Summer Stephens and Nate Waite on Change in Churchill County School District

You are listening to the Getting Smart podcast where we unpack what is new and innovative in education. I’m your host Jessica and today we’re talking with Summer Stevens and Nate Waite about district change in Churchill County School District. Summer Stevens is a longtime educator and superintendent and has successfully implemented

systems of blended and online learning, voice and choice, self-paced learning, project-based learning and design thinking. A specific focus of her work has included bridging the gap between course traditionally identified as core and CTE, working to ensure that systems have opportunities and pathways for every student to engage in future ready work.

Nate has a background in the classroom and in ed tech and is now the innovation and professional learning facilitator for the region, although he spends a bulk of his time at Churchill School District where he’s been for the last 24 years. Let’s listen in as Summer and Nate talk with Tom about district change, professional learning models and how they each continue their own learning.

Dr. Summer Stevens from Churchill School District, welcome to the Getting Smart podcast. Thank you so much Tom. I’m really excited to be part of this vision that you have and talking about ours. Dr. Stevens, tell people where Churchill is. Churchill County School District is in Fallon, Nevada.

It’s about an hour southeast of Reno. It’s a town, a county of about 25,000 people, a town of about 9,000. And we’re in the high desert and we’re actually the home of the NAS Fallon, the home of the top gun training facility for the Navy. Dr. Stevens, you just blew my doors off a couple weeks ago when we presented together

at a Nevada Succeeds convening. And you did just such a beautiful job of describing what learning looks like on a good day in Churchill. I wanted to share that with the country. So I’m just thrilled that you’re with us.

And before we talk about learning in Churchill, let’s introduce your colleague, Nate Waite. Nate helped you with innovations and professional learning in Churchill. Nate, welcome. Thank you. Nate, have you been working with Dr. Stevens for the all two and a half years that she’s

been there? Yes. I was actually here the first day she came to Fallon and helped show her around. And we’ve been working together ever since. Dr. Stevens, what was the sort of state of learning when you showed up in Churchill?

Was it a district that was already pretty far along? So I think that’s really great to think about. When I was looking to leave and grow out of my last position, I was looking for somewhere that had the bones, the bones that were going to help us keep moving forward, right? And so looking to Churchill, they prided themselves on having a lot of career pathway programs,

which I think is really fantastic and the opportunity we’re looking for. And then I was able to see into some of the work that they were doing in their middle school related to going to one-to-one technologies, engaging with Google, and had learned that they just had put in a request or an application to our state’s competency-based education network pilot that the legislature had just previously approved.

And so that’s what drew me to the district when I got here. I’d say that there were a lot of good things happening in lots of places, but nothing consistent. Things were in silos. And the conversation was just starting. But I would like to also add the school board of this school district upon coming here was

really at the forefront of most of the people in their district. And that doesn’t always happen. So to me, a big draw was that our school board was very much interested in becoming the kind of district that I was interested in becoming. We weren’t there yet.

They weren’t there yet. But they wanted to go there. And that’s really most of the battle oftentimes in a system. You have a beautiful way of describing student learning goals. You call it a profile of a learner.

Was that in place when you got there? Is that something that you developed? So I think as we think about the profile of a learner, that is a piece of the work that our team came together with and really developed and designed with a district strategic planning team.

To give you kind of a background, I’d call the school district here pretty traditional. They had the traditional beliefs and values document. They had six goals that they were running under that were very much the management and the system thinking of school in a prior time. And so when we talked about strategic plan, they said, we don’t have one.

And so we worked really hard to start to identify the big rocks in the community. And then we used that and the board adopted those big rocks, so to speak, to give us direction. And then as a team of about 25 people really started to work together to identify those goals that we would use to propel us with our very first objective under our first goal about all learners being life ready, which is huge for us to develop our profile of a

learner. And that is really what we spent the most of our first year remaining parts of the first year around was that development. I love the work product that you came up with. It looks like you have six dimensions, critical thinker, inspired innovator, collaborative

learner, effective communicator, global citizen, and lifelong learner. Some of those are expected and some might be unexpected. You might not assume that a district in Fallon Nevada would embrace global citizenship. There might be a backstory on that and inspired innovator. Maybe you could tell us, give us a little bit of color commentary on developing this

profile. Some of these areas are interesting and maybe new emphasis areas for the Churchill District. Well, I think one of the things, Tom, that for us is almost that unique piece or that unexpected piece is this is probably the first time that our system, we’re really big in the sports and community and things like that being a small role place.

