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.

Welcome to Transformative Principal.

Today we are doing something special.

I'm releasing a space that Damon Hargraves and I did.

Damon was, uh, assistant principal and district level stuff, and Kodiak School District where he and I worked together and it was awesome.

We did some really cool things and I'm going to, uh, be sharing this with you, and then we're going to be doing more spaces on x.

About these topics.

So if you are interested and think this would be something curious to learn about, please follow us and reach out when we do these.

Um, we haven't made a schedule or anything 'cause um, that's not really our style.

So, but if people are listening and are interested, then we will probably do better at that.

So if you like this, give us a follow and let us know and we look forward to hearing more from you.

In the show notes on this episode is the link to the Twitter thread that talked about this.

So, uh, you can go check that out and thanks so much for listening.

Here's my conversation with Damon.

Jethro D. Jones: Up and running.

Up and running.

All right.

And then, uh, it says this thing's recording, right?

So.

I'm gonna record a backup anyway, just 'cause that's the kind of nerd I am.

Damon Hargraves: Huge.

Huge nerd.

Jethro D. Jones: Huge nerd.

Damon Hargraves: So big.

Jethro D. Jones: Uh, so big.

All right, so, uh, let me get this out on the, the internet.

Lemme just post this.

And then if you have any, uh

oh.

Damon Hargraves: Did you discover the pause?

Discovered the soundboard?

Yes.

Jethro D. Jones: Oh boy.

Here we go.

Um, if you have any like notes, if you post them in the, in our shared note, then I'll add 'em to my, to the timeline on this post.

Does that sound good?

Sounds good.

Okay.

All right.

And then, you know, the, the, the, the tweet or the ex post gets, when it's a space, then it, the space disappears eventually, but the.

This original post that I did will now be living forever.

So, um, all right.

So Damon Hargraves, welcome as always.

Uh, let's, while we're getting started, why don't you just tell people a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, so currently I'm the principal of Peters Elementary here in Kodiak, Alaska.

I've been a administrator here for about, man, 15 years or so, 14 years, somewhere around there.

Um, and, uh, worked around Alaska, um,

and around the country.

Was working in, um, Missouri for a little bit in.

At Missouri State University and Jury University.

But yeah, I've been pretty settled here for quite a while now.

Jethro D. Jones: You, you have been, so you and I were, uh, principal and assistant principal together in Kodiak.

And then you went to the district office while I stayed at, uh, the middle school.

And then, um, then I went on to Fairbanks and now I, uh, do consulting with principals about, uh, how to.

How to lead their schools in a Transformative way so that they actually make the change that they wanna see happen.

So today we're talking about software in schools and there are a couple things that we're gonna talk about here, but I wanna get something out of the way first, which is the amazing capability of AI development that exists where if you have something that you.

Want to create, you can just use AI to make the app for probably 25 to $35.

And I've seen a few different people create very specific tools for their schools that would have cost, you know, hours and hours of development, plus paying developers and all that stuff, and.

These are non, uh, coding people that are creating these things.

And I just think that it is really amazing and it's incredible what people are doing.

Um, have you had any experience with that?

Damon Hargraves: Um, just kind of played around with it a little bit.

I'm kind of curious to know what AI tools you see kind of percolating to the top as being good ones to use maybe for teachers in a school environment and, uh, what ones are popular out there just in general.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, so there's a whole bunch, and I'll put a few in the links, uh, to the tweet where I announced this one on, uh, at Jethro Jones.

And, um, the one that I've used, and I just wanna describe this a little bit because I, I think it's worthwhile to see how unique and special this can be.

So I have this project I'm working on called A Decade, never to Be Forgotten.

And, um, and the point of it is to share how people's lives have changed over the next 10 years, but to do it while it's happening.

So I'm interviewing people, uh, every year and they're given month, and I'm coming back and asking these people questions about how they're growing and how they're becoming better.

And one of the things that's with that is this idea of a 10 year journal.

And you, the way that the tenure year journal works is that every year you answer 366 questions or 365.

Last year was a leap year, so it was 360 6.

And, and then you can use that to, um, you can use that to, uh, to see how you're growing and changing over time.

So I needed a way to ask the same question every year on the same day.

I developed that and, and I used AI to do it.

And it is incredible what has happened, uh, with that, that it, that it actually works.

And I didn't know how to do this, but if I wanted a developer to do it, it would've taken a long time, it would've taken a lot of money, and now I was able to.

Just make it happen on my own.

And now that exists@adntbf.com.

And again, that's linked in the, in the tweet below this, uh, so that people can go check it out.

And it's, it's pretty cool because it asks you a question every day, short answer, and that's it.

And so I use the app called Rept to develop that, and it took $25.

