Now for the main message for the weekend:
I spent an hour clicking approve on payroll at school yesterday.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not because something was wrong.
Just line after line. Click. Review. Click again.
This is the real work of high-leverage resource allocation.
Not vision decks. Not slogans.
Actual decisions that connect money to practice.
A quick detour before the point
Last week, I attended the High Reliability Schools Summit.
If you’ve never been, I’d strongly recommend it.
And if you haven’t looked closely at the Marzano High Reliability Schools framework, it’s worth your time.
It’s one of the clearest ways I know to:
- Focus a school on the right work
- Measure whether that work is actually happening
- Avoid mistaking activity for improvement
It gives leaders a way to see their system honestly.
That matters for what comes next.
Why I was approving payroll for an hour
Yesterday afternoon, I spent about an hour approving payroll.
Not because entries were sloppy.
But because my secretary had already spent hours entering them.
My job was different.
My job was to verify that each payroll line connected to real improvement work.
In Utah, we have the Teacher and Student Success Act.
Long story short, it provides my school with roughly $400,000 in fairly discretionary funding.
It comes with flexibility.
And with that flexibility comes responsibility.
The common mistake with flexible money
Most schools spend this type of funding the same way.
They put it into:
- Class size reduction
- Technology
- Software licenses
Those choices feel safe.
They’re familiar.
They’re easy to explain.
But they don’t automatically change practice.
I chose a different route.
Most of our funding went into:
- School improvement–related leadership projects
- Interim assessments tied to instructional decisions
- Targeted intervention programs with defined expectations
That decision created work.
Real work.
What “approval” actually meant
Approving payroll wasn’t a compliance step.
It was an instructional leadership act.
For every single payroll entry, I had to ask:
- What work did this person actually do?
- Where does it show up in practice?
- What behavior changed because of this investment?
That meant:
- Reviewing artifacts and documentation
- Checking spreadsheets tied to deliverables
- Talking with team leaders
- Following up with assistant principals
Not to catch anyone.
Not to call anyone out.
But to ensure the money was doing what it was supposed to do.
Grace matters—but clarity matters too
This isn’t about squeezing teachers.
Teachers have to teach first.
Great instruction comes before change work.
When someone can’t continue with extra leadership or improvement responsibilities, that conversation is grounded in grace.
Life happens.
Capacity shifts.
But the money still has to be honest.
If we’re paying for improvement work, it needs to show up as improvement.
In practice.
In routines.
In outcomes.
Otherwise, we’re just redistributing dollars—not changing the system.
The real leadership lesson
High-leverage resource allocation is slow.
It’s manual.
It’s often invisible.
But it’s where strategy either becomes real—or quietly dissolves.
Approving payroll for an hour wasn’t busywork.
It was alignment work.
Money doesn’t improve schools.
How leaders verify what money produces does.
That’s the work.
And most days, it doesn’t look impressive at all.
Ryan