But this is probably the first time that the words reading math, science, social studies haven’t driven everything. And it’s really only when we take a look at our initial document, our initial, our first blush, if you will, at the at the profile, we identified some key concepts so that we had a common language and a common understanding when we said critical thinker.

What were we all thinking when we said in a, you know, the inspired innovator, what were we thinking? And there’s really only one spot, I believe, in the document is a lifelong learner that it all talks about academic subject areas. And I love that.

And that’s probably the first time for our system that it’s that has been like that. So when we think about those elements, I think this was also the first opportunity. Of course, we’d had the four C’s and then the five C’s of 21st century learning. This was the first time, I believe, that maybe it was on people’s radar that we were actually going to keep talking to them about the six elements or the six facets.

And I love if Nate, Nate has been had an opportunity through some of the work over the last two and a half years. When we think about global citizen and inspired innovator Nate, could you share a little bit more about kind of that backstory because that’s not who you were really in Churchill. That’s so true.

You know, I’ll start talking about what it means to be a global citizen. And that was something that when we first brought that term forward, it was misunderstood. I remember being at a board meeting and there were some people that did not understand what we, what we meant. But where we came from to get the goal of helping students become global citizens, we

came from a point where we recognized we wanted all students to think outside of themselves, to think about what can I do to make the community and the world a better place for others as well as myself and how can we all pitch in together to help build that kind of a place. And with that kind of thinking, we started to identify different traits and different goals that we wanted to have students develop.

And it all kind of fit within that bubble of being a global citizen. And so we really traveled from hearing the word citizenship and thinking about a passport or a political way of thinking into a personal, what kind of a person do we want? And that really fits within the grand scheme of helping a student be ready for their life, no matter where it might be, no matter what the setting may be.

So that’s kind of what I think about when I hear global citizen. Then moving on to innovation, how important is that now? It’s so obvious in every aspect of our life that we cannot predict what will be needed. And in the past, I believe we probably had in our minds these goals that, okay, when a student begins kindergarten, we know what they’re going to need at the end of 12 years

with us. And we’ve grown out of that way of thinking to recognize we don’t want to structure things in a way that restricts what a student might learn. But we want to be open to innovations and always looking at a new iteration, new ways to prepare for what kids might need.

And we recognize that we don’t even know what that might be in several years in the future. So those are two of my favorites, actually. I really believe that just being a good person, a nice person, and being an open-minded person, always looking for better ways to do things and better ways to be. Those just really hit the core of who I am.

And so I really love working with them. We appreciate your focus on contribution. Our last book stressed that as a priority in school. So I’m glad that that makes its way through global citizenship. Nate, I’m going to come back to you in just a minute, and we’re going to talk about how

that profile influences your professional learning. I want to ask Dr. Stevens to talk about your theory of action, because it’s really a nicely developed. Dr. Stevens, it suggests that you’ve had some experience working in public systems. Maybe you could describe your change strategy in Churchill.

Absolutely. So one of the things that I would mention, we do work with some, we work with a lot of folks, right? Because we can’t do this alone. And we are big believers here about networking and connecting with others, as Nate said earlier,

to learn what everyone can share and take forward. So as we think of the theory of action, what we’ve really asked our staff and our board specifically, everything that we do, and we actually even developed a new budget model that is around our strategic plan. And so the model is going to only fund up front those things that help us achieve our

work. And those involved, again, being life ready, really developing the whole person, also building partnerships in lots of ways and then professional growth. And so this theory of action is really all about if we do these things, then we will ensure that whoever’s in our system, the kids, the adults, and really beyond that, the other

stakeholders will exemplify those profitable learner traits. And if we don’t, and if we don’t follow it, we’re not going to be in any different place than we have been. And so we really continue to push that, that when we put our focus in our energies and our money towards those things that we know will make a difference, we’re going to see

a difference. And we have a long way to go. We have the lowest graduation rate in the state of Nevada. But this last year was the highest rate we’d had in seven years. So the reality is we have a lot of work to do, but we’re now super, maybe hyper focused,

