The Principal's Handbook

Implement Your School Initiatives with IMPACT with Jenice Pizzuto and Steven Carney
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Well, welcome everyone to the principal's handbook. I'm so excited to be here today with our guests. We have Janice Pizzuto with us today and Stephen Carney and they wrote the book Implement with Impact, a strategic framework for leading school and district initiatives.
Today we're going to be talking about how to implement different initiatives and what [00:01:00] that looks like. But I'm going to start by having Janice and Stephen introduce themselves. Hey, everyone. My Pizzuto, as Barb said, and most importantly, I am a practitioner and an implementer just like you.
My heart and soul comes from way back when being a kindergarten first grade teacher, whether I've been an administrator leading 44 schools through change or entire states and then traveling internationally. It's all about the work that we do to make change happen, to get an improvement for improvements for students.
My background is in education and I started more years ago than I want to say. But, I have been working in change and leadership for a number of years and independently supporting schools and districts and other organizations around the nation and internationally in helping to Get change done right.
So we have seen, Stephen and I saw this huge gap between [00:02:00] hoping things happen and actually making them happen. And rather than being frustrated continually, we just wanted to write a book. So the goal has been to bridge the gap between knowing, hoping things happen and making them happen. And I am currently the founder and leader of Impact Lead Succeed, which you can find on the Internet, on the web, on social media, and contact me if you need support with implementation and building implementation teams.
I am so excited to meet Ubar and so excited to be here with Steven because our new baby book is out. It's the baby release. That's finally out. We had a big book launch last weekend, here in Texas. And it was very exciting and,, we're thrilled to be here. Yeah, and this is such an important topic because, because like you just said, you know, there's this huge gap between what we know we need to be doing in the actual implementation.
So [00:03:00] this will be a great conversation. Stephen, do you want to go ahead and just tell us about you? Sure. Janice covered it all. I mean, in the sense that, similar backgrounds. So, matter of fact, we came together because of similar backgrounds. I'm currently actually the executive director for Redis School Vancouver.
Which is a charter high school actually in the Vancouver area, where we're focusing on building foundations for upper mobility. I just took a break from the work that I was doing with Janice to tackle that job because it's a . Needed thing that needed to happen here in our Vancouver area.
But other than that, I've been an elementary teacher, elementary principal, middle school principal, high school principal, county office of ed, folks, listen, I've, I've been in this profession for a long time. And so, you know, I think, our passion is definitely this implementation gap and really close to this implementation gap that we have, and we've both been consulting for years through districts, throughout the states and country and, and globally.
And it's been a wild [00:04:00] journey, and this is the single most, we think one of the most single most barriers that we find in every single school system is that implementation gap that exists from classroom to classroom. School to school, region to region, and we know it works. We just need to do a better job at implementing what works.
Yeah. And I think, like I said, this is going to be a great conversation because I know for me and my, admin program, I didn't learn this until I went for my superintendent's license, but we never talked about implementation science and things like that in my leadership program. So if you want to just start by talking about.
The idea of implementing with impact and you use the acronym impact. So what does that mean for you? And what does that look like? Thanks for asking Barb. That's so great. One of the things that we noticed, in studying and researching, for really, I started with implementation science. 15 years ago, doing statewide work with Oregon.
A shout out to the Oregon response to instruction intervention team and the Mississippi, [00:05:00] Mississippi teams and the Michigan teams, Kansas. These collaboratives would come together and we were using implementation science to scale evidence based practices, whether it was MTSS, RTI, reading, And math, but there wasn't any process for getting it actually from theory to practice.
When Steven and I started working together because of our combined work with organizations like learning forward, we have a hyper focus on Andrew Goji, which is adult learning and professional learning. And we noticed this gap between the research with implementation science. And actual getting things into place.
So we were frustrated with the lack of actually the tools. There's hundreds of frameworks out there, but there isn't one like ours, which does bring me to the IMPACT framework, which you asked about the IMPACT acronym. What we saw missing were the things that are what we call in the outer circle. So the outer circle [00:06:00] of the IMPACT framework, it includes what we call human and learning centered design elements.
