If you’re an educational leader, you may have led (or will lead) hundreds if not thousands of teachers, counselors, librarians, cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals, registrars, bookkeepers, custodians, maintenance technicians, secretaries, bus drivers, and nurses. You are creating a legacy every day you come to work. You are leaving your mark—an indelible impression upon the educators entrusted to your care. How will your staff remember you?  I wonder…

They may not remember your mission statement or your strategic plan.

They may not remember how many diplomas hung on your wall.

They may not remember how many times you were quoted in the paper or how many times someone took your picture.

They may not remember how eloquent you were in faculty meetings or how well you crafted your emails.

They may not remember how well you aligned the curriculum.

They may not remember how thorough you were in your evaluations or that you submitted all your reports on time to the central office or state department.

They may not remember all the professional development workshops you coordinated.

They may not remember how many teams you led or how many committees you chaired.

They may not remember the test scores you touted or the press releases you wrote.

These are all good things, and most effective leaders reflect some if not all of the qualities or behaviors on this list. The fact that your staff may not remember this stuff might bother you. Don’t let it.

There are plenty of things that your staff will remember.

They will remember the time they saw you mopping a spill on the floor when it wasn’t really your job.

They will remember that you listened—that you always had time to listen.

They will remember that you could be silly, that you appreciated practical jokes, and that you never took yourself too seriously.

They will remember that you would ask them about their family members, and they will never forget that time you visited them in the hospital.

They will remember that time you gave them a shout-out. They will remember how good it made them feel.

They will remember that you always had their back.

They will remember that you were always upbeat, even in the face of adversity.

They will remember how much you always encouraged them, and that you were one of their biggest cheerleaders.

They will remember that you never took them for granted.

They will remember that you treated everyone in the organization like they were important—that you valued everyone’s contributions.

They will remember that you didn’t ask anyone to do things that you weren’t willing to do yourself.

They will remember that you always figured out a way to shine the spotlight on someone else.

They will remember that you always seemed to appreciate how challenging their job was.

They will remember that you genuinely cared about all of your colleagues.

They will remember that time you made a bad decision, but you owned up to it.

They will remember that time you supported them in the parent-teacher conference. You don’t remember it. But they do.

They will remember that you always tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.

They will remember that you always knew their family is the most important thing in the world to them. And you allowed them to take care of them without feeling guilty.

They will remember that you always kept the focus on students, and that you never lost your love for kids.

Continue to engage in all those activities that characterize effective school leaders, but remember that you are leaving a legacy that transcends test scores and strategic plans.  It’s much more likely that your staff will remember you for all the little things. You are their leader, and you encourage them, support them, and inspire them.  They will remember you because you make a difference—and you know they make a difference too!

Danny Steele has served as the principal of Thompson Sixth Grade Center in Alabaster, AL, for the past five years, where his passion has been building a school culture that values connections with kids, fosters collaboration among teachers, and focuses on raising student achievement. In the fall of 2019, he will be an assistant professor of instructional leadership at the University of Montevallo. In 2005 Steele was recognized as Alabama’s Assistant Principal of the Year, and in 2016 he was named Alabama’s Secondary Principal of the Year. He has written two books with Todd Whitaker: Essential Truths for Teachers and Essential Truths for Principals. Follow him on Twitter (@SteeleThoughts) and check out his blog, Steele Thoughts.

Growing up, some of my favorite movies were part of the “Indiana Jones” series. I loved how Indy lived a normal life as a professor, lecturing college students on the history of the world. Little did they know their professor lived a secret life full of adventure, excitement, close calls, and possible doom. When Indiana Jones took off his glasses and tie, he evolved from passionate teacher into an adventurous seeker of wisdom. Jones knew he would never grow in the wisdom department by sitting inside the four walls of his stuffy office looking at the curriculum he was paid to teach. He knew wisdom came through experiences and sometimes unrealistic adventures.

