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District math objectives can’t live on a slide deck. For change to happen, they need Bridges—the leaders who translate vision into action at the school and classroom level.

In this episode, we explore who the Bridges are (principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, coordinators, and teacher-leaders) and why their role is essential to making district math objectives real. We dig into their responsibilities—guiding schools to set realistic math improvement goals, facilitating PLCs, modeling effective math practices, and supporting the use of monitoring tools as growth instruments rather than evaluation checklists.

We also unpack what Bridges need to succeed, framed as a double helix of intertwined skills:

• Internalizing the math objectives 
• Leadership and coaching capacity 

Key Takeaways:

• Why Bridges—school-level leaders—are essential to bringing math objectives to life
• How Bridges connect district goals with classroom practice through PLCs, walkthroughs, and coaching cycles
• The “double helix” of what Bridges need: deep math understanding and strong leadership skills
• A clear call to action: identify, support, and equip your Bridges today

Attention District Math Leaders:

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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: In a few past episodes, we’ve been talking about this idea of the what and the how. So maybe we’ll jump back into describing what we mean by that. And I was basing this idea and we brought this into our conversations about the work that we do around district improvement or school improvement in the area of math. And this idea that Michael Fullen has a structure for basically leadership and innovation.

And he talks about this idea that, and as it relates to improvement in math education, that you can have a system where, let’s say the district office, the state office, the Ministry of Education here in Ontario defines the what. And they say, you know, this is the work or this is the systemic change that we want to see happen. And in this structure as well, that kind of centralized team, that top layer is also going to

in consultation with stakeholders determine the monitoring of the what. It’s like, how are we gonna know that five years from now we’ve seen improvements in these areas that we’ve collectively identified as being important for the work we wanna do and for the experience we want our students to have in our math classrooms. So that’s what’s happening at that district level, state level, higher up in the organization, they’re defining the what.

And that’s creating that coherence and that alignment across the system that we’re all collectively working toward the same outcomes. But in this structure, they talk about then the how, which is now how is that what, how are those goals transferred into change at the school level? And in a really well designed system, you want a certain level of agency or autonomy in determining the how.

and some choice. Like it’s like we don’t want it to all be top down dictated. We want there to be some flexibility and some different paths that people are going to take. But ultimately we’re all working toward the same outcome. The goal is the same for everybody. That’s how we’re creating the alignment. But there is some agency in how we go about creating that transformation. So that was like a little, I think we’ve talked about this on previous episodes, but I just, I’m going to talk a lot about the what and the how today as we dive into this new topic.

Jon Orr: Yes. Mm It’s a good it’s a good like, reminder and also like setting the stage for, you know, the this this progress we’re all trying to strive towards math improvement and we often on our episodes talk about systemized improvement. And so to talk about the what and who defines the what and then the how and who defines the how is is also you know, is a good is a good reminder so that we can talk about like the how

How the how? What does it look like in between those two things? So it’s like, I’m up here and we’re trying to use best practices, strategizing around these are really important across our system to improve. We do want agency in the schools or in our classrooms and we want them to choose a how, but now how do I transition the what’s into the hows? How do I make this possible in my system?

Kyle Pearce: Well, and I see this too is obviously the what is ultimately the most important piece because we don’t know that we don’t have clarity around that, that it doesn’t matter how, right? Because we’re not really sure what we’re going to do. But that middle ground in between, it’s like the how becomes a whole lot easier if we know the what and then we also identify who is going to do the how.

Now we’re saying a lot of words here, right? So that’s a little bit confusing. But in between here, what we want to really dig into is, you know, if we can better identify who those people are, and then we get really clear on the what, that will allow us to support and better support to ensure that those who are going to help us with the how they’re going to make sure they know what it is that they need to do. Because I think we all want

to do the best we possibly can, right? In every single building, whether you’re at the system level, whether you’re at the state, whether you’re at the school, whether you’re in the classroom, we’re all trying our best, but there’s always these little sort of disconnects along the way. know, Yvette, today, I think we’re gonna be digging into this idea of bridges. And really, we’re gonna talk a lot about what, but then how, and then sort of the in-between is who are these people?

that are going to help us get there and really some of the ideas around what we can do to support them so that we have more chance of gaining that traction we’re after, right? That longer term traction and implementation.

Jon Orr: Now Yvette’s gonna talk about bridge, because she coined the term bridge. But we’ve also talked about the team, like who is on a team. Because we’re thinking about, we’ve got different players on our teams when we’re trying to do system-wide improvement from, like we said, either it’s district or it’s state level, it’s complex level, maybe it’s just collection of schools level, like a family of schools.