I had a very clear idea of exactly what I needed it to do.

And I think the key is when you have a small idea and it's clear and focused, then you can get something up and running pretty quickly.

Damon Hargraves: What was the development process like for that?

Do you just kind of put in descriptors?

Do you Yeah,

Jethro D. Jones: so it, it was basically that I just said, here's what I want it to do.

Go make it, and then it did it.

So like I just had a good idea of what I wanted.

I want people to be able to have an account.

Get an email every day saying this is, uh, this is what's happening, or this is what the question is for the day.

And then, um, and then they just answer by clicking on the link in the email.

And then, you know, I added in achievements and streak things and all that kind of stuff.

So, um, so, you know, it was very simple for me to use.

My regular language to say this is what I need it to do, and then it did it for me.

And like, is this thing perfect Damon?

No.

But it's good enough for what I need to have, have happen, and there are things that I would like to have it be better at.

Like, I'd like you to be able to just reply to the email and it will put the answer in there.

But that's not, I don't know how to do that and I don't understand that yet.

I'm sure it could figure it out, but the AI is not smart enough.

To get everything right the first time and a few different times it's, it's crap to the bed.

And, and I've missed out on opportunities to do things because it didn't do a very good job.

So, you know, that does still happen, but the fact that you can just like design something for your school, um, or for yourself without, without knowing anything is, is really amazing.

Um, and there's a few others.

There's Manus and um.

And, uh, bolt and a few others that you can do stuff with.

And, and it just is unlocking a lot of things for people.

And again, not perfect, but still worthwhile.

Damon Hargraves: Did it, um, did it pick a programming language to work in, or did you define that or did you just say, here's what I want, and then it just went to town?

Jethro D. Jones: Because of the work you and I have been doing together that we'll talk about in a little bit.

I told to use Ruby on Rails and it didn't, so it, uh, it chose its own thing and I was like, use Ruby on Rails for this.

And it's like, okay, I'll use this other thing that I want to.

So it's using TypeScript and, uh, JavaScript, CSS and HTML.

So pretty basic stuff.

It's not super complex.

Damon Hargraves: That's amazing.

Uh, that just kinda shows you, I. What you and I have been, you know, thinking about and talking about some in the background here where it's just lowering the bar so much to get an initial product created and so all it's gonna open up a world to all these niche things getting created.

Very, very specific.

You know, things that would've never gotten created 'cause maybe there's not a big enough market for it, or it's bringing.

These possibly niche ideas or people that have ideas but don't have the skillset into, uh, potentially a broader market.

So something really specific that meets the need of a teacher, let's say.

And they, they have it outlined in their head.

They know exactly what they need.

Well, it's likely that other teachers need that, you know?

Um, or it could just be solving their own problem in their class, you know?

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Well, and here's, here's the next thing that I'm working on building, which is a social story creator for people with disabilities.

And as, as you know, a social story is, uh, a way to teach someone through a story what they need to do.

I. To interact in the world.

And this is something that's very valuable for kids with autism, with sometimes A DHD, sometimes, uh, especially with Down Syndrome.

That's the case where I'm thinking about it and what my daughter needs is she needs to understand how to ride the bus as she's becoming an adult, starts to do things on her, um, and how to call and make a reservation.

When she was school, uh, you know, her teachers would make a social story.

But making a social story that's individualized for a particular student can be very challenging.

But using an AI tool, um, to do that, which is what I'm working on now, is, is going to be much more valuable because you can just like say, here's the person, here's the picture of them, here's.

I want them to do now let's go to it, have it, and then I got a social story in just a couple minutes instead of in the hours that it would typically take.

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, it's, it's really, really amazing.

And you know, that's probably not a tool that would necessarily get high on a list.

A of a developer as they're thinking about all these other things.

But, um, I think there's definitely a market for that.

There's, there's definitely a need, right?

So, yeah.

That's exciting.

And you have the, you know, personal experience to be able to build something that is actually usable and actually beneficial in that.

Context.

So it's pretty awesome, man.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

So like we're talking about a bigger idea of software specifically for schools, but this is one of those things where schools have unique and specific requirements and you have this idea about the apps that we use influencing the way we work and think.

So will you talk about that a little bit?

'cause I love it when you, when you talk about this stuff,

Damon Hargraves: well.

It's the, the tools that we use are what we kinda live in every day, right?

So if you're.

If your school uses email all the time, then you're, you're, you start to think in a framework of, of email and communicating that way.

Um, most schools probably use email quite heavily.

Um, if you're a, a Microsoft district or a Google Apps district, then you start using those tools.

You start using those tools with your peers.

And then so much of, of how you communicate starts to, um, be affected by those apps, right?