I don’t know if that’s the right word, that everything we do revolves around the theory of action for the goal of ensuring that our kids meet those profile, those profile and our adults in the system. Summer, you’ve got a very cool instructional model. Maybe you can mention the four elements of your model.

Yeah, absolutely. So that is our, I would say our newest piece to our work. We spent again about a year, maybe three quarters of a year developing our overarching strategic goals, but also the profile and really working to embed that within everyone and start to really make that just the norm.

So we followed that by understanding that we had a lot of missing pieces that are pieces of traditional school even that were missing, that were needed to, we call it here, the middle space and the big dream. So we’re trying to get to the middle space because once we get everyone to that middle space, the big dream is easier because it’s hard to go for most people from zero to 60.

So our instructional model, like you said, is very much new, but it takes the elements of our profile to learner and starts to embed them in what does it look, sound, feel like for the adults in the room, the kids, the parents, when teachers are working as data teams, the administrators, the school board. And so the first one is really about modern school culture.

You know, thinking about what is it supposed to look like? What are we trying to become? And not, and being really intentional about ensuring that we keep pushing to really ensure that kids have that kind of space and that the adults come to that space every day. The next element is our learner center focus.

And that has been the crux of our work really for the last, the past year to develop a key understanding of what it is we want students to know that everyone needs to know. How do we know if they know it? It’s really the PLC questions. But ultimately from what do we want them to know?

And then measuring if they know it, creating a space for us to build in deliberate learning opportunities, which is the third prong, so that those can look different and get us from the one size fits all to the one size fits one. Or in some cases, it doesn’t fit anybody, so we stopped doing it. But that’s a cool element that I feel it really travels around and we keep the profile at

the center of it. And then the fourth element is really around assessment and moving to tracking student competencies and focusing on that competence-based learning and shifting us. And we had a great breakthrough today. We use infinite campus in our system and many people have felt like it was a barrier.

And we know that it’s not the best tool necessarily, but we had a fantastic breakthrough where now our building leaders can see in individual classrooms all of the competencies and where they’re at, where individual students are at on all those competencies in one glance, and then be able to look at it for the entire grade. We have grade level buildings, so all third graders are in the same space, which is really

awesome for the teachers to be able to collaborate and build. So that design of the environment to the being clear about what we want to do, to what it looks like for kids to move from teacher-centered to student or learner-centered to hopefully, again, the big dream is to get to learner-driven. And then that competency-based piece and shifting.

Our system, Nate, was able to participate a lot with the middle school as they joined one of the state’s pilots for competency-based learning. We filled up by that as we built our strategic plan. We said, you know what? We’re not satisfied with one school doing it.

So we entered into that pilot. We’re accepted. And so we’re the only school district that’s been in that pilot thus far. And now we’re working with the state on a number of fronts to change the way that we’re held accountable.

And what we’re hopeful for is that those profile of a learner traits on a big scale, and we’ll figure out all the nuances, but that those can become the competencies that we start measuring and being held accountable for instead of that one single test score that happened, you know, on Tuesday. Hey, listeners, time for a quick break, but we’ll get back to the podcast soon.

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You can learn more about this new tool and start using it in your classroom today by going to turnaroundusa.org slash well-being index. We’ve also got it linked in the show notes. All right, let’s get back to the show. Nate, what does professional learning look like in Churchill?

Well, professional learning is aligned directly with the instructional model that Dr. Stevens has talked about. We have four specific goals, one under each of those points that she mentioned. And so when we find something that we feel will help the staff, we can see where it’s housed underneath that one of these four goals.

