Disruptive Innovation in Schools: A Roadmap for Superintendents

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

When you're a K 12 district on the brink of failure, the road ahead can appear bleak. So if you take over a district that's on the edge, you as a superintendent have a tougher job than usual ahead of you. Today's conversation will focus on one district story of backing away from the brink and the story of a district turnaround.

So who's going to be guiding us through this conversation? Today we have Justin Wagner, who is an award winning educational disruptor who's been named. Iowa's High School Principal of the Year by Iowa Student Council Association and Innovator of the Year by Iowa Jobs for Americans graduates. He's currently the superintendent of the Woodbine Community School District and the Ignite Pathways Regional Center that have been named a model professional learning community and one of the best places to work in Iowa.

of School Board, Iowa Mental [: 00:01:00

Justin, welcome to the show.

Justin Wagner: Yeah. Thanks for having me on,

Dr. Jim: Looking forward to this conversation and particularly because I'm a I'm a big fan of underdog and turnaround stories, so this is going to be pretty interesting. But before we dive into that part of the conversation, I think a good area for us to start is for you to share with the listeners some of those defining moments in your career that helped shape who you are as a leader.

So why don't you share some of those some of that backstory for us.

uite frankly. And I would do [: 00:02:00

Just wonderful human beings that tolerated me to be quite fair and frank, because I wasn't always, focused. But I, what I do is learn what I need to do and then bring down and take the test and bring it up and move on. And I just, that part of really just stuck with me that learned by doing and the relevance of what we're.

What I was learning and, the question of when would I use this someday has just always stuck and resonated with me. I've had some absolutely wonderful mentors and incredible staffs throughout my career. So that was important and you know the other piece that's important outside of the education piece for me that really has shaped this is you know, the military a lot of the military functionality has to do with Really, two things.

kids and what was I learning [: 00:03:00

So throughout my upbringing, there was total seven in our household growing up five kids, obviously mom and dad. And we, lived in modest means and worked, mom, dad and still a lot of good hard work ethic in us. But I think from the educational value side, it was really about trying to add value.

What we're going to make an investment in education. What are those things that kids can leave with that make them, career ready, life ready. And if they go to college ready. And so that's really, I think those early experiences for me on making sure. What I was, what can I do with what I know that kind of has shaped me, I think, and from from a lens of from an educational lens.

Dr. Jim: You mentioned that you're never really a great student. You just got through it. I guess one of the things that I'm curious about is what made you get into education as a profession, especially if you're one of those students that was a middle of the road student.

e me into actually, I was my [: 00:04:00

And education just seemed like the right fit. I was never ever, woke up in the morning when I was young and said, I can't wait to be an educator someday. But about the junior senior year in college is I just I wanted to help people. And this seemed the best way to do it. So that's what the connection was.

And Talked a lot to my girlfriend at the time, my wife, and that really seemed like it was the best fit for me.

Dr. Jim: So one of the things that's interesting about your background is that you've you've served in the military as well. And I'm curious when you look at being a somebody that's in the military versus a civilian and then transitioning from both of those places to different environments. So what was challenging about making that pivot from military life to civilian life and especially civilian life within an education setting?

What did you notice that was different and how did you get over that?

Justin Wagner: Yeah [: 00:05:00

And so I really tried to bring that as much as possible in public education. On the other side is wide open kind of approach. Everybody talks about everything and everybody all the time and has, ideas. And it doesn't quite have that same structure. And so I think a military structure.

Sometimes it gets a bad rap. It's really just a structure for ideas and how we can improve efficiencies. And so that structure, applying that structure to the education side was incredible. And I think it made a difference on the education side. You want to talk about people that are passionate, they'll come early and stay late.

They are not working for a paycheck. Clearly. That's been talked about a lot over the years, teachers aren't in a quote unquote for the pay but I'm telling you it's a, it's a. I love language. It's a passion project for most educators and they come early and they stay late.

And so [: 00:06:00

Dr. Jim: Tell me a little bit more about this concept of structure for ideas that you picked up in in the military. How does that apply to what you've done at a high level within education?

Justin Wagner: Yeah. So it's a, in a military we call it a chain of command structure, right? So like the enlisted workout, enlisted problems, officers workout, officers problems, and most of the time, what we're, what we find is we give permission for military members to be innovative to have new ideas and efficiencies because they're the boots on the ground.

action. Don't wait. So when [: 00:07:00

Those things are kind of things sometimes that happen in public education and the military, for the most part, it's a really structured kind of lane. If you have an idea. And there's an action orientation on the military side too. Okay, let's move. If we see something that's not working, then we need to fix it.

