In this episode, Jethro Jones interviews Alison Smith, an author, speaker, and coach dedicated to empowering leaders to build unshakeable resilience. Alison shares insights on how to foster deep-rooted confidence and create meaningful impact by aligning actions with core vision and values. The discussion dives into human-centered leadership, building trust, and defining success within schools. Alison also introduces her Thrive Design principles as a framework for building resilient schools.

• Thriving vs. Resilience
• Thrive: to grasp to oneself
• Thriving in the valleys.
• Resilience is thriving in the valleys.
• Centered or grounded.
• You’re in a bubble, and things are happening around you, but you’re doing it from the grounded place.
• Your well being is dependent on your bubble, not the circumstances around you.
• Mission, vision, values help teachers, students, and families connecting to the vision.
• Resilient schools are rooted in their purpose and values
• Clarity of purpose and courage to go forward when we are aligned.
• Burnout is a real barrier to resilience.
• How stress and ineffectiveness contribute to burnout.
• Feelings of “Things we do don’t matter” exist when our actions don’t align to our values.
• It’s the work of all of us to define success’
• We need to be concrete and explicit about what success looks like.
• High Trust - Brene Brown Daring to Lead - The Anatomy of Trust
• Being Reliable.
• Accountability
• Generosity
• THRIVE Design Principles - things that help us move from burnout to resilience.
• Trust
• Human centered
• Responsive (as opposed to reactive, and be curious)
• Incremental - next right action.
• Values driven
• Empowered - what you can control, not what you can’t control; let go of what you can’t control
• Go below the surface when there is friction to help you determine what issues are arising.
• Being clear takes away the judgment and distracting questions and justification.
• How to make staff feel valued.
• Look and watch and see what people are really doing, then give them appropriate praise.
• Part of resilience is awareness.
• Resilience comes back to self-awareness and community-awareness.
• Well-being continuum -10 to +10 how are you doing right now?
• School Leaders that THRIVE Summit

About Allison:
Alison Smith is an author, speaker, and coach dedicated to empowering leaders to build unshakeable resilience, foster deep-rooted confidence, and create meaningful impact by aligning their actions with their core vision and values. She helps her clients to leverage the power of small acts of resilience to design thriving personal and professional lives. Her work has been featured in various publications, and her book, “Drawing Your Line: Setting Boundaries Step by Step”, guides many to healthier living. Outside of work, she enjoys a good book with a glass of wine and spending time with her husband and two kids.

Check out School Leaders that THRIVE Summit

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In this episode of the Resilient Schools podcast, we introduce you to Dr. Trish Stoll, a transformative leader who played a pivotal role in the Mississippi Miracle—a remarkable effort to improve child literacy rates in the state. Dr. Stoll will share her insights on how to empower teachers, build their capacity for literacy instruction, and create a culture of learning where all students can thrive. She'll discuss the importance of focusing on teacher capacity, providing ample training and support, and involving teachers in decision-making. Dr. Stoll will also share her thoughts on how principals can be transformative leaders by observing classrooms, learning from students, and creating a culture of continuous improvement. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in improving literacy outcomes for all students.

• Mississippi Miracle
• Prior initiatives
  • Barksdale Reading Academy
  • Reading Universe
  • Reading First - Literacy block was protected, pockets not the entire state
  • Literacy-Based Promotion Act - 3rd grade assessment
  • Mississippi Kindergarten Readiness
• Focus on Teacher Capacity on Literacy
  • State literacy programs
  • 3 Consortiums throughout the state to help teachers learn more
  • AIM Pathways partnering with the state
  • Lots of training and support for all teachers.
  • If we focus on learning to read from Pre-K to second
• Empowering Teachers
  • State literacy coaches were teachers
  • Teacher advisory committee - created by state supt.
  • Teachers take ownership of their professional learning
  • TEDx talk for teachers
• How to be a transformative principal? Go in classrooms and observe what students are doing and be a learner. Even district personnel are learners too

About Trish Stoll

Dr. Trish Stoll is a dedicated and experienced educator who currently serves as the ELA Curriculum Specialist for the Gulfport School District in Gulfport, Mississippi. With over two decades of experience in the field of education, Dr. Stoll has held various roles including general education teacher, Visual Arts Instructor, Literacy Coach and Instructional Coach. Her passion for implementing best practices in literacy education has made her a valuable asset in improving literacy for students in Mississippi and beyond. Dr. Stoll's commitment to continuous learning, research, and collaboration with other literacy professionals across the nation ensures that students receive the most effective literacy instruction possible. Holding an Ed. D in Educational Leadership, a Specialist Degree in Instructional Leadership, a Master of Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, Dr. Stoll has a strong educational background that informs her work in the field. Furthermore, Dr. Trish Stoll is a Middle and Early Childhood Art National Board Certified Teacher, showcasing her expertise and dedication to the field of education. With her wealth of experience and qualifications, Dr. Stoll continues to make a significant impact on the literacy education landscape, striving to enhance learning outcomes for students and promote excellence in education.

Welcome to our National Literacy Month series of podcasts, presented in partnership between the Be Podcast Network and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF).

In this episode, Jethro welcomes Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan, host of the De Facto Leaders podcast. They discuss the role of related service providers in literacy, avoiding black-and-white thinking in educational interventions, and the multifaceted nature of vocabulary and comprehension in literacy development. Dr. Dudek-Brannan emphasizes the importance of structured service delivery planning and shares insights from her research on vocabulary, syntax, and their impacts on reading and writing comprehension.

• Getting everyone on the same page from different service providers.
• We’re not ignoring your discipline!
• Service delivery planning vs. lesson planning.
• Having a lot of experiences is what kids need to build vocabulary
• Need to have about 90-95% of vocabulary
• Phonics are essential, but if you don’t give them that explicit instruction, it becomes very difficult.
• Biologically primary and biologically secondary - we are wired to speak
• Fluency is one way to measure automaticity.
• Syntax Queen - metacognition and vocabulary.
• Content and structure.
• Sentence Structure

About Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan

Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan is the founder and owner/operator of Dr. Karen, LLC, a company focused on empowering therapists and educators to design interventions that support language, literacy, and executive functioning. She has a doctorate in Special Education and Director of Special Education and Assistive Technology credentials from Illinois State University, as well as a master’s and bachelor’s from Illinois State University in speech-language pathology. She spent 14 years in the school systems and has held various roles in leadership and higher education teaching and mentoring clinicians. She is the host of the De Facto Leaders podcast, where she shares evidence-based practices, her own experiences, and guest interviews on topics relating to education and healthcare reform. She currently holds a management role with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.