Creating a Culture of Care and Excellence in Christian Education | Matt Tiller of Middle Tennessee Christian School

Matt Tiller (00:00)
everything we do in organizations can be copied except our culture. steal personnel, can copy policies and procedures, products, all those things can be taken, but your culture is unique to your organization. And it could be…built somewhere else, but your culture can’t be copied.

Tim Carroll (00:14)
Welcome to Culture at Work, where we explore what it takes to build great workplace culture in an ever-changing world. I’m your host, Tim Carroll. And on today’s episode, we have Matt Tiller, president of Middle Tennessee Christian School. During his tenure as president, MTCS has seen consistent growth in enrollment, record-breaking fundraising success, enhancements to the academic program, and a renewed focus on student spiritual formation.

Mr. Tiller enjoys spending time with his family and attending many of the athletic and arts events at MTCS. Before accepting his role as president,

Before accepting his role as president in 2016, Matt Tiller spent two and a half years as the vice president and chief operations officer at Middle Tennessee Christian School. In that role, he provided leadership in a variety of operational areas, including primary responsibility for ensuring the financial health of the institution. Prior to coming to MTCS in 2013, Matt spent 17 years at Lipscomb University providing leadership to the Human Resources Department and other operational areas. His roles there included serving as the Director of Human Resources and the Associate Vice President for Operations. This is a great conversation. Let’s get right to it.

Tim Carroll (01:37)
Matt, hey, thank you so much for being with us today. Really, really appreciate your time. And I have to say in full disclosure, you do lead the school that my kids go to, which is a great thing. And we have really enjoyed it. But you have led MTCS through a lot of change, a lot of growth, just in the time that we’ve been a part of it. And I’m certain for years prior to And interested, how do you define culture?

Matt Tiller (02:08)
Well, first of all, we are thrilled to have the Carroll family at MTCS. You and your wife are a huge part of our community and we love your boys. and the fact that you’ve asked me to be a part of this, I appreciate that. I’m honored to be on the, on the podcast with you. So culture is interesting, isn’t it? It’s easier to experience than it is to define sometimes. And so, but I think if I’m trying to think about a definition, it would be the idea that you have established and agreed upon values and behaviors. And I think establishing agreed upon is really important. Sometimes that’s a step we might miss. And then it’s through the lens of those things that you act, that you establish behavior, that you make decisions, that quite frankly, you build relationships. And when it’s done well, it’s just something that’s felt, it’s experienced and maybe even hard to describe by those who experience, but they can’t ignore it. It really becomes the DNA of the organization. I have a good friend that says that everything we do in organizations can be copied except our culture. steal personnel, can copy policies and procedures, products, all those things can be taken, but your culture is unique to your organization. And it could be…

built somewhere else, but your culture can’t be copied. So I do think it’s really, really important to what makes any organization unique. And while I work in an educational institution, we are an organization, alive breathing organizations, all those things apply. But that’s how I would attempt to describe culture. But I do think it’s interesting that we would all experience it and feel it, but maybe it’s not as easy to define sometimes.

Tim Carroll (03:34)
So from the outside looking in, I would think, and maybe there’s not a difference, but you are building, would think, almost, and maybe not, but two different cultures. You’ve got, I mean, how do you approach it with educators and the staff versus the students? Is it the same? Is it different? Do you approach it differently?

Matt Tiller (03:52)
No, I could see why there might be a thought that it would be two different cultures, but it’s our desire for it to be one. And part of that is children are extremely sharp and they see through anything that’s phony or that’s fake. Well, yes, I’m sure that’s case. They’re not unique in that regard. But if they perceive that somehow our employment culture

Tim Carroll (04:06)
Especially the Carol boys. Yeah. ⁓

Matt Tiller (04:18)
what we expect of each other as adults is different than what we expect of them. That won’t work. And quite frankly, that will not create genuine faith that we’re trying to create as well. So we really want that to be consistent. And it’s easier for us because we can rally around our faith and our expectations we have from scripture and from God. And that’s consistent no matter where we are. Now we have done some very unique things with our employment culture, with core values and how we evaluate success.

Tim Carroll (04:21)
Yeah, good point.

Matt Tiller (04:47)
and even what we expect of our people, but all those things are connected back to our Christian mission. And so I would say that we attempt for it to be one. I would say this is also, you know this, it’s a pursuit that you’re never perfectly gonna play out, but you’re always, you can perfectly pursue with intentionality. But we would attempt for it to be one sense of culture.

Tim Carroll (05:07)
So what are some intentional ways that you kind of protect and reinforce this on campus on a day-to-day basis?