As school leaders, we have two options. We can be school leaders who believe prior learning is all the knowledge needed to lead, or we can use our educational background as a foundation and continue to build upon it by seeking wisdom daily. We should have our maps and compasses in hand each day, because this hunt for wisdom is actually a journey that lasts a lifetime.

Below are a few Indiana Jones–inspired ways that you can seek wisdom to be the most effective school leader for your staff and students. Some are easily obtainable with a few changes in your life, but others may take you outside your comfort zone and require a leap of faith, as Indy discovered in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” So grab your whip, brown sable fedora, and leather satchel, and let’s start this wisdom-seeking adventure together.

Searching for Wisdom Through Reading

In “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” Jones’ father sends Indy his Grail diary before being kidnapped by the Nazis. The book contains priceless wisdom that guides Indy’s steps through the three trials at the end of the movie. Without the wisdom gained from reading the text, Indy would have (literally) lost his head.

As school leaders, we need to be the lead learner of the school. We need to dive into books that are research-based and relevant to our lives so we can face our leadership trials head on. In my search for wisdom, I have challenged myself to be an avid reader. I have always been told you have to read to lead, and I believe that is 100 percent accurate.

Last year, I challenged myself to read 60 books plus the Bible from June 20, 2018 to June 20, 2019. I am proud to say that I reached my goal and beyond and read 74 books this year.

The knowledge I gained from reaching this goal is immeasurable.  I have a better foundation for decision making and leading than ever before. Was this challenge hard? Yes! Were there days I was tired and didn’t want to read? Of course! Leaders, make it a goal to read daily. Your school deserves someone who can inspire it with your continual wisdom and guidance.

Searching for Wisdom with Other Wisdom Seekers

Indy surrounded himself with wisdom seekers such as his father, Marcus Brody, and Sallah el-Kahir. He knew he would need a strong team if he wanted to achieve his goals. Like Indy, I surround myself with individuals who have the same mindset of seeking wisdom. By doing this, we hold each other accountable for our goals and check on each other often to see how we are progressing. We meet at least once a week to talk about our lives, adventures, and progress in seeking wisdom. When I struggled with my goal to read daily, the difference was that when doubt crept in, I knew I could reach out to a fellow wisdom seeker for support, and they would help me stay on course.

Everyone experiences life in different ways. When you can experience life through the lens of others with the same passion, convictions, and goals, wisdom comes naturally. Find yourself a small accountability group and use the wisdom you gain to motivate yourself to get out in the world and seek new experiences.

Searching for Wisdom in the World Around You

Indiana Jones was a master adventurer. He would leave fear in the backseat and set out for whatever he was looking for. This is the area of wisdom seeking I struggle with the most. For me, stepping out of my comfort zone to gain wisdom is a challenge. Seeking wisdom through experiences has many obstacles, such as time and financial commitments, but the biggest obstacle for most (me included) is fear—fear of the unknown, and fear of stepping out of your bubble into a vulnerable state where you are not sure what to expect.

In my quest for greater wisdom, I pushed myself way out of my comfortable bubble and traveled to Uganda. I left my family for two weeks and helped train teachers while teaching orphans from four different orphanages. Experiences like these help you see life through a new lens and give you newfound wisdom you never thought you could obtain. Was I scared to death? Heck yes! Did I know what to expect? Not really, but I didn’t let my fear control my adventure.

Seeking wisdom is scary. You never truly know what the journey will bring you. But, even in fear, leaders need to take that next step in seeking wisdom—not only for themselves, but for those they lead. Good luck, leaders, and remember that while you never know where wisdom searching will take you, eventually you will find the Holy Grail!

Which wisdom-seeking ideas do you already practice in your own life? Who could be your accountability partner on your search for wisdom? What is the “Holy Grail” that you have gained through your search for wisdom?