And, the sense of urgency on the military side is life and limb, right? So that sense of urgency to move and to create efficiencies and effectiveness, I think has to follow that structure of that chain of command, which enlisted you talk to your immediate boss, the immediate boss talks to the next boss and you move.

tion or if they have a great [: 00:08:00

And the public education is a slow moving ship. Really, it's just broken. It's a really broken system. Got a lot of great people. Absolutely incredible teachers that are in a broken system and the system wins every time. So when you put that structure in for those folks with the ideas who are passionate, then you just see it take off.

And so I think that structure piece to me is really that making sure that if you have an idea, you go to the next person above you or a group of guiding coalitions or what we call a group of really interested thoughtful, it's really smart people with an action orientation. And now you move rather than talking about it at the, at lunch at the faculty launch or in the break room and then it just dies or it goes there. So giving some legs to action orientation on ideas.

Dr. Jim: Switching gears a little bit. Tell me a little bit more about the district that you're in and some of the unique things about the district that drew you into the role.

ne of, on the brink, I don't [: 00:09:00

We started this year with. With right at 326 and probably just a few a couple fewer than that. And most of those are small towns and small districts that will never come back. And so we talk about the brink. It's not like a, to me, I want to make sure, listeners understand that for Woodbine, it's not a brink on like they were a year away from closing, but boy, they were on the brink of.

Not providing opportunities for kids and on the downhill slide, they were amongst the bottom 10 percent populations in the state. So it's very much, we live in, we talk about changing dog years, within a dog year, we, if we weren't doing something, there was, we were headed in the wrong direction.

at word of guiding coalition [: 00:10:00

And so they had already started some economic development and business initiatives over the last decade. They had really sown the ground and made it fertile for change. And the school was the next step, and there's just a lot of good. A lot of good teachers here a lot at the time and a lot of good things happening, but it just it wasn't the change and the transformation they were looking for.

So when they came and reached out to me and said, Hey, we really think we've heard you. We've heard you talk. And we really think we'd like you to bring some of those ideas, those disruptive ideas. Quite frankly, here it was a great fit. And so what we need. What I saw what I was looking for Jim to your question specifically was a community that was ready.

mmunity of woodbine. They're [: 00:11:00

And so that was really important to me because we don't, I can't live in dog years now. I don't have seven years to change. We really wanted to be aggressive about the change we needed to see. That was what I was looking for is that, that, that groundwork. Was it there? How much work had to be done?

Of course, a lot of work still needed to be done on the school side. But was that there? And it was, there was a lot of really good leaders in the community that already done some really good economic development and business things, and now they were looking for that kind of same vision in in the education lane.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you mentioned a couple of things. You mentioned community was ready. And then you also mentioned that, they were looking for somebody like you to be disruptive.

So what, when you think about the vision for what you wanted to do within the district, what's, what in particular is disruptive about the things that you were suggesting?

e a personalized and then an [: 00:12:00

Everybody sits gets the same information on the same time in the same way on the same day. And when we started this journey, we Spent a lot of time on the hardest part of it, which is the mission and the vision. And those are those things that people sometimes, you work on and and you wonder about, but it was really important to have that foundation.

And we had the community involved. We had the board involved. We have the staff involved. That was in the first 60 days. I need to know. I know what I see and what I want, but that's the least most important part of it. It's got to be what you want and what and so we shared a lot of statistics and data and we worked a lot on mission vision early on.

And then once we got that foundation set that we wanted to be personalized for every student, every personal experience, and we wanted to be very different, then we set out to do that based on what the research told us.

hat work. On the mission and [: 00:13:00

Justin Wagner: Great question. First meeting I ever had was with that business and economic development kind of guiding coalition when I came to the community and I just listened. I went on a listening to her and just said, what do you see? What? What? What are the things you'd like to see? And not even what do you see?

What do you want? What do you want it to look like from your perspective? And that was a really important part of establishing this common vision and common mission of what we wanted to do. And. Now the lines are so blurred between business and economic development and the mission and the vision of the school that they really, they bleed together and they're connected together.

So we have this connectedness. We didn't want to have this, we didn't have silos of strategic visioning on where we wanted to go on in two separate lanes.

nd some of the businesses in [: 00:14:00

What were some of the things that were in place that was causing these issues where the district wasn't performing,

Justin Wagner: It was the same issues that most schools face nationally, right? It was a traditional setting. Kids were not remembering what they were learning. There was not relevance to their learning. And discipline was high, right? Discipline issues were up. So we break it down into academics, attendance and behavior.

