“It is during times like this that you will learn what you are made of; this is what you have been preparing for all these years,” Don said last week in a Zoom conversation he leads with a group of new and veteran principals and
This is a new and strange time for many of us (although my dad reminds me he lived through the Polio epidemic). Most of us outside of the medical profession don’t have experience with a virus like COVID-19. School closures, tele-education, panic at the grocery
It is one of the fundamental laws of organizational change that innovation is spurred by “networked connectivity,” the degree to which individuals and groups are connected to others. And, the degree to which innovation percolates across an organization is often a function of how much
Are you looking for some inspiration in 2020? Perhaps you’re feeling the need to get back to the heart and soul of good leadership, or you’d like to hone your observation skills. Or, perhaps you’re looking to inspire systems change throughout your whole district. These new Spring publications from Corwin’s
How would you finish the sentence, “If I could open my own school, I would…”. If you have the time, stop reading this post and wrestle with that sentence starter for a while. Without concern for the bottom line or budget restrictions, let your imagination run wild about the opportunity to start
Why Investing in the Experience Our Educators Have Will Produce the Greatest Student Achievement The interest in teacher recruiting and retention continues to grow across the country and has become a higher priority for all school districts. According to the Learning Policy Institute’s 2016 report, “A Coming
What can we do to improve our children’s schools? Let’s listen to these voices from policymakers, school-building leaders, teachers, parents and the media about today’s education systems: Schools today are dangerous and violent places. Students aren’t becoming equipped to succeed in 21st-century higher education
After decades of hoping the problem would go away, educators -- from the classroom, to school sites, to the district boardroom -- finally understand that we are living in a very rapidly changing world. And they are starting to realize that schools that transform to help students and teachers embrace the challenges and opportunities of this
One of the hardest things to do as a leader is to have a courageous conversation with a staff member. These conversations are awkward, uncomfortable, and typically against our nature as leaders. However, these conversations are needed to move the school forward, to strengthen school
Whether you are beginning a coaching effort, or continuing to build on what’s been started, an important step is to clearly define the coaching role. Through our work in K-12 schools, we’ve learned that if we are intentional about defining the coach’s role, then teachers