Matt Tiller (05:14)
I love that question because it is a, I do believe you have to preserve and protect your culture in a very intentional way. Otherwise the culture we live in broadly will begin to influence you at your organization in a way that’s not helpful. And especially at a place like us where we are, we’re so intentionally trying to pursue God’s will in of all, we spend a tremendous amount of time talking about

the things that define our culture from an employee perspective. We have core values. We talk about our core values on a regular basis. It’s really communication and also, these are not always comfortable conversations, but there has to be accountability to your culture. There has to be a willingness to, in a loving and encouraging way, encourage your people when they maybe have gone afoul of what you expect from a cultural perspective. It’s also

critically important that you hire people that are supportive of your culture. As you’re making decisions about who’s the right fit, that culture is a significant part of that conversation. If it’s not, then you’re gonna quickly find yourself easing away from that, which is important. Then also there’s decisions you have to make on a regular basis that may seem like decisions that would be an easy decision outside of your culture, but when you consider your culture, it’s different. For instance, in Christian,

Tim Carroll (06:08)
That’s right.

Matt Tiller (06:28)
Education right now pre K through 12 education. The demand has never been higher. Especially in Middle Tennessee. And where we are in TCS and I’m not boasting, I’m just giving you another context. We’ve never had to turn away more students. There is a temptation in moments like this. To increase class sizes because you know you can increase enrollment. But for us to do that would be really threatening part of our culture and that is the relational aspect of what we do student to student to teacher.

So you have to resist maybe what is the perception of success in the world that may challenge your own culture as well. So there are a variety of ways that we have to be very intentional about protecting. it’s so much of our culture, especially the relational side has been around since 1962. I’ll just be very transparent with you about that. There’s always been a sense at this place that the individual care is just different. And I, you know, it’s unique because I’m talking to someone who’s a parent here and I hope you feel that as a parent.

But we really do care deeply for the individual, the individual family, the individual student. And that is to be protected. That’s really important.

Tim Carroll (07:25)
Absolutely.

So you said a couple of things in there that I find very interesting and one is that cultural fit. How do you as an organization gauge that cultural fit before you bring on? Because you know, the old adage of, you know, hire slow, fire fast in an organization. How do you hire slowly and make sure they are a cultural fit?

Matt Tiller (07:54)
Couple of good questions. So in the educational world, the one thing you want to avoid is making hires in June or July. I would call those panic hires. And if you really want to pursue the idea, I love the concept of hiring slow. think firing quick is sometimes a bit of a harsh reality that not a little bit’s fair. It’s different when you’re in an educational setting where

Tim Carroll (08:14)
Probably a corporate, more of a corporate thing.

Yeah.

Matt Tiller (08:20)
the relational connections are so entwined. So you have to think about that a little bit differently, but you’re never going to hire slow in the educational world if you’re hiring in June and July. So part of it is beginning your process way early. And we say this all the time, building a bench of people that you know, we’re already going to be culturally consistent. But I will say this, our principals are the ones who make the hiring decision about their faculty. They know that because we spent so much time in our leadership team talking about

things that are important to us and hires, they know to be looking for those things. But I actually interview every single employee that works in MTCS. And I ask really one question and it’s all about cultural fit. I’m not asking them what kind of teacher they are. I’m not asking them to talk to me about their education. I’m asking them a couple of questions about their spirituality and who we are culturally. I’m getting a response from that. And so there’s a part of it where

I’m not micromanaging the hiring process, but I’m really in a lot of ways a steward for the culture. And I’m going to, I’ve got to make sure that I feel good about that as well. 99 times out of a hundred, that’s already been covered beautifully by our principals and it’s not an issue at all. But I think you have to, you have to interview to it. And there’s no other way around that. You have to interview to it. And there’s a reality that individuals who could be wonderful teachers at other places will not be a good fit for MTCS.

That doesn’t mean they’re not great educators. It’s just, it’s not a good fit for our culture. And we have to be willing to understand that and realize that and act upon it.

Tim Carroll (09:48)
You also mentioned values, big proponent of defined company values, corporate values, all of that. I’m curious for you, do you find it that once you create those values, those shared values, are they memorialized, put up on a wall and you just see them there? How do you live them out every day? And do they ever change or do they ever transition as the organization changes?

Matt Tiller (10:16)
I think they, I’ll ask you last question for I think they can, you know, we’re, early in that process for us having defined core values. I think we probably three years ago, four years ago, we went through a pretty involved process of saying, okay, what are our core values as an, a group of employees working together? And the process was pretty simple. I don’t know what process you’ve gone through, but our process was let’s, let’s agree who are our best employees today. And here’s what my experience has been. People know who their best employees are.

