Breaking the Test Score Obsession: Unlocking Total Student Success

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

We've spent way too much time on one measure of success when we should be focused on total success. How we do that is what we're going to be tackling in today's conversation. So who's going to be joining us today? The person guiding us through this conversation is Dr. Christopher Timmons and he is the superintendent of Dexter community schools. He served in that role since 2013.

curriculum director, middle [: 00:01:00

And as a paraprofessional, he's the founding member and currently serves as the president of the future of learning council, a nonprofit organization created to lead innovation throughout Michigan schools. Dr. Timmons was a member of the, of transcends learner centered leadership lab at the fourth cohort and is a Google GSV fellow.

also served on the American Association of School Administrators Governing Board and chairs the Huron Valley Ambulance Board. Throughout his career, Dr. Tim has helped Consortium, multiple local college access networks, and community foundations and funds.

Chris, welcome to the show.

Dr. Chris Timmis: Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk shop.

little bit more detail about [: 00:02:00

Dr. Chris Timmis: Key moments that shaped you as a leader. So floor is yours.

I'm in my 17th year as a local school district superintendent in my second district. I was first hired, I was 34 and I was in a fairly high poverty district. It was during the great recession. Michigan got hit significantly harder than most of the country because of our ties to the auto industry.

Dr. Chris Timmis: And we had already been probably five to seven years into a recession when the whole nation felt it. I took over during the race of the top era and when they started ranking schools and I was 34, I step in and find out early on our high school was ranked in the 3. 9th percentile in the state. Three years later, we were the 91st percentile in the state.

then recruited to my current [: 00:03:00

And when you're going into a district that was good and trying to make that move when you don't have a clear, compelling case on why you need to change other than we can do a better job for our kids. And I've been here for 12 years now. I've seen the relationships with both communities has been one of the leverage points.

It's been really a fascinating evolution of my career and evolution as a leader to be able to. Be in those different settings, but use a similar strategies. It's been just fascinating.

hings that I'm curious about [: 00:04:00

Get them to the 91st percentile, because that's a massive turnaround.

Dr. Chris Timmis: One of the first things we looked at is that in order to transform an organization, you need to have a compelling vision and a sense of urgency. So we painted a compelling version, compelling vision. We had a sense of urgency that was given to us. What we are able to do in the, some of the leadership moves was first building the relationships and building a high performing team.

So it was a team that we used to joke that if you're going to be on this team, it's like a bacon and eggs breakfast. That in a bacon and eggs breakfast, the chicken makes a contribution. The pig makes a full commitment. We only want members of the team that are the pigs. We're just a bunch of pigs doing the dirty work.

it really wasn't focused on [: 00:05:00

And that's how we moved it.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you described it the way that you described it. And initially when you said we've really focused on mission and vision. My immediate reaction was. How is that going to work in an environment where you're in survival mode? And, you could quite literally be in survival mode.

So tell me a little bit more about that was the vision that aligned the staff. But how did that show up in the day to day of the students of the district? Because it's the students that actually students and teachers that are driving the performance. So what were the mechanisms you put into place to drive that turnaround?

stematized the work. For the [: 00:06:00

And we went as far as, you did all the gimmicky things like prizes and whatnot, but really it was focused on the relationships with the adults. And how we were going to make sure that we put all of the supports in place. For example, we created it was early on. We created these graduation coach positions based on the communities and schools of Atlanta model from the early 2000s.

And this was early: 2000

We had another. Graduation coach who was a social worker. We had another one who happened to do university admissions for years. So we picked people that were [00:07:00] just good with kids, but had a variety of skill sets so that we could have a voice for kids that didn't have a voice. And we just worked on relationships from day one.

Dr. Jim: It's real solid stuff. Now, switching gears to when you landed in a completely opposite district, were there any common threads that worked well that helped you move this top tier district to the next level?

