Lessons from an Elementary Principal, with David Shaffer

When schools focus on what’s working and align around a shared vision, transformation becomes possible.

In this final installment in our National Principals Month series, Principal David Shaffer of Port Salerno Elementary shares how the AVID program has impacted his leadership and his school by providing structure, focus, and identity. 

David Shaffer and his team have used AVID not just as a program, but as a foundation for building schoolwide coherence and student agency. From “WICOR Wednesdays” to student-led collaboration, AVID structures help shift the cognitive load from teachers to students—giving learners ownership of their path and purpose.

At the heart of it all is a community-driven approach. As David explains, “It really takes that community to create the system.” His team’s grassroots efforts have improved academic outcomes and reshaped how students advocate for themselves—even long after they leave elementary school. This episode is a blueprint for schools seeking to embed AVID into their DNA while staying rooted in their local context and strengths.

Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Unpacking Education Podcast Transcript

Episode: Lessons from an Elementary Principal, with David Shaffer

David Shaffer 0:00
How exactly are we preparing our current students to be future-ready? My goal as a principal is to provide as many opportunities to them as we can while they're with me from kindergarten through fifth grade, and exposing them to as many different things as we can, showing them all the different options out there for them, so that they can start making some decisions on their own and figuring out where their pathway wants to go.

Winston Benjamin 0:24
It's National Principals Month, and for the month of October, we're featuring principals on our show. Today is the fifth and final episode in this series. The topic for today's podcast is "Lessons from an Elementary Principal" with David Shaffer. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:55
Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education.

Rena Clark 1:04
I'm Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 1:05
I'm Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 1:07
And I'm Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 1:11
And we're here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 1:16
Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin 1:20
Our quote for today is from the Port Salerno Elementary School's website. A callout quote on the page reads, "Rooted in community, driven by opportunity, preparing our future today." Heavy, heavy. Paul, Rena, what are you thinking about that callout quote?

Rena Clark 1:43
Honestly, I got a nice little vision of the Pacific Northwest here, if you want to know the truth. I think of this idea of, like, all the trees, but the whole idea of being rooted, you know, and the roots are where we gather and collect all our nutrients, and that builds our strengths. And so I think about, you know, we start by listening and building from our community, from our students, and build on those strengths and our educator strengths, and we listen to all those different voices, and they're included, and that's what gives us the nutrients to grow.

And then, you know, as we're driven by the opportunities, we have to remove barriers, clear pathways, be flexible. I'm still thinking of my tree—bendy. Maybe it's the October theme, I don't know. But, you know, we are really flexible, and when there's—we're able to move. And also, you know, provide different opportunities for everybody involved.

And then thinking about the future, well, you know, part of the future is now. So how we're preparing them for the future now and through that, in my perspective, I think about collaboration and creativity and our Four Cs, and how can we do that with joy and through connection and back that whole thing being connected? So I don't know. Got the tree vibe today.

Paul Beckermann 3:01
I love that root metaphor. That's awesome. For me, when I see that, and if it's the main thing that you're going to see right away when you open up this web page, you know, it just gives me a clear sense of purpose, like what the school is about. It's looking to the future, but it's also focused on the now, because they're both important, right?

And what can be done now to prepare our students for their future, because that future is probably fairly unpredictable. And then the words "opportunity" and "community" tell me that students are empowered and given opportunities to grow while being supported by community. That community is part of those roots that you talked about, Rena.

Winston Benjamin 3:43
That's what I think. I like that. I like that roots. We can hear the Minnesota—the roots.

Paul Beckermann 3:49
Do I say that funny, Winston?

Winston Benjamin 3:52
Yo, listen, you're talking to a New Yorker. I can't say "quarter of water," so it's okay. I love it. Like, I personally—we are so excited to have David Shaffer here as a guest of our podcast. David is the principal at Port Salerno Elementary School, so he could give us a little bit more clarity and understanding of the value of the quote we just engaged with. I really want to say thank you, David. Welcome to our podcast.