You know, you for us, our admissions director knows which classroom she’s going to take tours on because she knows who our best teachers are. You just know those things inherently. And so we began to say, here’s our best teacher. Let’s describe them. What makes them great and what shared values can we surface as a result of what makes them great? And we came up with six for us. Relationship. Character, which for us connects back to our Christianity. Productivity, professionalism.

Those are two separate, engaged and then vision minded. Those were the six things for us that came out of our core values that we’re going to define who we were as an organization. I do think those could change over time. And I think those are things we evaluate regularly and we’ll see what happens in that regard. So the temptation in education in every industry is you ramp up a new project, you launch it, and then nothing happens with it. And we certainly

I have the same temptation here. One of the things that we discussed just recently over the summer, I have a leadership retreat every year. And one of the questions I asked him was, our core values truly shaping our culture? And if they are, let’s talk about how they are. If they’re not, why are they not? And we agreed as a team, we need to be more intentional about communicating those things throughout the year. They need to be more part of our DNA and our language on a regular basis.

so that our people understand this is, we’re serious about these things. You don’t want it all to be about accountability measures. You also want it to be about communication and the things that you’re celebrating. And we have historically done a great job at the beginning of the school year because that’s how education works. You ramp up for the beginning of the year. And then if you’re not careful, you just hold on for the rest of the academic year, right? You just hold on for dear life. And so we had to be much more intentional about saying, no, no, we’re gonna remind, refresh, communicate. We’re gonna celebrate.

Tim Carroll (12:22)
Yes.

Matt Tiller (12:30)
Throughout the year on these six core values, but I will tell you that when we evaluate teachers, they’re evaluated on our six core values That’s how they’re evaluated. That’s how success is defined when we evaluate coaches. They’re evaluated on our six core values I’m evaluated by our board on our six core values. I think alignments really important as well consistency and alignment Regardless at all levels of the organization. That’s really really important also and we’ve been we’ve been fortunate enough

to be able to get completely aligned about what success looks like as well.

Tim Carroll (13:01)
Well, you know, I’ve always said you can tell a lot about an organization by what they reward and recognize. And I believe for us at Working Spaces, we do a really good job about rewarding and recognizing our culture and our values more importantly. So it sounds very much the same and that you guys are heading right down the right path. One thing that makes MTCS unique is faith is woven into every aspect of the experience.

which we love. How do you ensure that that faith doesn’t just live in your mission statement but shows up in your faculty and students and how they work together every day?

Matt Tiller (13:35)
let me first of all tell you how encouraged I am to hear you ask the question that way and for that to be your perspective as a parent, because that’s what we’re pursuing. And it’s great to hear that. I say to prospective parents, and I may have said it to you all, so we have these prospective admissions events often. And that really has shifted to be more of a fall moment than a spring moment because of the demand. We had one this week.

And I say, and I try to say it with great humility and gentleness, but if you’re not interested in a Christian education, we’re not the right private school for you. So part of it is from the very beginning set the right expectations. And I don’t mean by that we’re a perfect institution, but we are clearly efforting for Jesus to be a part of every single aspect of our school. Now, how do we do that? So I would say it starts with leadership in my mind. And these are going to sound really simple.

as a lot of things with faith do. But we are very intentional about ensuring that in both public moments and private moments that we’re people of prayer. Whether it be in a, obviously you would expect it in a chapel setting or whether it’s a part of an event. But when I’m having leadership meetings, we spend a tremendous amount of time in prayer. When I’m having an office suite meeting, we’re spending time in prayer. When I meet with architects and general contractors, we start off those conversations with prayer.

And so it starts by inviting God in to everything we’re involved in and seeking his will and his power to help us be successful. We also spend a good bit of time with our leadership team and study of God’s word together. That’s probably not something that’s consistent across all industries, but our administrative team, our academic leadership team meets every week. One of those meetings is predominantly a business meeting that we start out with a period of time of study. The other meeting is nothing but a Bible study. We do nothing but study scripture together. We don’t cover business.

We don’t do anything else, but we as a leadership team are building a relationship through this collective study of scripture. So that’s a huge part of it as well. I would also suggest to you that it goes back to accountability. We have to be willing when we’re not living within our Christian mission to hold each other accountable for that. And I think we’re willing to do that.