Are kids coming to school? Are they are the discipline issues when they're here? Are we meeting their needs that way? And academically, are they learning? And so I think at the end of the day, there's there was ironically enough, there was some really good scores previously to me getting here on the statewide assessments.

o grow? And so it wasn't all [: 00:15:00

And the academic achievement in terms of what they were remembering and how they were applying and what they were learning was, was not there. The other thing, Jim, that's really important in small towns is educational opportunities. So when we got here. There was, fewer than six current technical education offerings for students.

And we did a feasibility study a program feasibility study in our area. And, the average was 12, and the big schools in Iowa were at 150 160 in terms of current technical education opportunities. And so that really is one of the key pieces that we created the new a new high school and we created a new high school and called Ignite Pathways Regional Center did it from scratch.

It was absolutely Everything was from scratch. There was absolutely nothing here at the time about five years ago and from an educational perspective outside of a willingness to really want to do something different, from the community's perspective.

ere's the landscape that you [: 00:16:00

What they're supposed to be learning, even though the academic scores are good. And then you have a shortage of programs that are relevant to the community that you're in. And you just mentioned that, that, that led to building a completely new high school. And what has me wondering is, that is a massive level of investment into new infrastructure in a small community. Especially in the light of all of these gaps that you identified, or at least, gaps to negatives that you identified that, that involves a landscape. How did you bridge that? If things are going bad, and then you're asking the community for a massive level of investment, How did you close the gap on that and make the business case that this is something that we need to do?

n Wagner: Yeah, we got their [: 00:17:00

And so we talked about that a lot. Business advisory boards. We stood up from the 501 C 3 public private partnership that was established. And so once we were done listening, it was really clear on what needed to happen. We listen to the staff and community and then, Once that happened, I think the action orientation after that made it clear.

Now, keep in mind, there is a an, a incredible amount of work that's involved at the operational and tactical levels in terms of okay, strategy wise, we want a new high school. We want it to be relevant and we want kids to be ready for life. Check. We know that the community listening posts were clear on that.

's always going to be people [: 00:18:00

I felt like we did it really well. We said, okay, so now We've captured your vision, so here's what we need operationally, financially, here's what we need to bring that to life, and on the programmatic side, it was a 13 step process that we took everything from, the very, very beginning, every meeting we have in the Woodbine Community School District starts with our mission, vision, our values and our goals, because It's bought in.

It's buy in from the staff. And so then that's step one. If we don't understand that we want to do something unparalleled and personalized, then that should set the tone for every meeting we're in. And so then you get into, that second step, what is the professional learning community look like?

ant to be, we want to double [: 00:19:00

We just said, we want to do something different for parents. We're going to offer a different experience, the financial side of it. There was work there for sure, but the financial side of it came once we made the case on why we wanted to do something different. So that, that nexus there was really important.

And there's a lot of details in there, lots of meetings, lots of conversations, but it was important once we listened to the community, the rest of that kind of fell in play.

Dr. Jim: So digging in a little bit, there's a couple of areas that I think is going to be important to talk through. One is the area of funding in general, and then the other thing that you mentioned is the emphasis on public private partnerships. What was the relationship between the two? And how did that help move this initiative forward?

skilled people that were on [: 00:20:00

We had a whole cornucopia. You had some people had a great experience of school. Some didn't, but they know that really at the end of the day, they want a different experience for kids and they want to be personalized. I think that part of it was really important to the finances, the financing.

So Ignite Pathways Regional Center. Is a brand new building built from scratch, 15 million effort, and we really set out to do a third in terms of funding the Ignite Pathways Regional Center. State of the art career and technical education. It's a competency based. I call it a hybrid competency based approach because the students are co authors in their learning co authors in how they in their experiences.

So it's a very unique program. Program but that third, a third, we're, we ran a bond issue for 3, 000, 000 and committed to matching that. We said, if we got it, we'd match it. He community had some success with that previously again. And it passed with a very high percent.

ond approval in the state of [: 00:21:00

So from a funding side of it. And I think that's the reality in schools now, to be honest with you, in the state of Iowa, we get about 8, 000 a kid, it's a little less than that. And I think, we, Jim, for Ignite, and I know I'm going a little bit deeper into Ignite on the program side, we want class sizes of 10 or under.