Roger Gurganus is an assistant principal at Brownstown Middle School, a grade 6–7 building in Brownstown, MI. He has a passion for children and education and strives to ensure that every student is connected and feels included in the positive communities he creates. Along with creating a culture of hope and love in his own middle school, Roger also is committed to bringing hope, love, and education to the children of Uganda, where each summer he travels in hope of making a bigger difference in the lives of students who need it the most. Roger believes that teaching is not just a job but a calling and hopes that through his work lives can be changed, dreams can become reality, and mountains can be moved. Follow his educational and leadership journey on Twitter (@RogerGurganusII), Instagram (@RogerGurganusII), YouTube (@BMSWARRIORS67), and his blog.

As I prepared for new teacher training, I came across an Education World article with sound advice for first-year teachers, including a list of the “ABCs” that would help make them successful in the classroom. I took the concept and modified it for new administrators.

THE ABCs FOR FIRST-YEAR ADMINISTRATORS

• Accept all responsibility but give all credit.
• Battles—pick them wisely and fight for what is important.
• Communicate with all stakeholders.
• Develop a team approach.
• Empower your teachers to do what is best for students.
• Find a mentor.
• Get into classrooms early and often.
• Have the courage to admit when you are wrong and learn from your mistakes.
• Institute clear expectations for students and staff.
• Join your state and national association(s).
• Keep your superintendent in the loop.
• Learn your corporation or district’s policies and procedures.
• Manage your emotions.
• Never quit, never give up!
• Organize yourself.
• Prepare for the unexpected.
• Quit beating yourself up and focus on doing your best.
• Read Principal Leadership, NASSP Bulletin, and the Principal’s Update e-newsletter.
• Stay focused on what is important, not just what is urgent.
• Take time for yourself. Be healthy and live a balanced life.
• Understand other people’s points of view.
• Visibility—get out of your office and into the hallways, classrooms, and cafeteria.
• Write notes of appreciation.
• X-amine yourself and reflect often.
• Yearn for continuous improvement.
• Zero in on what is best for your students. Make decisions with your students in mind.

As you start your new school year as a relatively new administrator, I would also encourage you to reach out to others in the profession, ask questions, and seek advice. Nothing great is ever achieved alone—it takes teamwork and trusting others to be successful. Knowing you are not alone and that others may be facing the same challenges can help you place things in the correct perspective.

If you are a veteran administrator, I’d encourage you to seek out new principals, assistant principals, and deans. Offer your assistance or simply listen. A great way to connect with fellow administrators is by attending your state association’s district meetings. If your state does not have district meetings, then I encourage you to start your own collaboration by hosting a meeting with your colleagues. Who are your colleagues you can go to for collaboration? How can you assist others in our profession? 

Enjoy your journey and have a great start to your school year.

Dave Strouse is principal of Batesville Middle School in Batesville, IN. He is the 2018 Indiana Secondary Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter at @Batesville_BMS.

This summer, I read many articles from and about teachers leaving education for myriad reasons. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, teacher turnover is about 16 percent, compared to about 12 percent a quarter-century ago. In one specific post that resonated with me, a much-loved and well-respected teacher articulated five reasons why she was leaving the classroom. As I reflected on each of these reasons, I couldn’t help but think about what our leadership team is doing well and what all of us as school leaders can do better.

Class Size

It seems simple enough: keep it low. But how exactly do education leaders influence this? There’s only so much money to go around, right? What can we do in a school corporation or district where low class sizes aren’t kept a priority? To start, we should be working with our central office staff to ensure careful long-term planning and projections.  Since every district is different in terms of population shifts; assessed value; urban, suburban, or rural composition; commercial-residential mix; property tax caps; and grant funding, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to school funding and stretching our educational dollars as far as possible.

Because there isn’t one formula, we must be strategic. We must use data to help make projections for the future. We must project growth or declining enrollment, make the adjustments to staff, and include the money in this long-range forecast. Through all of this, we have to focus our dollars on teachers. Teachers are the single greatest determiners of student success. Maybe our floors only get vacuumed once a week and our kids spend 10 minutes longer per day on their bus rides home. If this gives us money back to hire more teachers in order to bring class numbers down, isn’t it worth it?

