Welcome to Transformative Principle. This is Jethro Jones. I'm pulling some old stuff out of the vault for you today. Stuff that is still relevant, even though I recorded it a while ago for the Transformative Leadership Summit. Were you a listener when I did those? 'cause they were pretty awesome. So today's episode is from that vault. I hope you enjoy it. I haven't released these publicly and. Listening to them. Again, I cannot believe how relevant they are.
So good stuff, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for listening to Transformative Principle. I am really excited to talk with Jonathan Wenstrom, who's the principal of Rosedale Elementary in Livonia, Michigan. And I talked to him on the podcast, um, a while ago, and so you can go back and listen to that.
Today, we're gonna talk about how you can start school meetings at your school, and he's doing them weekly, and we're gonna talk about the struggles with starting that, the benefits of starting that, and all these different things. So, um, Jonathan, thank you so much for being on the podcast, or on the Transformative Leadership Summit today. I'm so excited to have you and talk to you more about doing weekly meetings.
I think it's such a great idea, and I just really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today Thanks, Jethro. I appreciate the opportunity. Um, yeah, our school-wide weekly meetings have, uh, really been well-received, and I think we've had a lot of benefit both for our students and for our staff, our whole school community. So I'm excited to share how. Awesome. Let's get started by talking about just the basics of the school-wide meeting. What are you doing, and why are you doing it?
Sure. Well, I wanna start by giving credit for, um, uh, two people who gave me, uh, the ideas. Um, Jessica Bartha, Michigan principal, was sharing with me about sunrise meetings that she was h- holding at her building, um, to start each week. And then I also took the idea of Celebrate Monday from Sean Gallardo, um, and I thought, "Gosh, if I could combine those two things…" Um, I had been meeting with my staff.
Um, we were getting into, um, our s- our springtime, and the kids were pretty active, and we were trying to find a way to, uh, get kids focused, start each week off with a positive note, um, and really develop that sense of community in our school similar to many classrooms as they have with their morning meetings. So I took those two ideas of the sunrise and the Celebrate Monday and started, uh, weekly Monday morning, right off the bat, Celebrate Monday assemblies. Um, they're short and sweet.
Um, they are 20-minute assemblies. So after the students arrive, five minutes later I, uh, make a call on our PA for our students to come down to our gym. We sit down. I have a, a video/audio system set up in the gym, and we hold our 20-minute Celebrate, uh, Monday assembly to start the week off right. Well, that's awesome, and Sean Gallardo's actually part of the Transformative Leadership Summit as well, so he's gonna talk about Celebrate Monday. Monday. Sorry. Excuse me.
And, um, so if you wanna make sure you see that interview with him, make sure you go ahead and get the all access pass because that'll allow you to make sure you don't miss that, and that is a great interview. So cool that you guys can, uh, both be talking about the same thing in these different parts. So 20-minute assemblies once per week. Mm-hmm. Um, what do you get out of doing these assemblies? 'Cause you're losing some instructional time by doing it, right?
Right, and we talked about that, about the trade-off of losing poten- actually losing some instructional time. So, uh, what we're doing, uh, with the assemblies, what they consist of is I have several points that every week we cover. So one, there's always a theme or a topic for each week when we meet. Um, and I have a quote of the week, which I was already doing, so I make sure that quote of the week ties in with what we're doing. And then I have a short video or activity.
So to give some ideas of some of the topics that we've covered, uh, during our Celebrate Monday meetings, um, we've talked about random acts of kindness. We talk about dealing with adversity. We talked about, uh, FAIL meaning First Attempt In Learning. We've talked about, uh, keeping curiosity. And, um, one of the activities we did, uh, one week was the Positive Post-It day, which, um, I also borrowed that idea from Tony Sinanis.
Uh, so we've incorporated these themes or these topics into a very short, uh, time span where we talk about our theme, watch a video. Um, I've used, uh, videos from Kid President to just random inspirational videos that tie in with my topic that I found online. Um, and then we end with some kind of call to action, whether that's doing random acts of kindness or a positive Post-It, um, or taking some risks and, uh, living out the First Attempt In Learning. Yeah, that sounds awesome.
So being able to bring in those positive approaches to how to live life sounds like a really good way to, um, use that time effectively and not have it be a waste or worthless, and I, I really like that approach. What are some of the things that you wish you had known before you started doing it that you could give as advice to other principals who might wanna start this? Well, um, one thing I probably would have done is planned out my weekly, uh, assemblies beforehand.
In other words, I probably would have, uh, made a list of topics, um, which is something we're going to put into place for next year. We have character education programs. We do PBIS, um, and a character, uh, ed program here in Livonia. And so one thing I'm going to do next year is incorporate some of those s- uh, themes and habits, uh, in with our, uh, Celebrate Monday assemblies. So my plan for next year is to start every month with one of those particular traits.