And so in order to do that, you have to finance that, and you have to fund that. And we're doing that through philanthropic efforts, and we're finding that there's large companies and corporations that are saying, hey, we're interested in that, and we want to do more, and we want to do more. You know support those efforts.

level. So what did you do to [: 00:22:00

Justin Wagner: So what we found in the film throughout everybody wants to be the last dollar in The bond wanted to be the last dollar in the philanthropic wanted to be the last dollar grant wanted to be the last dollar And so it's a really delicate dance of making sure they understand what we want to do that It truly has to be different.

So on the philanthropic side, you're right I mean hit the nail on the head I think the new reality for anyone listening to this if you're in a superintendent seat I would immediately, if you have a foundation quadrupled the amount of money that you're making right now, you can do it. Just do it. It will make a difference.

Every, every second you spend, invest in, in selling what you're doing as a organization will pay off tenfold. But I'll also say along those lines, business, the folks, we're in front of, we sat in front of billionaires that were just incredibly. Thoughtful and kind people, and they're used to seeing lots of presentations.

very polite and they're very [: 00:23:00

Philanthropic money, we have to be the people that own the change and it has to be something that sells. So back to your question on that philanthropic piece of it. Once people and once that philanthropic community first, you get it, you always say you get 90 percent of your money from 10 percent of your donors.

And we know that and there's a whole process we went through and that's very much true. We were fortunate to have a big donor right away and then that leveraged other monies and other funds. And but I think at the bottom line of it is When we sat down and talked to 'em, they believed in what we were doing.

It was transformational enough and it was disruptive enough in a positive, disruptive way that they were saying, I'll give you, I'll give you a million dollars, I'll give you $2 million, to do that. And the great thing is those are all tied to metrics. There's not one penny we got that said, Hey.

t we're not used to. They're [: 00:24:00

Dr. Jim: So digging in on that metric side of it, you mentioned that there's a reporting mechanism back to these donors that indicates what's happening and what progress is being made. Tell me a little bit more about what are the things that you're measuring and how that's reported up to prove out a ROI to these donors.

Justin Wagner: Yeah so there's a whole series and the metrics they're looking for are the academic credits that they're earning. Just, we just got our state report card back and we're amongst the 1 percent in the state of Iowa.

College and career readiness. What are those apprenticeships? What are those certifications that students are earning that they can apply immediately into the workforce? And they can apply immediately to add value to some of the work, the workforce gaps shortages that we're seeing. So certifications, academic certifications, discipline.

t show up on time. They want [: 00:25:00

They're going to work hard. And they're going to be respectful. And those are all things that sound we accidentally had done before. And now we have baked it into the standards based assessment reporting process that we have in terms of its importance of the soft skills.

Dr. Jim: The other thing that I'm wondering about you have you have a fairly deep level of business involvement into the program. And they account for part of your donor pool. One of the things that I'm thinking about is when you have that level of tight integration from the business community into what's being delivered at school, there's a risk that You're getting a very narrow education versus something that's much more broad based.

broad based education versus [: 00:26:00

Justin Wagner: Yeah, so what we found is we were able to offer a whole bunch of courses that we'd never offered before. We're up to 50 plus courses, right? And the reason we were able to do that is because we use. A good chunk of adjunct faculty directly from business and industry. For example, one of the instructors, adjunct instructors at Ignite that teaches information technology keeps kept his full time job comes down twice a week and teaches for 90 minutes and absolutely loves it right to get.

We give him a little extra money. He gets to be out of the office and be around kids and loves it. And so that's just been scalable, right? So we scaled that. So in terms of the offerings, because you're right, business wants to tie that to, okay, is it profitable? What's the ROI on this? Okay. How do we make this sustainable?

back to your question among [: 00:27:00

Whereas if we had a full time. Instructor, it would be, four or five times that amount. And the opportunities our kids have, whether it's aviation boutiques, information technology weapons regional forming regional police science, what, where they have weapons simulators, and then you have jujitsu and you have some of the standbys, the welding and the residential constructions that are just amazing, but we really wanted it to be different.

We really wanted to leave. These kids can leave with their CDL endorsement. They can leave with the certification of weapons certification. They can leave with certifications that are going to make a difference immediately in their life.

radical redesign, there's a [: 00:28:00

So tell us about what you needed to do to set the conditions for this to be launched successfully. What did that involve?

Justin Wagner: So I think one thing that was really important for us is we didn't follow a normal change model in schools. The normal schools have a rhythm to them. You start school in August, first semester is done in December. Second semester starts in January. School's done in May.

You take the summer off. We took that whole normal school change. That process and threw it out the window and said, we're going to make changes monthly, weekly, monthly and, an annually based on student needs and learner needs. And so that's what we did. We were adding classes in the middle of October, which is unheard of.

Sometimes, if it's not in the handbook, you got to wait for another year kind of thing. We were adding certifications in January. We're adding new credentials. New credentialing in April the change process we would sit in our professional learning community meetings.

it the next week, given the [: 00:29:00

We wait seven years and we wait for the perfect time. There was never a perfect time. The perfect time was now. And so once we got that deep level of commitment from staff, which, that's one thing I probably haven't talked enough about, once they, once we got through that early piece, our first 18 months, Jim on change and helping them understand how we can pivot to this new model then that traditional school.

Experience was it was essentially gone. I just right before this podcast I just sat in our PLC's and there was an idea that came up that talked about It was about a celebration for students and what we can do. We're gonna start doing that on Monday these are big and that sounds like a little change, but it was a big change And so once that groundwork is now laid where we're where teachers know that hey if I have a good idea I'm a vet at my PLC.

incipal, which should happen [: 00:30:00

And he said now is you're always going to find reasons not to do a go. So we really, I thought it was a really important part that we didn't follow the normal school change schedule. We just, we threw that out the window and went with ideas focused on learning.

Dr. Jim: So I think that the part that I like about what you just described, it's a it's very aligned to what startups do. The mentality within a startup organization is fail, fail fast, fail forward, fail often. And then that way it gives you the momentum to continue iterating and improving on a constant basis.

seen across the district in [: 00:31:00

Justin Wagner: Discipline is down 67%. Academic achievement is up 70%. Absenteeism is is up by over 20%. Those are the, those are three just immediate indicators that we know our kids are learning more relevant information. It's sticking and staying longer in their brains. And they're, and because they're more engaged, that means all of our learners are more engaged, there's less discipline.

Our special education rate numbers are down and that's because a lot of smart teachers and well intentioned, hardworking teachers have said, Hey, look, the goal of special education is not to stay in special education is to get out of special education. So when you create a system where you have personalized learning and truly just left a class where there's.

It's a same age peer class and have to be math class. And there's three different standards and three different grade levels and three different standards being taught in the same a classroom with direct instruction. It's amazing. It's powerful and it changes things. Once you go there.

we'll never go back to where [: 00:32:00

Dr. Jim: I want you to shift gears and speak to that. Superintendent or district leader that's thinking about doing something transformative like this within their district and this might be especially relevant to superintendents who are leading small communities and rural districts if they wanted to get started on this What are the key things that they need to keep in mind?

As they start the work of this sort of transformation

Justin Wagner: Number one, experiences shape behaviors, not the other way around. You have to send your staff out to have a different experience. If all we do is keep talking about what we want the behavior to be, it will never happen. You've got to bring someone in. Sometimes they even have to be the bad person, the bad woman or the bad guy, so to speak, to say, look, your data, yeah.

u guys, I know you feel good [: 00:33:00

Those things have been powerful for us, and I've got a whole list of them, and we'd be happy to come out, too, and just share the things that we've learned. them to a different experience. Okay. Number two, make sure you have clarity. Clarity precedes competence. Be clear on where you want to go. And that's really important right from the beginning.

nd you have you know the big [: 00:34:00

Get new experiences. They share behaviors, have clarity, bring clarity to your staff and your guiding coalition and move, have an action orientation.

Dr. Jim: Solid stuff. Justin. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Justin Wagner: They certainly can reach out to me via email. It's probably the easiest. And my personal cell phone. It is the best way to reach me. 7 1 2 5 7 9. 4, 5, 2, 8 would love to talk to you. We've got a team of people now.

It's not just me. We've got a team of people that would, we could come in, we could share our, the failures we had and how we can help you not do those things, but also add value.

bit in the show is that it's [: 00:35:00

So if you're sitting there facing some really bad outcomes, what should you do? You don't have the time to plan out everything methodically. You need to move, need to have a bias for action. And that bias for action needs to be tied to massive change, not just little incremental changes. And that you needed, you need to do that.

ur conversation that I think [: 00:36:00

So I appreciate you sharing that with us. For those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. If you like the discussion, make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. If you haven't already done so make sure you join our K through 12 leadership community. And then tune in next time where we'll have another great leader hanging out with us And sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team