Respect

2019 BCSC Teachers of the Year

We have to know and trust our teachers, and they need to trust us. Can we identify special people in our teachers’ lives by name? What are their interests outside of school? When a teacher comes to us with an idea, do we answer with a “Yes, have you thought of…?” When our teachers talk to us, do we listen intently and hear them? Do we ask them about students? Do we show them on a regular basis that we count on them to be the primary assessors of their students’ learning? Do we engage them in rigorous dialogue about their student data? Do we support our teachers when things get sticky with students and parents? Do we deliver the company line as a team that accomplishes goals or initiatives together? Do we close feedback loops and follow up when we say we will?

There are so many simple ways day in and day out that we show respect to our teachers. It is imperative that we are consistent and unwavering in this basic responsibility of educational leaders. To read more about how we support our teachers to build trust and respect, check out this post from last year.

Testing

Spirit Day Fun

What can we do about standardized testing? A good starting point is to limit testing to what your state requires. Beyond the required standardized assessments, build capacity in your staff to spend the majority of their assessment time in formative ways. Effective lesson planning builds checks for understanding into the curriculum. Teachers must bring these data to their professional learning communities for discussion and growth which, in turn, brings about student growth. If our respective states determine that our teachers must be assessed based on their students’ performance on a standardized test, make sure your teachers know this is just one measure. However, if this measure is tied to performance evaluations or pay, be sure to work with your teachers to build a guaranteed and viable curriculum and establish what elements are tight versus which ones are loose. Here’s how we focused our teaching and learning.

Workload

Teacher to Teacher Inspiration Award

The departing teacher whose post inspired this blog said she “felt like she was drowning.” I hear this commonly from teachers; I would venture to say that this could be the most common cause for leaving the profession. We must fight to cut out the hoops that our legislators or other leaders outside of our school building may want to impose. We must minimize new initiatives. We need to limit our schools to the essentials, and then stick with these same research-based best practices year after year, allowing our teachers to become experts in what works.

We cannot keep asking teachers to do more with less time. We need to build time into their workdays for peer collaboration. We must make time for fun and connection. As a leader, I say “yes” anytime I can. However, one area where I am quick to say “no” is anything that means putting more on our teachers’ already full plates.

Pay

Teachers make about 20 percent less than individuals with college degrees in other fields. This gap widens to about 30 percent by mid-career, according to the Learning Policy Institute. This is another area, like class size, that may seem a bit out of our control as building level leaders. However, we can make a difference through advocacy and managing up.

We must work with our central office staff to ensure we are managing our tax rate at an efficient level, maximizing our debt service expenditures, and keeping money in operations. (Again, states have varying funding laws.) Lastly, along with doing the most we can with the tax money we have at the district level, we can and should be advocating with our local and state lawmakers for increased funding for teacher compensation. To learn more about advocating for public education, read here.

Which of these five reasons that teachers leave resonates with you? Where can you envision getting your greatest leverage for change? We probably can’t tackle all five domains at once, but we can start somewhere. Which one area will you commit to improving for your teachers this year?

Amber Schroering serves as an assistant principal at Brownsburg East Middle School, one of the highest performing middle level schools in the state of Indiana. She considers it a privilege and honor to work with such amazing students, teachers and parents. Amber has taught and led for 18 years in public education. She is the 2017 Indiana Assistant Principal of the Year. Follow her on Twitter at @AmberSchroering.

I love using social media to tell the story of our school. I am passionate about how we employ social media to not just tell our story, but to engage our students, staff, and families. Instagram, in particular, has definitely helped us to not only promote the amazing things that are happening in our school, but also to connect to our students in ways we had not imagined.

In July 2018, I decided to learn how to use Instagram through a book study. Guess what? I discovered that our students live on Instagram. As I started posting more and more on Instagram, I was having more students see my posts and start interacting with my content.

I decided to use Instagram to post to our students each day of the school year.  I started by posting informational messages, but I quickly realized the power of using Instagram to promote our vision and connect with our students. Each morning, I posted a message to our students, staff, and families—sometimes informational, sometimes encouraging, sometimes motivational, sometimes just to say that I was thinking about them as I started my day.