And one of the things that we shared on our blog, one of our blog posts, I think we’ve shared it here too on the podcast is Keith Foresy has talked about like defining your team. he, in the book, Leading Without Authority, he used to saying like, sometimes when you want to move towards a direction, you have to identify who is on your team. And sometimes you think like, well, my team members are clearly the people that I interact with every single day, but that not necessarily be true. Your team members are the people that you need.

to help accomplish your goal. And that might be someone in a different department. It might be someone above you. It might be someone side by side. It might be someone that’s reporting to you. But identifying your team members to help you accomplish goals and carry out those goals is extremely important. And a lot of times we just assume who our team members are without actually taking the time to critically identify those critical individuals that help me get closer to my goal. Because I might have to let go,

I actually, in order to hit this goal, I actually really need the support and the inclusion and the direct contact with my immediate supervisor. And normally that’s not been the case in say my district, but I know that I can’t accomplish the goal without that say direct support. a bridge, Yvette, talk to us about a bridge. Like who’s a bridge, what is a bridge? That as a person that we also have to identify is on our team if we’re gonna lead this work.

Yvette Lehman: So in Michael Folensburg, he talks about this idea, this question of once the what is established. And John, you said this, who is going to translate it into the how? Who is close enough to the work that happened at the ministry district state level to be positioned

to bring this to the school level, to the classroom level. And so we’re calling these people bridges. Fulham refers to them maybe as change agents is a term that they’ve used or they’re the middle leaders. So in every different organization, these people might have different titles. They might be instructional coaches. They might be coordinators. Here in Ontario, we call them facilitators. There are math facilitators.

They might be department heads or master teachers. They might be principals in some context if we don’t have any of these other support roles. Might be assistant principals. But within every organization, we have to identify who are the people who are going to translate the objectives and the monitoring that’s happening above them into

the conversations that are happening at the school level in PLCs, in staff meetings, during teacher collaboration time. And so the people that we’re looking for need to be in schools. They need to have direct contact with teachers. They need to have touch points with teachers that are frequent enough to really make sure that this work is translating effectively into the culture of the building. So that is kind of step one for organizations is to identify within their system. Who might these people be?

Kyle Pearce: Yeah, and once you, and again, I wanna reiterate this idea that once you’ve identified these people, it’s like, have to make sure, you had mentioned translate. I think it’s a great word to use. Imagine trying to translate a message that is already unclear, right? The telephone game begins and we’re not going to have the intended outcome, right? So it’s about clarity and making sure that those people are well positioned to understand.

and have clarity and have belief and really feel empowered that they’re able to, you know, act as that bridge. And I think being explicit is really important. So, you know, they can’t, we can’t just identify these individuals and these roles as being the bridge without them knowing that, you know, they have to really understand that like, listen, we are looking and leaning on you in order to

make this translation to pass this message along. And I think when we’re very explicit, not only do people feel, I think they do, they feel maybe honored to have that opportunity, but I think they also listen a little harder, you know, and they really want to lean in and they want to know what they’re going to say or do instead of just feeling like they’re a part of the mass. And we’re all kind of receiving a message from above.

that we’re all going to try our darnedest, but who knows whether this thing’s really gonna land in the way that we want it to.

Jon Orr: Right, because ideally like if you are looking for that belief to carry forward and the understanding to be carried forward by your bridge into the schools from whatever, you know, from that say district office level, then ideally you’d want them to be part of the what, you know, so that they have the feel of designing and we’re all on the same page and we all strongly believe this is the right what because that can then do wonders for you to kind of

you know, carry that message and the belief and the motivations into the schools to help them also feel like they had a say in the how and being rallying behind the what, which makes me think like you’ve at like we’re talking about the bridge and it’s oftentimes what we’re seeing when we’re meeting with our district partners, our school partners, our state level partners, when we’re doing this improvement work is that sometimes the bridges don’t exist. So like, what does it

In your opinion, like what does it look like now if a bridge doesn’t exist and we’re trying and maybe it’s because the bridge doesn’t exist because we haven’t defined the what or if we have to find the what what does it look like if we don’t, you know, help the bridge be the bridge.

Yvette Lehman: So I think the first step is identifying them. Like who are the people within the organization that are positioned to do this work. But then we also have to, as Kyle already mentioned, like build their capacity in doing this work. And so that might mean that the first step before we can get to the work at the school level, it’s like before we can jump over these change agents or bridges or middle leaders is we actually have to invest in building the capacity of these individuals first.

so that the work that happens at the school level is aligned, is cohesive, matches what we said we were going to do. And so we’ve identified essentially two capacity building roads that these bridges need to go down. And they’re interwoven, but the first one, I think that’s critically important and that we might overlook because we sometimes assume these bridges already have this knowledge, especially if they’re instructional coaches or coordinators.

