Transformative Principal

jethro_2_04-23-2025_143737: Welcome to Transformative Principle, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.

I'm your host, Jethro Jones.

You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Jethro D. Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principle.

I am your host, Jethro Jones.

You can find me on all the social networks at Jethro Jones.

The Transformative Principle Podcast is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network.

We've got so many great shows and we just got a brand new show called Improving Education Today, the Deep Dive, which is a new experimental podcast that you might be interested in.

This one is created from the writings of Dr. Howie Kn.

Ai, using Notebook lm, which some people may know about.

And instead of just throwing a bunch of junk in there, he has well-researched, well-written documents, that he then puts into there and it makes a podcast out of it.

So if that sounds intriguing.

Go check it out.

And if you're not using notebook, lm, my friend Aaron says that it is amazing.

I've played with it.

I enjoy it.

I think that it's cool.

And definitely worth checking out.

I'm in the middle of writing my dissertation, so I'm putting my documents in there and I'm gonna see what happens when I. Do my literature review and just take all that stuff and see what it says.

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

But today on the show we have Bobby Kenosha Carr.

He's a leadership coach, author, mindfulness teacher, and a former teacher and principal, and a senior public education executive.

He's the founder and CEO of Enlightened Leadership Coaching, and the senior managing director of schools at equitus.

Academy Charter Schools as a school principal, Bobby led the turnaround of a large public high school in Los Angeles and subsequently founded a charter school in his hometown of San Pedro, California.

He's a pioneer in personalized and project-based learning, restorative practices and mentoring in schools.

Bobby recently published his first book, can I Go To the Bathroom?

In Other Asinine Questions We Ask in School, it's an exploration of the dysfunctional power dynamics that leave almost everyone feeling disempowered.

In American schools.

And let me be honest, the reason I said yes to this podcast was because of the title of his book.

Can I go to the bathroom?

So Bobby, welcome to Transformative Principle.

Great to have you here.

I.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah, thanks Jetro.

I'm happy to be here.

Mm-hmm.

Jethro D. Jones: when I was a principal, if I was teaching a class or leading a class, which I did on a regular basis.

I said, if you ever ask me to go to the bathroom, then that is the only thing you can really get in trouble for because if you have to ask me to go to the bathroom, we have much bigger problems and I don't want to hear that question ever.

If you need to go to the bathroom, just go to the bathroom.

Why do we ask this question in school?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah, I, exactly.

Everything you just said and some more, to me, that question speaks to so much more than just that experience of students feeling like their basic bodily functions are being monitored by other people.

To me, it speaks to the broader issue of power dynamics in American schools, and that's really what the book is about, is how.

The American school system has built this culture of permission seeking, where every single person, it's not just the kids, it's the teachers, it's the administrators as well.

Every single person, as soon as they arrive on a school campus, is put into a position in a power dynamic where they're constantly seeking permission to make even the most basic decisions.

I deeply believe that that is at the heart of what we need to address if we're really gonna have great schools in this country.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

So, I think we can just, we can assume that people understand what you mean when you say that, and we're just gonna move forward because I don't wanna spend a lot of time dissecting that.

Let's just talk about this permission seeking issue, what happens when you're in this permission seeking issue?

Is that you believe that you can't make decisions and that your only choice is to either be subversive, or feel subversive or to, to do something else radical or, or something to, to be able to do what you feel like you need to do as a person in any position in a school.

What's your take on that?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: That is absolutely right and very much aligned with my lived experience.

I was always that subversive person and continue to be that, as a high school student, I, I. Was leading protests in my own high school, organizing sit-ins in the principal's office because I didn't have channels to really advocate for meaningful change.

From my perspective as a student, as a teacher, I was the one that was always pushing the boundaries and bringing in texts that weren't on the reading list and facilitating discussions that.

Didn't always sit well with my administrators because they didn't see the clear alignment to mastery as measured by standardized assessments.

And then as a principal, this is how I actually moved over from a traditional school system to the charter side.

I came up with an LA unified school district, all the way from teacher to high school, principal.

But eventually was positioned so frequently to be that subversive voice that even when I was just trying to do the things that my teachers needed, my students needed, my families needed, my community needed, I was constantly put into a position where I felt like I had to fight to just be able to do what seemed like the obvious right?

Move in service to other people.

And that's when I moved over to the charter world, where things are different but not, not altogether better.

Right there, there are.

Jethro D. Jones: that all went away, right?

You could, you can do whatever you want in a charter school, right, Bobby?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Not how it works.

Not how it works.

We, we, we, we still have oversight.

We still have have outdated laws and policies and regulations, and we still have leadership that runs the gamut from highly effective to highly ineffective, just like any other school system.