And as you read the book, you're going to hear that over and over again. Hopefully you have our voices in your head, the human and learning center design elements, because really it's the people that are doing the work that are the most important. But we like to say it's about us without us yet implementation frameworks and implementation science.
can tend to leave that out. And what we know, especially in education is that the implementers are the ones who are doing the work, right? The impact framework is I inclusion, M meaningful leadership, P professional learning, A assess and adjust C collective efficacy. We all know that's it. 1. 57. Yeah. And T team, we all know we do better together in teams.
If we combine these elements of including the implementers in the design of the implementation from the get go, having meaningful leadership [00:07:00] structures that allow the voice of the people doing the work to be a part of the design, and a little bit of a flattened hierarchy where we have decision making protocols and opportunities for people to interact and be a part of the process meaningfully, not just in a top down, it's a collective.
And then if they know, and then we provide P professional learning, that ongoing and embedded adult learning, that isn't one shot, what we call a, you don't want to do pigeon PD, fly in, drop a load and come out. I'm going and embedded adult learning to build the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the implementers all along the way, and a is assess and adjust.
Hey, how's it going? What do you, what do you need? How can we help you? The book has a sample agendas and protocols for teams to use. As they're looking to see how the implementation is going. and C, collective advocacy, having a shared work and shared goals, how we get collective advocacy, and then it's all done in T TEAM.
So it's a lot to unpack, but I [00:08:00] think I tried to make a synopsis. Well, and those are all such important things that you're talking about. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking if you do all of those things, I mean, that is so impactful, hence the acronym, but it, those are all huge things in schools that I think Sometimes don't happen because of the time and intention it takes to make them happen.
So I think that that's really good. If I could add part of the, acronym wasn't just like a happenstance acronym. Those actually just come from a lot of research that Denise and I did. Around what are the human learning center design components that actually get people to move in a change initiative.
And so these were like the common components to those change elements. So, you know, when we talk about, for example, the assess and adjust what's included in there is like using data and feedback to continuously how cetera et cetera. the thing Improve the implementation strategies that you're actually using for, that, you know, team is not just about having a [00:09:00] team.
It's really about developing your implementation team competencies. And so that in ensuring that there's effective coordination and communication among the team around the implementation. The acronym itself in those terms seem like easy enough, but they really have a deeper component to it.
And those are all supported by research. Yeah, all very complex things. Can you talk to us a little bit about implementation science, what that means and what that looks like for schools? Sure. Do you want to go ahead, Stephen? Go ahead. You are sitting at the, the helm of the Global Implementation Society there.
I think you'd be a great one to speak to that. I'll just chime in wherever, wherever I can. Thank you. I do serve on the board of the Global Implementation Society. We just had a meeting this morning. If anyone wants to join me in Nigeria in November, it is a fantastic conference. We're having it in Abuja, November 12th through 15th.
We're trying to bring implementation [00:10:00] into the education sector, Stephen and I have been working really hard on that for a lot of years, but we're not the only organization. Quite simply, I just had a group together last week and I said, how do we define implementation science and if we boil it down to just the very simplest definition, it's the act of making something active and effective.
So I repeat it because it's we can't just be active. It has to be effective. So when we look at the adopt and abandon cycle, that's so prevalent in all industries and sectors, but it's maybe a little hyper prevalent in education. We don't have a lack of evidence based practices. We know what works in education.
We are good at making selections. We can select high quality evidence based practices. And they may begin to get active, but it's the effective component. of seeing it in the day to day practice that gains results. So implementation science takes the evidence based practice and gets it into [00:11:00] place so that it gains the results as designed.
I'm in Ohio and we have all these laws around dyslexia and the science of reading. So as you're talking, I'm thinking about That's been a huge thing. We're implementing these new reading curriculums we now have an approved list of what we can use. And so we've been working on implementing that.
And you're right. There's so much research that has been out there for years, but it's actually implementing it into schools and making sure that it's happening in an effective way. So I think that that's such a great point to make sure it's both effective and active in the schools. And there are much more complicated definitions, but what we've learned and the reason we wrote this book is because we don't need complicated.
