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Are roadblocks in your math program preventing the meaningful change you hoped to see this year as you support teachers with mathematics?

If you’re a district leader, coach, or educator supporting mathematics, it’s easy to get stuck when unexpected challenges—like lack of alignment, limited resources, or time constraints—throw your plans off track. 

But what if there were practical ways and a framework to push through and create real, measurable impact?

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why striving for the “greatest good for the greatest number” can sometimes hold you back.

• How targeted, in-classroom support can create lasting, meaningful change—even when big plans falter.

• A simple “5-5-5” framework to refocus your priorities and take action now on your most impactful work.

Tune in to learn how to turn barriers into opportunities and reignite progress in your math program this year—starting in the next 5 days!

Resources:

• Register for the Make Math Moments Virtual Summit
• Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

Attention District Math Leaders:

Not sure what matters most when designing math improvement plans? Take this assessment and get a free customized report: https://makemathmoments.com/grow/ 

Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Yvette Lehman: Okay, John, today we are talking about barriers that sometimes get in the way or roadblocks that prevent us from doing the work in math education that we hoped we could do this year.

Jon Orr: Yeah, like, like we’re thinking about, you know, your district leaders, your math coordinators, your math coaches and thinking about

you know, getting hung up on on some things that you can’t control. And here’s a here’s a story we were talking with one of our, you know, one of the our partners, you know, we, we, we support districts across North America, we work with their coaches, their coordinators design improvement plans and, help implement those improvement plans throughout the year. And, and this particular individual was trying to align

their program. They were trying to create alignment and to create this improvement plan. And they were struggling with some of this alignment. It wasn’t happening the way that they had envisioned. And it was really, it was causing for them and a barrier to get started on the real impact that they were trying to make. And it was, they were hung up on going, well, if I can’t do that, then maybe this isn’t, you know, worth doing anything. And I think that right there is, speaks to a lot about

what sometimes we get hung up on. And so that one instance of like trying to create alignment with superintendents, with principals, with, you know, other coordinators, just it, that was the barrier for this person, but it was preventing them from doing other work that was really important. And why I think that’s important to talk about, because that might not be your situation, right? Like you might be in a classroom or you might be a coach working with a teacher, you might be, you know, doing,

other work and that might not be your barrier, but your barrier is also probably preventing you from doing important work. And we have to kind of decide like what is the important work and like what are some things that are like pushing back on me that prevent me from doing that work.

Yvette Lehman: think we can often find reasons, right, to delay. So maybe it’s the fact that you thought you were going to have release time for your teachers this year and there’s no available occasional teachers. Maybe the budget that you’d planned for is no longer at your disposal. Sometimes when these roadblocks get in our way, it almost makes us feel exactly like you said, John, like what’s the point then? If we can’t do the work that we wanted to do, if we can’t…

impact the number of educators that we had intended for this year’s plan, then I can find other things to do that are going to prevent me from actually digging in and making the change that I was hoping to see this year. I think it’s very common. Like we see sometimes barriers and rather than, and I mean, I’m certainly guilty of this as well. It’s like I see a barrier and then I think to myself, then what’s the point now?

know, why should we bother? It’s not going to have the intended impact that our original plan did. So I’ll just go and find something else to fill my time with.

Jon Orr: Mm hmm. And this is this is related to this. I’ve been saying this a lot to, you know, the people that we support and we’ve we’ve had this chat too is like we get hung up on this like I got to do the greatest good for the greatest number. And that itself sometimes is a barrier. And what I mean by that is that at our coordinator level or at our, you know, our coaching level, when we’re coaching many teachers or many educators is that we we think, OK, I have to

I have to try to provide math impact in my district, but I have to do it so that it’s equitable. have to do it so it’s fair. I have to make sure that all teachers receive something, which I agree is true. All teachers should receive some sort of support that directs the ideas and the support that you want to have towards your goals, which means you have to be clear on what are the goals that I want to achieve this year, next year, five years from now. We have to be clear there. We have to make sure that our vision’s in place. We have to make sure that those

those kind of objectives of like, what is it that we’re trying to change over the course of the, that has to be clear to the entire district for sure. And that might even be just the goal of your, everyone gets this, but we get hung up on the, well, I can’t get in there and do one-on-one coaching with this group of teachers because no one else will get it, right? And that right there, this idea of like, can’t do that work, is the barrier preventing you from real impact because you can imagine that.

that impact right there. Like I spent two weeks with a group of educators at a school or at a collection of schools and rotated in terms of cycles and that one-on-one coaching model spending two weeks with that say that one educator in their class day in a day out during their math block. Like that’s years of professional development in your other model. And you were like, okay, I’m hung up. Like I can’t do that because they would get too much professional development and no one else gets any of my time.

And we start to kind of justify that my time has to be spent higher up and then I don’t actually make the real impact. at the higher up level, when I’m trying to just coordinate the greatest good for the greatest number, you get the mile wide inch deep impact, which takes years and years and years of change. Like this is why we abandon initiatives and abandon ideas is because we don’t see impact as quickly as we want. But you’re doing the mile high.

Jon Orr: inch deep method instead of going where can I have real targeted support and where can I like give a lot of that that that impact to teachers to get the changes that I that I’m after and get the get the impact that we’re after in that in a particular area which means that’s just tied back to the objectives but that’s an example of a barrier I think a lot of a lot of our people are dealing with right now is going like I have to I have to get over that like do I have like

Could I get in there and do that? Like, am I allowed to get in there and do that kind of work, or do I have to stay up here and do the greatest good for the greatest number?