David Shaffer 4:23
Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, it's really important for us to focus on that community—our students, our staff, our families—and really, that's why we show up to work every day and do what we do for our students. They're the reason we go to the building.

And then opportunity is always one of my biggest things. When we go into school—our school is a Title I school. We have a lot of English language learners in our building—so my goal as a principal is to provide as many opportunities to them as we can while they're with me from kindergarten through fifth grade, and exposing them to as many different things as we can, showing them all the different options out there for them, so that they can start making some decisions on their own and figuring out where their pathway wants to go.

Winston Benjamin 5:05
So, thank you. I guess we kind of understood the value of it, because again, as outsiders looking in, we see what you're trying to say, but as an insider speaking to the outside, I appreciate the framing of that. One of the things that we always try to do with our podcast guests is really help our listeners ground themselves in the experience of who we're talking to. So would you give us a little bit about yourself and your journey into education as an educator and to the point of being a principal?

David Shaffer 5:36
Sure. So I'm starting my 20th year in education this year, my first year as principal. So I've just finished my first nine weeks. Today was the first day of the second quarter as a school principal. I was really fortunate to serve as the assistant principal at the same school for eight years prior to stepping up as principal. So that consistency has really helped me kind of with the leg up in moving into this new role, especially with the consistency and just the continuing of just AVID and a lot of the other systems that we have in place in our building.

I grew up in South Florida. I'm working in the same school district where I went to school as a kid. A lot of my colleagues now are former teachers that I work with every day, which is really cool to kind of experience. I struggled as a young learner. I didn't really like school till probably about fifth grade. I'm really fidgety. I didn't like sitting in my seat. I didn't like reading until fifth grade. I had a teacher that really just kind of opened up that world to me, and things started to click, and I found this love for learning, and that's why I decided to go into education. I just wanted to share learning and understanding how things work with other students.

And I figured if I was a teacher, I didn't really have to grow up, you know, kids all day. So I started teaching in North Florida, taught in an inner-city school. I taught fifth grade and third grade for a few years, and the school district had approached our school with an opportunity to create a magnet school. There was a 6-12 Medical Magnet School in the county, and so my principal had approached me to leave the classroom to be a program specialist to help create this program and develop it from the ground up in this elementary school.

So I got to do a lot of backward design, working with the secondary school, figuring out what their program was about and learning, "How do we make that work in an elementary school? What does a medical-themed magnet look like in kindergarten? What does that look like in first grade all the way up through fifth grade? And how do we have this program continuity from kindergarten that will feed all the way up through 12th grade?" So I learned a lot through that experience about curriculum design, aligning standards, student engagement, building community partners, and a lot of stuff like that.

As my daughters were getting ready to start school, we moved back to where I grew up in Martin County, and I taught middle school math and science for a few years until the assistant principal job opened up at Port Salerno. I started there, worked with Lauren, who was the previous principal. Her daughter was in the AVID program at one of our high schools, and she saw how AVID had really changed her daughter as a learner, helped her become more organized, help her, like, figure out and prioritize tasks, how to focus and set goals and all those sorts of things.

So she was like, "We need to be doing that with our kids." At the same time, we ended up in state correction status for our school, so we had a lot of state oversight and things coming in. So it was this perfect opportunity—we were going to change some things. Let's change it. Let's go back. Let's look at our foundation and really see what's going to work. Let's create some new systems and figure out what's going to work best for our kids.

So we brought AVID on board about the same time we were going through the state turnaround status, and looked at a lot of systems, alignment, standards-based instruction, student engagement, and aligned it back with, you know, the AVID frameworks and all of that, to really build our program.

Paul Beckermann 9:17
So when you brought AVID in, you used that kind of as the backbone of your system to kind of bring everything together. How did that work? Like, what was that alignment like? And how did you actually bring things together to mesh with the AVID program?