We need to get it to the most busy superintendent, the busiest principal, and so that it reaches everyone throughout vertically and horizontally. So that's why I gave you a very clear, if I were to expand, we could talk about the formula for success. And Which is very widely known in implementation science [00:12:00] and our heroes and people we admire and did a lot of studying with their work and with them is fixin pausea and bandite it's an effective innovation.
So what is it evidence based what is the evidence based practice whether it's science of reading or. MTSS or SEL. We're full of acronyms. I know everybody says those, right? So we have that. Think about this as a multiplication formula. An effective innovation, evidence based practice times effective implementation.
How do we get it done so that it's going to gain results? Enabling context. This is the piece that gets missing. That's what we were talking about with those human and learning center design elements. If we have all three of those elements, you get socially significant outcomes. which the target is 80%.
Any one of those are missing. It's a math formula. So you get zero. So we need an effective innovation and we need an effective implementation and we need enabling context to [00:13:00] get to 80%. of implementation of the innovation. We need a visual for that. Yeah, it's on page 20, page 20 of the book.
So if you're listening to this and you get the book, go to page 20. Yeah. And I think Barb to know, and for the listeners to know, like implementation science is a science. Um, and, and in our book, we, pull from that science. So it's as Janice had mentioned the science itself when you just Google implementation science and implementation science frameworks and have you actually said you're going to see lots of different models and for our profession like we need something that's Simple and doable, and it can be very complicated because of the science that's behind it.
And we tend to kind of overcomplicate things. But I think it's important to know that the implementation science itself, though, it's really about creating new knowledge about effective techniques. For supporting the adoption and sustainment of evidence based practices. So that is what implementation science [00:14:00] is about.
So that's what that gives us is those that research and those techniques that help us implement things right and well. Then really shifting that focus then to the application and the integration of those strategies. So once you know those strategies, which you'll find in the book, how do you apply that?
And how do you integrate those? And then Now, shifting to now apply that to using your the use of your innovations, the use of your practices. And then from there, how do we actually get what works, you know, these, these innovations, , to the people who, Need it with greater speed, greater fidelity, greater, you know, efficiency, greater quality so that we get the results that the, the practice promises to deliver.
So the book really just takes it and kind of extrapolates all that , and just makes it more doable for our profession. Cause we have very little time to digest that research. Right. And the fact [00:15:00] that you have it all laid out with what to do, I think is what is so helpful for principals who are very busy people, such a great way for them to then be able to implement with the team effectively.
Yeah, I guess to close on that, the simplest definition of implementation science that we use. , is this the study of how to implement evidence based practices right and well so they can have an impact. So it's taking in all the different sciences and information so that we can expedite the process, not have a lag between innovation and results.
I'm thinking about myself as a new principal, I tried to, start all these initiatives and get things going in my building and it was overwhelming and there was a lot happening. But if you're doing an initiative and you're following the actual implementation science and doing it the right way with impact, how long do you think it would take to make meaningful change with that initiative?
And have it be sustainable. [00:16:00] Yes, there you go to have the research and the study. The science says it's it's really 2 to 3 years. So if things happen in stages, and the impact implementation framework has the outer circle, which we already talked about, but you kind of lead into the inner circle, which are the stages that we have, there are four stages, as I said, there are other frameworks out there, what you will find that is common across all of them is they all have stages or phases.
Because the evidence is things take time, and they take a process so our stages are decide, plan and prepare. This is the stage that everybody skips we decide we're going to do this, we don't feel. Oh yeah, that's probably the most important stage. Plan and prepare. Plan and prepare. Yeah, and then implement and within implement, you're using that assess and adjust and having these team meetings and monitoring, fidelity, not in the way of fidelity, but in how's it going?
What do you need? How can we support [00:17:00] you? And then after implement spread and sustain and that process truly takes 2 to 3 years. But you start to see results. So think about, you know, that first year you're exploring and you're kind of getting started and making those decisions, getting all the plans set.
