EdCircuit StaffTable of Contents
edCircuit makes a point of having its journalists, contributors, and strategic thought leader staff attend many of the more relevant education industry conferences to capture opinions and thought-provoking discussions with education industry participants and strategic leaders, edLeaders emPowering Education, where we discuss groundbreaking educational developments today. The edCircuit team recently caught up with Michael Bronder, CEO and co-founder of K12Leaders, a dedicated platform for educators to communicate, collaborate, and grow their networks. With various working groups, blogs, and thought leadership content outlets, K12Leaders strives to “provide a community and collaboration space for educational leaders at all levels to share ideas, find mentorship and develop projects in pursuit of the continual improvement of K12 education.”
In this conversation at FETC 23, Michael discusses the importance of having a dedicated space for educators, how the educator community has shaped the platform, supporting educators to collaborate and much more.
Creating a Safe Space For K12Leaders
Q: With the divisiveness we see on social media, what makes K12Leaders a unique safe space for the education community to collaborate and share ideas?
A: Traditionally, teachers would shy away from platforms like Facebook because they want to make sure that they’re maintaining good, healthy boundaries with their communities. Truthfully, what happens if teachers show up and they raise their hands? They can get flamed by the local parent groups and really be targeted by people they know on Facebook and their communities.
Twitter is a really popular platform, but we have a lot of users coming to us because they’re tired of the trolling that starts to happen on Twitter. Some of those trolls really bring significant personal safety concerns to educators who take a stand or have an opinion about anything. LinkedIn is wonderful for people trying to manage their careers, but for educators, it’s a place to show up and get spammed way beyond any reasonable path.
Creating a safe space in our current environment means making sure that folks are gathered together with the same mission and that if we all have the same mission to improve education, we can have productive conversations and projects. [K12Leaders] is a platform designed exclusively for educators, staff, administrators, and those commercial partners who really want to live their mission and support education.
Listening to the Educator Community
Q: Can you talk more about teacher retention and how mentoring and coaching aspects of K12Leaders come into play?
A: One of the things we did just about a year ago was a survey of educators. We got about 550 responses. And the top four concerns came out: level of respect, compensation, scheduling and flexibility.
There are a lot of expectations put on educators to maintain certifications, to consistently move forward and to advance their degrees, but there are not always those opportunities in districts for them to grow professionally… from our perspective, how do we empower teachers, how do we empower administrators for that perspective to manage their careers in a way that doesn’t get a lot of support?
Recruitment and District Administration Hesitation
Q: Are districts hesitant to recommend the platform for their teachers because of recruitment concerns?
A: What we’re doing is giving teachers, educators and staff the autonomy to make career decisions that make sense for them. First and foremost, nobody should be miserable in their job. And I think everybody agrees that if you’re miserable in a school, that misery gets amplified and magnified. We’re trying to give those working to support kids in the school the tools they need to manage their careers.
From a leadership perspective, that includes developing leadership skills as well. So, there are virtual circles that we keep discovering. Part of the survey we did last year was a lot of frustration with immediate supervision.
So, by creating better opportunities for leadership development, hopefully, the level of misery gets moderated. But by creating opportunities as we have through Edu Gigging, which is one of the communities that has developed on the platform naturally where folks are connecting educators with opportunities to do spot consulting work other than tutoring.
Supporting Educators Who Join the Gig Economy
Q: Can you discuss “EDU Gigging” and how that community has grown on the platform?
A: The gig economy is something we’ve all become really familiar with. And speaking to one of the findings in the survey about flexibility and scheduling flexibility, one of the groups that have developed organically on the platform is about educators getting connected with, it could be another district, it could be a commercial partner, it could be anybody who needs input on a project.
They’re looking for a subject matter expert on SEL, for instance, or they need somebody to give some feedback on the product. So, there are all sorts of opportunities where we can connect the right commercial partner with the right educator and support that relationship.
Creating a Network for Educators to Collaborate
Q: From a mission perspective, how are you getting the word out about K12Leaders? Is it all word of mouth?
A: It’s largely word of mouth. I spend a lot of time talking with folks who want to fund us about what the right timing is, what their expectations are, and what have you. And we don’t really want to be a mainstream platform. We are focused on educators who want to work together.
To learn more about K12Leaders, visit their website and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Stay tuned for more Q&As from leading experts in education.
