And You're Gonna Need a Crew as Nuts as You Are: Wisdom of Reuben Tishkoff

Ocean's 11. One of my all time faves. For those of you who have not yet seen it, we need to talk. Like, Intervention-style talk. To be fair, I have not even seen Top Gun, which my husband has a real problem with. Now that I have gone my whole life without it, I refuse to watch Top Gun based on principle.

I digress...

Ocean's 11. *Spoiler Alert 18 years later* Starts with a man with an idea. Hello, Daniel Ocean. A passion to steal obscene amounts of money from only a few Las Vegas casinos. Convinces a crew of 10 others (see where the 11 comes in? Clever.) to join him in this heist. Something so out of reach, so unimaginable, yet, Ocean is able to identify strengths within others in which he convinces them to use these strengths to actually put a plan into place and *Aged Spoiler Alert* actually pull it off.

Perhaps, one of the very best lines of the whole movie (and by best, I mean inspires me as a leader) comes from Reuben Tishkoff when Ocean pitches this idea to him. Tishkoff: "Yea. Ya gotta be nuts, too. And you're gonna need a crew as nuts as you are. (pause). So, who've you got in mind?"

YES, man the remaindered furniture (see film), YES! As leaders, we come up with these crazy ideas...how we can make our schools, organizations, companies better - innovative! More than half of the ideas are terrible ideas. But, every once in awhile, we get an idea and are able to rally a crew as nuts as we are to pull off something unimaginable.

Last winter, I was Danny Ocean. Not the thief who had been paroled from prison, but more like having an insane desire to do something huge and truly awesome for my kids and community.

Houses. A House System at my site. It started with an article about Houses at Lake Canyon Elementary in Galt. See article HERE. I knew, based on survey data from my 5th and 6th graders, that we had some work to do as a school in building meaningful relationships and including student voice in decisions made on campus. With that rolling around in my head, when I came across this article, I knew I'd have to pitch this random idea to a few people to make sure it wasn't another one of my crazy ideas that wasn't feasible. Fortunately, I've got a great crew at my site who will keep me in check when I have these crazy ideas that are not feasible! And thankfully they still stick around.

My first litmus test...send an email out. "What do you think? Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback? Any interested in talking about this more?" OMG! I had an email back within 15 minutes. And then a few more. None of them shot it down. Ok. We had some traction in thinking about it. Natural next step?

Road Trip!

With a crew of 5, we headed down to Lake Canyon to meet with their incredible principal, Judi Hayes and her crew of teachers leading this work. We talked to kids and spend hours learning about their House System and how they pulled it off. We were inspired. Ok. We had a small crew, but as anyone leading a school, company or organization knows, 6 out of 45 people does not count as "buy in."

My Crew.

After presenting the ideas to our staff, our crew grew to 10 people wanting to be on the planning team! There was so much excitement around Houses with 95% of our staff on board, with one - ONE - as a maybe! Holy! YES!!! We were in.

I mean, giving-up-time-over-the-week-off-in-February-to-meet-at-someone's-house-all-day-IN! We built a 45 Hour Learning Team to plan out the names of Houses, how we would roll it out, share it with staff, what it would look like week to week. All the things! This took 6 months of meeting once or twice a month to pull it off.

Fast forward to today where we have 400 kids and 45 staff members in 6 Houses, Houses are meeting weekly to learn and practice soft skills, earning House points, celebrating House successes and going on Trimester field trips to celebrate. We've had teachers step up to facilitate House Student Leadership meetings twice monthly on their own time! We have parents coming on campus more, sporting their kids' House colors!

Arguably the best House at Northridge.

I don't yet have any hard data from a survey to show that our kids feel more connected or that we have included their voice more, but the feeling is there. I can share that our attendance rate (so far) is a bit above average AND that suspensions are already significantly down by 81% this year (woot!)

As a House Planning Team, we are always seeking input on what we could do better, how we can improve to meet our staff and students' needs. A Crew within a Crew. How do we fold PBIS into Houses? How can we tie Attendance incentives to Houses? How can we still have School Spirit without only cheering for our House? How can we encourage sportsmanship so others don't get discouraged? Pssh...I have no idea right now.

We are truly building this plane as we fly it.

As the leader at my school site, it can be the most terrifying feeling not knowing how things will turn out or if they will even work at all. There are, though, no words to describe how thankful I am to be surrounded by a crew as nuts I am. We are in this together and making what seems like a huge undertaking - an actual experience for our kids, staff and community.

Northridge Houses