Dr. Tyrkala joined Anna and Jordan to chat about intentional culture building and behavior plan revisions.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
You know what they teamwork makes the dream work. These articles have been written by the wonderful members of our team.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
We all underestimated the behavior needs we ended up facing last school year. Learn how @PrincipalTurk and his staff built empathy in their students through relationships and logical consequences.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
We all underestimated the behavior needs we ended up facing last school year. Learn how @PrincipalTurk and his staff built empathy in their students through relationships and logical consequences.
Dr. Anthony Tyrkala is the Principal of Aventura Charter School, in Aventura, Florida. Dr. Tyrkala and his staff have developed a culture that was made to withstand the adversity we have all faced in education the last few years.
He joined Jordan and Anna for this interview to discuss behavior plans as well as servant leadership, encouraging innovation, and internal podcasts to communicate with your school community.
This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
One of the elements here is we're a charter school. And as a charter school, we are run by a city that's part of a district and operated by a management company. We have all these different stakeholder views.
But ultimately, it's on us, we have to figure it out.
There's just a real bootstrap mentality, it's what needs to be done. And who's going to do it? The conversation is never whose job is it? Is it my job? And that starts by example.
If you see the leader stepping in to pick up trash and run lunch duty and be out at the car line... that’s how you set the example with your leadership.
Uniquely, I taught here, and every other administrator taught here as well as every other leader taught in our school. So when we say, we know what it's like to be in your shoes, we literally were in those shoes.
I'm Principal over people who were my team lead when I got here. It's just a unique community that will accept that and can have that relationship but still hold each other accountable at the same time because we're here for the students. So everything we do is centered around that.
How do you approach staff development?
I feel like my job is to train you and prepare you to the point where you should leave, but make the culture so great that you don't want to.
So we have teachers who no doubt could be administrators if they just put in a resume, and administrators who could no doubt take the next step if they just put it in their resume, but they're accounting for the culture change.
I really think leaders have to have that mentality.
It's a great thing that they're taking that next step. But what ultimately happens is nobody wants to leave.
I mean, immediately, just when you're walking by everyone, their facial expressions, their body language, did everyone say hello to each other?
I think that's always a very immediate sign, it starts to give you that feeling, right? You can kind of sense it.
If I'm walking down the hall with a school leader and students aren't saying hello, and they're not saying hello to the students, I just get the feeling of a disconnect.
Something is off.
The same with staff. So I think that's number one, and it starts at the foundation because we're here for kids and teaching kids so much about what we do has nothing to do with the teaching.
It's the relationships.
So when you see and feel those relationships, clearly there's some level of culture. But it doesn't mean they're automatically going to be successful, you have to dig deeper into how they hold each other accountable.
How do they use data to inform those structured curriculum choices and things that really matter to determine if you are a successful school, but for the culture, you can see and feel relationships very easily.
LiveSchool is a great example of how our school culture operates. We started using LiveSchool because one of our third-grade teachers had experience with it and wanted to try it out.
If you want to try it, let's try it, you already have the passion behind it. So our whole third-grade team used it as a positive behavior system. Because of what we all know is happening in schools, the behaviors have escalated to a level we've never seen before.
So we allowed them the autonomy to implement their token economy, to design the communication aspects, and to create commonality among the third grade team only.
The success was evident to our school counselors, administrators, and myself.
Then it became about how we can expand this?
So this year, we're rolling it out school wide, as a first step towards being a true PBIS school, knowing that it’s going to be a journey that will take several years.
What I love about it is, there's just so many elements that replace other things we were doing, if a kids on our behavior improvement plan, we don't need a paper document anymore, we can build that into LiveSchool.
So we don't have that problem of having so many systems that our staff is overwhelmed.
Teachers see the benefit of us consolidating, we are aligning vertically, and the parents and students know what to expect.
So we started our journey with a teacher who said:
“Hey, Principal Tyrkala, you know, I really would love to try this.”
I created a newsletter my first year as principal called Mindset Monday. Our theme that year was “mindset matters”.