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah, same thing. Relationships and building a team that was committed to our greater purpose. One thing I found when I moved to my current district where kids were doing really well academically, is that our parents were worried about their kids burning out. They were chasing some kind of idea that when they graduate from graduate school, they'll be happy.

ent personnel so that we can [: 00:08:00

And some of those strategies actually worked for our kids that everyone thought was doing, were doing fine. But they were really deep down struggling. And we just focused on relationships and making sure our kids were happy and they were engaged.

Dr. Jim: So we'll get into the the details of that, but there was something that you mentioned that caught my attention and that was your comment about, we had a culture within our district where people people in the community were saying our kids will be happy after this arbitrary point in time in the future.

Or you referenced guard graduate school. And what's interesting about that is that high achievers. Within any context, usually get put on that hamster wheel. Once we get this milestone, we'll be happy. Once we get this milestone, we'll be happy. And it's the pursuit of the next milestone. And you always end up feeling like flat once you achieve it.

And that's a cultural [: 00:09:00

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah, it took a. multitude of initiatives that weren't all designed at the same time to make that shift. We had engaged our community in community book studies, which one of the early ones we did was called At What Cost? It was about adolescent mental health. And we brought in the author, we gave out free books to anybody in the community.

I think we ordered four or five hundred books. And we engaged the entire community parents in these conversations. And then we followed up with a positive psychology with the happiness advantage. And we really, it was fascinating. So even if we couldn't get community members to join in actively in the book study, we would have them read and then we would bring them in for a.

e we're going as a district. [: 00:10:00

And some of the kids signed up for just dance. They just wanted to do something unique. We started focusing on place based work around the district. And then at the high school, we eventually made a shift. to a block schedule that allowed us to increase our PE options. And it's made a huge difference.

ce to have the space, but we [: 00:11:00

So we put a limit and, it's really worked out well. We've eliminated class rank and our kids are still with them. They're doing great.

Dr. Jim: So you just opened up a whole can of worms when I'm thinking about the district. So you have a high performing district and you just talked about taking, doing away with class ranks and putting a cap on how many AP courses that you can take, all that sort of stuff.

What I'm curious about when you're talking about all of these different things that seem radical, No class rank cap on AP courses. You probably have some high performing parents that are like, this is not what we signed up for.

It's not going to work. Why are you doing this? How did you deal with that pushback?

had this like war. It was an [: 00:12:00

Meanwhile, we created an early middle college, but we focused on kids who the most, they were first generation college kids, etc. In a community that had most of our parents Already graduated from college. And we did a bunch of things at the same time. So there was so much going on and we really committed to personalizing education for kids.

And what we found is we would have families who had a high performing kid academically. And then they had another child that really didn't want to take AP and IB courses, but they were worried about their kid that all of their kids. And we really focused on what does your kid need to develop? Into whoever they're going to be.

he after school programming, [: 00:13:00

We own a fitness center. We run the senior, we own the senior center. So we just embrace that we're a community school district and we set up options for kids both during the day and outside. And then one of the biggest things that happened we got involved in a national pilot back in 2016 that allowed us for our kids and our parents to choose how they want to learn starting in fifth grade.

And it gave ownership of the education. And we found that once parents and kids had a choice about how they wanted to learn, they never asked for gifted programming again. We didn't hear about it at the high school. They were not pushing them hard enough. It was a fascinating evolution. It was rough for a few years, but as the kids moved up and got older, it all went away.

And everybody just embraced that we have all these options for kids.

se at The junior higher high [: 00:14:00

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah our configuration lends to it. So we're, the district's 84 square miles. We have about 3, 500 kids. We run a preschool that starts at 6 weeks old, runs up through the time the kids start kindergarten. Then we have a K 2 building, and we're all on the same campus. Next to us is a 3 4 building.

Across the street is a 5 6, a 7 8, etc. So our natural breakpoints, we were doing a lot of work at 3rd and 4th grade, with place based work. And then in 5th grade, because it's a 5th 6th building, evolution and development of kids, you see some of the kids that we have. Adolescents start earlier and with, especially with the era of cell phones and social media, kids doing things at that age that they used to do in middle school.

