The Change Leader's Real Resources: Inclusion, Attention, and Letting Go with Lauren Jones

Lauren Jones started as a special education teacher because she wanted to change outcomes for kids other people had written off. That conviction shaped everything, including her tenure as head of school at the International School of Kigali, where she rebuilt the school's support team, replaced principals with teacher leaders, and made inclusion the central focus of the school's identity.

In this episode, Lauren and Christian Talbot move through the full arc of change leadership: a scholarship program that launched with thorough research and still missed the mark, three curriculum and arts initiatives that transformed the school's connection to Rwandan culture, and the practical reality of building consensus without waiting for unanimity.

Lauren's through line: inclusion is a justice issue, and resources are not just money. Attention, relationships, energy, and time come first. The leaders who get that right are the ones who move change forward and make it last.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Evolution Stories by Middle States. This interview series is devoted to teaching you how to lead change in education. We're here because facilitating change in schools has never been harder or more important. So this is your place to learn from those who are leading the way. Okay, welcome back everybody. My name is Christian Talbot. I am the president of the Middle States Association, and I am coming to you from my hotel room at the AAIE conference in Toronto. And I am thrilled to be joined today by my friend and a consultant for the Middle States Association and an education leader in inclusion, Lauren Jones. Lauren is the founder of Lauren Jones Consulting, which focuses on cultures and systems of inclusion in schools. She is the former head of school of the International School of Kigali in Rwanda and is originally trained as a special education teacher. So, Lauren, welcome to Evolution Stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So tell us a little bit about how you originally came to think of yourself as a leader of change in schools.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

From the time I started teaching, I started teaching, I really think a big part of the goal was to bring kids in that were on the margins or that other people had maybe dismissed, like I saw it in the system. So from the time I started teaching as a classroom teacher, I remember being that person who was pushing for change for those kids and advocating for change for those kids. So there's not really a time that I can think of that I wasn't doing some type of change leadership. I don't think I knew it at the time or uh would have named it like this, but that is definitely what I was doing through advocacy, through, you know, different kind of innovative approaches, even as a classroom teacher. And then that just carried on into my leadership. Um, I think I've learned how to advocate in a more productive way than maybe I did when I was in my twenties.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Oh, that's interesting. Say more about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

So I taught, there was a period of time in my 20s, I taught an alternative school in North Carolina, and they were kids, there were kids at the school that were in and out of the juvenile justice system, had um lots of barriers to overcome to get to graduation. It was a high school. And I believed wholeheartedly in these kids and wanted the best outcomes for them, and with the very best of intentions, would advocate for them boldly and loudly. And there was nothing wrong with the advocacy, but what I've learned over time is um the approach to the advocacy. There's no point to advocate if it's not going to get you what you're hoping for. So you have to know who you're advocating to, what that approach needs to look like, and be more um strategic in advocacy. I I wasn't unkind, I wasn't unprofessional, but I was very bold. Um, and I still advocate in a bold way for kids, but I'm strategic, knowing who I'm talking to, what's gonna land with them when I'm thinking about the advocacy? I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

It does, yeah, it does. And and you you said something that makes me curious. You said that um you you were focused on the kids at the margins. Um did you go into special education because you were interested in people who had already been marginalized, or was it the experience of training as a special ed teacher and then doing the work as a special ed teacher that made you realize, oh, wait a minute, this this population needs an advocate?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Right. That's a great question. No, it was definitely working as an elementary school teacher and being like, oh, like I want to learn more about this, I want to figure out how to change the narrative, I want to figure out how to support these kids and get them to outcomes that people don't think are possible for them. So I went into special education because of those kids being a classroom teacher and recognizing like I need to learn more about this so I know how to do this work better.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah. And is it also fair to say that part of what motivates your desire to be a change leader is that, and uh this is what I heard you say, so I don't, I'm not sure if I'm getting this right. Um, but when you talked about the kids from the alternative school who may have been involved in the juvenile justice system, you also said, and I believed in those kids. Um, and I'm wondering is part of what motivates you some kind of energy around or conviction around the idea of justice.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Definitely. Um side note Enneagram. I don't know if anyone listening is uh is aware of this, but I'm an Enneagram eight, which is what means very driven by justice.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