In the past, I feel like maybe it wasn’t always like that. There are many wonderful things out there, but we were kind of limited in our focus because our professional learning would be based on what an individual or a group of a couple people felt would be useful for everyone. So now that we guide our professional learning towards these four goals, it really helps

us to see progress in the areas that we have determined are most important. And we’re trying to mirror what we want to offer students with professional learning as well. So we’re moving towards a lot of flexibility. We’re moving towards personal choice and letting staff members see what is useful for them

and what would help them to get to where they need to be. And then just like Dr. Stevens mentioned, the importance of data and competencies for kids, well, we’re going to be able to see that for staff members as well. And we’re going to be able to take a look at data and see who has participated in learning in specific areas and see how that helps us to grow, not in a way that’s going in several

different directions, but growing together in a focused movement forward. And so that is a great change for our district. I’ve been here for quite a while and to have a sustained, focused push in a direction that everybody knows what it is, that’s a big, big change. Dr. Stevens, it was 2020 the toughest year of your career?

You know, it was probably the most saddening, but I don’t know that it was necessarily the toughest, I would say, in an experience that I had previously in a much smaller district, in also a role-place. I look back now and I hear back from people and there were some really hard times there too because of the shift in thinking about learning.

And so when I think about my move here and having the board, our board of trustees be very much forward thinking, that has made it easier. And quite frankly, our team, we get a lot of kudos and a lot of commentary from others in the state about our particular approach to the closure that happened in March and then the path forward.

I feel like we really were set because of the direction we had started to move. And lots of work to do for sure, but we have had very little complaint. We’ve had a great deal of support and thanks and actually a lot of positivity. And the beauty for us is we were already moving in the direction where schools are now knowing they have to go.

This pandemic has opened up the eyes to a lot of things that were needed in education. And we were already on that journey. And quite honestly, and I’m sure that Mr. Waite sees this too, our people are very proud to be part of that because they already were on the way. So it was difficult and challenging to coordinate everything, but we literally stood up from

the, we were in school on March 12th and 13th and on March 16th, we had a couple days to get organized. But on the 18th of March, we were stood up in every home. And that was because of the work that we had been doing. Nate, you think a lot about innovations and learning.

Were there things that you saw develop new capabilities that your teachers developed? Things that you’d like to take from this pandemic forward as it accelerated innovations in some way? I guess in short, what good can come from the challenges of the last 12 months? There are a lot of challenges, especially on the human side, right?

A lot of very disappointing and sad things happen. But at the same time, I would never trade 2020 because I think what we can take away from 2020 is the value of courage. I don’t think that there was a huge amount of new items or technologies or things that we now enjoy introduced.

But what was introduced into the equation was the courage to try and the courage to take risks and the courage to have a little bit of faith in ourselves and in one another for the benefit of kids. And so moving forward, I feel that is one of the greatest things that I want to take forward.

I don’t ever want to look back on any experience from here until the end of my life and say, I should have been a little bit more of a risk taker. And I know that a lot of our teachers, our administrators, and even the kids, they are seeing the same things. They have found things within themselves that I don’t think they knew were there, but they

were always there. And I’m very proud of, you know, I can think of so many teachers who they’ve just really gone from the ground level way up and they just worked so hard and it’s really changed the way everybody, I think, feels about each other. A lot of appreciation and brave steps forward.

It’s just wonderful. Dr. Stevens, as you think about the next school year and the one after that, what are the things that are going to be different and better in church shell 18 months from now? Well, one of the things that we did actually in our system is, and most people would know this about me.

I don’t like to do anything like anyone else does, but neither did our staff. And so we actually implemented a reopening model that’s different than everyone else in our area, in our state specifically. And I do think some other places across the country followed up with us, but we thought it was important to see kids every day.

And so I know that’s something we want to keep taking forward. But what we have found is we, what we were doing to kids didn’t allow us to work with kids. And so we’re going to take forward the opportunity to really rethink what school days, school years look like, what’s important on any given day, how we prioritize.