And so I think I have found myself chasing opportunities to, I.

Be able to collaborate with people at schools to make schools better places for everyone, and found myself running up against barriers, in most of the places where I found myself across my life.

And, that was really what inspired this book was, was my wanting to initially just.

Explore the ideas.

And then as I started having conversations with other educators, I realized my experience was, was shared by a lot of folks in the field, and people wanted an opportunity to think about it for themselves.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, and, and really what the way that I dealt with this is I would just do the thing that I needed or wanted to do and, I have a. A strong moral compass.

And so I felt comfortable doing that.

But like you said, I always felt like I had to fight for it.

And I was always prepared for the, the superintendent or the principal or the director or whoever to come down and say, you can't do X, Y, or Z anymore because not allowed.

And even.

my specialty was finding ways to make it allowed by, by doing things that were, permitted but not, not exactly condoned and, but that were well within the, the rules and regulations that we had set up.

You know, some people might fall kind, fuck, might.

Call that finding loopholes.

And, and that's what I would do.

I was, I would find loopholes where we could get away with doing the things we wanted to.

So, for example, in one district, we were required, teachers were required to submit lesson plans.

And I was the principal and I asked around, I said, who's checking up on me collecting the lesson plans?

And nobody was.

And so I said, well.

We're not gonna do this anymore.

We're not gonna collect lesson plans from everybody because one, I'm not going to review them all.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Mm-hmm.

Jethro D. Jones: so if you're turning them in so that I can review them, that's not gonna happen.

If you're turning them in so that you have some accountability, then sure, go ahead and still do that, but I'm just gonna file it away in the trash.

I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna look at it 'cause I'm gonna be in your classroom seeing what's going on.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Right.

Jethro D. Jones: and, and if there's any other reason I can't figure it out, why that would be beneficial as a school-wide, district-wide policy that you turn it in.

So we just stopped and and my teachers were like, well, you can't just stop doing this.

It's required.

And I was like, says who?

Like, where's, where's the thing?

And I didn't ask if I could stop collecting them.

I just did.

And guess what, Bobby?

Nobody.

and said, you need to start doing this again.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yep.

Jethro D. Jones: the superintendent, not the curriculum director, not anybody, because nobody was paying attention.

Nobody cared, and it was a stupid rule that didn't make any sense at all.

And so I just found a loophole and we stopped doing it and.

It turns out it didn't matter one tiny bit and there are about a million other things in education that are like that where they don't matter if, if I may share one more story

Bobby Canosa-Carr: please.

Jethro D. Jones: I actually looked like a genius, even though I wasn't.

I was just being obstinate.

We had our first year of digital state testing in Alaska and there was all this pressure and tension around making sure the computers could do the digital state testing, and I said, I'm not going to spend multiple days practicing to make sure that this stuff works.

If it's not ready for prime time, then we're not.

We shouldn't be doing it.

And again, I didn't ask permission.

The superintendent said this, these are the practice days.

I said, we're not doing that.

And I just ignored it basically.

And I didn't like make a big deal about it.

I just ignored it.

And when the IT director said, Hey, we need to set these things up.

I said, you know, you can go ahead and test 'em, but I'm not devoting time.

Class time to doing it.

So you can come down here, bring your IT folks down, and you guys can do whatever you need to, but we're not, we're not testing because we're not testing the test because that's not what we're here for.

We're here to learn.

And, and kids are actually learning.

This is not going to help them learn.

And so then the test came and we have a window, and I said, we're gonna do the very last week.

And they're like, no, you can't do that because it's new and there might be issues.

And I said, let everybody else figure out the issues.

We're gonna have our testing window be the very last week.

We're not gonna start until the very last Monday.

We're gonna do three days and then we'll have, Thursday and Friday for makeups.

And they're like, you might run out of people.

There might not be enough time to get all the makeups and then we won't get our 95%.

And I was like, doesn't matter.

This is when we're doing it.

And.

And I, I got a little bit of pushback, but I was, but they didn't have a good reason to say, no, you need to do it earlier.

So then the test starts, it's open for a month.

Second week in, at the University of Kansas, somebody cuts a cable and a fire optic cable, and the test can't be accessed anymore because it was going to the servers there.

And now I look like a genius because our whole school got out doing the test that year.

Because I wasn't willing to go along with this stupid plan to be panicky about that.

a lot of principals and teachers don't feel like they can do that.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah.

Jethro D. Jones: frankly was so sure of what the right thing to do was that.

It wasn't hard for me, but it was very stressful for my assistant principal, for the counselor, for other teachers in the building, but it wasn't for me because I was sure what we were doing was the right thing.