So if we're, if we're using Microsoft Word, uh, then, then that's gonna change how we think.

You know, we're, we're, we're thinking in like, uh, you know, building attachments and or sharing URLs to collaborate on documents.

Um, and it can.

It, frankly, it can negatively affect or take you off track from where you really want to be.

Um, you know, it's kind of like we could probably, if I ran a restaurant, we probably could run everything in a spreadsheet, you know, take, take orders in the, we could collaborate, live in a document and put put orders in a spreadsheet, and the cooks would be in the back seeing orders come up and.

There was a time probably where we would think that that would be really cool.

You know, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, that would be pretty amazing just to have that synchronized that way.

But now, you know, in a, in a restaurant, you have special tools that help the waitresses and waiters communicate with the cooks in the back, and it's very, very streamlined and helps them.

Ideally, it's getting out of the way enough to where the wait staff can interact with the customers, and the customers are having a good experience and the cooks in the back are getting the information in a timely way.

So that's, that's just a, maybe an example, but, um, the kind of the generic tools or the corporate tools that we adopt in a school.

I fear may be negatively affecting the way that we collaborate with each other and maybe the way that we talk about and think about our students even.

Jethro D. Jones: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I, I, I agree with you.

And the, the thing that is key here is that the thing you first said, that the way the apps we use determine how we are going to work, and so this really.

Like became very clear to me when we developed our own app and started using that.

And then I was like, oh, now that we're using this, I can think of 10 different ways that we can use this tool again and again.

But I think about that a lot now.

And so when I am adopting something new or trying to teach somebody else to use something new, I started, uh, thinking about this through the tools that I was using and what that looked like.

And, and so when I teach someone something new or try to, uh.

Adopt a new tool myself, I'm constantly thinking, how is this going to change all the other things that I'm doing?

And is this change worthwhile for me to adopt this new process and this new way of doing things?

And I, I hadn't thought about that, um, previously in my life.

And so now that I do, I, I find it really fascinating because there's, there's a lot, um.

There's a lot to it that can change about what you're doing because you are, because of the software that you're using.

And I think most people just don't think about that at all.

Damon Hargraves: No, I don't, I don't think we do.

Uh, we definitely don't think about that enough in schools.

You know, the, that the software impacts.

How you think impacts how you interact?

So you alluded to this a little bit earlier, but you know, years ago we designed some software.

Um, we could have facilitated what we were doing there a number of different ways, right?

And it was a tool to help us work with our students.

Um, but there wasn't a tool there, there, there wasn't a way for us to use, um, the software that we had available to us.

To help keep students first.

So we, uh, from the, from the very start, we designed a, a new software app to help students get a voice in where they were going within their school day.

And, and, and, you know, it was nimble enough to get updated and change every two weeks, and it allowed for every single student.

To, um, have a, a voice in where they were going, and it allowed our teachers to, you know, make requests to where, uh, and recommendations for where they think students should go.

And it, and it worked really well.

So that could be like a perfect example, um, for a, a future app, whether it's developed by AI or something else.

But the, uh.

I if we tried to do that in a spreadsheet, which I think a lot of, uh, we were basically organizing and scheduling our interventions.

Right.

Most schools right now I think are doing that in a giant spreadsheet, which, which is awfully cumbersome.

Yeah.

And prone to air.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, for sure.

And that's, that is what we had debated doing because you like spent a weekend.

Uh, taking these FileMaker Pro courses to figure out how to use FileMaker Pro to do what we were doing.

And so like we could have done it.

But then again, we go back to this idea of shoehorning the, the technology into a school context when it wasn't designed to be that way in the first place, which is one of the major problems with any software that schools are adopting is, you know, even things like Microsoft Office that is not designed.

For schools, uh, Google apps for education, not designed for schools originally.

It's a business tool that is shoehorned into a school environment.

Damon Hargraves: Absolutely.

And, and all of those are prone to certain types of errors that would be unacceptable.

For us, just fat f you know, fat fingering a cell in spreadsheet, in a spreadsheet would really mess things up.

You know, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but you know, you can really go down the rabbit hole of protecting cells and, and you know, building in formulas and you build this huge advanced thing that at some point it's gonna fail you.

And really.

You know, you're gonna end up doing something that, uh, you didn't want to do, or you will be wondering, why on earth is it telling me this?

Uh, where in my nest of, uh, you know, my web that I've created here is, is the error.

And then you spend time, uh, fiddling with, with.

Seeking stuff out and you're not actually collaborating or working with kids, which is what you wanna do.

So a good rock solid system that is working the way you're supposed to be working and want to work is, is great.

You know?

And you, you and I have experienced that and it's amazing.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

It, it feels like when it's working, how you actually need it to.