They need to internalize the objectives. And you mentioned, Kyle, like the game of telephone. It’s like, we need to make sure that the people identified as bridges deeply understand the objectives, the what, not just on a surface level. It’s like they’ve lived it, they’ve experienced it, they’ve debated it, they’ve been a part of the conversation, they’ve…

developed the look for documents with the centralized team to say what it looks like now, what it’s going to look like when it’s being fully implemented. Like they need deep capacity building. So, and I’ll give an example. It’s like if we say our objective at the district level is to build procedural fluency, we need to be really sure that we have a common understanding of what procedural fluency is and what it isn’t. And we need to build our own procedural fluencies that were positioned to translate that work into the PLCs, into the staff meetings, into the professional development days.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah, another example of that came through email, there was a discussion with one of the districts in our district improvement program where, you know, there was a realization that their definition of a number talk was too broad, right? And in reality, it’s like, if we say, you know, there was one of our objectives is building number sense. And one of the actions we’re going to put in place is that everyone’s going to use a number talk at the start of a math lesson or three days a week. But a number talk to john

looks and sounds different than a number talk to Yvette, that’s problematic, right? We might get number talks, but that version of what a number talk is is so broad and so wide that we might actually, on paper we’re saying, well, we’re seeing these things are happening, but what we’re seeing are very different versions or very different interpretations of what that really means. And therefore we might not end up seeing that result that we’re after.

Jon Orr: and we’re bridges. And if we’re bridges, that’s a problem. And we’ve seen that, like the three of us have seen this in our meetings with our teams to realize that this team actually doesn’t share the same definitions. This is why we do what we do at the beginning of the process of defining what is the vision, are the objectives is the team has to have these brainstorming debrief sessions about what we’re trying to do and let’s get everything out into the open. The activities that we do bring this to the light so that we can then make the pivot

And then there’s a specific example or specific case where we had to make that pivot. It was clear that the people at the table needed a more professional development if they were gonna go down that pathway. Like if that was the true objective, procedural fluencies as a main zone of improvement across the entire system, we actually needed more professional development in that area with the team so that the bridges could then do their work. So you can imagine that if the bridge,

or the people don’t have, say, that solid foundation, solid understanding, or if the bridge doesn’t exist, then what’s happening is what happens everywhere is that, say, the central office says, these are the things we’re improving. Schools set some goals on how to make that happen, and then you just, you know exactly what that looks like, because it happens at school levels too. Hey, we’re doing this, and all of a sudden teachers are like, what else are you gonna put on my plate? Because principals are saying the same thing when that happens.

and we don’t dedicate the right support, the right resources to those individuals through the bridge. And that’s really what you’re saying is that you’re saying, can say anything all day long about what I really wanna do, but unless I define and create the bridge as a means of support, you will never get to those goals.

Kyle Pearce: All right, now that’s a big one and I know Yvette, you had said, we’re gonna have to build capacity in two intertwined strands. So first off, I want everyone to pause for a second. You’re listening and you’re saying, yeah, well, and I just wanna make sure that we’re clear here that we’re talking about two things that we can work on them at the same time. We’re gonna talk about the second one in a second. But keep in mind that this first piece, internalize.

Jon Orr: Good job keeping us on pace here, Kyle.

Kyle Pearce: internalizing the objectives is not an overnight thing. You know, like this is going to take a lot of work and it’s going to be iterative, right? We’re going to have to continue to come back to this work and we want to make it deeper and deeper. And you’re going to recognize over time that what you thought was the objective or the way the objective was in your mind has evolved into something more meaningful, more clear. these are really important pieces. Now here’s the thing. Let’s pretend like we were amazing.

at internalizing the objectives and actually helping the bridge internalize these objectives. Okay. What else is important here? Cause I’m picturing you could have people in buildings who are the bridges. They know they’re the bridge. They’ve internalized the objectives. Things are great, but if they don’t have this second piece, we really stand to potentially hinder how far that bridge can take.

you know, this message to other people. So Yvette, take us through the second of the two intertwined strands here. What should we be looking at doing? And again, this is gonna be simultaneously, but it’s also something we can’t forget to really focus on.