Not only was I able to post pictures from our school—great things I saw in classrooms, videos of student performances, or awesome activities we were doing—but I also started making pictures on Adobe Spark Post that fit my purpose. I created calendar reminders, informational pictures about upcoming events, or just fun messages that I wanted to share.

Around November, the students started commenting on my posts as they saw me in the morning—“Hey, Mrs. Rackley, I liked your Bitmoji this morning!” or “I saw your reminder about Spirit Week this morning! I would have forgotten my hat if you hadn’t reminded me.” And, honestly, that was all the motivation I needed to keep posting and even turn it up a notch. I was so energized to connect with our students and engage them on Instagram.

Just before the holidays, I had 262 likes on my Instagram posts in 22 hours that I could identify as our students, staff, or families. It was like lighting a fire—within the next few days, I had more students and parents following me, liking our posts, and commenting about the fun things happening in our school. I love when parents see their students in a picture and comment or like the videos we post.

I love the opportunity to share our message, vision, goals, successes, and celebrations with our school. Instagram has opened doors to start conversations, recognize our students, embrace the great things happening at our school, and communicate with our students and families where they are. I post our Wakelet collections, newsletters, and important information to both Twitter and Instagram, trying to build as many bridges as I can with as many families as possible. Social media has provided a forum for us to create a true sense of #CommUNITY. From #FalconsCARE to #FalconFridays and Spirit Week to our grab and go breakfast cart, we have been able to use social media to promote our vision and goals with our students—and they are taking notice!

Mariah Rackley was named one of the Digital Principals of the Year for 2018 by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Mariah just completed her 18th year at Cedar Crest Middle School and her 10th as the building principal. Mariah’s professional interests include leadership, student agency, personalized learning, innovation, creativity, and motivation theory. Follow her on Twitter (@MrsRackleyCCMS) and on Instagram (mrsrackleyccms).

Engaging students and making learning relevant is an issue all educators reflect upon. As one of the higher performing high schools in Hawaii, we could have easily rested on our laurels. Over the last five years, the Roosevelt Rough Riders have consistently ranked in the top five public high schools in Hawaii for reading and math achievement scores. This ranking could suggest that all of our students were performing well academically.

A deeper dive into other relevant school data, however, revealed that we were lacking in some areas. More specifically, we identified a group of 28 upperclass students who were short on credits or categorized as being chronically absent—missing more than 15 days of school. If they continued on their path, it was pretty likely that they wouldn’t graduate with a high school diploma. We needed to act fast. 

Kaliopeku students working on a scale size model of a traditional Hawaiian house known as a hale. Photo: S. Wong

Cultural Project-Based Learning

A partnership with a community organization opened the doors for us to provide a class to support our targeted group of students. We named the class Kaliopeku, a Hawaiian term which literally means “rough rider.” The teaching approach for Kaliopeku needed to be different and innovative in order to reach our targeted group of students. After meeting with our school team and a Hawaiian cultural expert, we committed to Cultural Project-Based Learning (CPBL) as a teaching methodology to inspire, engage, and empower our students. Two of our teachers collaborated with the cultural expert to deliver innovative instruction to the Kaliopeku class.

Throughout the year, our students were immersed in various hands-on CPBL activities to connect them more closely to the Hawaiian culture. Students learned and practiced traditional Hawaiian protocol, chants, and methodologies. During the first semester, students made traditional Hawaiian hand tools and harvested their own kapa
(mulberry) bark in the forest to pound their own cloth from the kapa. The major projects for the second semester included students making their own ukulele, collaborating with a professional musician to write their own songs, and constructing a life size hale (traditional Hawaiian home) in the community.

Students constructing a life-size hale in the community. Photo: L. Hamel
Completed hale on display at the Mission House Museum in Honolulu. Photo: L. Hamel

Ho`ike

A culminating ho`ike (presentation) of our Kaliopeku program was held at the end of the school year with `ohana (family and friends), our faculty, and members of the community. The students showcased their understanding of Hawaiian culture through singing, dancing, and sharing a presentation of what they had learned.