It's a driving factor for me in that work, certainly. So, yes, that resonates.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Interesting. I and the reason I ask that is because you know, some change leaders are driven by justice, and others um maybe like a cousin of that would be fairness. They're not always the same thing. Um others are just neophiles, like they just like doing new things, right? Um, or they're early adopters. Uh, so it's interesting to like be aware of where at least some of the impulse comes from.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

And the driver is, yeah, for sure. No, for me it is justice, and for them, that's the advocacy was because of justice and equity and an opportunity to get an education that they were often not afforded for reasons outside of their control.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah. Um, well, this is a podcast about leading change, and it's important for our listeners to know that there is no change leader who gets it right every time. So tell us about a change project that you were part of that didn't go the way you wanted it to.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

When I was head of school in Kigali, uh I was working with the board, one specific board member and I had really connected over the idea of having a scholarship program. Um, we were only 10% Rwandan and living in this beautiful country of Rwanda, this beautiful culture, and wanting to ensure in so many ways that we uh were connecting with our local community and our local culture. So we wanted to have a scholarship program to try to level the playing field in terms of um the socioeconomic impact of international schools. And I I mean I did my research what other schools around the continent had done, how they had done this. Him and I worked at length with the board over months and um surveying people about what their thoughts were about what this should look like and doing the market research basically across Africa and other international schools. So we I'm very proud, very excited. We roll out this scholarship program and we had determined the caps per grade level, how we were going to run all the logistics around what this would look like. I really thought, like, I'm so excited about it. We roll it out, and just a few weeks after we announce this, we start to accept applications for the scholarship program, we get pushback from the community, from the local community. And the reasoning was because it didn't feel equitable to them. We were offering something to new incoming families that we hadn't offered to the ones that were already part of our community. And in all of our interviews and questions and research, that didn't come up. We didn't, we didn't, there were people we didn't ask. We we missed it.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, but how how? Like why?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Did we miss it?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, like you know, it sounds like you had a very thorough, very coherent process. How did this piece get missed?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

We didn't ask all the families that were already there. Like we surveyed prospective families? Yeah, well, that, and then some like some members of the staff, some existing families, but not all. So we had um representative groups, right, from each group. And those representatives did not represent the whole, right? Which happens in research, right? Um, and so we had a handful of families that had been with us for a long time that were really hurt actually by this decision. And we had to to walk it back and say, we we made a mistake here. We can offer you the same that we're offering new incoming families, which is a financial hit for the school, of course, if people choose to go that route. Um, and there was, yeah, it was not a successful project, but I thought for sure it would be. And the sad part is then the board just said we're not continuing it. Instead of, I really felt like there was a space to say, we made this, we we did this poorly. We missed part of an important part of this change. We missed it. We didn't do it right, so let us go back and we're offering this to you and moving ahead, we're changing the approach. But I think because of the reaction, the board was like, no, we're done. And that just made me really sad because I didn't think overall the scholarship was the right thing to do. We just didn't roll it out getting every voice that we needed to as input and understanding our context. Rwanda is very much about um equal opportunity because of their history, and it doesn't matter what might have worked in other African contexts, it wasn't gonna work there. So, anyways, I learned a lot from that, but it was a failed change project.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, yeah. Do you think in retrospect that the representative sample of people that you spoke to might have wanted to say something about this, but felt reluctant to?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