We’ve had some situations recently where we’ve had to say, that’s just not who we are from a Christian perspective. And there are all kinds of arenas that challenge that deeply. The way we care for each other makes a difference in showing that out. We have every, I don’t know that we’d have every, but we have issues. We have teenagers here. Tim, you aware of that? We educate teenagers. Yeah, you know that well because you have teenage boys. So they’re going to do silly things. That’s just life. But how we…

Tim Carroll (15:58)
Yo boy, do I

Matt Tiller (16:06)
how we hold them accountable and the way we treat them should be a little different in that regard. It goes back to what I said earlier. I do think you have to hire people that are fully committed to your Christian mission, that are passionate about it, that view their work in such a way that they’re not simply educating students, they’re ministering to students. And part of what I’m describing is this idea that everything you do, the lens for which you view your work is through a Christian lens. And so you see it all that way. You connect the dots.

Huge moment yesterday where our girls volleyball team won a state championship. So exciting for our community. ⁓ And thrilled about that. But as we were celebrating that yesterday, we put that in the context of, what is God calling us to do in this moment? We have an opportunity to show the world what it looks like to be successful. And when you have success, there’s more eyeballs on you. So what are we going to do with that? So connecting the dots for our students to understand, because this isn’t just something we talk about. Let me show you what it looks like to live it out. And when our students see it,

Tim Carroll (16:38)
So exciting.

Matt Tiller (17:03)
the dots connected everywhere they are. That’s where I really began to think. I think they’ll begin to view their life in the context of relationship with Jesus all the time, not just fragmented in certain aspects. Satan’s working against us there all the time. So we have to fight and battle consistently about that. But those are the things that we’re doing. The other thing I would just say, I don’t want to leave this out. We’ve actually invested significantly in personnel in spiritual formation. Years ago, I remember thinking if our core is spiritual formation.

How have we not invested in that with people to help us think through that? And so, you we have a spiritual formation team. It’s all of our responsibility, but we have a director of spiritual formation who’s brand new on our campus, who’s fantastic. We have two spiritual formation coaches. And part of what I say is those, those individuals are there to make sure that we’re consistently reminded what is most important in our mission. Cause as any organization, you can have mission creep. You get so busy running the organization that you forget what’s at your core.

And so we’ve also attempted to build in our own internal accountability with through people to remind us what our ultimate we’re about. So that’s a great question. And I appreciate the way you asked it. And it’s a, the word intentionality, I probably have said it six or seven times already, because it’s a word that means a lot to me. Cause I think that’s just what you have to be so intentional in what you’re pursuing to be successful.

Tim Carroll (18:19)
I guess I have to say I should have started this whole thing off by saying you are the leader of a state championship volleyball team. ⁓ my gosh, that is a, that’s a big deal. That is a, that was a big deal and everybody was very excited about that.

Matt Tiller (18:28)
No, that’s okay.

Well, I’ll

say this to you and I mean it with sincerity. As people were saying congratulations to me yesterday, I was like, please understand. I never went to a practice. I never coached the game. I never hit a single shot. Our girls and our coaches have worked incredibly hard and I’m extremely proud of them. And so we all celebrate, but they certainly deserve the credit for the hard work and God blessed them through it.

Tim Carroll (18:44)
Right.

No, no doubt. I will tell you that the my kids came home. It felt like they won the state championship. They they were yeah, they were very excited. You know back to what you were saying. I do believe and I I love what you’re saying about you know how intentional you are with with making sure that the the staff and the leaders within your school are are living out the values and living out faith because I do believe more is caught than taught and

Matt Tiller (19:01)
That’s a cool moment.

Tim Carroll (19:24)
If you don’t do that, they’re going to catch the wrong things and they’re going to think that’s what’s right and that’s how they should be. So I do love that. You know, we talk a lot about creating places to belong and that could be in any industry from corporate to health care to education. so creating places to belong is very important to a healthy culture. People want to feel like they belong.

Matt Tiller (19:28)
Yes.

Tim Carroll (19:50)
And so what are some of the ways you help students and the teachers and the families all feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves? Like the kids that feel like they won the state championship, even though they didn’t step foot on the court.