Serving you that it is in service to what you're trying to accomplish.

And so it becomes, uh, it becomes so much more valuable than it is in and of itself because it's doing exactly what you need it to do.

And so, so many times I've done things in greatest things that are like, I gotta just like force this thing to work.

And it just becomes so demoralizing because it's like, oh, this again, this is like such a heavy lift every time.

Somebody makes a mistake on it or, or enter something in a cell that I thought was protected but it wasn't, or whatever.

And those are very real issues that the educators deal with on a regular basis.

Damon Hargraves: And kind of the, one of the things that goes along with this, and I know you and I have both done this, is you feel.

You feel kind of proud or you get a sense of accomplishment when you're able to force whatever the, the district tool is into doing what you want.

But I think with, you know, over time you realize that you.

Yes, you were able to accomplish something, so that's good, but you're, you're still operating in a system that's prone to air prone to have issues prone to break.

Um, but our teachers are so creative and so industrious and so driven to meet the needs of their students.

They're making things work that really, you know, we need to get past that.

We need to grow as a system and.

Start using better tools is my thought.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, that that's exactly what we need to be doing because teachers do make things work and a lot of times it's easier to just force it and make it work rather than try to like create something different.

At least that's how it was in the past and what I'm.

You can design a specific piece of software that is exactly what you need, and maybe somebody else doesn't have the best idea out there, and, and the barrier to entry is low enough that you can do this yourself, and, and it might be worth a couple hours on a weekend to create something instead of a couple hours every couple weeks trying to maintain some terrible thing that you already have in place.

Damon Hargraves: Man, teacher pay teachers is gonna have to start a app tag or app category.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, I, I think so.

And can you imagine how much more powerful that would be?

Like, dang, that's actually what we need to do.

We need to make the teacher pay teacher for software for made, for and by teachers.

Damon Hargraves: Note to self, somebody by the domain.

Note to self.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Oh, we're too late.

What other thoughts do you have around these apps made Ally for school?

Damon Hargraves: Well, I just, one of the things I, I look at is just what our teachers are doing, right?

So I keep going back to spreadsheets, but that's really one of the main ways that we, um, our organizing our data around our students right now is, is in a shared spreadsheet with key people in our school, um, and.

You know, keeping numbers in a spreadsheet, but the dialogue around the students is happening elsewhere, and so that's a real problem.

You know?

Yes, we have email, but that's not where that conversation should happen.

Um, we might have a chat app or, uh, something like that in our school, but just a, a chat.

Here and there is, is not.

We need a way to, again, keep the focus on the students, have things, follow students across contexts, and, you know, have that conversation continue to happen and have that conversation reveal itself to people, um, when they get involved, you know, and be able to look back and have a timeline.

And, and there's just, there, there isn't a tool right now.

In most districts that is facilitating that for teachers.

And it's kind of a, we're just not recognizing collectively that the, these tools, like you said, these corporate tools are really not the way that we work and really not the way that we should think about our students.

Jethro D. Jones: So gimme some ideas of like, how.

How you would change that?

So that, um, like what are some of the design principles that you hold dear when you're thinking about software, sports tools?

Damon Hargraves: So maybe some specific features.

Is that what you're thinking?

Jethro D. Jones: Uh, maybe, maybe features, maybe just like some things that, that, like you hinted at a couple of them, that conversation around students.

Connected to them.

Right?

So, so let's say that you have, uh, you, you have student test scores.

And so, uh, so instead of having student test scores be this thing that's over here that, that you're looking at, and then you're having a conversation in person, how could the conversation like be part of the test scores and so.

How could the tracking of standards be part of the student record and the commentary on those standards could be part of it.

So let, maybe if I explain this a little bit better.

So let's take this idea of, of student, uh, achievement, for example.

So student students knowing how to do things is pretty, I.

And one of the major problems is that if it doesn't happen in my classroom, then there's no way that I give it credit, quote unquote, for happening.

And so how do we give kids credit for things that they do regardless of where they do it?

So let's say that a kid in a science class shows proficiency at writing something.

Why can't that count as data for the English teacher?

Right now it can't because the science teacher has a separate grade book from the English teacher has separate standards from the English teacher, has a separate LMS course from the English teacher.

And so those things can't be shared easily.

Whereas if the, if, if the focus is on the student and the students have this thing and the teachers come to the student and say, Hey, here's the history of all your writing.

I as an English teacher can go see where you're at and see what you are ready for, and then help you prepare to move on to the next thing.

Leave comments, say, oh, here's where I see that you have good, uh, mastery of the use of similes and metaphors, and here's where I see that you have a good use of citing evidence.

