logo? It wasn't like, what you would think when you look at what Explain Everything became when you look at the genesis of it, and the conversations that we were having around with it, you know, I knew where it fit in with what you were looking to do, as you were working towards getting that launched and getting it done as part of your degree. But just that, let's see where this goes. Let's see what happens with it. Without having this ultimate goal of it becoming what it was, I think is just a journey that I think we need to go on more often is, you know, everyone starts something thinking that they want to have it be this absolutely incredible thing. But if you start something, and you're like, let's see where this goes, let's see where the ride takes us. Let's see how can develop how can change over time and develop and taking those successes and those failures, and learning from them. And moving forward with them, I think is just great. And it just made me laugh as you were talking about all those different pieces. So I

Christina Lewellen 43:27
think that what we all know to be true and is proven out actually, in many, many scenarios is that a diverse team can bring some really powerful outcomes. And it seems to me that you guys have very different backgrounds, you are sitting and we're sitting in different roles, and yet you have become very close colleagues that rely on each other, you trust each other, you have a lot of respect for each other. For those who are listening to the podcast, tell me a little bit about how you work with people who are different than you and how you build these coalition's at schools to get these incredible projects done. I think that sometimes our schools are still struggling with that. So we try to hit on that once in a while on this podcast and in other ATLIS programming because not everybody is at a school that has broken down the silos or has figured out ways to have these cross departmental teams. So what advice or what thoughts do you guys have about that? Alignment

Reshan Richards 44:24
and values is key. And then the mix of skills is key. I think anything I've been involved in has always been because of that strong collaboration like Steve will tell you I do not like writing it is not my thing. I've had to write a lot and I've hated basically every moment of it. And like Steve like loves the perfect sentence and obsesses over the flow of the paragraph and the placement of phrases and it does not excite me at all zero but I do enjoy thinking of the design of have communication. I like to imagine the receiver, the words, I read them and they land well, like I enjoy what Steve ends up taking my crazy thoughts and making them more coherent. And then everything that he generates, also, but like, I do enjoy thinking of the whole journey of like getting from what's in one's mind into kind of the mind and heart of a recipient, and how all the ways that that can take place. Oh, that is interesting. To me. That is a good use of my time and happiness, I find joy in like finding the right mix of serif and sans serif font around this or that image of this size and the flow of information and like the timing, oh, what time should the message be received? All of those things I like to see, I don't know, do you like those things? Do you like schedule, send time thoughts and font headings?

Steve Valentine 45:49
I think a lot of the things in this will get back to the question. But a lot of the things that you don't like I do like and vice versa. You said values, I think the other key word is trust, right? Because Reshan and I in different places have described our collaboration as basically a long distance game of tennis, where my job when the ball is on my side, and we're not trying to score points on each other. So it's more of a volley, let's not say tennis, but a volley, my job is to sort of do my best to hit that ball back to him, so that he can then hit it back to me. And in schools, right, you're not always going to sort of get along as well as we do. But I still think, you know, you can bring this sort of attitude of, hey, you're really good at that, or, Hey, you really like something that I don't like so much. And if you can start to think about how to tie people together, really through work systems and work process. And with that sort of understanding that like, Hey, I trust you, we've worked out that we have similar values and similar end game. And then it's just a question of like, how are we going to play tennis together? Because I don't know, like, I probably see Bill like three, four times a week, we're still working together a lot. So we've sort of figured out our game of tennis within the school. At times, we're gonna have to get together and say, You know what, hey, I think you're doing more than you need to, or you're doing something that I should be doing. And again, that comes back to that trust in that respect. So I think it helps to identify and like really celebrate, hey, like, you're really good at this thing that I'm not really good at.

Reshan Richards 47:25
And the best teams will also have the composition where there are things that you've got a parallel or appear to check things, because if it's completely all just a puzzle piece of assets and deficits, but then there's no kind of overlap, then it's hard, because then it ends up being just like a collection of these islands or silos that you're hoping will will meld but it's never so cut and dry. And I think most teams and groups of people, you will find that. But we've written about this, it's a good use of time for a team at the outset of a project or the outset of a year, whatever the cadence is to articulate those strengths, those weaknesses, those preferred ways of working and things like that. And just so everybody's on the same page, and you can find those places to collaborate. Like, I have a colleague who's amazing at the day to day like planning, running of like an event loves the energy and the excitement of the moment and like thrives off of that piece, both the planning and the running. I was like, I want zero to do with events. But I love to brainstorm about like what the experience is going to be like, what are we working towards? What can we design around, like, what people are going to experience but like, I don't want to be doing anything with invitations registration check in. But like we can partner really effectively, because that's not the space where that person operates, right? Like they love to think about those very specific flow thing. But not like thinking like, oh, yeah, it doesn't make sense to have like, a 15 minute pause a time here, because that's just unreasonable for so and so to expect that much content, like humans need these or that break, or they've been sitting in this mode for too long. And now like it might be better to change it up. So it's just another place. And again, depending on what resource availability there are, when you've got teams where you've got both that diversity and skills, but then multiple people who've got shared skill sets, it only makes the collaboration better.