Yvette Lehman: think you just talked about a solution, John. It’s like, what can we do when the alignment that we were hoping for isn’t there? When we’ve had a change in leadership, when the budget is no longer at our disposal, when there’s no availability of occasional teachers, all these things that get in the way, what can we do? We can spend time in classrooms. Like that to me is a great next step for anybody who’s feeling stuck right now or feeling like they’re

not getting the movement that they were hoping and they’re not feeling they’re having the impact that they intended for this year. A really great shift or change that we could make is just any time spent in the classroom working directly with teachers, engaging with students is time well spent.

Jon Orr: I totally agree. And it’s hard work. It’s hard to dedicate yourself to get in there and be with teachers side by side. maybe it’s like you use the excuse of like, well, they didn’t ask for me to come in there. Or that teacher gives me pushback when I try to get in there. That could be the case. Sometimes building that trust is the first step to getting in there. Maybe it’s being that helpful set of hands for a while. But I think you’re right.

If we’re not clear on like where the impact we want to make is, which means we have to have those goals. We have to have like, what is it that I’m looking to change? We have to know what those are because the time will get filled. Like you have fires that are going to happen and this is where we all get hung up, right? Like it’s like, I got to put out that fire. I got to put out that fire. I’ve got to, I got to build this report. I got to build that report. I mean like your time will fill and.

And you’ll get to the end of the year and you’ll realize that you didn’t have, like there was no impact made in the areas that you wanted to have impact. Because that time, that’s like Parkinson’s law, is that, you know, the work will expand to the time you have. And if you let it, if you let, say the fires dictate your time throughout the week, it will dictate it and you will spend the whole week putting out fires, which means.

You have to just get clear on like, I have a bunch of barriers in place. I have a bunch of things, but where do I want to make impact and what impact do I want to see by the end of the year? And what is the most impactful move that I can make so that when I have say a barrier come in place or all of a sudden a change in plan that I still have my North Star.

you know, objective that I’m trying to work on and my key result, like what impact I’m trying to make on this particular key result is still here. Then I now have to go, okay, I still want to get that result. I still want to have that outcome. What do I do now to get that outcome? Like without that clarity, it’s easy to get lost in the fires and it’s easy to get lost in like allowing things to dictate your time.

Yvette Lehman: Another solution if you’re feeling stuck is to collaborate with a school administrator on their school improvement plan. Oftentimes when we’re talking with our district leaders, we know that the most important work is the work that happens at the school level. We also know how important leadership is in any change that we want to see in a district. So could you consider working directly with an administrator, being available to them, supporting them in their school improvement plan around mathematics this year?

helping them design the professional learning, helping them maximize time available within the school day to support educators with collaboration. And even if you only worked with one school this year and one leader, that’s one leader who can then support building capacity and other leaders in your district. We know how important school improvement planning is. So even if there’s no release time, if there’s no alignment, if there’s no professional learning,

If all of those things are not at your disposal this year, that would be one way that you could help shift. So rather than shifting an entire district perhaps towards your key results, what if you could shift one school and have a really meaningful impact in that school and learn lessons that could be replicated in other schools next year?

Jon Orr: Yeah. And we’ve said this a few times in the podcast lately is that great leaders build leaders, right? So if you’re like, I can’t do that because only one school is going to get impact. But what you’re doing is you’re helping create the next round of leaders to come in to take your role or when you’re ready to move on to a new role or be the leader in that building. Like, are impactful pieces to work on that we discount because something, you know,

prevents us from it or we think there’s a barrier because there’s always time. You just have to decide how much time and what can I commit to to making sure that I include moves like that. Working with teachers, working with principals at the school level, in the classroom level is worthwhile time in our roles even though when we think, I got to make sure I coordinate from higher up.

Yvette, you’ve often talked about the five, five, five and I just called it the five, five, five rule, but you’ve talked about like five days, five weeks, five months, share a little bit about that for our listener here.

Yvette Lehman: Yeah, I think if anybody’s feeling stuck right now, they’re just really, know, roadblocks are getting in the way and they can’t see how they’re going to roll out a plan for this year. Then we like to make commitments about what we’re going to do in the next five days, next five weeks and next five months. And again, those are all connected to your objectives and the key results that you want to see change this year. But I often share, John, that the hardest one is the next five days. And it’s probably

most important one. It’s far more important than what I plan to do in next five months because if I want to make a change or I want to put action steps in motion, I need to make a commitment and a commitment soon, tomorrow, the next day. So we’ll ask you, you know, in the Make Math Moments community,

What is your commitment for the next five days? If you’re feeling stuck, if you’re feeling like there are roadblocks in your way, if you feel like your time is being filled up with fires and other priorities, how are you going to get back on track in supporting the change that you want to see in your district this year? What’s your commitment in the next five days? Is it to schedule a meeting with a principal to check in on their school improvement plan? Is it to reach out to a teacher and ask if you can co-plan and co-facilitate a lesson?

What is your commitment to really investing in the work this year?

Jon Orr: Love it. Love it. Write it down. You know, make sure you share with someone and commit to it and decide this is impactful work for me to do. And it’s some of the most impactful work that I can be making. We have to get clear on that impactful work. And sometimes that work takes us out of our comfort zone. And sometimes that work is like, hmm, I put it off or I don’t engage in that type of work because it’s hard. You got to embrace it. you are truly after

impactful work in your math program at your school, at your district, then embracing and battling these barriers and understanding these barriers and then having a plan to go around the barrier or through the barrier is what’s going to help create sustainable math programs in your building or your schools, your districts. It’s also going to build capacity and leadership throughout so that you’ve got the sustainable math program.

important work. So let’s go out there, let’s do this, and reach out to us if you have any questions, any concerns, any wonders. We’re always here to help. You can always hop on a call with us. Head on over to makemathmoments.com forward slash discovery, and we can hop on a quick call to kind of hear your unique scenario and help guide you through what some of your next steps might be. Take care, everyone.

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