Our Kaliopeku students showed significant improvements. Of the 28 students enrolled in the class, 26 improved their daily attendance rate compared to the previous school year, with 21 of them no longer chronically absent. In addition, all students earned credit for the class, and 15 of the seniors graduated on time with a high school diploma. The greatest difference was seeing the growth of the students’ sense of belonging, self-confidence, and knowledge and pride of the Hawaiian culture.

Through our Kaliopeku program, we were able to reach out to our targeted students, who needed a helping spark of inspiration, engagement, and a feeling of belonging. By using a hands-on approach and helping our students connect deeply with their culture, we were able to provide our students with the opportunity for success.

We will continue to reflect, analyze our data, and reach out to all our students by creating and providing programs and projects to meet their specific needs. It is our mission to make learning relevant for allstudents and give them a sense of belonging. 

While it is with pride and honor that we have been ranked amongst the top high schools in Hawaii, it is with even greater pride that we provide opportunities for all students to be successful and not only celebrate the majority of our well-performing students.

Regardless of achievement rankings, all schools must continue to reach out and embrace diverse groups of learners by providing opportunities of success for all.

Sean Wong is principal of Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, HI. He is a Rough Rider alumnus and has served as the school’s principal for four years. He is the 2018 Hawaii Secondary Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter at @RoughRidersRHS.

Growing up, I didn’t have a role model to guide me in identifying what it was to excel as a student until I was involved in after-school activities and had a coach lead me on the path to grow—both academically and personally. My coach guided me, cared, and held me accountable. He showed me that through hard work, I could achieve my goals. My involvement in activities was a springboard to believing in myself and my abilities. In the end, it helped me earn a scholarship that provided me with an opportunity to further my education and become a mentor for others.

One of my passions as an educator is encouraging student involvement in activities—everything from band and debate to football, basketball, and baseball. I want my students to enjoy their school experience. I want my kids to have a mentor and feel as if they belong.  Isn’t that what we all want—to belong? The key is to cultivate student involvement. What follows are some strategies that can help.

Match the Right Mentor to the Right Activity

By encouraging students to be committed and fulfil the goals they set, a mentor or coach can change the life of a student, guiding them in the right direction to succeed both in and out of the classroom. But mentors and coaches can have a positive or negative effect. That’s why it’s so important for school leadership to screen and link the right mentor to the right activity.

Make Connections

Encouraging participation in school activities starts with making connections with students. Making connections is about building relationships. When we build a relationship with a student, we find something they are passionate about in their lives. We take this passion and build upon it, knowing that this will strengthen the relationship between the student and mentor or coach. This is the baseline for actively engaging a student in an activity.

Build Confidence 

Joining an activity is just the first part. Once the student is engaged in the activity, it’s vital to keep them active and involved. This is where the mentor or coach will evaluate their skill set and how it matches up with the activity to determine how best to provide support. Once the student believes in their skills and feels confident, the activity becomes more attainable and other involvement can take place.

Strengthen Relationships

As an educator, I’m in contact with students every day—caring about their grades and interests, attending their activities, letting them know that I am available when they need a helping hand, and showing them that I care. Building relationships is the key in students’ academic and personal growth.

As educators and leaders within our community, it is vital to make building relationships and encouraging involvement within our schools a priority. It’s also the key to connecting our kids with that person—a coach or mentor—who can make a lasting impression in their lives and transform them into future leaders.

We have a saying in our school: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Let’s begin with caring.

By building relationships with students and encouraging their involvement in school activities, we build more well-rounded students. This, in turn, builds future leaders who can assist in the growth of others.

Heath McInerney is an assistant principal at Mountain View High School in Meridian, ID. He is Idaho’s 2018 Assistant Principal of the Year.