So we just embraced that. Let's, we're at a natural transition. This is a good time to. Change the conversation about, instead of which team are you going to be on of teachers, how do you want to learn? And here's a couple options.

ition from a district that's [: 00:15:00

Tell us that story. How did you paint the full picture to shift the culture from where it was to where it is now?

Dr. Chris Timmis: That's a complicated one. So our, this has been fascinating and I struggled with it when I first got here. Our third grade reading scores have never been great given our demographic. They've been okay. But by the time our kids get to sixth, seventh and eighth grade, we have some of the highest reading and math scores in the state.

And we did nothing special to get there other than give kids choice and keep them engaged as deep as possible. And you can raise high school test scores by having strong middle school scores. So when you look at what I found in the, my first district, when we were deconstructing what it took to raise, and at the time we were on the ACT in the state.

To [: 00:16:00

But you find your high school test scores are fine because you did such a good job in middle school.

much the same thing when you [: 00:17:00

We taught, we referenced this earlier. You said that there were a lot of choice and engagement focus paths that were established within the district. Tell us a little bit more about what that looked like.

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah, so when a kid would get into fifth grade. For 5th and 6th, they'd have a choice between what we called Summit and what we called Pinnacle. It was their way of that they would learn. And then in 7th and 8th, they'd have a choice between Summit, Pinnacle, and then we called it Apex. It was a hybrid of the two.

In 9th grade, we did Teams for a while, and then we moved away, but then we came back to a 9th grade team and experience. Then we have a course we call Integrated Studies that kind of catches kids and is able to move the four courses and weave between the four core courses. We then when they get into high school, we give kids choices between, they can go the route of AP and they can do a full IB diploma.

nd IB courses. They can take [: 00:18:00

We have to spend some significant time helping our parents understand all of the options our kids have on top of dual enrollment and online classes, et cetera. But it really, we give them choice and. That's helped because kids and parents get to pick what they want instead of trying to chase what they think everybody else wants them to do.

Dr. Jim: When you describe all of these different pathways, there's a risk of decision peril paralysis because you have so many different choices in front of you. So what was the infrastructure systems and processes that you put in place to help people get over that hump?

Because it sounds as somebody that's just in the passenger seat, sounds pretty overwhelming.

Dr. Chris Timmis: It is, but [: 00:19:00

We have them go dabble in something or they take our general curriculum and It's perfectly fine. About two thirds of our kids take at least one or one or more AP or IB classes as a junior or senior. We have 250 of our thousand kids take a dual enrollment. We have hundreds of kids that do an online class here and there.

So it's just part of the culture at this point.

ot anything like what you're [: 00:20:00

How has that played a role? Because this seems like it would be more labor intensive to pull off from a family perspective and maybe even a student perspective.

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is in K 12 education with the market now. There is only one thing that a K 12 district can provide that you can't get it anywhere else, and that's a diploma. We have a 99 percent four year graduation rate, and 97 percent of our kids with an IEP graduate on time in that four years.

And we are full inclusion. So we have, we send nobody. We have three kids that go to they go to categorical type program at a shared program. But only one is long term. The other two will be back there. They go short term and then they come back. So we really pride ourselves on, we will teach every kid.

And it's that [: 00:21:00

In the end, the test scores are great. We'd probably be higher than some districts when they'll lose five or ten percent of their kids not graduating on time, and that actually will drive your scores up. We don't fight the scores. We want a kid to graduate. We'll do everything we can to get that kid to graduate.

We start identifying and putting supports in early. And what you'll find is you'll have a kid in a family where two of the siblings go on to highly selective schools, but this other child is just lost in the mix and we're able to still get them done. So it gives us credibility with our families because we help every kid.

We do whatever we have to do.

del, which bakes in a lot of [: 00:22:00

So when you think about shifting to a version of this model, how would, let's say a rural district or an urban district, some a district that doesn't have the resource base, how would they pull off something like this?