That way, um, I'm also kick-starting that habit or trait, and then the teachers can reinforce that in the classroom. Again, talking about how can we, uh, we're not losing instructional time, we're actually having a kickoff for something that they can support in the classroom. Um, one thing that we've learned is, um, with our youngest students, uh, our kindergarten students, getting down five minutes after the bell has rung is a challenge. And so it's, it's required an all-hands-on-deck approach.
Um, I have some paraprofessionals, um, my social worker and counselor who assist us with that and help those kindergarten teachers get their students in, uh, get those breakfasts, and then, uh, down to the gym in time for our short 20-minute assembly. Um, that has really helped. Yeah. Having an all-hands-on-deck approach, I think, is definitely the way you deal with kindergartners in every situation At least in my experience. So, um, they sure are great.
So when you, when you do these 20-minute assemblies, how much time do you devote to each part of the assemblies? It's a good question. When we actually start off, normally we do student-led announcements in our office over our PA system. So what we've done is we've actually just transferred that to our gym. So, um, we actually have student-led still Pledge of Allegiance, um, our, our morning pledge for our PBIS, and, um, we also do a literacy share out.
Uh, students share out what books they're reading and why students would like them. We still do all of that in that 20-minute time, we just do it in the gym. And there's something powerful to having our entire school community looking at each other as we do our pledge and as we, uh, talk about those literacy, uh, goals, um, and announce birthdays for the day. So we still, we still kept all of those things we were doing, we just blended it into the program.
So we start with that, with our pledge, our literacy sharing. Uh, we then go into our theme, uh, then one of the students reads out our quote of the week, which ties in with that. And then at that point is usually where I show the video, and it's usually a four, maybe a five-minute video, like, like I said, about the length of Ki- Ki- Kid President videos, which we've used often. The kids love our Kid President.
And, uh, then after the short video, we talk about ways that we can live out whatever idea that was, whether it's a random act of kindness, using kind words, uh, or positive Post-Its. On our positive Post-It day, I gave out 300 positive Post-It notes. We handed them out right there. Everyone held up their positive Post-It note with, uh, uh, the charge to make sure that they've written that note and given them out before the end of the day So, um, that's really what our assembly, uh, looks like.
And I will tell you, uh, now after I think we have done 10, um, the transition is so much smoother of coming in. Students know right where to go. Um, we're able to go right into the assembly and then leave. So at maximum, our assemblies are 20 minutes, so that they are back in their classrooms 25 minutes after I've made the first announcement to come down. Yeah, that's pretty fantastic.
That's, you know, one of those whenever we have assemblies whe- when we do them once a month or less than that, like at my school right now, then those assemblies seem like they take forever- to get people down there, to get people seated, to get started, all that stuff. And so to be done after 20 minutes, um, really speaks to the preparation you've done for, uh, you know, getting kids where they're supposed to be, knowing what they're supposed to be doing, and where they're supposed to sit.
So, um, that's a really fantastic thing. And how many kids are in your school? Uh, we're just under 300. Okay, so- So we're about, uh, 290, 285, uh, students. So we are smaller, so it does make it a little easier to get everyone down quickly and back. Um, but um, it really… I think even the teachers will tell you how, uh, impressed they were of how well the, the students adapted to that and how quickly they, uh, got into the routine. Yeah, absolutely.
And we know kids are good at routines, and they can get into 'em when, when we know what they are and teach them to them. What advice do you have for principals who want to start doing monthly meetings but might be a little bit nervous too? And let's go all the way back to the idea stage of where you first thought it was a good idea. How do you pitch this to your staff, first of all?
Well, it came out at a time, uh, around spring break where we were talking as a staff of saying, "Gosh, how do we," uh, you know, when, when kids are thinking about spring break, um, or they're thinking about summer vacation, which you think would be a more challenging time. Um, and also we had, um, which I think a lot of times in the spring schools have a lot of behavior referrals. And so we were kind of kicking around ideas of how can we curb some of that?
How can we help keep kids on task, um, and really set that tone? And so it came out of that discussion, and it really was kind of a spur of the moment. I said, "Why don't we try this?" And I'll be very honest, I didn't know how it was going to go. Um, we I thought, "Gosh, if this doesn't work, we'll try this for a few weeks, and if not, um, we'll, we'll see what else and, and tweak as necessary." And it actually exceeded my expectations.
Not only did I receive positive feedback from my teachers, um, but I had parents stopping into my office and saying, "Gosh, my child was talking about the Celebrate Monday assembly, and they really are excited."
Um, but I knew we had a success when I started having students coming off the bus on Monday and saying, "It's time for our Celebrate Monday assembly." That's when I knew, um, that the program was, was being successful because that's what we want, the students excited about coming into school on Monday and starting that week off on a positive note. Yeah, very cool. Um, what were some of the initial, um, resistance points to having these meetings?
