Here's the message for the week:
Our state report card came out last week.
We moved from 233rd to 149th out of 973 schools. An 84-spot jump in one year.
The first thing people ask when they see a jump like that is: What did you do?
It's the wrong question.
The better question is: What mattered?
Because after a year like this, I can tell you with certainty that some of what we think matters doesn't. And some of what we ignore matters more than we realize.
Growth is the Metric that Actually Measures What We Do
Our school shined in growth. Not proficiency. Not postsecondary readiness coursework. Not graduation rate. Growth.
And honestly, growth is the only metric I care about anymore.
Here's why: We can't control what students walk in with. We can't control their third-grade teacher. We can't control what happened at home last summer or what support they got in middle school.
But we can sure as hell grow them once we get them.
Growth measures what we actually do. It measures teaching. It measures whether we moved kids forward from where they started. It's the closest thing we have to a fair assessment of our work.
Proficiency is important. Of course it is. But proficiency reflects everything that came before us, not just what we did this year.
Growth is ours.
Now, here's the catch: not all states weight growth the same. Some states barely count it. Others make it the centerpiece of accountability. So a teacher crushing it in one state might look average in another, not because they're doing different work, but because the system measures it differently.
That's worth knowing. Because if you're leading in a state that doesn't prioritize growth, you're going to have to fight harder to make the case for what actually matters.
Five Things I Learned from a Good Year
1. Growth Isn't Linear
Some cohorts are just stronger than others.
We had a junior class this year that came in hot. They were motivated. They responded to interventions. They bought into the culture early.
We also had a senior class that struggled all four years. Great kids. But they hit us after COVID, never fully recovered, and no amount of strategic intervention changed the trajectory as much as we wanted.
Same teachers. Same systems. Same leadership. Different results.
You can do everything right and still have uneven outcomes across cohorts. That's not failure. That's reality.
The mistake is assuming that one down year means your strategy is broken. Or that one strong year means you've figured it all out.
Growth ebbs and flows. Stay consistent. Trust the work.
2. The Intangibles Produce Tangible Results
Vision. Culture. Climate. The stuff that's hard to measure but impossible to ignore.
We spent two years building a culture where teachers felt trusted and students felt seen. We made decisions that prioritized relationships over compliance. We protected instructional time like it was sacred.
None of that shows up on a spreadsheet. But it absolutely shows up in growth data.
Here's the hard part: you can't always draw a straight line from "we built a strong culture" to "scores went up." But you also can't get sustained growth without it.
Culture is the infrastructure. Strategy is what you build on top of it.
And yes, luck matters too. We didn't have a major crisis this year. No staff exodus. No tragedy that derailed momentum. That's not something I controlled. But I'm not going to pretend it didn't help.
3. Strategic Actions and Organization also Produce Tangible Results
The intangibles matter. But so do the systems.
We documented everything. Intervention procedures. Teacher collaboration protocols. Communication expectations. We wrote it down, made it clear, and held people to it.
We sent emails that mattered. We created commitment letters for students in academic trouble. We built routines that didn't require me to be in the room for them to work.
This is the part people underestimate. They think culture is enough. Or they think systems are enough.
You need both.
Culture without systems is chaos. Systems without culture feel oppressive.
We built both. And the combination created consistency that survived the daily fires every principal deals with.
4. Working Extremely Hard doesn't Make You Extremely Effective
I used to think the answer was to outwork everyone.
Stay later. Show up earlier. Be visible everywhere. Respond to every email within an hour.
And you know what? I burned out. And the school didn't get measurably better.
This year, I worked differently. I said no more often. I delegated more. I protected my time so I could think clearly and make better decisions.
I wasn't less committed. I was more strategic.
Effectiveness isn't about effort. It's about leverage. It's about knowing where your attention actually moves the needle and where it just makes you feel busy.
The hardest lesson in leadership is learning that your exhaustion isn't proof of your impact.
5. Once You Get the Results, You Have to Brand Them
Enrollment is shifting everywhere. Families have options now. Charter schools. Open enrollment. Private school vouchers in some states.
If you do good work and nobody knows about it, you lose kids. And when you lose kids, you lose funding. And when you lose funding, you lose the ability to do the work that got you the results in the first place.
So we branded the hell out of this report card.
We sent it to families. We posted it on social media. We made sure the local news picked it up. We celebrated it with staff.
Not because we're arrogant. Because we're competing for students whether we like it or not.
Good work in silence is a strategy for decline.
What this Means for You
If you're leading a school right now, here's what I'd focus on:
Fight for growth to matter in your accountability system. If your state doesn't weight it heavily, make the case internally. Track it. Celebrate it. Make it visible to your staff and your families.
Build culture and systems at the same time. Don't pick one. You need both. Culture is the foundation. Systems are the structure.
Stop equating exhaustion with effectiveness. Work strategically. Delegate more. Protect the time you need to think and lead well.
Tell people when you do good work. It's not bragging. It's survival.
And most importantly: stay consistent across cohorts. One good year doesn't mean you've arrived. One tough year doesn't mean you've failed.
Growth isn't linear. But over time, it compounds.
Keep going.
Ryan