That's really possible. Yeah, because it's such a uh kind of nuanced cultural belief that has allowed Rwanda to come out of a history like no other country in the world. It's incredible. Like that fundamental belief that um we are all Rwandan. And you so you would not offer something to one Rwandan family that you didn't offer to the other. I understood it wholeheartedly, but maybe the representative group didn't feel comfortable, or maybe they just didn't that wasn't where they were at. Yeah, we didn't really go back and ask because I it was very sensitive at the time. Yeah. Um, yeah, and it felt like a failure, I think, because we I I saw also that we could have moved forward still, and the board was just like, no, like this is too sensitive. We want to just wash our hands of it. And so that's what it's not so much that we didn't do it right the first time that made it feel like a failure, it's that it was just ended for me that made it feel yeah like it was a failed project.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, that must have been so frustrating and disappointing.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

For sure, because it was the way to like start to draw in more Rwandan families, and I think it would have been really impactful long term. So we had about I think we had about 10 or 12 kids that joined during that brief period, and they're still there and they are grandfathered in. But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, yeah. I know that um one hard lesson I had to learn early and repeatedly is that um the easiest part of a change process is having the idea. Like the ideas are so cheap and dime a dozen, and with AI now there it's even cheaper to create really compelling ideas, but the execution is everything.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

It is. Yeah. And if you you can miss just uh something you think is very small and it can turn the whole thing upside down. So yeah, ideas are easy. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Well, how about the opposite? What's a change project that was successful?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

So I think on the same thread, there were a handful of things we did that were very successful. I, as a leader, I very intentionally wanted us to be more connected to the local community, to being in Africa. Um, and we did a few things. We did uh we started Rwandan culture classes for every kid, mandatory K-12. It was um a requirement for graduation. Really impactful learning history, language, and then the cultural piece, um, music, and other aspects of Rwandan culture. It was really impactful. There had always been a Rwandan culture day where the culture was celebrated, but it needed to be more embedded. So that was a big change that was successful and is still in existence now. Um, and then there was a student that came that did his AP um seminar presentation about how as an African student he didn't see himself in the history he had been taught at IS Kigali through his four years. It impacted me so much that I went to him and said, What would you change? Like, let's talk through this. Um and from that, really from his experience and him sharing in that way so boldly, we started a every ninth grader had to take African history as their required course. We changed the US centric history requirements. You should know African history, and so many of our kids didn't, and we were right there in the center of Africa. Um, and that was a process as well, but successful, still in place, and a graduation requirement, which I think is fantastic. And then the other on the same kind of thread, we um we had our art and music teacher who were European and American. They left in my tenure, and so we instead of rehiring those positions, we brought in local artists from the community in Kigali and outside to teach modules of art, and it became this integrated arts program, which again like allowed our kids to learn weaving from um women that were deaf. Like it was really, really impactful connections to the community. They learned dance, they learned pottery, and um it really integrated the culture with our school. So those were it's three examples of change projects that worked, you know, and um were successful, and our kids you saw the shift in the school, becoming we're not just a school in Rwanda, but we are connected to the culture and the community in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So go further because this sounds like the same kind of thing. You have a great idea or a set of great ideas. This time it works, and I can imagine having been ahead of school twice and thinking about all of the moving pieces, all of the puzzle pieces that have to fit together. It is not easy to change curriculum. Yeah. Um, it is not easy, you know, to add things, it's not easy to change them from one thing to a different thing. Um, so what did you have to do with this great idea to make it operationally feasible? Like that must have been complicated.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, for sure. I I was listening to one of your podcasts, and you were talking about how people need to know what doesn't change before like change happens, right? And I do think we did that. There were changes that happened, but um I also think we had built this really tight-knit community because we came out of like hardship when I came into the the headship, it was tumultuous, and in some way I feel like it brought people together to think about how we can connect more with the local community. So that was an important, like, foundational piece of the changes is that people generally, the staff and most families and most kids, um, I think they thought this was the right direction. So I wasn't doing something that was like indirect, right? Uh or the opposite of what people wanted. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. But there wasn't a lot of friction. Um, so then I had to find like with the curriculum, I had to find the right people to do that. We had a teacher that was relatively new teaching ninth grade, but a very seasoned teacher that had come in and was helping in the upper high school. And so he had done this work in Atis. So he helped us develop that curriculum. Um and that was, I mean, that was pretty insular just for ninth grade. The integrated arts program was that's a bigger one because that impacts everybody. You have to do child protection training with these 12 different people coming in from around the um country, and yeah, it was lots of moving parts. Saved a little bit of money, but not like you'd think because of all these moving parts that I'm talking about. But um, and and overall, that one was a little tougher. Like we had to figure out people didn't know how to do classroom management, they weren't teachers, right? Like they are coming and teaching these modules. So that change management um was a little messier, but I had teacher leaders that were part of it helping me figure out what's working, what's not working, let's pivot. So it was, we did kind of build the plane as we flew it on that one for sure. And it was definitely a little, it was provocative to have an integrated arts program. We didn't have art teachers. Um, but it was because I had teacher, these teacher leaders that were behind it too, and that were very much like, oh, this isn't working, this is working, and then we were shifting as we were going. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