I, I think the, the biggest concern probably was, as you mentioned, the, the lack of instructional time. Um, we're also, in the spring we're doing our state testing, uh, time where, uh, students have to go down to take tests. So all of that had to be taken into account with, uh, of looking at our assembly time.
And Monday morning seemed to be the clearest time for, uh, avoiding testing times, um, avoiding some of our s- uh, specials like art, music, and phys ed. So, um, the timing worked out well. The only, the bigger concern was would the students be able to be, come down five minutes after the bell rang. Um, and as I said before, that really wouldn't have been possible without the all-hands-on-deck approach. So the people really stepped up and, and helped make that a reality.
Yeah. Um, so that, that's really good information. What were some of the things where teachers were really excited about? I think the teachers, uh, love the videos. Um, I- I've had requests from teachers if I can, uh, mail out the videos that we've seen in the, uh, assembly. Um, so that tells me, um, that they wanna share that again with their students or at least have it on as a resource for them.
Um, we watched one video in particular o- on overcoming adversity, and it got a very, uh, positive response. And I, and that day I happened to have a, uh, a grade level that was out for a field trip, so they had missed it. And I actually had teachers emailing me saying, "We heard about this great video. Can you send it, um, so that we can share it with our students?" So, um, that's been, uh, part of that, uh, positive feedback from the, the teachers.
The other thing is I've given the, the teachers the option of they may leave. They don't need to stay at the assembly. If they, you know, need to, uh, take care of some things during that 20 minutes, they can. What I found is my teachers have all stayed here. They want to hear that message with their kids. Um, and they too, I think, wanna start that week off with that positive, um, momentum. And how do you, how did you roll this out to students?
Did you just say, "It's time for assembly," or did you have a more structured plan of rolling it out? Or rather, how would be the best way to roll it out, do you think? You know, um, we, we did kind of spring it on the kids. I will a- I will admit that. Um, I think we talked about it, um, right before we, we did it, just a few days before, and then, you know, came in on the weekend and they, uh, came off the bus and we said, "We're gonna have an assembly."
So there really wasn't a lot of prep work with the students. Um, but, you know, now that we've done this for a quarter, uh, coming in the fall, I guarantee you I will have students asking about it. In fact, on, uh, Memorial Day weekend, I had kids very disappointed on Tuesday because we had missed our Celebrate Monday assembly. And again, that told me, uh, that we were being successful with it. So did you do the assembly on Tuesday? No. Oh, man.
No, I, because I really, I really am also trying to make it a point of that Mondays are special days. Um, and um, I borrowed this from Sean and Natalie, but when they walk in, we have a big sign that says TGIM, thank goodness it's Monday, um, you know, when we can come back to celebrating our passions. So I'm really working hard to make Monday a day that, uh, students look forward to, because I think children, uh, follow the, the example of the adults.
And if we as adults come in and say, "Oh no, it's Monday, um, you know, there's so much to do," if we can turn that around, um, and make it exciting. So I, I purposely hold those meetings only on Monday, um, and really emphasize, uh, what a special day and, uh, a lucky time we have to be together. Well, that's pretty cool. I, I like that. And then you gave those kids an opportunity to deal with adversity in real life, and that's good too. So, um, let's talk a little bit about the parents.
How have you rolled this out to parents, and how have you communicated to them, and what has, what, what would be your advice for someone who's creating this for the first time this fall? What would you suggest they do? Sure. One, one thing I'm, uh, that I use to communicate with parents is I have a parent blog. I have a, a staff blog, um, th- that I share out every week with my staff, um, that's more a lot of my ph- philosophy or, um, things I've learned, lessons learned.
But for my parent blog, um, it's a lot of I may take one item that we had here at school and showcase it. Um, and also I showcase staff members and so forth in the, the parent blog. So what I've been doing to promote our, uh, weekly assemblies is sharing out with my parent blog of saying, "Hey, this is something we're doing. These are some of the themes and topics we share out with, uh, with the, with the students." Um, and occasionally, you know, put in a video.
I may put in a, a kid president video of him saying, "Hey, here's something we, we talked about." I don't focus every parent blog on what we've done for that weekly assembly, because then it would turn into, um, just reporting what we did for that Monday.
But I certainly have used that, uh, the parent blog as my vehicle for sharing out the idea, for sharing out what types of things we talk about, um, and, uh, promoting it with my parents so that they can talk with their children, and I can say, "Ask your child what we talked about this week, um, in our weekly meeting."
And that alone has generated an interest from our parents, because then they're asking their child, "What did you talk about, uh, this Monday?" So I, I think it's really important of not leaving out, uh, the parents and community members, of sharing out, um, if you're, if you're trying to build a sense of community with these meetings, which is what we are, you don't wanna leave out that important element.