Matt Tiller (20:03)
Yeah,

and I’m again, that’s really a cool thing to hear school pride, right? That’s an old terminology, but it’s in a world with that. So much of our attention is individual. You have to work harder to have really the sense of we’re one community, one MTCS family. You know, we have, we have what’s called one nation chapel. We use that language intentionally when we’re all together. We’re, one MTCS nation, one MTCS community. think from an employee perspective, there’s this constant reminder and it’s our view. we, we stated often.

that every single employee here is part of carrying out our mission. We’re all in ministry. We all have the opportunity to reflect Jesus. And it all makes a difference. If the teacher does a great job in the classroom, the administrator does a wonderful job, and the spiritual formation team does a wonderful job. But when they get to the cafeteria, the dining crew is not doing a great job. Guess what? The kids are going to remember. And so there’s this idea that we’re all part of God’s mission here. And there are no

As scripture says, there are no undesirable parts. They use that analogy of a body and so all parts of the body are important. And I believe that. I’ll give you an example. Such a neat thing about yesterday. One of our members of our facilities crew, it’s his important responsibility to make sure that our building looks beautiful and keeps the space clean so that our students have a place free of distractions to work and to learn.

He had been writing scriptural encouragement notes on the whiteboard after every game for our volleyball team. And he took it upon himself yesterday before they even got in to write a note, congrats state champions, and stuck it above their locker room as they were coming in. And so when it was time to take pictures with all the people that they were celebrating, they specifically brought him in and said, we’ve got to have a picture with you because you’re a part of this by the way you’ve encouraged them. He saw something about his role.

and took upon himself to say, I’m a part of this. And I think there is, you celebrate those moments, you encourage those moments, and when they occur, you make sure that God gets the glory for that as people are reflecting that in him. And I’m grateful that’s been the case. Now, I will say this too. You mentioned students. I think our students need to know that they are children created by God with a purpose.

Tim Carroll (21:50)
Right.

Matt Tiller (22:08)
And they’re all uniquely created with unique talents and abilities. And part of our responsibility is to make sure we’re creating enough opportunities for all of them to know what their place is and how they can shine. It’s not just athletics. We spent a lot of time in the last year and a half trying to continue to expand the way we’re fulfilling our mission in the fine arts. Because we have some students who their giftedness is in the arts. That’s where they’re going to shine. I know you have certainly your own.

Interest there and talents there and so that resonates with you also But if we’re not doing a great job of creating those opportunities They’re not going to see that how important they are and where their purpose and their role is in MTCS And so part of our responsibility is to make sure that we’re giving our students the chance to shine wherever God has gifted them As it relates to the students and then for families. I Hope what our families realize is that we deeply care for each and every one of them They are immediately part of this MTCS family from the day one they show up

There is no arrogance about our community. is no, we don’t want to be, we want to be a community that feels humble and welcoming immediately and not off putting in any way. And I hope that’s what people experience from the day they show up on campus until their child graduates. So.

Tim Carroll (23:13)
Well, what I will tell you is, ⁓ you know, as a family that has moved around a bit, I mean, we’re from Middle Tennessee. We’ve luckily come back, come back home. But we’ve been in a lot of places. And I will tell you that ⁓ MTCS is a place that there are lot of opportunities to get involved as families. And

I know that we’ve been in places where we didn’t feel comfortable getting involved. That’s not MTCS. You get involved in everywhere you can and you can feel like you’re part of a larger whole there. But one thing I will say, and it hit me as you were talking, boy, what a great lesson to teach these kids. Because one thing that my kids came home from that state championship,

Matt Tiller (23:41)
Right.

Tim Carroll (24:01)
was that those young ladies have gone after this three, four years in a row, gotten to the state championship and didn’t win. Perseverance was taught that day to everybody, not just the young ladies that participated. And I think that’s a really, you know, again, feeling like you’re part of a larger entity, that’s a big deal, I think.

Matt Tiller (24:12)
Right.

Yeah, and I think too, you’re exactly right. And they had some tough moments they had to overcome through the process. And they also, and I said this to them yesterday, from the minute they got out of the tournament last year, they put upon themselves the pressure of expectations of winning a state championship. And they had to live under that all year of the pressure of their own expectations. And that is not easy. And to actually pull that off under that kind of pressure is admirable.

That doesn’t always work out that way Tim. That’s the other thing we have to recognize. It doesn’t always work out that way and part of all that’s exactly just because you work incredibly everybody works incredibly hard. That’s not the guarantee of success. So the other thing we have to help our students understand is how do you act when it works out that way and how do you act when it doesn’t and where are the god lessons in all of that regardless of what the results are so.

Tim Carroll (24:57)
Just because you want it doesn’t mean you get it.

Now the pressure is to repeat. ⁓

Matt Tiller (25:16)
That’s exactly right. think that’s they’re underclassmen last year. Hey, we’re a

little championship winning program, not just a team. We got to keep going. So yeah.

Tim Carroll (25:21)
That’s right. That’s right.

Tim Carroll (25:23)
Okay, we’re gonna break away for just a quick message and we’ll be right back after this.

Let’s get back to culture at work.