Dr. Chris Timmis: What you'll find is if you do the right thing for kids and you have a compelling vision, that resources start to come to you. So in my first district, We had a fund balance of 138, 000 on a 40 million a year operation. And that was just because we sold a building for half a million. We were still able to get resources to put most of these models in place.

t need significant supports. [: 00:23:00

We've we chase grants every chance we can. And then what we actually do is we know that if we can maximize our systems and get support for the kids, you keep the kids longer. You keep them in school all the way through graduation. So you don't lose funding for kids that would have disappeared and you're not double teaching the kids.

You're doing it right the first time.

Dr. Jim: Really interesting conversation so far we got a little taste of What you did to turn around the first district that you're in and the goal in this district was a little bit different It was already performing at a high level and you wanted to get it to the next level So when you look at The shift in programming.

What's been the impact in terms of student outcomes and performance? Now that you've had this in place.

e're also doing a better job [: 00:24:00

It's not exactly where we want it yet, but we keep moving up. And we're finding staffing is so much easier when you create an environment that your teachers have autonomy, but you have systems of support in place for kids. And that you have a spirit of innovation. Like our teachers are allowed to try anything.

We tell them, go ahead and try. If you fail, just fail forward. We'll fix it and we'll move on and we'll try again. So that's been really positive. We we're one of the few districts around that truly is fully staffed, which has been fascinating.

Dr. Jim: Yeah, the staffing outcomes is really interesting. That could be a whole nother conversation because most districts are not only struggling to find talent to come in the door, they're struggling to keep the talent that they have. So that's a whole different conversation. And I'm waving my finger at you for sure.

Opening [: 00:25:00

that will position them for success in their turnaround efforts.

Dr. Chris Timmis: The first thing is you have to have. a common purpose and goal, and it can't be to raise a test score. It has to be focused on kids. And what I've, what we've found is we surround ourselves with people that are relentless about helping students. And I have an interview question I ask in the final interviews of any teacher or administrator when we hire.

re people that truly hate to [: 00:26:00

We have to come up with flexibility and ways to be able to support kids in a unique setting, but you have to surround yourself with the right team of people that are just committed to not losing. And a kid not being successful is a loss. And then you have to start somewhere could be small, like one of the we went and it's amazing how fast it rolls.

And if you ever read like Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point or revenge of the tipping point when you get to that magic quarter or third, it's amazing how fast change happens. So You surround yourself with people that are willing to try things and you can follow all the research and says, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this, but we're in a different setting all the time.

rnal community. You just get [: 00:27:00

So you just engage small teams of teachers. Find your, like we've, I send out this thing every once in a while. Now I'm going to have to figure out how I do it different after I share this. I send out a, survey to our staff every few years and I say, every one of us has someone who energizes us, that we work with, that after we talk to them, we are just excited to go and do greater things.

he natural networks and that [: 00:28:00

So you start by engaging adults, start somewhere, and a relentless focus on kids need to be successful. How do we make that happen?

Dr. Jim: I think the part that I really like about your framework is that one of the key elements of it is identifying your evangelists who get what you're trying to do within the organization and then working through them to as a force multiplier. So that's really good stuff. If people want to continue the conversation, Chris, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Dr. Chris Timmis: Yeah, my email's on the website at dexterschools. org. Also the president of the Future Learning Council in Michigan, which is a fascinating group. Futurelearningcouncil. org. And LinkedIn, I'm LinkedIn. Happy to help talk to anybody.

ow a lot of school districts [: 00:29:00

And what I took away from this conversation is if you're trying to solve for attendance, really, your focus needs to be on engagement and student choice. How can we keep our students engaged over a longer period of time and embed learning into the learning paths that they want to take that best serve them where they are.

And those two elements of what you did. Really solve for that attendance issue which can solve a lot of resourcing issues that happens at the school Now when we look at the broader topic of A singular focus on test scores leaving a lot of kids behind I think that engagement focus and embedding that within the student life cycle makes a lot of sense In getting students equipped with a broader set of skills and a more diverse set of skills That better prepares them for the future of work.

h us For those of you who've [: 00:30:00