Yeah, and you know, one of the things that we talked about before you, uh, before we started recording was the idea of making a, um- a, uh, a list of things that, uh, people can do to get started themselves. And so if, if you're interested in this, you can, you can sign up for the all access pass for this, uh, Transformative Leadership Summit, and then you can have access to that. So you can avoid the difficult things that, um, Jonathan had to learn on his own and, uh, and get advice from that.
Um, and I think what you're doing is, is just really awesome. Talk about how this is building community and improving the culture in your school. Sure. Well, again, I think the, one of the biggest things is just starting that week off on a positive note, because as much as I'd like to, I'm not able to get into every classroom, uh, every Monday morning to kind of give that, that little pep talk.
And so this is my way of saying, "Hey, I've touched every classroom, every, uh, student, every teacher, um, in one fell swoop of saying good morning, welcome back, um, and here's a positive message." So just starting things off on the right foot, uh, helps because, you know, if we're going to put this into practical terms with student referrals, which is how, one of the reasons this came about, um, or saying, are we starting, um, our week off, um, i- in every classroom with a classroom meeting?
Most were. Um, but of saying, how can we expand that to a school community so that we can talk about, um, you know, how we're going to have our week, not just outside of the classroom, but in our lunchroom, on our playground, in our hallways. And so it's a nice way to get that, uh, positive message out, and some of those expectations, um, in a one quick way, without turning it into, uh, reviewing our school rules. Um, it's really not that.
It's more of a, what great things are we going to do this week, or what new things are we going to try. So that's, uh, that's helped. Uh, one of the meetings I brought in my guitar, and, um, I played a song that I had written for our school and for our staff. We did this on staff appreciation week, and we talked about the theme of appreciation. Uh, and the kids loved it.
And again, it was just kind of a, it was a way to have an activity and have some fun together as the group, and talk about something as important as appreciation and gratitude I, I just love that idea. I, I have this mental image while you were talking of you sitting up singing a song that probably made a couple teachers cry and made a bunch of people laugh, and everybody had a great time. And I can just imagine how that just brings everybody together and makes you feel like you are a team.
And, um, I just… I, I love that. I think that is so cool, and I can only imagine all the things that are happening that you haven't shared yet that you maybe don't even know about. And I'm sure that there's a lot of that going on, and it's just, um, very inspiring to, to hear you talk about it. Um, as we get close to our time wrapping up, what are some things that, that we need to know that you haven't been able to talk about with the, with the school-wide meetings yet?
Well, the, the biggie is our, our, um, our character education program that I had mentioned before. We're, we're having themes like mindfulness, um, gratitude, perseverance. Those are all things that we actually haven't touched yet on our, um, weekly assemblies. And so going into next year, one of my plans this summer is to actually map out month by month and kind of plan accordingly, uh, with that so that, again, I'm kicking off each month, uh, that first Monday with our theme.
And then, you know, later in the week trying to tie things in together because I, again, I want to have things that can kickstart but that the teachers can then elaborate and expand upon in the classroom. And, and really I look at these, these school-wide meetings as, you know, as just that. It's the starting point. The real magic happens in the classroom with the teachers and the students.
And so if I can spark that or give some ideas out, I know the teachers take that and run with it, um, and are working with students on those different themes, and then hopefully the students are also being empowered to be able to do things like that, whether it's the positive Post-It Note or a random act of kindness. Really what we want is for the, the students to, uh, take ownership of that.
Yeah. And, and what's so cool is that you give some common language to start at the beginning of the week- Sure … and then everybody else adds their own flavor to it as time goes on. And I just think that's very powerful that you can get in there and do that, and then allow your teachers and students to run with it for the rest of the week.
And I'm sure there have been s- situations where something has happened and somebody used your video or used the weekly meeting to say, "Hey, remember how we did that on Monday? Yeah, let's adjust how we talk about this or how we deal with this." I think that's pretty awesome. That's my hope. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I just want to say thank you again, um, Jonathan, for being part of the Transformative Leadership Summit.
And, um, you've got a lot of great stuff that you're gonna be sharing with those who, um, get the all access pass, and I think it's gonna be a great opportunity, um, for them to, uh, learn and grow and then start implementing these things themselves. Um, if people want more information, how do they get ahold of you? Um, well, um, I'm pretty active on Twitter, so if people want to follow me on Twitter, um, it's @ lowercase J-O-N underscore W-E-N-N-S-T-R-O-M, @ jon underscore wenstrom.
Um, and, uh, I'm pretty active on, uh, educational blogging too. I try to put out a new blog post each week. Um, and that's at sparkoflearning.blogspot. Yes, and that is a great, um, blog that I subscribe to myself, so very worthwhile use of your time there. Thank you so much for being part of the, uh, summit today. Thank you, Jethro. I appreciate the opportunity