David Shaffer 9:32
So the one nice thing about AVID, when you look at like the AVID framework, is looking at that rigorous instruction. So looking at that and looking at standards-based instruction, and then really doing a deep dive into what that means on our campus. We had our AVID site team. We created a group of teachers to kind of look at the AVID system and kind of understand what does that mean on our campus. We looked at—went to the AVID professional learning in the summer. We kind of learned some on our own, brought that back to our school, and then we started small.

We looked at, "What can we do? What are we already kind of doing some already, and what can we build upon from there?" So that rigorous academic preparedness, looking at that to kind of build it out from there. We knew that our teachers were doing a lot of the heavy lifting during the day, and we had to figure out a way to start shifting that work from our teachers back towards our students. And AVID was one of the big pieces that led to a lot of that work.

Rena Clark 10:30
And I know often when we make shifts like that, or those kind of shifts happen in buildings, I've been in some buildings like shift this year and then the next year it's a different shift, and then it's another shift. So I would love to hear you talk more about that clarity of focus, because you're juggling AVID and I'm sure you still have other programs, other things that you also have to do, other priorities. So how do you decide what stays, what shifts, what gets cut, and over, you know, time? How do you still have that, what we call, the North Star?

David Shaffer 11:02
So I think you have to have a really clear vision. You have to have that grand vision of what you want your school to look like 5, 10 years down the road. And I think you have to, again, have that backward design of "That's where we want to go. How do we work backwards from that to where we are now?" and create this action plan. And you have to be able to say no to things if it doesn't align with where you're heading. You have to be able to say, "That's not one of our priorities right now. We're going to put that to the side."

And you know, there's things that obviously, as school principals and teachers, that we have to do on a daily basis that, you know, unfortunately, are part of our jobs and need to get done. There are the things that you would like to get done that sometimes you say, "Nope, not happening right now. That can wait till next year or until we take care of this." So I think that's where that AVID site team comes in and meeting periodically to evaluate the program and kind of see where we're at, looking at, you know, that system and saying, "This doesn't align with what we're doing. We're not going to take care of that right now. We're going to put it to the side. We might come back to it at a later date if it matches what we're doing then."

Winston Benjamin 12:18
I appreciate that there's that—you have such a clarity of focus. But one of the real important things within school systems, and especially one that is being overseen by the state, is measurements, is finding that progress, is demonstrating proficiency. It's doing all the grind, and I know that your school has seen some progress, right?

Beyond test scores, because sometimes that snapshot doesn't really tell you all the indicators of student success, right? Within your systems, what are some of those indicators that let you know, "You know what? We're doing the right thing. We're on the right path. Students are thriving in our systems," right, other than those hard line score measures? What are some of those other indicators?

David Shaffer 13:11
So we looked at it in pieces. So we started with standards-based, rigorous instruction. We looked at student engagement. We looked at collaboration among our students, and we created our own walkthrough tool to kind of monitor that in our classrooms. And that way we could give teachers feedback on it. We can give students feedback on it. They're the ones who have to do the work every day, so giving them feedback on—when we're doing an AVID structure—their student conversations, giving them feedback on how they're talking to one another and collaborating together.

So we align those a lot with WICOR and how teachers were using that to plan their instruction. We've seen a change in the energy in our school. Port Salerno used to have a bit of a poor reputation in our community because it was "that school" in the community. It was the Title I school. It had a lot of English language learners that always kind of underperformed comparatively to a lot of the other schools in our community. And over the last six, seven years, we've really changed that reputation, and our scores are hanging with some of our non-Title I schools in our district, and we've seen a lot of student success from our students on our campus.

Paul Beckermann 14:22
I'm just curious, do you attribute some of that to having AVID as the main framework in your building?

David Shaffer 14:29
100%, yes. Using the WICOR framework to really align that and lay it on top of our curriculum and our teachers—when they meet for their PLCs, we have what we call WICOR Wednesdays. So we have our state-based standards that we have to teach from. We have our curriculum that's provided from our school district, but our teachers are looking, "How can we take WICOR and put it on top of that? How can we embed writing and inquiry and collaboration on top of the things that they're already doing?" And that's kind of shifted that work from teachers standing and delivering a lot of the classroom and to the students, to students really driving a lot of the work and being engaged and teachers more facilitating instruction in their classroom, rather than giving it to the kids.