I recently read a tweet by Dr. Bryan Pearlman detailing eight bad leadership traits. The accompanying graphic spoke to poor communicators and leaders who lack integrity, trust, and other important traits. But what tugged at me the most was the idea that poor leaders were “unsupportive.” How could any leader be unsupportive of their staff or their students?

Even so, it’s taken me over 10 years in my position to find the right balance in supporting staff so they can fully support students. To that end, I carve out specific time through the year so that staff feel supported and can pass that along in the course of their day.

When you are in your first years of administration in a building, things move fast. So many moving pieces are in play that need to get done in the course of a day, and you are doing whatever you can to keep your head above water. Listening to, not just hearing, every conversation as you work through each day sometimes becomes daunting. But not only do the students have needs (as you once had in the classroom), your teachers also have needs that must be met as well. Here’s what I’ve learned about supporting their needs with intention.

Have an Open-Door Policy

Have you heard the old adage that you cannot have an open-door policy as an administrator because you will never get out of your office? At the beginning of my tenure, that was absolutely true. I felt held up in my office and at times wanted to hold up a white flag in distress. But everyone that walks in wants to be heard. A staff member might be there to simply get approval to be out for an appointment, or the conversation could involve a life-changing event. As an administrator in the building, it is important to be accessible. Supporting staff in this way helps you to better understand one another. It also reminds us that everyone is an individual, and each of those individuals has a story of their own.

Show Up

I have found that when I am out of the office and in the hallways or classrooms, the conversations that are thrown at me are short and to the point yet very meaningful. I can work on the move, taking notes on my computer using my standing/portable desk. Getting out of the office and into the hallways or classrooms also helps to lessen the seemingly “urgent” issues that you might hear if you were in your office. You support teachers and students when you are visible and you model the behaviors you want to see.

Offer Supportive Opportunities

About five years ago, I began offering opportunities for staff to support one another. This was not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination. But with a little creativity, we’ve continued this tradition and it has proven to seep into our relationships with students and their success.

On the first few days back after summer break, during our setup time, staff members are given several options for team-building activities to bring them closer together. These activities are as simple as frisbee golf, go-cart racing, bowling, paint night, and more.

While most of these activities are off campus, I require a few things from them while they are out:

1. They must take a selfie
2. They must take an action shot (hopefully of them having fun)
3. They must take a team/group photo

My staff members send these photos to me via text or email. Now, I love to make movies using iMovie, so I put them all into a video with a song, and voila! A new memory is made and captured for a lifetime, not to mention the memories and relationships built while staff are out supporting one another in these activities. It’s a simple technique to support our staff in the area of self-care so they begin the year rejuvenated and connected.

If You Support Them, They Will Stay…and Grow!

My reaction to Pearlman’s bad leadership traits was to say, “that’s what makes good people jump ship!” If you create a supportive environment for your teachers and staff, you will reap the benefits tenfold. Not only will the teachers feel supported and appreciated, but the trickle-down effects that occur in the classroom also can be astronomical. Student engagement will grow along with student achievement.

As an administrator, model what you want to see happening in your school. When we support one another, staff members want to stay where they are, and students get the support they need in the classroom.

Robyn Harris is principal of Whaley School in Anchorage, AK. She is the 2018 Alaska Principal of the Year. Follow her on Twitter (@WhaleySchool), Facebook (Whaley School), and her blog (whaleyschool.weebly.com).

A new year is a time of reflection, goal setting, and new habits and practices. As the new school year begins to take shape, it’s time to get re-energized. Maybe you’re a new school leader who is looking for ideas to start the year off right, or perhaps you are a seasoned administrator who wants to keep the fire alive. Here are five leadership ideas to jump-start your year and lead to your best one yet.

1. Choose One Word for Your School Year

Perhaps you’ve heard of the #OneWord movement by Jon Gordon (@JonGordon11). It’s a reflective and deliberate activity to choose one word to shape your goals, decisions, and actions during the year. This school year, choose one word for yourself or your school, and let it drive your work throughout the year.