And then you're going to roll out in year two to start to implement and start assessing the just in year three, you're refining. So it's quicker than you think, but if we don't do it, what we know is, again, thanks to research that came before us, it can take up to. Three years to get up to 80 percent implementation with a high quality implementation team and the effective components or you can take up to 17 years to get 14 percent implementation. In place. So when we do the adopt and just check the box, the evidence here, I just presented in Missouri with a district that they had adopted PLCs, 10 years later with an audit, they were [00:18:00] literally sitting at 13 percent implementation. Now there have been implementing with the team and the framework and they're getting toward 60%.
They said they've gone further, faster. With this process than they ever did with, just, you know, getting the one and done training and, selecting protocols. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. And I don't want to, we don't want to oversimplify it either. Yeah, but just, you know, like the decide stage itself, it is about deciding who's on the implementation team.
It's about really getting clear about the problem you're trying to solve and then really understanding what is the evidence based solution. Yeah. To that problem, and then assessing your organizational readiness. So we've got that. And then the plan and prepare as Janice has shared, like, it truly is the stage that is the, we believe is the most important.
And that's where you're designing the implementation plan. And then you're identifying , what implementation science refers to as the active ingredients. And that's the [00:19:00] part that we miss. It's like, , what does it look like when it's in place done well and right? And what are the active ingredients that help get that into place and really identifying those components actually then help drive home.
And that sets up like, how are we going to monitor that? What are the, what are the ways we're going to prepare folks for that? What are the ways that we're going to. Row people so that they can actually implement those active ingredients right and well, and then the other stages implement is all about really supporting the implementers all along the way, using the data to make those decisions about what's working, what's not so, and you can't even get into spread and sustain until those three things are
done well. So one thing I like to focus on with principles is how do we take care of their own well being. And as I'm thinking about all this in my own experiences with implementation. What can be really stressful is the culture of the school and teachers mindsets when you're implementing something.
And then that causes you, as you know, a lot of stress for the principal and that can really mess with your own well being and the building moving forward [00:20:00] with what you're implementing. What tips do you have on how this impacts culture and how you can work with teachers on that? This is the most exciting part.
You're not alone anymore, Barb. The theme throughout the book you'll notice, , is shifting the culture and growing the implementers. So they're in within threaded throughout all the different chapters, there's a whole chapter on change and adopting a change theory because we know we have to, help people get through.
And when we see symptoms such as resistance or frustration, or false starts, those are symptoms that the system can react to when we're just. , look, wait, letting those things happen and we don't have a plan. If you haven't adopted a change theory, we don't understand how to address the sym symptom pro proactively.
Additionally, with an implementation team, it's no longer, it is not leader or person dependent, and the people who are on the teams at a campus level and or a system level have an [00:21:00] active voice and an active role, and that really creates this synergy. Within the organization of a we and an us rather than I into them.
And it's, oh, that's Barb's project. Oh, Barb's going to do that. It's no longer dependent on you. As a matter of fact, quite often, what you see school districts have principals have their teams report to the board on a regular basis, their progress and celebrations and excitement, and it's a team, it's not the principal.
Which makes sense. One of my favorite parts about this whole process is, is the, the component in the beginning where we're actually assessing organizational readiness. So that gives us a, that gives us a glimpse into the things that, the, the issues or the problems that we may tackle. So really thinking about, you know, first of all, even at the beginning of understanding is this the right fit, this innovation that we're doing, and is it the right fit Now?
And is it feasible given our resources? Sometimes we get excited to implement great [00:22:00] things, but we haven't really thought through like, how much time will this take? What is needed to actually implement it right? And well, what resources are needed? So understanding and fit and feasibility, I think, is really important.
Collect a piece. And the reason why we talk about collective efficacy, because we know the one thing that can actually tear down initiative really quick are the collective attitudes and beliefs around that initiative. So when we have our stakeholders are our implementers who just say, I don't, this is something I don't believe in.
I don't buy in it. It's it will destroy an implementation effort super quick. And so. Understanding the collective attitudes and the beliefs, around those initiatives are really super important. It's also helping understand what are the what's the current atmosphere in the culture of our building. Is this the right time to implement something simply because we first need to address some other issues that are getting in the way of our ability to actually function as a team.
That's very much part of assessing readiness and then [00:23:00] capacity. You know, who's taking on what role and do we have the capacity to do this right and well and really understanding those capacity pieces. When you do that, you have a much better picture about okay, we can implement this.