Paul Beckermann 15:18
I love that student empowerment. That is so important in a classroom for growth, and I can see why your teachers would see the success of that. Now that the success is actually happening, but how did you get them to buy into it at the beginning, like before they knew that this was actually going to be an effective technique or approach?

David Shaffer 15:37
So it helps when Lauren, our previous principal, was able to share, you know, stories of her daughter and how she was successful with us. But I think having the AVID site team and starting with them really drives a lot of this work. I'm a member of our AVID site team. I don't lead it. One of our fifth grade teachers leads our AVID site team along with our literacy coach, and they drive that work. It has to be staff-led, and I think it needs to be kind of like a grassroots effort, rather than something from the top down.

Rena Clark 16:07
And you've been there—I think I've heard you were there as an assistant principal, now principal—for about nine years, and so you've been able to see students that maybe came in at kindergarten have gone through. So I would love, and I know our audience would love to hear, if there are any stories around, you know, students whose experiences have really changed as a result of the systems that you've put in place, and how you've maybe seen that over time.

David Shaffer 16:35
So I can't think of any specific students that stick out, but I work closely with the administration and teachers at the middle schools we feed to, and one of the school counselors from the middle school called me right after school started this year to ask about another student who had gone to our school previously years ago, and then left to another district and came back and needed some advice with them.

But when he was speaking with me, he just wanted to compliment how our kids stand out to their teachers and staff there. So at their middle school, they have five different elementary schools that feed to them, and it's very easy for them to distinguish which students came from our school, because we're the only AVID school that feeds to them. And just the student agency, the students that advocate for themselves, the students that are willing to go up to the counselors and advocate for more rigorous coursework, or trying to get into algebra in eighth grade or different things like that, to get those high school credits while they're still in middle school—they see that difference.

And it's not just academics too. It's manners and character and integrity and other things as well. I know one of the APs always tells me she can always tell which ones came from us, because those kids always hold the door open. It's just simple little stories like that that, you know, I love to hear when kids score great on a test, but those are the types of things that, when I know that we've sent on a kid that has good moral character, is so much more important to me.

Winston Benjamin 18:02
I appreciate that as a core of your work, right? Like, embedding qualities in students so that they understand who they are in the long term is a valuable thing. And you spoke eloquently about the student impact, but we know you're in your second term as principal, but you've been through the whole thing. Now that you're holding on to the reins, right, what's something—a lesson that you learned through the process that you're going to hold on to to keep driving you forward?

Because, in essence, like, how are you keeping uniformity and making it your own? Because there's a lot of principals who would love to figure out how to do what you're actively doing and successfully doing. So what are some of those, like, lessons that you'd like to keep forward and pass on?

David Shaffer 18:59
So I think you still need to have goals. We always talk about that with kids—setting goals and trying to have some sort of action plan to work towards those. And we need to do the same thing as teachers and administrators—that we have to have some sort of goal and purpose for our school and keep working towards those as well.

So last spring, we were an AVID Showcase School, and we're going to continue and try to do that again this upcoming spring. It kind of keeps the finger on the pulse for our teachers and staff, plus it's another way for us to bring the community into our school and show the great things happening there. So I think having those goals, sharing them, being explicit about what those goals are and how you're going to get there, really helps to kind of keep your finger on the pulse and move in that direction.

Paul Beckermann 19:43
And congratulations on all your successes. I especially love hearing the feedback from those middle school teachers and the middle school leadership. That says so much that they really can pinpoint those qualities that you're instilling in those kids. Super cool. So if somebody's listening to us, another administrator from another school, and they would like to do something similar in their building, what are some first steps that they could take to kind of get this going?