It does, it makes total sense. And and I think maybe for the audience, just explain what when you say teacher leader, what how is a teacher leader different in your mind than a typical teacher?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, we our school was 180 kids, and I had no principals. I that's a different story, but I chose to chose to have a student support program instead of having principals for the audience. It's not something I necessarily recommend, but you know, I put my money where my mouth was on that one. But teacher leaders, we had people that volunteered to because we needed middle-level leaders that volunteered to be teacher leaders, and they worked with their teams, which were we had one teacher per grade level. So there was one teacher leader for a group of three grade levels, and then one for middle school, one for high school. And they met with their teams and then they would come together and we would make decisions in collaboration with those teacher leaders. So it was an additional responsibility. I think I think in the end they ended up getting maybe one class off. There was some, you know, we we tried to compensate them in some way with time, but ultimately it was the responsibility of being communicating with their team and bringing those ideas back to a larger group and decision making together.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah. So it's interesting. Like I'm I'm kind of discerning that for for this to work, there had to be a cultural receptivity. Um, meaning like this community had already said we want more of local context and um even just African um historical and cultural context. So you weren't fighting against what the community wanted. And you said there was like little friction there, which is good. It's a good precondition. Yes. Um, but that also strikes me as one of those things like having a good idea. Just because the community wants something doesn't mean it's gonna work. And so you needed the it sounds like you needed these teacher leaders as really subject matter experts, but also in the case of at least one of them who came from Otis, who had done it before. Um, so didn't just know it intellectually, but had the experience of what worked and didn't work. That's right. Yeah, that's that's such a powerful resource to have.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

It is, yeah. I was really fortunate to just have a staff that I mean, I made my decisions collaboratively. I'm very much a leader, that's how I lead. Um, so people weren't surprised at things and there wasn't a top-down approach, but I also had a team that saw the value in in this direction. So we had, I would say there was a pocket of parents that were not necessarily happy with the decision. And then eventually a lot of them would come back after big events where we had um these different artists with the kids, you know, having performances or we're wanting culture performances, and and they would say, like, this is great. Um, I don't know if they ever fully got on board, but you're always gonna have a pocket for sure. But I think because I wasn't, you're right, I wasn't pushing something that everyone else was like, no, like we want to continue to be, you know, as Western as possible or whatever, people saw the need to uh connect more with the local community in a variety of ways. And so there wasn't, yeah. I had a really I was very fortunate to work with a team that was hardworking and open to change and um we believed in each other.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Was there a point? Uh you know, you said something like it was a throwaway comment, but I want to pull it back up because I think it's it's actually a huge insight. You know, you said you're never gonna get 100% of people to agree, but was there a point either in this process or other change processes where you're like like we I have to get 100% of the people to really be okay with this?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Maybe no.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

That's good. But yeah, no, that's that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Sorry, I'm like, I don't think Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I mean, I I I didn't I didn't I didn't uh bring that wisdom into my first several change projects, and I just want people who are listening to this to know that that's basically a failure mode. Like you are not going to get a hundred percent, right? Even if you get 80%, that's probably a massive, massive victory.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Right. And that's what when I'm working with schools now, helping them build these systems and cultures of inclusion, and we're making these changes and these shifts, that is something I'm constantly talking with leadership teams.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