And now we can start thinking about how to overcome some of those barriers once we've done that analysis. I think you brought up some really good points, because, one, I think sometimes we just think, take PLCs, for example, this is a great process, we should be doing it, we need to start doing it now, instead of, like you said, maybe you're not ready at this point, you need to work on other things or creating the change in the culture first before you get there.
And also, I always worry about, , what is actually sustainable, so when I leave, it can be sustained and it's not just something I implemented. And then now it's gone, so I think those are really great points. I think the other piece that we missed too is just the stakeholder engagement, like who should be involved in that whole process and who should be involved in thinking through this whole implementation piece.
And it does, [00:24:00] yeah, the stakeholders, but students may be our stakeholders, families may be our stakeholders as part of. So depending on what the initiative is, it's really thinking deeply about who are those stakeholders to help with the implementation process as well. Yeah. That it creating a whole culture of learning and improvement and what we call deliberately developmental implementation.
So it's really a organizational wide focus on building the knowledge, skills and attitudes. Of staff, which means we may have to de implement first. So there's a lot that goes into it. And I love Stephen, including the stakeholders, because what we found is, if we don't include stakeholders, they can upend the process.
We all know about school boards and people getting on board. If we include them early and often, I like to say, I'll give you a tip. Be transparent. inclusive and planful. And sometimes it might, that's why the decide stage has so many components. And what's really great about the book, it took us a long time, [00:25:00] but each stage has, it took a while to build these, but it was now I think it's so crucial for people to look at them and you can look at what are the key objectives.
and key activities. So, within the decide stage, it's not a checklist, we were really clear. It's not a checklist, but here are key things, you're going to need to look out for. And including the community. , depending upon what you're doing, it'll cause those conversations amongst your team. And then it allows you, Barb, not to be the lone leader who's saying these things.
So those, tools at the end of the chapter and at the beginning of the chapter work as a little facilitator for the team to kind of make sure that how we're moving through the process. And are we being inclusive? And do we have the characteristics and behaviors of a learning organization?
Yeah, that's really good. I think your work is so important because Like I said, I think often we just try to implement things and then that's where the teacher stress happens. That's where the principal stress, then we end up with teacher burnout problems with retention. You [00:26:00] know, we have so many problems in education with that.
And I think as leaders have to be really intentional when we're trying to implement something of what that looks like and making sure that less is more. We do it right and we make sure that it's done in a way that's sustainable. So I love all of that that you said. Do you have anything else that you want to share about the book or that would be helpful for the listeners?
I think that understand that the book is for leaders. it's also for the teams that they put together implementation team and, and, you know, we define an implementation team in the book. It is different than some of the other teams, but it can start with the leadership team and, engage in, you know, Building implementation literacy.
I mean, really, the other kind of piece we wanted to make sure we did in this has helped to educate people about there is an implementation of science and become implementation literate. So when you are, you know, have to make that decision about whether or not you, you know, Implement or you're trying to be innovative.
At least you have a background [00:27:00] knowledge and a deeper understanding about implementation itself and how to do that well and right. And so I would say, use this book as an opportunity to grow your implementation literacy in your system. Yeah, our goal is to shine a light on implementation in the education sector, and very audacious goal is to impact implementation literacy globally.
And this book is born out of trying to create a tool that is accessible, approachable. And rigorous at the same time to get teams to and through adopting an evidence based practice. So we can change outcomes for kids. We can no longer spend three to 500, 000 adopting initiatives just to have them abandoned or in haphazard.
If there's, it's a moral imperative to get it done. Right. Because kids are counting on us. Families are counting on us. Communities are counting on us. So get your implementation done right. And well. [00:28:00] Yeah, the financial piece is a great point that you don't think about how much money is spent doing things the wrong way, and then they end up not being implemented.
Well, this was a great conversation, Denise and Steven. I'm so happy that you were on the podcast today, and it was great talking with you. , I will make sure to put your information in the show notes, so if people want to reach out to you, they can do that by clicking in the show notes. So again, I appreciate you being here, and, Thanks for joining us.
Thanks everyone. Thanks Barb. Thanks Barb.
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