David Shaffer 20:09
So I think oftentimes, we always look at our deficits, and we try to look at the biggest problem and start there. And I think we need to look at it differently. I think, say you're bringing AVID into your school, look at some of the things you're already doing that you're doing well. Start there, get those easy wins, and then build upon those.

So I think taking the AVID framework, building WICOR into your lesson planning and your unit design, and then kind of just building on top of those—take the easy wins, kind of build that momentum, and then go from there.

Rena Clark 20:41
It's true at every level, right? That strength-based lens is always a good place to start. Well, and again, it's back to, you know, we're impressed. We're hearing this—you've been doing it for a while. And I talked earlier about how there's kind of that ebb and flow. So, I mean, how are you keeping the excitement going? Do you have any secret AVID cheers that we don't know about that maybe you can share? But how—and you know, staff come in, staff leave—so how are you keeping this going and alive throughout time?

David Shaffer 21:18
So one of the things we do—morning announcements every morning—we do a different AVID cheer every week and practice them. The kids are much better at them than I am. Even the teachers have a much deeper playbook on the AVID cheers than I do. So unfortunately, I don't think I have any secret ones for you, but I think something fun about those too is, once you understand the framework of them, you can make them your own.

Something we do is our school mascot is stingrays. So a group of stingrays is called a fever. So one of the AVID cheers we do is we say, "Stingrays, catch the fever." And we did a pep rally today for our students to start the second quarter. And after school on one side, after school on the other, and you've got one side chanting, "Stingrays," the other side gets "the fever" just back and forth to one another. So once you kind of understand the concept of it, you can start taking your own school and kind of putting your own play into it.

Fortunately, we haven't had a ton of staff turnover in the last few years. I think a part of that is the culture that we have on campus is a huge play in that. So having that core staff to sustain some of that work with the new teachers and staff that come on board definitely helps. And I think just again, having clear expectations with the staff about what AVID looks like on our campus, what our AVID expectations are.

That AVID site team meets monthly to go over what our goals are for the year, evaluating kind of what our next steps are. Something we've noticed on our campus is inquiry is something that we always seem to be a little behind the bar on. So that's a focus this year, one of our goals. So just trying to kind of keep moving forward on something.

Winston Benjamin 23:02
Our last question usually is just something to really hear where our guest is thinking. So what's been on your mind lately? What have you been thinking about? What have you been pondering? What's been on your mind?

David Shaffer 23:17
So I have—my oldest daughter is a junior in high school, and we've started talking about college the last few weeks and trying to figure out what her next steps are in the next coming years. And just thinking about how different our world's going to be in, you know, five years, 10 years down the line. So being an elementary school principal, we're doing the best we can to prepare our students for this future that we're not quite sure what exactly it looks like.

So just trying to think, how exactly are we preparing our current students to be future-ready for the careers that, you know, we know are going to be there that we don't even know exist yet? So trying to wrap my head around that—how do we create these opportunities for our students when we don't even know what those opportunities are going to be?

Paul Beckermann 24:05
So true.

Rena Clark 24:08
Yeah, so interesting. It's a little bit scary, but we'll see. I know I think of my own kids. I'm like, "I don't know." Well, that puts us—you know, we have lots of things to think about—but we're gonna go ahead and migrate into our toolkit.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 24:29
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? Check it out.

Rena Clark 24:38
So what's in your toolkit today? What might be out there for our listeners to dig into a little bit more? You want to go ahead, Paul?

Paul Beckermann 24:47
It's a little bit of a build-off of some of the things that David said, you know, "Start with what you're doing well." I love that idea of that building pride, the fact that there's little turnover in a building. That is such a significant indicator of what the culture is like in a school. There's a sense of that pride there. I can just feel it in the things that you're saying. Start with that, that sense of pride, the success. What are you doing well? And have an identity that's really positive. I think that goes miles.