So every Monday, I would put out a newsletter that focused on any kind of topic that shifts your mindset. We were able to talk about school policies and different things like that. And I knew it was going to be beneficial.
But I didn't know so many staff would look forward to it and it just became this standing ability to communicate directly to all staff and to be able to shift and shape the culture of the school and the mindset of our collective school community.
That was great and it does take time, but I would say it's well worth the investment of the time to write it.
Now I actually record it as an internal podcast that they can listen to, instead of reading it to save them some time again.
I even started sharing a public version of it, because I just really see it as a very beneficial tool for our staff and others as well.
I wouldn't call them failures, but we definitely pivoted and shifted.
Our behavior plan at the start of the year, last year, failed.
I mean, we were not ready, we did not know that's how everyone was going to come back. We had a great global tier one system and it caught most students and they were able to correct their behaviors.
But we saw several groups of extreme behaviors that we really just did not handle quickly enough. We didn't get in front quickly enough whether it was communication with the student, communication with the parents, or collaboration amongst the teachers.
It took us a while to really realize okay, this is a real problem that we have to grapple with. Just general compliance and decency. We felt like it was just from a lack of structure.
At that point, the kids were like:
“Is school open, is it closed?”
“Do I stay home?”
“Do I quarantine?”
“Can I pretend I was in close contact?”
There were so many options available in life at that point, that the structure just kind of lost itself.
We're still going to keep dealing with that.
But we realized the problem and we started figuring out how to differentiate our discipline:
So we started getting very creative in individualizing the approach based on the situation. Using counseling and support, meeting with parents to be very explicit, so we can figure this out together.
That led to a lot of strategic planning:
All of that to know whatever happens when the start of the year comes, we'll be ready to address it.
But I don't think we created anything brand new. We really leaned into things like student contracts, being very explicit about the behaviors we are looking for and then very direct about the consequences for those behaviors.
It was just really looking at every kid, and asking:
“What's the situation?”
“What can we do?”
“What do we know about them?”
And just not accepting that we can’t help. I think that's the key, not accepting what was happening as if we can't do something to support our staff.
When it comes to culture, in terms of creating it, it starts with just being authentic, there's no one way you should be.
But what you have to be is yourself so that whenever you show up, they know what they're getting.
Because if you're not authentic, you can't be consistent, if you aren’t consistent, then they're not going to trust in a relationship with you, because they don't know who you are and what they're getting.
I think you have to have trust, you have to believe in what you're doing and who you're doing it with. And they have to know you feel that way.
So I always say you need to be very explicit, explicit in what you want, what way you're going to measure it, what's gonna happen if it's not occurring, but also explicit in how you feel, and why you feel that way.
The more you do that, it develops momentum. What I find unfortunate is I think many schools who struggle, they feel they don't have the time for that.
I feel like the more a school needs to improve the more time restraints are piled on them. Once we get up here, then we'll release you.
But the problem is, you're never going to get up there with that level of control, and no two-way communication. So for sustainability, it comes down to those relationships and developing leaders who can continue it.
They'll know why you're doing what you're doing, and they'll be able to do it their way. They're using your vision, but they're doing it their way, not your way.
So again, it really wasn't you. Maybe you gave them some motivation and some inspiration. But the systems are built by the people doing the work.
What doesn't get discussed enough is accountability. It's not just flowers and roses. We do all get along, of course. But we have accountability. And we have expectations.
So when you have that relationship, and you've done that communication, then you can sit down and say, okay, we said this together, we agreed to this together, but this is what occurred, now how can I help you make sure that we're meeting these expectations.
If those conversations are happening and the expectations are still not being met, and maybe it's just not a fit culturally, for the school, then you have to be ready to make those decisions.
So I'm currently teaching a master's level education leadership course and we're running the school and all of that. My goal is to run a public podcast but I obviously have business here first.
But no matter what, I'll continue the newsletter. And I would love for people to check it out, give feedback and pass it on to others who might benefit from it.
Need help with your behavior management plan? Check out our database of Behavior Rubric examples full of great models to guide your work.
All the behavior resources you need to create the positive culture your school community deserves.