How?

How would you give someone courage to say, this is the right thing and we're gonna do it anyway?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah, I mean I love that you said we're not gonna do it 'cause that's not what we're here for.

Jethro D. Jones: Mm-hmm.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: I actually explore that idea a little bit in the book of.

Is that actually what we're here for?

Because to some extent we've gotta acknowledge that we're lying to ourselves if we say we are here entirely to educate kids.

Because there are so many things, like the examples you're giving that that give evidence to the contrary that say, we are actually here to service the system rather than service the kids.

We are actually here to funnel public funds to these major international textbook companies and consultants.

We are actually here to make sure that the lobbyists who get paid by those textbook companies are able to, to do what they do.

There is a whole system there and it operates below the surface, but I think.

Some educators get to a point in their careers where they're able to kind of see through the matrix and they're able to see what's really going on.

It sounds like that's what you're talking about is getting to that point where it doesn't even take courage at some point.

It just takes seeing the system for what it is and seeing that what I'm being asked to do in this case is not in service to kids.

It's not actually aligned with our stated mission, vision values.

You know, every school system has something posted on their website about what they're there to do.

But if you really audit the practices of any school, you'll find it's a fairly small percentage of their practices that are aligned with what they say their stated purpose is.

Jethro D. Jones: So, so what's, so what do we do about that?

How do you, how do you help people get out of that and actually do what we're there to do?

And I, I mean the, this is actually a deeper question because not everybody believes.

In what we're there to do.

In fact, I was at my daughter's transition program, which is for kids with special needs going in grad, leaving high school, and transitioning into, life after high school.

And the stated goal of this program is to get our kids to be tax paying citizens.

And like, that's not my goal.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Mm-hmm.

Jethro D. Jones: That's not

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yep.

Jethro D. Jones: for my child, is

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yep.

Jethro D. Jones: their whole purpose to feed into this, giant government system.

That's, that's not really what I am, what I want her to grow up to have her life's purpose as, but that's how they pitched it in this, in this meeting.

How do you, how do you combat that?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah.

I mean it's, it's so pervasive that reminds me of, of the statement that RFK Jr recently made about autism and his drive to.

Find a so-called cure for autism, and the first reason he gave for wanting to do that is because autistic people in his mind will never be taxpayers.

So again, it's just an example of the system is set up to achieve certain things like collecting taxes from us that are not aligned with what most educators get into the system for.

To me, the way we combat that.

We've gotta start engaging in more dialogue.

I think the way that the system obscures what's really going on, keeps people confused and keeps people seeking permission is by turning us against one another.

And so in the book, can I go to the bathroom?

Isn't the only question we look at every, every chapter is actually named after a question that gets asked in schools all the time, and one of the chapters is called Why is It Always My Fault?

Which any teacher or administrator hears that question all the time.

Why is it always my fault?

And I've really explored the idea that the system trains us to point fingers at one another.

It trains students to look at their teachers as the source of power and see their teachers often as the oppressors and the people who are keeping them from being able to live fulfilled lives while they're at school.

We all know many, many teachers see their administrators in that same light.

And most administrators are looking at their superintendent, their district office folks, their state education agency, whatever it is, as the source of the problem.

And I think as long as we're pointing fingers at one another, especially those of us who go to school campuses every day, it's like a game of divide and conquer.

And they turn the people who spend their time at schools against one another in order to obscure some of these deeper issues.

And so my big push and what I think is actually the first step in in addressing some of this is creating more opportunities for dialogue, actually helping students and teachers and administrators to sit down together and talk about what's working for them at their schools and what's not working for them at their schools.

Start being vulnerable with one another.

It drives me crazy how we have all these constructs that keep us from connecting with people at different levels.

The fact that in a lot of schools, teachers and administrators don't even want kids to know what their first name is.

It's not even about I want you to respect me by calling me Mr.

Or Miss, Mrs. Doctor, whatever it is.

I have no problem with that, but.

Where it's like, I don't even want you to know what my first name is because I have to maintain emotional distance from you.

That type of dynamic that's just become commonly accepted in schools, it keeps us separate and it signals to us we can't be vulnerable with one another.

We can't be human with one another.

We can't acknowledge our suffering in relation to one another.

And I didn't really figure that out until after.

I was done being a principal, and I was a principal for seven years in two different schools.

It wasn't until after that that I realized I was suffering deeply.

It wasn't that I wasn't good at my job, I was effective.

I got results, but I was suffering deeply.

I was really not fulfilled as a human being, as a professional, but nobody knew.

Because they couldn't, because I had to maintain that professional distance.