What does that what does that conversation sound like? Tell us.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

It I mean, truly talking about change models and that you you will have your early adopters, you will have people that already know this is right. And without even knowing the research behind it, they believe that this is right because it's because inclusion is an ethical moral issue, right? And kids have a right to education. So you've got that group, and then you've got the group that's like, I believe it's right, but this looks like it might be hard. I'm not sure if it fits with who we are, right? Like, and then and they will they will come, right? They will they will get on board, and then you've got ones that come a little bit later, and then you've got the ones who dig in and say, This is not who we are as a school, this is not who I am as a teacher, or like I've fundamentally I hate to say this out loud, but I fundamentally don't agree that these kids should be with us. Yeah. And I when I'm working with teens, there are people when you make a shift like this that you might lose. I'm not talking about losing half your staff. That's not what I'm advocating for at all. Right. But there may be the two or three people that say this isn't the school that I started working at.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

And it no longer aligns with what I value as a teacher. And that's also okay. Like it's okay. Not every school is for every person. Yeah. And if you've made a huge shift like this, you might lose a few people. Yeah. And it for me, it was the same with, I mean, yeah, if we lost a few by we hired our first Rwandan teachers is another example. And I had a few parents that were unhappy with that. And it was one of those hills I was gonna die on. Because you will, there are a few people who may not understand the change or want to get on board with the change. But I don't want that to be perceived as me saying, you know, you have a mass exodus, that that's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

I I know the that small pocket. So yeah, it is. I mean, in some way, that is a level of failure, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

But no, I I I well, I wouldn't characterize it as a level of failure. I think it's just it's it's reality that you're never gonna get 100%. And um this is like such a tricky thing in schools because schools are communities and we want to be I'll to I'll repurpose your word inclusive, like we want to be inclusive of everybody. And so to either silently and implicitly be okay with like, well, that 10% or that 15% are just not coming along with us almost feels like a little bit of a taboo. Like, like we can't we can't say that. Right, it's even hard to think that, right? Um, but I know more than once in my career I have said this is where we're going, and it's okay if that's not for you. That's right. Um, but we're not going somewhere else. This is where we're going, and you have to decide whether you want to go there because at some point you're gonna have to make a hard choice.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

That's it. And what do you need? Like, if if it's that you need more training, if that you need more understanding of what this can look like, yes. But if you know, like this, we are going there, right? Like, and it's that very different, that's the leadership piece of it. You have to communicate very clearly this is where we're headed, yeah, and have the vision. And then yeah, people have to decide if they can get on board with it. But yeah, it's sticky to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

You talked about um not having principles because of that inclusion effort. And I know the story, but I want the audience to hear the story about the decision you made for the school around inclusive education.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yes. When I came to the school, um, there was a learning support teacher and an EAL teacher, and when I left, there was a team of six.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Um which is like an incredible explosion.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I guess technically there was a counselor too. So, but yes, I mean we doubled in size um because this was a priority. And the school still is highly inclusive, so I'm glad it didn't go with me because that's another part of change, right? I I very intentionally knew I wanted our school to be able to say yes to more kids, and I knew we were small, which is comes with its own, you know, wonderful aspects of being a small school and a small community, and I could go on and on about those, but it also comes with the realities of the resources and finances based on your location. So that was very much a reality for us. So um we I sat with our finance manager and looked at the budget. And if we hired a principal, I couldn't get the learning support staff that I wanted to be able to say yes to more kids. And so I'm I made the choice, and then I brought on teacher leaders, we had a curriculum coordinator, so it was there was some, I mean, and who were all like really so went above and beyond, but it was sticky. I mean, every behavior issue came to me, right? Like, but I was still out of school, so um, yeah, it was definitely precious.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Did that make you regret on some level?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Never regretted it, Christian. No, because I had like I believed so much in what being more inclusive brought to our community. Like I saw it with our kids, with our teachers every day, with our parents, like truly people that were part of our community during that transition are changed. Like they saw the value of neurodivergence and disability being with us. Like our school began to look like the world, and it didn't before. We could we become, could we say yes to every of the full scope of neurodivergence? No, our campus was not accessible, and um I wasn't there long enough to do a full renovation, nor do we have that kind of money, right? But but yeah, I made the choice that we were gonna build out our student support team. I didn't think it was fair to be saying yes to kids and not have the resources just because I wanted them with us. I don't believe that's true inclusion. If you can't really support them, um I didn't want to do any disservice to kids. And then we started pushing the limit, saying yes to kids that um had profiles that we just hadn't before. And there was some, again, some building of a plane as we flew it, but had a very committed team and success stories with those those kind of bold decisions, saying, Let's try it, let's see what it looks like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