Tim Carroll (26:14)
So let’s get to education and education is obviously moving faster and evolving in ways that I can’t even wrap my brain around. how do you honor the tradition that defines MTCS while still innovating to meet the needs of today’s students and tomorrow’s world?

Matt Tiller (26:30)
I think that the easy part of this answer is culture and mission are bigger than methodology. They’re bigger than curriculum. They’re bigger than technology. Matter of fact, they would then shape how you utilize all those things. So you’re right. The educational world today compared to 1962 is a lot different. the unique thing about education, it changes about every three or four years if you allow it to.

The world of education is terrible about, let’s, have the new silver bullet that’s going to solve everything. And that silver bullet lasts for about three years. And there’s the next, the next new one. One of the unique things about private education, you don’t have to follow that. You don’t have to ride that roller coaster, which is a nice thing. You can decide what’s, what you determine is best. But I would say, you know, our mission is the same. It’s going to be consistently the same. It’s Christ centered education in a nurturing environment. It’s academically rigorous.

that encourages students to be lifelong servants in God’s kingdom and lifelong learners. That mission is broad enough that it’s going to be applicable no matter what’s going on in the world around us as it relates to education. I think where we could be challenged and I think where we would push back is if private education or education at all becomes non-relational, then we’re going to have a hard time fulfilling our mission. We’re going to try to, we’ll give an option that says, we’re going to be relational. And we see some of that creeping in, know, the online options and those kinds of things that aren’t relational, but that’s not going to be who we are.

But otherwise, whether it’s, you know, it’s common core five or six years ago or whatever the case may be, you know, there’s been lots of changes in education, whether you’re offering vouchers now for private school students, all of those things are things you adjust to, but they don’t impact your culture and they don’t change your mission. And so we just live those things out and we make sure that those things adjust only as we feel like God’s calling us to adjust those aspects. It’s a little bit to me like worship. I don’t want to get too far off track here, but who we worship.

and why we worship never changes, but our methodologies change over time. How we worship may change over time, but it doesn’t change the purpose of what we’re doing. That’s still the same.

Tim Carroll (28:34)
So let’s talk pedagogy for a second. And let’s talk about, you talk methodology and you talk all of that is, I mean, one would assume, I don’t know this for fact, but that you at MTCS have a way, an MTCS way. And if that is the case, does that change over the years? You mentioned a three year cycle. Do you evolve that over time or how do you handle that?

Matt Tiller (29:01)
Yeah, so I think that’s great. Yeah, so we have historically up until recently, we’ve been a very traditional education model in lots of ways. You you’re in some ways our model has followed in terms of the pedagogy, which some of our principals love that word and some of them don’t like it at all. But in terms of the method of teaching has been very similar to what you would see in the public school system that has changed in the last.

seven eight years, especially in our elementary school, and it’s beginning to permeate even further, where we decided we think the best way to teach is through what’s called project-based learning and integrated curriculum. So instead of thinking math, English, social studies, no, let’s teach all three at one time and help kids understand how they’re connected because that’s what they’re going have to do in life.

And so we’ve integrated literacy and our biblical worldview into all of that. We’ve gone away from traditional ABCD report cards. We do standards based report cards in our elementary school because what really matters at the elementary level is not what your grade point average is. That doesn’t mean anything. Are you learning what needs to be learned? And so what’s great about a place like MTCS is we can make those kind of changes with about in a room full of five or six people and implemented immediately. And we’re really nimble because of our size.

And we’re now thinking about what does that look like as it moves up the chain? How does that look? What does that look like to integrate that some into middle school? What does that look like in high school is a little bit of a bigger challenge because there’s so much requirements about if you’re college prep, which we are, you’ve got to make sure whatever you’re doing in high school is what the colleges expect when they get to college. And so you’re almost you have to work backwards a little bit there. So, yeah, we’re always going to adjust the thing that I love about and I’m not.

I am not critical of anything in public education. I grew up in Knoxville. I went to public elementary school, public middle school, public high school, and I’m grateful for that experience. I am grateful that in Rutherford County, we have really strong public schools. So what I’m saying is not at all critical, but we have the privilege of deciding in every decision what’s best for students. Bottom line, full stop, what is best for students? And for us at our size,

That can lead that discussion and we can make adjustments however we need to and we will continue to make adjustments will make adjustments in middle and high school. If the methodology needs to change, then will change it because that’s what’s best for students. So yes, it’s going to. It’s going to adjust. It’s going to change. And we will adjust as necessary, but we’re not following fads. We’re not following the latest greatest thing. That’s that’s not good for students. We need need to have a prayerful decision about what we think is best for them. So.