Christina Lewellen 49:12
So Bill, and Hiram, we've had this well, especially Hiram, I'm gonna go to you for a second because we've had this now insight into Bill's working relationships at his schools. And so same question over to you. We've talked about this a little bit. But do you also do what these gents are saying in terms of like fleshing out with your teams who likes doing what do you guys take the time to go through preferences and things like that, so that you know you're working efficiently or does that just sort of come with time?

Hiram Cuevas 49:40
I think it definitely comes with time, and they obviously have a long standing relationship that has enabled the types of conversations and actually, I think, the mutual respect that has developed over time. You've heard me say on a number of occasions that I tend to do rounds in my school because I'm offset from the main path of the academic environment. So I'm out there, trying to build those relationships with intentionality, so that I can engage in some of these larger discussions. The next step for us in the evolution is to regularly include some of these, these reflections with a larger group so that it makes it easier to have the conversations rather than having to visit different areas individually, because I think we're all part of the same thing. We all want the same, which is the best for our students. What I don't want to happen is some of the messaging could get lost when you start to separate out and branch out those conversations. It's much like data, and Rashad, you've mentioned that a number of times drop down the silos. And let's keep these conversations going. So that you're actually more of a Venn diagram rather than that silo.

Christina Lewellen 50:53
And as we begin to wrap this episode up, I want to turn to Bill, it's been really cool. I we appreciate that you've allowed us this window into your team and your working relationships to kind of see how the different brains come together. Do you have any final thoughts or reflections or even just a final question as we wrap up this episode, it's interesting,

Bill Stites 51:13
because you're so often doing school, you don't often have that ability to stop and reflect on what you've done, or how you've done it. And I think this is great, because to some degree, this, when we do the podcast, Christina, I'll be completely honest, I'm never sure where they're gonna go. I'm never sure how it's all gonna come together.

Christina Lewellen 51:33
You and me, both brother, you and me both know, and it's, it's

Bill Stites 51:37
the joy of it, it's what I love it. But I think to what we've talked about, and what we kind of know, in a rough kind of sense, we've got these rails, we've got a level of we've said it multiple times this level of potentiality, in terms of how we want to get to a certain point, there's going to be things that we know we need to touch on, we need to get there. And I think that, as we've talked today, whether it is in the work that we did, when we're Sean was here years ago, or the work that he's now doing with where he is in New Canaan, or the work that Steve and I are doing, or that we've done through ATLIS, as I think, and Hiram just mentioned it, when you take down the walls, when you think about the mission, what is the goals? What is it that you value as an institution? What is it you value as a writer, somebody who's trying to inspire leaders in other areas, you know, what are those things that you do? And when you keep those things at the front and in focus that allows you to bring, you know, as you mentioned before, how do you get people that don't necessarily see eye to eye together, you know, you bring them together and you focus on those things, you can really drive progress, and thought leadership and leadership in ways that you would not be able to, if you were just kind of working out there trying to make this up as you go without those things at the forefront that you're really shooting for. That's really what I've taken from this time together. It's just that idea.

Christina Lewellen 53:03
It's been really great to get to know this dynamic Reshan. And, Steve, thank you so much for joining us. Let me just ask you a random question for throw away. What do you do? And next, we're going to hang up from this podcast. What's next on your agenda?

Reshan Richards 53:14
I have seven minutes to get lunch. And then I'm meeting with the director of arts for our regular bi weekly meeting. I

Christina Lewellen 53:22
love it. How about you, Steve,

Steve Valentine 53:24
I'm gonna eat a sandwich, most likely. And then my next meeting is with a parent who consider a partner. We're just going to talk about a program and we've built this great relationship where he can tell me what he really thinks and understand that I can't make everything happen. But we'll do that. I

Christina Lewellen 53:44
love that you guys are proving my point that in our school settings, we just go from thing to thing, but it's all about partnership and leadership. So thank you guys so much for making the time to join us today on our episode. It's been such a pleasure Bill. Thanks for bringing along your friends. This was fun.

Narrator 54:01
This has been Talking Technology with ATLIS produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. For more information about ATLIS and ATLIS membership, please visit the atlis.org If you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent school community. Thank you for listening.