Winston Benjamin 25:19
Something that David said that I'm still holding on as valuable, not just for the students, but also for your teachers—providing feedback, like clear, active, current, immediate feedback to support the integration of concepts and content into the learner's mind, right? Like going into classes, giving the students the same feedback through the protocol as same as the teachers, right? Everyone understands what's going on, so they can make adjustments as needed. So I think that transparent feedback is a really important tool.

Rena Clark 25:52
And I'm just going to jump off of that, because, yeah, feedback's great, but you need to have a clear North Star, or, you know, feedback towards that shared understanding and goal. And without that, it can be very confusing and complicated. So you've mentioned it many times. You got there different ways, but that you seem to all have a clear understanding of where you're going, and that helps you make decisions, and that may help to give feedback, because you know where you're going and what you're trying to do, and it is so important to have that in order to be successful. All right, David, it's your turn. You have anything to add to our toolkit?

David Shaffer 26:32
No, I think just kind of building on what you guys just said too. You have to have that clear vision, and then you really just need to be focused on it. I think simpler is better in most circumstances. So don't let a lot of complex, fancy new things kind of cloud your judgment and get in the way. And try to stay focused on that goal and try to keep it as simple as possible, because I think that's the easiest way to make sure you're moving still in the right direction.

Paul Beckermann 26:59
All right. Well, that's a perfect time to jump into our one thing.

Transition Music 27:02
It's time for that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 27:13
Okay, it's one thing time. Time for our final takeaways for the day. What's on your mind? Rena, why don't you go ahead and start?

Rena Clark 27:22
I just really appreciated and loved when David said this. And I know I struggle with this sometimes, but if it doesn't align with your priorities, with where we're heading, put it aside. It's not that it's not good, because if we tried to do everything that was good, you know, we just can't do it. And when I say, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" here. So if it doesn't align with your priorities, just put it aside and, you know, move on.

Paul Beckermann 27:48
There you go. Winston, what are you thinking about?

Winston Benjamin 27:52
Um, it's gonna—I'm gonna take kind of what you said, Paul, as your tool and apply it as my one thing, like the easy wins. Yo, sometimes you can continue to go further through difficulties when you are feeling that you're successful. It is hard for me to continue this workout weight loss journey because I got a big number that I want to get at. But if I break it down to the small things, like, "You know what? I've eaten less honey buns," you're saying. So, like, that's a win. That's a win for my childhood. They've been my addiction, and I can say that I'm actively not eating as many. So that's a small win. So sometimes you just gotta, you know, take that and then keep trying to go forward with the rest.

Paul Beckermann 28:39
I love it, and I'm kind of in alignment with both of you. I just think the more we can focus on the good, the positive, the celebrations, the glass half full, I think that asset-based lens will take us a long ways. David, what's your final thoughts for our listeners today?

David Shaffer 29:02
So we started talking about community at the very beginning of this, and I think that it really takes that community to create the system. So, you know, you've got a bunch of people in your building, a bunch of experts in something along the way. So get that group of teachers together, get parents involved, and figure out exactly how you want to build this program from the ground up for your school site.

You know, not every AVID program looks exactly the same, so you need to figure out how it's going to work for your students in your community, and they need to be involved in that process. So listen to them, let them be a part of it. You know, our students are very active in our school, and they have a huge voice in it, and we try to listen to them and their parents and our teachers and staff, and use that to help guide us as well. So make sure that they stay involved, because they're the ones that at the end of the day have to do this work. So they're a really important piece of it.

Winston Benjamin 29:59
Student-focused and driven. David, I would like to say thank you so much for being the closeout for this month's episodes and series of getting to really look into the minds of our principals. Thank you for your work in trying and supporting your students, in believing in themselves and having success across the board, in finding value in community and continuing to value themselves. And yo, holding the door for somebody is a simple thing, but really does wonders for the person you hold the door for. That is a great lesson. I just want to say thank you for that. Have a good night.

Rena Clark 30:40
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 30:44
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 30:57
We'll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 31:01
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 31:05
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 31:07
You make a difference.