Like I don't, the teacher doesn't have to create a separate assignment for that, but that's what they're doing right now.

Does that make sense?

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Um, and there's no way for a principal or for an instructional team to bring all that together.

So I think the, the, the realization is that there's separate.

Veins or separate projects or separate kinda worlds that the student lives in, whether it's things that they're doing independently at home, whether it's a club that they're a part of, whether it's, um, all the different things that are happening in school.

So you talked about assessments Well.

In, in my school, we have dibels, we have uh, FastBridge, we have MAP growth, we have the Alaska, um, state test, and then we have the, uh, the Alaska State Science Test.

All five of those are on different platforms.

They utilize different systems.

They have their different requirements.

Very difficult to.

Bring that data.

I mean, one of our dreams was to build a data dashboard where we could bring all that in, um, which could still happen maybe.

But what about just the communication?

If we could just unify the communication, we could maintain multiple platforms, but that communication could happen in, in one place.

Where the communication could be summarized and could be seen in line with each other.

Um, snapshots and updates.

Uh, parents could share what's happening at home.

Students could present their own, um, projects as well.

Um, all the different things that are happening across different interventions and.

With different teachers could be presented there as well.

There's just nothing like that, so that I've seen and, uh, it's certainly not common.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

And, and so that's a big example of something that would need coordination with these different companies, with the district and all this kind of stuff.

And, and that's, that's one thing, but we don't, we don't have a tool that is specifically.

For that right now.

Like it just, it just doesn't exist.

And there's some people who are trying to build some of that stuff and trying to get those things in the same place.

Um, but I don't, I don't think that it's quite there yet.

But what everybody's doing, Damon, is they're, they're doing that in, uh, in spreadsheets and bringing that data in and, and then it, it's incumbent on them to.

To protect that data and have it be just so that those who who have a purpose can see it.

And, and then it, it basically runs into the same issue that it's like, it's still impossible to wrap your head around because, um, because the principal has a different need for the view.

Then the teachers do who are actually working with that student.

Then the instructional team does that, is making decisions about interventions and different things like that.

Damon Hargraves: Correct.

So there's, there's permissions that are involved, there's, there's kind of what needs to be seen by who.

Um, all that's part of it.

But, you know, the, the other thing that you're alluding there to is that that spreadsheet is usually tied to an individual and.

When that individual leaves, all that history goes.

So if that, um, if my third grade teacher or my school psych retires, she might be able to give that spreadsheet to somebody.

But it's, it's just very difficult.

It's very brittle.

It's gonna break at some point somewhere along the line.

If it lives in a spreadsheet, it's just gonna break.

It's, it's just gonna disappear.

Or that function within the school will, will be lost.

And, and, uh.

Very difficult to, to rebuild.

Um, if you're looking for that data, when I'm, when, when we're talking about students, um, it would be wonderful if, if me as the principal, when I'm meeting with my instructional team and specifically my instructional support team, which is my psych special education staff.

School counselor and instructional coach.

It would be amazing if, if we could bring up a log of all of that activity.

And I really like what you said earlier about being intentional about counting things that are happening outside of the school walls.

So if that student went to a literacy camp in the summer.

Or maybe they're writing articles for the local newspaper.

That information should be in the system so that we can factor that in when we're making decisions.

You know?

So if we, if, if we are aware of it, where do we put it?

There's no place to put it now.

Yeah.

So, uh, there, there needs to be a system for sure.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

And so like we've narrowed down into.

Specific use case, but imagine if, if you had a tool that was focused on the students and what they're doing and tied to them that traveled with them, that when they showed up in a new teacher's class, that that new teacher
had all this information that would change how you would structure and do things in your school, which is the whole point of what we're, what we're saying here is that those, those things can happen and we can figure out a way.

To make them happen.

Um, and, and we can build the software, uh, or adopt software that enables that kind of stuff.

And, and too often we just say, well, what do you have available?

And we'll buy that because it's too much effort, too much work, too expensive to, to build our own.

And to be honest, the real tragedy is that we don't actually know what we want either.

Damon Hargraves: I think that's always a big question.

What do we, what do we really want for our, for our kids?

That's, that's an ongoing question.

You might also just ask, what is it that we're doing?

So what is it that we're doing right now?

What pockets of information is being created around a student or what, what pockets of learning.

Are happening around and what's kind of the linchpin that can bring it all together?

What's the, what's, what's the thing that can bring it all together?

And, and I don't think, I mean really, I don't think it's an API, it's, it's not an API to bring in the, the data from M class, you know, into a unified system.

I don't, I don't really think that's the answer.

I, I probably used to think that, um.

But I, I think the communication around the information is actually more important than the, than the raw data.