I had to maintain what I thought of as respect and authority and and maintain that power dynamic.

And that's the way administrators are to teachers.

That's the way teachers are to students.

And as long as we're doing that, we're not talking to one another.

And if we're not talking to one another, we're not seeing that this problem isn't a me problem.

This is a systemic problem.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, absolutely.

So the mastermind group coaching that I do with principals really powerful in that sense, in that it gives you a place to be able to be vulnerable and share what's really going on, and that is the feedback that I get the most often from it is I. I feel like this is the only place I can really tell what people, what's going on.

I can't say this in my district.

I can't say this in my school because if people knew this was going on, they would think that I was a terrible principal.

And it's like, no.

Like we all, we all deal with that and we all get frustrated and like we're all human.

It's not as big a deal as we make it seem.

And it doesn't have to be either.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: I,

I remember when I first launched my coaching business and I was reaching out to folks that I know in senior leadership positions in school districts, and I was talking to a superintendent, and I just asked the question because the push was, well, it sounds like your coaching is a lot of, a lot of fluffy stuff.

It sounds like it's, it's not as results oriented as we needed.

Like, can you prove that it's gonna improve standardized test scores?

And I just said you were a principal.

How often did you cry on your commute

and it threw that superintendent for a loop?

Just being asked that question, because we all know for anyone who is in that role and is really emotionally invested in the work, there's a very good chance that there's a lot of crying happening on that commute.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: because it, the role of principal is.

Such an enormous burden.

And it is such a lonely, lonely burden to carry because we are told nobody on your campus is on your level.

Nobody on your campus can know the things that, you know, you are completely on your own.

And then principals are also positioned to compete against one another rather than collaborate with one another.

Especially in, I can speak to, to where I am in California with declining enrollment, we have just.

Dramatically dropping numbers of school age kids.

And so each principal is communicating with the principal at the next school over, for that enrollment.

And so even with your peers, you're just positioned to never be vulnerable, never be yourself, never be fully human.

And that's just such a disservice to the people in the role, and it prevents them from doing the work to the best of their ability.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, it, it's interesting the, the topic of my.

Rotation is what?

How improving your organic skills, which is what I'm calling soft skills, basically like trust, empowerment, things like that.

How improving those actually increases your effectiveness as a principle,

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Mm-hmm.

Jethro D. Jones: to get to the effectiveness as it relates to, standardized test scores, but I just read a different dissertation by someone else who talked about how trust.

When a, when a principal has a learning centered focus and they have trust with their staff, that it greatly increases the likelihood of their students performing well on state assessments and Right.

It's all fluffy.

Like, oh, this feel good, like let's build trust, kumbaya type stuff.

Yeah, but you know what?

That actually makes it so that you can.

Take risks so that you can feel safe, so that you can do the things that you need to do to actually learn.

Because learning doesn't happen in a vacuum either.

And so those, those things have to happen and it has to be there because if it's not, then you're not gonna get the results either, you know, so we have to stop poo-pooing these organic skills and start seeing them for what they really are, which is the actual skills that matter.

Much more than the academic skills because if you have these skills, you can learn anything.

But if you don't have them, then it's gonna be even more difficult to learn things.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah, that's exactly right.

You know, because you're writing your dissertation, there is so much research around this.

It's no longer just, some, some guys like us think that it's important to be sensitive, like there is solid science behind those, those organic skills being absolutely crucial levers in moving the needle on our productivity and effectiveness.

Jethro D. Jones: They absolutely are.

So, again, the book is called Can I Go To the Bathroom and Other Ask Nine Questions We Ask In School.

Bobby, my last question is how do people, how can.

What's one thing that a principal can do this week to be a transformative leader like you?

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Start a conversation with the person you think is most at odds with you.

Whoever that person is, whether that is that teacher that you perceive to be the troublemaker, whether that is the student that is the bane of your existence, whether that is the parent that's going to show up at the board meeting and speak out against you in public comment, whoever that person is that is driving you the most crazy.

Initiate a conversation with them for no reason other than to try to better understand their lived experience and how their lived experience at your school is contributing to the behaviors that you think are problematic.

Jethro D. Jones: That's great advice.

And, I've done that and it's scary, but man, it's so worth it when you, when you actually do it.

So, if, if you wanna follow, bobby, there is a link to his LinkedIn profile and his website in the show notes@transformativeprinciple.org.

If you want to improve your own leadership, you can apply to join the mastermind@transformativeprinciple.com.

Bobby, thank you so much for being part of transformative principle today.

Bobby Canosa-Carr: Yeah, thanks, jetro.

Enjoyed the conversation.

Appreciate the opportunity.