Tim Carroll (31:18)
you.

Right.

Matt Tiller (31:30)
You’re exactly right. We’re in industry that’s changing consistently. We’re also in a city that is changing regularly and quickly as well. We’re at a school who’s demographically we have changed dramatically in the last 10 years. And we’re after to adjust that as far as that’s concerned also. So we’re constantly having to adjust. People say that people in general don’t like change. I’m not sure that’s true because if you’re in most industries, you’re changing all the time and adjusting.

Tim Carroll (31:36)
Yes.

Matt Tiller (31:55)
I think people don’t like change for change sake. I don’t think people like change that’s not well communicated and they don’t understand the why behind it. But we’re consistently having to adjust.

Tim Carroll (32:06)
intentional change. think that’s strategic. All right, let’s go ahead and say it. Let’s go ahead and ask the question. I think I would be remiss if I didn’t say, how are you handling AI? What are you doing with it? How are you guys integrating it? How are you guys thwarting it in an educational perspective?

Matt Tiller (32:07)
Intentional change. That’s right. Strategic change. Well thought out change. I agree with you, Bess.

Yes.

Yeah, so I would say this. think that’s our approach is still evolving, but we are attempting to. There’s a few things. One, there’s a lot of resources for our teachers and our students in the AI world that as we’re continuing to try to educate them, specifically our teachers about what’s available to them, that frees them up to spend more time connecting with our students individually.

And so that’s, I would say we do not view this AI world as a threat to everything that we’re doing. Quite frankly, I think AI, if appropriately utilized with our teachers, will facilitate what’s core about what we’re doing. And that’s the connection with our students relationally. If you think about some of the things that teachers have had to spend hours in the past doing, being able to get that done through artificial intelligence in a way that’s effective, that gives them more time, again, to focus on the individual learner.

So there certainly are challenges to try to keep up with our students and their knowledge of AI to avoid them short circuiting the learning process. And we’re aware of all those things with our technology team. put all those wonderful safeguards in place to try to avoid that. But in our view, it’s an area that needs attention and research.

for the appropriate utilization to assist what we’re doing and not view it as only something to be kept at arm’s length. I don’t think we can afford to do that. We can’t put our head in the sand. We’re gonna have to see what’s helpful for us. It’s not going away. And this entire podcast could have been done via AI, which is amazing to see. I’ve seen some of those and just to clarify, this is not AI, right? We’re here live. This is real. No, I don’t think that’s true. The guest would be stronger, that’s for certain.

Tim Carroll (33:58)
No, it’s not. Yeah. The host would be much better if it were AI.

Matt Tiller (34:06)
That’s our approach. That’s how we’re viewing it. Like we do most technology, quite frankly.

Tim Carroll (34:10)
All right, let’s drill down a little bit just because I’m curious and I think others would be, how are you from an educational perspective stopping these children from using chat GPT to write papers among other things?

Matt Tiller (34:24)
my English department would do a better job responding to this than I will. But there are scrubbing softwares that can go through a paper and identify what’s been written and done, created by human and what’s been done by AI. Now, have to, those things have to constantly be updated all the time because the others have been as well. But really it’s a technology solution to a technology problem is really what we’re doing right now.

Tim Carroll (34:40)
Mm. Yeah.

Matt Tiller (34:48)
There are other ways. There are other ways. You also can require students to do a lot of that writing in class and while you’re together and ensure they’re able to do that the tools available. thing about, and again, if we had our English folks here, which is you typically think about, what you don’t want to do is keep your

Tim Carroll (34:54)
Yeah, that’s good.

Matt Tiller (35:08)
kids from being able to express themselves in writing and their own thoughts and be able to think strategically about those kind of things. are things that I will confess, there are communication pieces where I think AI is very appropriate. And I would encourage our students to use those, but not when they’re thinking about how to express themselves creatively and effectively. So, but again, technology solutions and technology problems for the most part is how we’re handling that right now.

Tim Carroll (35:29)
So I’ve always been a fan of the concept of a flipped classroom, where you are doing the work, the homework in the class, and then doing some learning via whatever platform, a video or whatever. Have you, maybe you guys do this and I’m unaware, but have you ever thought about that? Is that an old concept that didn’t play out well? What are your thoughts on that?

Matt Tiller (35:51)
No, we do have a couple of classes are doing a flip classroom and I think it it works beautifully for some learners and not as well for others. The other thing we’ve had to manage is the perception by parents that we’re not teaching.

Tim Carroll (36:03)
Yeah.