'cause you can, you look at that data and then you're, you're making, you need to be able to take a snapshot of, of where we're at right now and be able to move on from there.

But it's, it's, uh, I think there's a lot of opportunity and education is changing.

The way we program and develop apps is changing, and so it'll be exciting to see what happens over the next couple years.

The idea of individual schools being able to create some apps for themselves, or a team of teachers to be able to create an app for themselves to help with some of this is, is exciting.

Jethro D. Jones: I, I do think it's exciting and I think that it's, it's fun to think of what a, a person could do if they were to approach this in a different way.

I mean, your, your idea about the communication around the information is more important than the data itself.

That that's deep, man, and that, that really does matter because.

What a kid can or can't do as it relates to their school progress and standards is, is good information to have, but what you're doing in response to that is so much more important.

Jethro, how many times,

Damon Hargraves: how many times have you been looking at a spreadsheet or been looking at data and saw a student who just completely bombed a, a, a test?

They, they did something or they, um, scored something that was completely outside of where you would've expected them.

What do you do with that?

Well, what you do is you go talk to the teacher, you talk to the parents, you figure you have a conversation with the team, and, uh, and it's like, oh wow, that student received some really bad news the day before or something.

And then, and then you count that accordingly, uh, and, and make a better decision than you would've if you were just blindly, um, following data, you know?

Um, it's, it's not so much just the access to the raw data, but it really is to me more about the conversation around the student.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

And, and so if the student does bomb something, then you can go find out and be like, what's going on?

Okay, now let's figure out on like what we need to do next.

Um, but if the kid is doing something that is, uh, outside.

Outside of the norm, like let's say they are writing for the local newspaper or doing a story there, the same question exists.

What are you doing with that information?

And are you, are you saying, Hey, this kid obviously knows what they're doing.

Perhaps we can find a different way for them to, to expand their skills.

They obviously are interested in being published, so what if we had them, uh, work on being the editor for a school newspaper that maybe only exists for the time that they're here at our school and then it doesn't exist anymore.

And that's okay too.

Like it doesn't have to exist forever, but it, it can be a pretty amazing thing for a kid to be singled out for their gifts and say, Hey, you can add value to our school and give them something.

Meaningful and worthwhile.

That is way more valuable than them sitting in a class, uh, learning about how to write a five paragraph essay when they're literally publishing at a professional level.

Damon Hargraves: And to, to tell you the truth, this, this happens, but it, it happens kind of in spite of our systems, right?

Mm-hmm.

So a really good teacher goes.

Is involved out in the community and may see the student doing thing.

I, I just think of one example of a student who I just recently saw playing in a band, um, up on stage in front of hundreds of people.

Um, they were playing drums and, um, I don't, we, we had an inkling that that was kind of happening and that the student had this amazing capability.

Um, but you know.

I'm gonna let the teacher know.

And the teachers, I know that the teacher will, will take advantage of that, those skills, and develop that student appropriately in, in the future.

But it's gonna happen in spite of any of our systems.

How amazing would it be?

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Damon Hargraves: If that was part of the tool set?

You know, if, if me being able to report on Holy cow, the student.

Is a, is a, is an amazing drummer.

Um, and that idea could, could be codified somewhere within the system.

I just think, you know, a, a good teacher is, is making those connections, but it's kind of happening in their head.

Right?

It's, it's, they're, they're finding those connections.

They're making those things happen in a school.

Um.

Hopefully there are effective meetings happening between key people and some of those connections are being developed, but they're, but are the systems that the school has adopted helping or inhibiting that and so much It's, it's, it's being inhibited and we're kind of operating and trying to operate that way in spite of the software.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Well, and you know, I was just, I was talking to a, a principal in Virginia last week and she was saying that with all this AI stuff that kids are, are starting to pee.

And that's becoming an issue.

And the reality is, is if, if our systems are designed for students to check, they're always gonna find the easiest way out.

They're always gonna find way to, to get it done as quick as possible, because.

Learn.

The goal is to pick off the box, turn in the assignment, to do well on the test, whatever.

And, and that's not good for anybody because everybody misses out when that happens.

And everybody loses the opportunity when that happens.

And what we wanna be able to do is set things up so that kids can have great opportunities and do amazing things and have support to do those things, um, throughout that process.

And.

Great teachers, like you said, are already doing that, and, and they're, they're having to go against the system that is in place to make sure those things happen.

And that's, that's one of the things that is just a tragedy to watch.

Damon Hargraves: What they have to deal with is, is email, uh, a giant spreadsheet and a student database, and that's, that's, that's what they have.

So the, the system itself, the system that we've built for ourselves really isn't helping them bring these things forward.

And so they're doing it kind of in spite, is the way I look at it, uh, without any help.