Yvette Lehman: Yeah, so the other part of this work that we need to do with Bridges is around their leadership moves and coaching practices. So imagine you just describe Kyle, you somebody who really understands the math and understands the practices, but doesn’t have experience and hasn’t had capacity building around, you know, how to initiate conversations with principals or how to facilitate a PLC or

how to be a strong facilitator that doesn’t jump in and steal thinking from other people. Like these are moves, these are nuanced moves that require time and attention and focused time to build that capacity. And so we need to think about the role this person plays. Like, yes, they need to be a knowledgeable other around what the objectives actually mean, look like, sound like, feel like, but they also need to know what does an engaging staff meeting look like and sound like?

How do you structure a PLC so that the participants are doing the thinking and it’s not just you going in and doing a monologue or talking at people for 60 minutes? How do you start coaching conversations with maybe teachers who are more reluctant to see the value in the work that you’re so, and this is probably in some ways for some people, the harder part of the job, because maybe you are a.

identified as a bridge because you do believe this work is worth doing and you were a leader in your own classroom and now you are trying to get other people to buy in and to get on board. But this requires relationship building, it requires trust. And so what we are recommending is that once you’ve identified these individuals who are going to help translate the what into the how, we need to almost take stock and inventory of the capacity building that individual needs.

And it might, and it needs to be both. They need to internalize the objectives and you need to have a common understanding amongst your team of what you’re collectively trying to achieve, what it’s going to look like when it’s successful. But we also need to talk about their role as far as the facilitator within these subsystems that exist within the school environment. And also their relationship with the leader of that school if they aren’t the principal.

So that’s a really important relationship. We’ve talked about that before. It’s a partnership between like, let’s say this bridge is a coach or their instructional mentor, their department chair, their teacher leader in the school. How do they establish a strong relationship with the school leadership so that this is a shared, their shared ownership of this work at the school level? How do they help them set realistic goals at the school level that are aligned to the work that the district has identified as being?

Jon Orr: Right, yeah, and that brings up, because that piece right there, that relationship piece, also brings up something we’ve chatted about before about having the full coordination in terms of if we are going to empower our bridges to do that type of work, then we have to have that full support around the bridge, which means that sometimes the bridge, like here’s the…

the scenario we’ve seen before. It’s like, we, at the district office, we might have people setting the what, and then all of sudden it says, bridges, go out and do the work. But then they don’t, then that’s where the senior administration level support all of a sudden stops. It feels like we’re supporting it at that level, but you can imagine that it’s like, go, do the work, get into the schools, work with principals. But then we haven’t, say, coordinated or shared.

the direct connection between what we’re trying to do with our bridges and the schools, which means like maybe principals haven’t been given coaching on an also or been given coaches on the relationship between a coach and a principal. Like it’s just like passed to them. And then all of a sudden now that you can see where this relationship building is essential, but also having because they’re providing that support, but also having the right pressure to say this is the right. This is what we’re trying to do.

principles or this is the right thing we’re trying to do to this other these other teams that they can see that Yes, we’re all moving forward in the right direction We have the full support of everyone across our system that these are the moves we’re making to carry out the what and we want to design the how at the school sites but we’re supporting you all around to making that happen because we don’t what we don’t you don’t want to do is just to say go forth and Conquer without giving them the right pressure and support to make it happen

Yvette Lehman: So come back on Thursday listeners, because on Thursday we’re going to actually talk about one of our district partners and we’re going to share an example of what this work looks like in that particular district. Where we have a strong leader who has identified that this is an area that they need to focus on, is building up the bridges within their organization. Because previously it felt like this was like a one person job. You have one person at the central office who’s trying to support this work in multiple buildings.

And what they realized is that they can’t do this work alone. They don’t have enough contact with teachers to make this work impactful. They need to be able to identify the bridges who do have those regular touch points with teachers in classrooms who can have shared ownership of this work. So that’s going to be Thursday. We’re going to talk about a specific example of what this looks like in action in one of our districts that we support.

Kyle Pearce: I love it. I love it, my friends. And hopefully as you’re listening to these episodes, you know, just engaging in this thinking is helping you to strengthen your own plans, whether it’s at the system level, whether it’s in the school, maybe it’s in your own department or grade band, constantly thinking about these things and coming back to them and then bringing them up in discussions with your colleagues is going to help you strengthen your own goals, your own vision. And then of course,

building those bridges so that you can see the impact that you’re looking to have. If you’re curious to see where you are along the path, head on over to makemathmoments.com forward slash report, and you can take our assessment at the district level or at the classroom level, regardless of your position. And from there, if we can be of any help, you’ll see there’s an opportunity to book a call. So hopefully we’ll be chatting with some of you soon.

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