I think also we’ve learned a lot and people have started to grow because of that, that model into the competencies and really pushing. When you have a high school person that’s been very much against doing anything but a letter grade or a percentage grade, start saying, well, I can’t connect these competencies to anything else.

And why are we doubling our efforts? Like then we’ve won, right? So we want to take forward the new learnings that have happened. We want to take forward our better partnerships with parents. And this being a human is really important because I think before we just got so bogged

down in the rules and the process, but I am hopeful that we now move forward considering every single learner, every single family, every single staff member as we move forward. And I can confidently say that the school year next year will not be the same as it had been in 2019-20. I’m hopeful it is not exactly the same as this school year, but I do know that people

know now that we can be different. We can try different things. It’s good for people to try new things and that people believe in them. And that’s what’s going to be important moving forward. But just seeing we’ve had a reduction in behavior incidents.

We’ve had an increase in attendance. We’ve had an increase in the students passing classes. We couldn’t ask for anything better than that. And if that can happen in this pandemic, what can happen when we start to apply all those things moving forward?

That’s great. I appreciate that. I’m curious for both of you, maybe we’ll start with Nate, just about how you’re learning. You two seem to be avid learners. You’ve developed a really terrific learning agenda for your school district.

I wondered, Nate, how do you keep learning about the path forward? Like I mentioned when we were speaking before, I’m a firm believer that nobody knows as much as everybody. So I love to listen. I love to read blogs and articles and things like that.

And I love to watch and try to learn from the examples that I see as other people try things. I don’t like to study what’s always happened because I feel like the outcomes of things that have been repeated many, many times are very predictable. And I like to see what’s unpredictable.

So I’m really curious into what hasn’t been tried and see how that can bring different outcomes. And sometimes I just, I’ll take things into my mind and I just like to think, what if, and just try to think, how could I twist this or how could I modify that and what would be the outcome?

And to me, that’s what makes learning interesting. If we always know what we’re going to find, that’s not as exciting to me. And so I like experimenting. I like finding possibilities that I like to think that maybe nobody else has thought of. So that, that’s curious.

Dr. Stevens, I, no, I love that, Nate. Dr. Stevens, I get the impression that you are the lead learner in Churchill. What’s your production function? How do you keep getting smart? Well, I will tell you that, of course, I don’t think I read enough.

I don’t think I watch enough and participate in enough blogs or different things. But one of the things that, that I have found over time because I, I love learning, I would be in school for my entire life if I could be. And I am. But the thing that, that I really find has continued to help me grow in these last few

years, really since becoming a superintendent. So I’m in my ninth year of being a superintendent. I have found the learning for me comes by networking and being involved. And I’ve found it extremely important in the last nine years to be involved, obviously at a local level in the community.

I pride myself on making sure that I’m out there because that’s, that’s where the information is and I can’t get it if I, if I’m not part of it. But the local, the state, the, the national level, probably not as much international at this moment, but I, I have found that connecting and networking to, to be really involved in literally every group or team or committee that’s possible because I’m taking it in and

I’m trying to build a connection. And then I’m also doing it because I’m, I’m learning it for our system. That’s my number one job is to be as knowledgeable and, and bring things to our system. And that’s how I do it. I go out there and I’m constantly a part of a network or some sort of conversation.

Well, made in summer, we really appreciate your leadership in Churchill. Like a few of our local, recent podcasts, we’ve been featuring local leaders that do their work so thoughtfully that it has a regional national impact. And we certainly put your work in that category. So thanks for your leadership in Churchill and in Nevada.

It’s making a difference there. And we’re happy to be able to share your story more broadly with America. Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you. Thanks, Nate.

Thank you very much. Thanks to Summer and Nate for joining us today. They’re doing important work and creating great examples of learning models, profiles of a learner and so much more. For another conversation with a superintendent, check out episode 232, Virginia Superintendent

James Lane on unleashing innovation. We’ll be sure to put a link in the show notes so you can check it out. Alrighty, that’s it for today listeners. Be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss out on any future episodes and they’re ready for you to press play every Wednesday morning.

Thanks for tuning in for the Getting Smart podcast. This is Jessica, signing off.