They're good teachers are still doing it.

Jethro D. Jones: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And, and they are, and we're grateful for them.

Uh, but.

Make it so much easier for them to do that.

So let me, let me share something from my second year of teaching.

We were doing this pretty intensive, uh, response intervention for students where it, there were three of us that were seeing teachers basically.

And the kids would rotate through us in the morning and then rotate.

Another group would rotate through us in the afternoon.

And so we had some flexibility within what we were doing, where we could, um, we could take those.

90 or so kids, and we could go through our three periods and, and adjust what those kids would get depending on where, um, where they were in their, in their learning.

So every week we would do these things where we would assess in each of our classes, and kids who did well would go one way, and kids who did poorly would come back to our class and get retaught.

Those things.

We were like really specific, these are the things you need to know, like five questions and, and you just have to answer these five questions.

And if you get four of the five right, you're good to go.

And if you miss two, then you're gonna come back and we're gonna reteach.

And so there's a lot that goes into that and, and we designed our instruction, our intervention, everything around answering these five questions each week.

And what was really amazing is.

When we started thinking differently, like, here's what you have to know this week.

You need to be able to answer these five multiple choice questions.

Then we could teach specifically what it was that we want our kids to know and we could help prepare them and help them know like, there's a whole bunch of stuff you can learn about this thing.

And one of the classes was, uh, history.

There's a lot you can learn about a histor, a particular historical event, but when you narrow it down to the five things that kids need to know, then that changes how you teach it, what you focus on, and where you put the emphasis.

And so, so we saw that very clearly.

And by changing how we did things and knowing what we were doing, uh, it totally changed how we were teaching and how we were communicating with kids.

And it became this system that was, uh, reinforcing and supportive.

Of what we were trying to do, and there wasn't any guessing about whether or not a kid understood something and like, I'm not saying that we, we nailed the five things each week or that they were even well done all the time.

Sometimes it was like everybody's passing this because it just wasn't that complex.

But we still followed the process because we had that in place to help us and it did help us tremendously.

That was really valuable for us as teachers to make that work and make it be meaningful for our students and for us.

And everybody knew very easily exactly where they stood because we had set all those systems up in place and we had to go outside of the system that we had, uh, in order to do that.

Uh, which you and I have talked a lot about numerous.

So do you think we should, uh, we should talk about the app that we're rebuilding now?

Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, I think, I think you and I have a idea of, of several apps that need to be created, and if you're listening closely, uh, you may understand some of where we might be headed.

But the first step that we're looking to create is, uh, is a remake of, of Picker.

So a picker was an app that you and I had developed, man, has it been 10 years?

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Can you believe that?

10 years.

Damon Hargraves: years ago?

Um, we built it for ourselves.

Um, like Jethro mentioned earlier, we kinda, we were trying to figure out how we could do it with paper if we had to.

'cause we knew we needed.

Interventions for middle schoolers.

We, we knew we needed a way to, um, help students get extra math or extra reading support within the school day.

Um, so we were ready to, to come up with some paper method, with, you know, cards on doors and lists of students and, and all of that.

Um, we knew that there was a better way to do it.

Uh, we.

We're looking at different databases.

Our school district current at the time had FileMaker Pro.

So over a weekend I taught myself FileMaker Pro and was developing an app with FileMaker Pro and uh.

Then we were also simultaneously reaching out to a developer who we partnered inevitably ended up partnering with eventually.

Uh, and, uh, built an app.

Um, and it was, it was great.

It made everything so much faster.

And like we were talking about earlier, it really gave students, um, an opportunity to have input in their learning when it was appropriate.

So if they.

When it came down to it, all these different, um, interventions or, uh, classes that they could sign up for, uh, were available.

They would be able to log in on the local network using their lunch code and quickly sign up for a class and they could talk with their friends and see where their friends were going and.

Or they could be assigned an an intermission, uh, if they needed it.

So if they needed that extra math, they were able to do it.

This was for a 30 minute period and it changed e every two weeks.

So it was very nimble.

Um, communication was key and people needed to have the information very quickly, and we had.

Very short amount of time to figure everything out if we wanted to be efficient.

So, great opportunity for, for an app.

And so this, this new app that we're developing is gonna be made in Ruby on Rails, and it'll, it'll be a, a full web app that people can access and use.

Jethro D. Jones: Wow.

And the thing that was so cool about it is that it perfectly fit our needs.

And so we opened this up for students to sign up.

For their, uh, tutorials is what we called them, um, in like five minutes.

So it did not take long at all.

The process was super quick and super easy, and anybody could do it, uh, very simply, and it was so, so stink and cool because.