And um, yeah, the way it impacted our kids is just so if I said to the average educator, hey, at your school, and I'm when I say educator, I'm talking about like a classroom teacher, at your school next year, there are not there are not gonna be any principals or assistant principals. There will be teacher leaders and a curriculum coordinator, but we're gonna get rid of these fairly status quo administrative roles because we want to use those resources for something else. I would guess that a significant percentage of those teachers would be at a minimum anxious, skittish. Like, well, what's it gonna look like without an assistant principal to go to or a principal to go to? Um, so did how did people react when you when you got rid of what I think of as kind of like I don't I don't want to call it a safety blanket because that's that's um that's not true uh necessarily, but it's a standard, it's a standard thing to have principles and assistant principles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah. The staff knew we were in a bit of a financial situation. Like I kind of came into something, it was a little bit messy. Um and they knew that. So I think I don't know, I didn't, I didn't get pushback about it. I've never really thought about that exactly. That I remember clearly saying we're gonna build out our student support team, and teachers were very appreciative of that because we had started already to say yes to some kids that they didn't feel like they had the level of support they needed. So knowing that they would have true collaboration with a learning support teacher, potential co-teaching and co-planning, that was a win. I was gonna say, so maybe that was actually better for them. Yeah, I've never actually thought about this until you've asked that question, but I didn't have I mean, I had people be like, oh, are you okay? I mean, which is nice, yeah, because I was supervising it, it was 36 direct reports, and I'm I mean, I did their observations and you know, goals. I didn't, I've never thought about it.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Well, I'm I'm like I'm actually kind of glad that I'm wrong about my instinct here because actually what you just made me realize was, you know, in some cases maybe maybe people would be skittish, but actually, um as you described it, the solution you came up with was probably better meeting their needs than the previous design. Right. And yeah, how often do we ask that question? Like, what do you actually need?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

What do you actually need?

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

And then the teacher leaders got leadership experience and voice in a way that maybe they hadn't before. I'm processing it now as we're talking, actually. But um, yeah, I think, and now the school has one principal. They brought a principal back, and the learning sport team is, I think, maybe slightly smaller, I'm not sure. But yeah, in the midst of that change, I don't remember anyone saying, like, oh, I mean, maybe like who's gonna manage behavior, I'll manage that. Um but yeah, I don't remember it being a big part of the conversation. That's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, there's another big change leadership lesson in this story, which is it's sort of like an extension of the idea that like having the good idea is not good enough, um, and having the good intention is not good enough or is not sufficient to make the change happen. You had to allocate, you had to reallocate resources. And um, of course, there are well-resourced schools where that feels less painful than in other places, but there are exceedingly few schools that can just simply add, add, add uh from a financial resources standpoint. That's a bad idea for other reasons, but um, but I think what's what's most compelling to me about the story is that you have the idea, you have the conviction, you you you know that this can't happen without a reallocation of resources. And it's not just taking the salaries for the principals and putting them into inclusion personnel, which is part of it, but also it's the reallocation of attention. It's like, what are we going to pay attention to at this school? We are going to pay attention to all kinds of learners, not just the ones who are typical learners. And I think it is um one of the like most powerful levers that leaders have to define the parameters of the conversation. We're gonna talk about these things, we're gonna pay attention to these things, and we're not gonna pay attention to these other things. And you can't control necessarily how the conversation is gonna go once you've defined the parameters. You can guide it and nudge it, but but saying like we're talking about inclusion is a really, really powerful, I think, reallocation of what I consider to be our most important resources, which is our our attention, where we where we place our attention.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