Schools have chosen words like kindness, equity, and relentless to serve as reminders of the work that they are doing and that needs to be done. When examining new and old practices, the word can serve as a lens of whether to start, continue, or stop certain practices. If you’re not ready to choose a word for your school, reflect on your personal areas of growth as well as your strengths and choose a word for yourself that will serve as a reminder and encouragement as you do the challenging work of being a school leader.

2. Join and Contribute to a Professional Learning Network (PLN)

When I was a teacher, there were 100 other people in the building who did what I did. There was always someone there whom I could go to with questions, ideas, and problems. When I became a school leader, there were only three other people in the building who did what I did, and we all had different areas of responsibility. I felt really alone and had a lot of questions. Fast forward to today and with the power of technology, it’s now easy to connect with other people in leadership positions across the globe.

Make this the year that you collaborate with other school leaders to support you on your leadership journey. Additionally, use these connections to uplift others and offer encouragement as well as a critical ear. Twitter and Voxer are two tech tools that make collaboration easy, and there are a plethora of positive school leaders there with whom you can connect. School leadership is hard. Thank goodness it doesn’t have to be a lonely journey!

3. Intentionally Celebrate Your Staff

When I was a young teacher, I didn’t want to reward my students for doing the things that were basic expectations, such as putting their names on their papers or turning their work in on time. As I got more experienced, and especially after I had children, I realized that praising my students for doing something I had asked them to do made them want to do more of it. I began to celebrate my students for the small and big accomplishments. Little did I know that it would create a more positive, productive, and fun environment.

Staff members also want to work in an environment that’s positive, productive, and fun. If you’re not the type to plan celebrations, enlist the help of someone who is and plan the celebrations together. Go ahead and put the celebrations on your calendar to ensure that they happen regularly during the year.

4. Stay in Touch With Your Passions

Outside of being an educator, what are your passions? What stokes your creativity, pushes your boundaries, keeps you young, and leaves you feeling energized and alive? The job of a school leader can be all-consuming, and your school community needs you to be at your best. It’s not selfish to make time for your passions so that you can be your best self for others.

There are too many stories of leaders who burn out and leave the profession after a few years. To combat the weariness that can come as a result of the job, it’s important to commit to activities that will re-energize us and sustain us through the school year.

5. Join the #ObserveMe Movement

The Observe Me movement was created by Robert Kaplinsky (@RobertKaplinsky), who encouraged teachers to open their classrooms and invite their peers to come in and observe the teaching and learning that takes place. In some schools, teachers post signs outside their door that state the things on which they would like feedback. In others, teachers simply visit and take notes on ideas and strategies they want to take back and try in their own classrooms.

As an administrator, we can share our own professional learning goals and ask for feedback from our staff members. When we join this movement and ask for specific feedback, we are modeling vulnerability and continuous learning and growing. Let this be the year that you join the #ObserveMe movement.

Jennifer Hogan is an assistant principal at Hoover High School in Hoover, AL. She is the 2018 Alabama Assistant Principal of the Year and one of three finalists for the 2018 National Assistant Principal of the Year. Visit her blog, The Compelled Educator, and follow her on Twitter at @Jennifer_Hogan.

One of the biggest shifts I struggled with when transitioning from the classroom to the principalship was moving from the support of a team of teachers to the solitude of a building leader. As leaders, we are entrusted to so much confidential, stressful, and often heart-wrenching information. In my early years in the principal position, I struggled to process it all mentally and emotionally. I hit a wall in the summer of 2014, and I considered leaving the profession. The punitive shift that education had taken, coupled with the loneliness of leadership, had me in a very bad place. Luckily, a co-worker and good friend of mine convinced me to go to a summer leadership conference, and it was just what I needed.

I realized two important things at this conference. First, as leaders, we must take time to engage in specific learning opportunities that help improve our craft. Second, I was introduced to the incredible power of the professional learning network (PLN) to combat the isolation I was feeling in my current role. I actually choose to use the term personal learning network because that is what it is to me—completely personalized to meet my needs.

A PLN is one of the most powerful resources you can build for yourself. