EPISODE #339

Hey, builders, before we jump into today's show, I need to know something. Are you and I connected on the socials? Because if we're not, we need to be. So connect with me. I'm on Facebook. Robynjackson. I am on Twitter. Robyn steps. I'm on LinkedIn. Robynjackson. Let's connect, and let's keep the conversation going. Now onto the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 339. How do builders like us make a dramatic difference in the lives of our students in spite of all the obstacles we face? How do you keep your vision for your school from being held hostage by resistant teachers, uncooperative parents, ridiculous district policies, or a lack of time, money, or resources? If you're facing those challenges right now, here is where you'll find the answers, strategies, and actionable tips you need to overcome any obstacle you face.

You don't have to wait to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve. You can turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have. Let's get started. Hey, builders.

Welcome to another episode of the School Leadership Reimagined podcast. 

I'm your host, Robin Jackson, and all month long inside of the Collective, we've been talking about Tier one instruction. It seems like everybody is talking about Tier one instruction right now. People are talking about, I need to fix Tier one, or I need to strengthen Tier one, or I need to make Tier one more consistent.

But what if Tier one isn't actually your real problem? What if Tier one is just an indicator of a deeper problem? You see, tier one is not the work. Tier one. Effective Tier one is the result of the work. And so, as we conclude our conversations about Tier 1 this month, I want to leave you with a really important warning. Because if you think that fixing Tier one is going to fix all of your issues, well, you are sadly mistaken. So let's dive in.

You see, when principals treat Tier one like the goal, everything becomes urgent. Every time you see a student gap, you're like, oh, you know, oh, we got to fix Tier one. We got to do this. We start grabbing new pd. We start making new demands about, okay, what should we be taught? What should we be focused on as a school today? What instructional strategies are we going to do? We start rewriting our walkthrough scripts, right?

We start going into PLC meetings. We start diving even more deeply into data. When you go into classrooms and you don't see effective Tier 1 instruction, you panic again. And so you start doubling down on your feedback. You start thinking, well, I need to get in classrooms more. When Tier 1 is the goal, every deviation from the perfect Tier 1 look in your school is going to feel like a crisis. And what happens is when it feels like a crisis, you create a reactive cycle. We start by, okay, what are the gaps?

You look at the data, you find out the gaps, and then you say, okay, we have these gaps, so we need to add these strategies. Then you add more strategies. You do pd, you create all of these materials and new requirements of what every teacher has to do in the classroom. Then teachers get overwhelmed and frustrated because they're overwhelmed, because every month there's another strategy they don't implement with consistency or fidelity. And then you see more gaps, and then you react to those gaps. Tell me if I'm describing your life here, right? The problem isn't Tier one.

The problem is that you've made Tier one the one thing when Tier one's not the one thing.

Right? I mean, I've seen this so often. Teachers are trying hard, but the outcomes are flat because there's something else missing and administrators miss it completely. And so they just think, I just need to get in more classrooms, I need to double down, I need to find another research based strategy, I need to find another program, I need to get PLCs, I need to have PLCs. And we get into this reactive cycle and tier one becomes overwhelming because we've made tier one the goal. Well, builders see tier one very differently. You know, leaders, they are just thinking about, how do I get teachers to improve Tier 1 instruction? What strategy should I introduce?

How do I monitor Tier one more closely? And they, in doing so, make the focus on pressure and control and fidelity to a program. And you missed the point of Tier one in the first place, which is that how do I help all students succeed? So builders think about it entirely differently. Builders are asking the bigger questions, the more important questions. What kind of school am I building? What's my vision? What are we building together?

Why is that so important? Your mission, what, what has to be non negotiable and how we do this work in order to achieve that. Your core values, what systems and conditions do I need to create so that that happens in the classroom? And so the focus is stay, it stays on the kids, it stays on your 100% vision. And when you do that, tier one goes to its proper place. It's just a tool. It's a tool to help you ensure that 100% of your students are successful. If it becomes anything else, if tier one becomes the work, you're missing the point.

The work is to help every child be successful. Now, some of you may be thinking, well, in order to do that, I need tier one maybe, and I'm a big. And I'm not trashing Tier one. We spent a whole month talking about it. I believe that there's a way that you can do Tier one that makes that happen, but that is not the work. The work is not to get tier one right. The work is to help every child be successful. And if you don't understand the difference between that, Tier one is always gonna be a source of stress.

Tier one is never going to work the way it's designed to work, because it's never about Tier one. It was never about that. It was always about a way to help every child be successful. So you're not fixing tier one instruction. You are creating an environment where every child is successful. You are not diving in the data and looking for gaps. You are interrogating the data to ask, what are we missing in our quest to help every child be successful. You are not getting into more classrooms.

You are going into classrooms to give teachers feedback that's really important to help them achieve their goal of helping 100% of students be successful in their classroom. If you are focused on Tier one instruction the way most leaders teach you to do that leadership mindset, then you are focused on fixing lessons. If you are thinking like a builder, you're focused on building a place where no child fails, where every child succeeds, and there's a big difference. So here are the things that builders do that make tier one successful. And if you don't do these things, it doesn't matter what else you do, it's not going to work. So the first thing is that builders understand that people act according to their belief. We all say it, we all think we understand it. But when it comes to Tier 1 implementation, we skip right over the belief part.

You see, Tier 1 is based on a belief that every child can and should be successful. If teachers don't believe that, they're never going to do tier one the way it's supposed to be done. Never. Right. Because tier one is about putting things in place to help students be successful with the lesson in front of them. If teachers don't believe every child can and should be successful in their classroom, then they're going to look at a child who's struggling, and instead of thinking, that's my responsibility, they're going to Think that child needs to go into tier 2. If teachers do not believe fundamentally that 100% of children can and should be successful, they will Never implement Tier 1 the way that it's supposedly implemented. So if you understand that as a builder, your first step isn't to find the right Tier 1 program or double down on Tier 1 materials and tools, or double down on getting into classroom.

Your first role is to build that belief. 

And how do you build that belief? Your 100% vision, your vision story, your one plan. When you set 100% vision for your school and you normalize conversations around how do we help all children be successful, then you are building the belief that here in this school, we believe every child can and should be successful. That belief infiltrates the classroom and changes how teachers teach. Teachers who have a 100% mindset teach differently. And a lot of us are trying to get teachers to teach like teachers with 100% mindset without doing the work of building that 100% mindset in the teachers we have. So we will never get teachers who don't believe in 100% to implement Tier 1 effectively because they don't believe it's their problem.

They don't believe they have the responsibility for tier one instruction. Okay, so teachers who believe in 100% interpret student struggle differently. They look at student struggle as something that is their responsibility and they plan differently. They plan for children to succeed. Teachers who don't have that 100% mindset plan how they want to plan and say some are going to get it. The ones who want it will get it. The ones who don't won't. Not my problem.

Teachers who have 100% mindset respond to students struggle differently. Instead of looking at as a problem, they look at it as they ask some questions first. Because remember, not all struggle is bad. So they're looking at that struggle and saying, is this productive? Is this going to lead to them mastering is this a good part of learning or has it become destructive? Is it going to lead to more frustration? In which case I need to do something differently. If you don't have teachers who have 100% mindset, you're not going to get Tier 1 instruction, right?

Because Tier 1 instruction is predicated on this idea that every child can and should be successful. If teachers only half believe that students can concede that students can succeed, then Tier one becomes, I don't know, cautious. It's focused more on remediation, it's inconsistently implemented. Kind of what you're probably looking at right now. In schools and you're frustrated with. But when they truly believe 100% is possible, tier one becomes intentional, it becomes structured, it becomes woven in to every aspect of their practice. Okay? So if you don't build that belief by setting that 100% vision, sharing your vision story in a way, that your 100% vision becomes the teacher's 100% vision and 100% mindset, and then having a very simple plan for how you can achieve it so that teachers understand not just that this vision is out there, but that we have very deliberate steps in order to achieve it.

Tier one's not going to work for you. 

So the second thing is that a lot of times we focus on tier one and we jump straight to the strategies and we don't stop and think about the overall structure. One of the things that we did in the masterclass a couple of weeks ago was that we gave people a very simple structure. We call it the AIR framework. You've heard me talk about it here. That AIR framework is something that allows the teachers in your building to implement Tier 1 in ways that make sense for them. A lot of the tier one stuff we end up pushing on teachers means that every teacher has to use the same strategy in the same way every single time. And that doesn't work.

It doesn't work because kids are different, teachers are different, grades are different, so subjects are different. What the AIR framework do, and we always have a saying in the builder verse, our saying is that structure gives you freedom. When you give teachers a simple structure, you give them the freedom to be innovative and creative around supporting students. And you can trust the work they're doing because the work is in a specific structure. So that structure gives teachers the clarity to make tier one work, but also the freedom to make it work for them, for their kids. And a lot of times we get inconsistent Tier 1 implementation because the more we panic, the more we try to tighten things up and make everybody do everything the exact same way. If you give people the AIR framework and you give people time to understand what it means, and if you've already established that we are 100% school with 100% mindset, it changes how you roll out your PD, how you support teachers, and it gives teachers the freedom to to do the work in a way that still feels authentic to them, but also serves the needs of the school. And then you stop running around trying to enforce with your checklist.

Do I see this research based strategy done in this way? And this time, instead of becoming checklist enforcer in Chief, you become an instructional partner. You become someone who is really sitting down with teachers and helping them think about what we're going to do to ensure that 100% of students succeed. It's a totally different approach, but it starts with that 100% mindset. And then secondly, giving people a simple framework that will work for everybody, that allows people some space and freedom to meet the needs of the kids in front of them without trying to jump through these arbitrary hoops that you've set for teachers because you think that's what Tier 1 looks like. Tier 1 is not a set of hoops teachers must jump through. Tier one is an approach. It's a mindset.

It's a system that you put in place that's simple enough that everybody can figure it out and use it and without getting overwhelmed, without getting frustrated, without creating an additional burden on teachers. And when that system is woven freely into the work and it's integrated into the work, it's not an add on. It's not something we do. Okay, I'm teaching now, then I have to do tier one. It becomes a part of how I teach. And it's a simple and efficient way to help even struggling teachers be effective with struggling students without having to feel like they've got to master these 25 different things.

Finding a way to work with a teacher in front of you. 

The way, by the way, that we expect teachers to work with the kids in front of them, finding a way to do that by having a very simple framework makes your job easier, makes their burden lighter, and makes tier one stronger.

Hey, builders, real quick, before we get on with the rest of the episode, I want to talk to you about the 100% collective. If you are interested in becoming a builder and developing that 100% mindset, then the 100% collective is for you. Not only do we have monthly masterclasses, live masterclasses, where I show you how to take some work that you are already doing, but do it like a builder. Do it in a way that's more effective, more efficient, in a way that takes the work and stops it from being drudgery and makes it actually something that feels meaningful, that moves you forward. We also have done for you toolboxes with all the tools you need to be able to implement. And we have step by step playbooks that lay out the entire process for you so you don't have to even think about it. You just take the playbook and you can implement it right away in your schools. And we have a supportive community.

So this is a safe place where you can bring your challenges. And there are other people, other builders just like you, who are encouraging you, who are applauding you when you win, and who are giving you their experiences as well so that you can learn from each other. If you are tired of just kind of going through and doing the work the way you've always been doing it, and you're ready to stop being a leader and to start building something amazing, the 100% collective is where you need to be. Join us@brewershipuniversity.com community now. Back with the program. The last thing is that if we focus on Tier one, instead of focusing on your vision, you teach teachers to blame kids. Here's what I mean by that. If I'm doing everything right when it comes to Tier one, for those of you listening, I'm using air quotes.

If I do everything absolutely right and it still doesn't work well, then it must be the kid's fault. And so we have teachers who are doing everything, quote, unquote, right, according to the checklist, when it comes to Tier one, they're doing everything you told them to do, everything that you said was important because you were so focused on Tier one and doing it exactly this way. And they still have kids who are struggling. And so on some level, they're saying, I've done everything all right, I've done everything I could. I've done everything exactly the way that they said to do it. And this kid is still struggling, therefore, this kid must be the problem. When you focus on the program, instead of focusing on the kid, when the program doesn't work, the kid becomes the problem, the kid becomes the collateral damage.

The program becomes more important than the kids.

For a lot of us right now, Tier one is more important than the kids, and frankly, it's more important than the teachers. Now, some of this is not your fault, because I've heard some of the district mandates that some of you are trying to make sense of. I've heard some of the district people talk about, we gotta get Tier one, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank. And so it's hard to fight the pressure to make Tier one work when all your district is talking about is RTI and mtss, and we gotta do it with fidelity. The program has become the point, not the kids. And when you make the program the point, not the kids, the kids become collateral damage of the very program that was originally designed to help them. And I think that's what's happening in a lot of schools right now. We have treated Tier one as if it is the panacea, that it's the answer.

And because of that, we're so focused on getting Tier one right that we forget the point. The point isn't the program, the point's the kids. And if you are so focused on the program that you miss the point, you miss the idea that it's the kids that matter, not the program. What happens is you start blaming the kids when the program doesn't work, it must be their fault. Or you start blaming teachers when the program doesn't work, it must be their fault and the program becomes more important than the people. You see, Builders don't think about improving Tier one. Builders think about helping every child be successful. And so that means that they are defining Tier one.

They are not trying to improve or implement Tier one. What does Tier one look like in our building? And they help every teacher understand that the goal is helping every child be successful. The first line of defense for that happening is what happens on a day to day basis in the classroom. So how do we set up classrooms so that every child is successful? That's why I love the AIR framework, because you start out by figuring out what do I need kids to know and how do I set them up to be successful with it, how do I front load everything they need to be successful? And then how do I recognize when they are struggling destructively and then jump in as soon as I can intervene as early enough in the process as I can so that they never get into this free fall of failure. Instead, it's a simple correction that gets them back on track very quickly.

And then for those students who are still struggling, what can I do to be more surgical? How do I use remediation prior to the summative assessment to make sure that they're going to be successful on the summative assessment? And then for the very few kids for whom all of that is still not enough, how do I use Tier two to supplement what I'm already doing in Tier one? And when you think about it that way, it starts being about, did we get, is this a Tier one problem or a Tier two problem? Do we have, you know, it's our Tier one instruction looking like this, or I just found this new research based strategy that I think we should use instead of doing all of that. It's really about the fundamental question, how do we help every child achieve? The vision simplifies things. It keeps things from getting complicated, keeps you from chasing shiny objects.

It keeps your teachers from feeling undue pressure to perform. 

It keeps your kids at the center of the. Of the work. And isn't that what we're supposed to do? Isn't that why we're here? So before you start tinkering around with Tier one, before you start getting on your teachers for not doing Tier one, before you start looking for another Tier one program, you need to ask yourself a fundamental question first. What are we building here? What is the promise that we're making to students?

What's my vision for 100% of students? Until you get that straight, nothing else matters. And then once you've answered that question, then you're going to look at tier one and say, how does tier one help us build a school where 100% of our kids can be successful in this way? How do I make sure that I create an environment and conditions that set students up to be successful? That's the work. The work is not Tier one. Tier one is a tool. And we start worshiping the tool, we lose sight of the purpose, the work, the thing that we were supposed to use the tool for.

It's like all of a sudden trying to figure out how to hold a hammer exactly correctly and finding the right hammer and trying out two and three different hammers and going down the line and making sure everybody's holding the hammer correctly and never hitting the nail and never building anything. We gotta stop this, y'. All. Tier 1 is powerful. Tier 1 is. Can be so effective, but only if you stop treating Tier one like the work and start treating it like a tool that is used to help you achieve your 100% vision. It's not another thing to manage. It's not another program to implement.

It's not another hoop for you and your teachers to jump through. I don't care what your district says. Tier one, it's an expression of your 100% vision. It's the natural outflow of the school that you are trying to build. And when you treat it that way, Tier one will work. Not because you're pushing it, but because it becomes a part of your bigger quest for your vision. If you stop treating Tier one like the goal and get the focus back on the kids, you'll stop seeing so much resistance from teachers every time Tier 1 comes up. If you stop treating Tier 1 like the goal, your PLCs look different.

If you stop treating Tier 1like the goal, the data starts to have more meaning and make more sense. So my challenge to you this week is very, very simple. As we conclude this conversation about Tier 1 instruction, it's that we have to stop focusing on Tier 1 as if it's the goal and keep our eye on the real goal, 100% student success. And if you need help with that, we have a great masterclass inside of the collective that shows you how to do exactly that. It's not another program that you have to implement. It's a way to simplify Tier one and put it in its proper place as a tool, a powerful tool that you can use to help you achieve your 100% vision. If you'd like to have access to that masterclass, all you need to do is go to buildershipuniversity.com collective. It's there in the collective, along with several other really powerful masterclasses around PLCs.

And, you know, we've got some new masterclasses coming up in 2026, including one on how to look at data in a way that makes sense, how to develop a communication plan around the work you're doing. Just really some really cool things that we've got in, in store for you. So go to buildershipuniversity.com collective. As we close, I just want you to thank again, Tier one as a tool, it's not the work. The work is about helping every child succeed. And if you'd focus on that first your vision first, you will be able to implement Tier 1 with fidelity and power. Because instead of treating it like the work itself, you're focused on the real work, like a builder. I'll talk to you next time.

Hey, if you're ready to get started being a builder right away, then I want to invite you to join us at Buildership University. It's our exclusive online community for builders just like you, where you'll be able to get the exact training that you need to turn your school into a success story. Right now, with the people and resources you already have. Inside, you'll find our best online courses, live trainings with me, tons of resources, templates and exemplars, and monthly live office hours with me, where you can ask me anything and get my help on whatever challenge you're facing right now. If you're tired of hitting obstacle after obstacle and you're sick of tiny little incremental gains each year. If you're ready to make a dramatic difference in your school right now, then you need to join Buildership University. Just go to buildershipuniversity.com and get started writing your school success story today. Hey, real quick, before you go, if you enjoyed today's episode and you know someone who would really benefit from what you heard here today, maybe they're struggling with the thing that we talked about in today's episode.

Would you take a moment and share this episode with them? You see, not only will it help us get the word about Buildership out to more people, but you're gonna look like a rock star. Because you're gonna give people something they can really use to help them get unstuck and be better at building their schools. Plus, it would mean the world to me. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.