It very clearly became our focus. I mean, it from looking at all of our policies and handbooks to redesigning what our community celebrations look like, it was yes, it was. This is our focus, this is where we're going. And to the point that at ACE in Rwanda in October, I saw the principal, she was in one of my sessions, and she said, if we tried to be less inclusive, like the community would push back. And I thought that's because it became who we were, because that was the focus of the attention. So you're right, resources are one thing, but time is resource and conversation is resource, right? And yeah, and that is where our focus was very clearly. We're going to focus on being more connected with our community, we're going to invest our little bit of PD money in global citizenship and service learning, and then reallocate resources, both time, conversations, money, to inclusion. And those were our main points of focus. You're yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah, I think it's easy and natural for people to jump to money as the resource that needs to be allocated or reallocated. But I think that's actually like number five on the list. I think the first most important resources that people have available to them is their attention. I think second and third, hard to put them in an order would be um their energy. So, like, you know, are they are they well? Yeah, yeah. Right. Um and their relationships. And the reason I can't put them in an order is because I think how much energy you have depends on the quality of your relationships to a certain extent. Um, and then time, which you said, would be the number four resource. And then I think of money as like the number five resource. It's obviously very important, but like there's four other things that you can do something with um as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Absolutely. Because if you just allocate money, but you don't address all these the four other things, like what happens? Yeah. Great. Well, you have resources, like human resources or physical resources for your inclusion program or whatever it is, but are people really bought in? Yeah. No, right? So that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Okay, last question. Uh, as you think about how you're continuing to evolve as a as a change leader, what's the next part of change leadership that you want to get better at or learn more about or sharpen your skills on?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

As I now I see myself as a facilitator of change in schools in partnership with leadership teams and teaching teams, um, communities, partnering with communities for change. And I I don't always get it exactly right. You know, like I come in and you're trying to be sure that you understand the context, you understand um the history, you understand people's beliefs and values and backgrounds and experiences that they come into this work with. And I want to get I want to get better at ensuring all of those voices are heard. Because I even I survey, I interview, and I it's so important that everyone has, especially initially, you understand where everyone's coming from before you embark on the change. I'm not saying you have to, as I said, you don't have to, everyone doesn't have to be on board with it, but you do need to know what people are coming into it with. So I think on the one hand, that I it's what I love about this work, really trying to figure out what it looks like in each place and how to move as far as we can, the best that we can together in these specific contexts. I don't know if that makes sense. So I want to be better at um continue just to hone my skills at understanding truly where people are coming from and how you come together. At times, sometimes change is slow, but there's times I want to move a little faster on it. So if I could, if I could really understand, sorry, that's not that's not a great example, but um if I could understand a little more about what people are bringing into the change, then I think sometimes we can move faster and have less hiccups. Does that make sense? It's always gonna be messy. But as I reflect, I'm like, okay, if if we had been able to get their voices in a in a different way, maybe we could have anticipated.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yeah, right. It's it's it's counterintuitive math. It's like, I don't want to slow down, I want this change to happen fast, but actually slowing down allows you to go fast. It's just the experience of going slow at first is frustrating, but you'll actually get to the change faster. Yeah. I keep learning that lesson over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

That's right. So that you don't have to pivot, you don't have to, right? Like you have less obstacles in the way if you take it, you get all the information to start with. So I don't know if that answers the question, but that's what I want to get better at. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

All right, this was great. Thanks, Lauren.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.