We, we got kids to be where they needed to be, and then they'd have the information and then it was easy for all the adults around them to help them be successful in that situation also.

So if they didn't know where they were going, any teacher could look up where they were supposed to be and be able to tell right away if they were ditching something and because they didn't want to be there.

Any teacher could look it up and say, oh, you're supposed to be here.

Let me get you to where you need to be.

And man, that was just.

So slick for us to have that in place because it, it just made it so easy.

And we, when kids would go to these activities, these tutorials, then they wouldn't be where PowerSchool said they would be.

And so we would be able to look it up.

And so if a parent came in and said, Hey, I need to pick up my kid.

We could say, yeah, here you go.

Here's uh, here's where they are.

And we could find them very easily, which.

Uh, you know, having to go into a spreadsheet and try to find that and be on the right tab for the right month for the right week, uh, that was all complicated and complex, but for what we had built, it was a, it was a piece of cake because you just pulled up and whatever is there, whatever's live is what's currently there, and you can get to it right away.

Now you've got a couple things that you.

Doing that are a little bit different, that are expanding the scope a little bit.

Do you wanna talk about some of those things like running a chess tournament through it, for example?

Or, or anything else that you wanna add?

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, so basically the tool is, um.

Is for grouping students.

So any, any group of people, frankly, not even students, but any group of people where you need to set a start date, an end date, and be able to give them a menu of things to choose from during that time window.

Um.

This can be used for.

So chess tournaments, uh, knowing where to go within a, a chess tournament that could be useful.

Um, also I was thinking like running an ED camp.

So a, a, an in-service within a school or, or an ed camp within a school district.

Um, this could quickly.

Be able to support that, it would be able to support that and, and people could quickly determine where they need to go.

You can set limits on how many seats are available.

So if you, if you got some limiting factors for how many people can fit in a room or something like that, you can, you can set that.

So there, and it's very, very simple.

It's designed to be used by teachers.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

And yeah.

And so you don't have to like have everything figured out beforehand as the other thing, like you sometimes when you're, when you're like creating something in an LMS for example, you gotta have a whole bunch of stuff in there.

And with this you just don't, you just don't need that and you can be started just in almost no time.

Mm-hmm.

For our teachers, they would put in a short description.

That was all they had to do.

And they did that on Monday.

We opened it for the kids on Tuesday, on Monday.

At the same time, they would say, who has to be in my particular group?

And so they would preassign some kids, and those kids wouldn't have a choice, but everybody else would.

And so then they take five minutes doing that.

Then the students take five minutes signing up, and then you've got your groups ready to go.

And it was.

So fast and so simple way faster than anything else.

We'd even come close to trying and, and that's what I love about this idea is like, if you need to make this group, like, then you got it and, and there you go.

I mean, I, I just love the simplicity of it, that it can be that focused and that single use focus, that it's not something bigger or more, more challenging than that.

Damon Hargraves: Yeah.

So it's, it's just really good at creating a menu, creating a list of participants and allowing people to be assigned or to choose where they, where they want to go.

And it's as simple as that.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

So, uh, we'll be developing that this year, um, working with a developer.

Do.

So far, the work we've seen so far is, you know, it's getting there and it's exciting to watch it and see what's happening.

And, um, anything else you wanna add about that process?

Damon Hargraves: Um, I just think that this is a, you know, a step towards, um, what you're talking about, which is where teachers in schools can start.

Developing tools that work for them.

You know, it's, it's an exciting opportunity there.

But, and then, and then in the broader con concept as well, creating tools and using tools that actually work the way that you want to work with your students.

And, and I just think our, our benchmark for that is, is too low.

We.

Don't demand enough from our software, we don't demand enough from our systems that we have in place.

And, uh, for anybody out there listening, don't fall into the trap of fitting into a paradigm that really wasn't designed for your school.

Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, that's great.

I think that's a great way to, uh, to state this.

If you to end this, if you've been listening.

Um, this, uh, if you're listening later, you probably heard this on Transformative principle.

Uh, there is a link in the show notes to the tweet where I pick a bunch of notes and talked about things.

And if you wanna reach out to me or Damon, then uh, we're happy to chat with you more about it.

And if you're developing some software yourself for your school, we want to hear about that too.

So reach out to us and let us know because, um, we, we want to see the cool things that people are doing.

Any final words before you sign off, Damon?

Damon Hargraves: I think we said it all.

Jethro, thanks for having me buddy.

Jethro D. Jones: Man, my pleasure.

I I just love doing these with you.

We need to do 'em more often.

And, and we're going to, we're gonna, we're gonna live broadcast our development of this tool as it goes on over the next, uh, several months and hope you continue following along.

And Damon, always a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Damon Hargraves: Thanks, Jethro.