Matt Tiller (36:04)
And

so you really have to, in some ways you have to adjust the expectation of parents and communicate well because they’re used to a model that says teachers deliver content, we go home and work it out. And if the teachers aren’t delivering content in the classroom, it doesn’t feel like they’re getting the value for what they paid for at some level. So there’s some adjusting, but we do have that going on in a couple of classrooms. And I think it has, we haven’t stopped doing that because it’s been a bad experience. I just think we’ve had to work through some of the expectations and changing those.

Tim Carroll (36:33)
Interesting. All right, so I got time for one more question. And this is a personal one for you. So when you think about your legacy at MTCS, what do you hope people will say about the culture you helped build and how it shaped the lives of those who are part of it?

Matt Tiller (36:49)
Yeah, you’ve sent me these questions and I looked at that one and my initial reaction, and I hope you’ll hear my spirit in this, I don’t think a lot about legacy, Tim, in fairness. And I think part of that is the concept and I do think I have a way to answer your question, but legacy seems to get the attention back on me in ways that I think is a bit uncomfortable. I don’t want just my time here to be about my impact or my influence. I want to make sure God’s

gets the glory for any of that. And I certainly am not in a place where I think every day about what difference am I making in such a way that how I’ll be remembered. However, there are, if I think about that question from the perspective of what part of our culture do I want to endure for the next 15, 20, 50, 100 years? And what would make me be encouraged to see continues to be part of this place, which is a different way of answering your question, I think.

Tim Carroll (37:40)
Sure.

Matt Tiller (37:42)
then the first thing would be, my prayer would be that this will continue to be a place where people know that they are cared for as individuals deeply. And that care is not for any purpose other than that we value and we love people and we care about them. And we care about individuals.

as they’re part of our community. And quite frankly, that care extends. We had a young man that withdrew recently. And I think about him regularly and care deeply for him. He’s not our student anymore, but the love permeates beyond that. And so the sense of family and community and relationship and care and nurturing has been part of us forever. I pray that never changes. And I pray that my time here has facilitated that, maybe strengthened it, and that continues to strengthen for the future.

The intentional pursuit of God in a way that’s real, as you and I have just talked about today, that is counter-cultural and is pervasive. And I pray that continues, that we’re not a Christian school in name only, but we’re a Christian school in everything that we do and to the glory of God. I pray that continues. And then the third would be this pursuit of excellence. And we haven’t talked much about that,

There has been a time in our history and in Christian schools where we’ve used our Christianity as an excuse not to be great. And I think that is completely counter to what God would expect of us. I think God would expect us to be great because we have a relationship with Jesus.

Tim Carroll (38:57)
That’s right.

Matt Tiller (39:02)
And we worked really hard to set an expectation that we’re going to be great. We’re not going to be complacent. We’re going to be the best. We’re going to win championships, if you will, in athletics. But we’re going to be great educators. We’re going to have beautiful and great facilities. We’re going to dream big and be excellent for the sake of the kingdom. And I pray that continues as well. So those are just three or four things that came to my mind. And I understand completely the question of legacy. And I’m not being critical of that at all.

That language is not language I think about often. If there’s this question of how do I want to be remembered, it really would just be, he was a guy that pointed us back to Jesus and his leadership, and it was who he was, and it’s what he did for this campus, and we were blessed because of it. That’s really kind how I see this thing lining up. If we’re intentionally trying to pursue what God wants for us, he will bless us, and he has, and we’re grateful for that. And I pray that continues.

Tim Carroll (39:53)
Well, and hopefully you realize this. The spirit of the question wasn’t to start writing your obituary and you’re moving on. No, you’re there’s no intent of getting you out of here. You’re going to have a legacy whether you think about it or not, and it’s going to be great. I will tell you just from our perspective as a family. I love that my kids are learning.

Matt Tiller (40:00)
Yes.

Tim Carroll (40:15)
but more importantly that their faith is growing on a daily basis. And I love seeing that and that they go and be able to live that out every day at that school. And we love being there. I really appreciate you. I appreciate the staff of MTCS and I appreciate your time today. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Matt.

Matt Tiller (40:34)
Thank you. It’s a privilege to be doing this work. Grateful to have your family a part of it. I see your boys in the hall. We’re fist bumping and high-fiving every time I see them. And it’s just a privilege to be about doing God’s business here. Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about MTCS as we talk about culture. Again, it’s been a good time to visit with you. And I thank you for all that you and your wife do to advance God’s kingdom here as well. We appreciate you. All right, take

Tim Carroll (40:54)
Well, thank you so much.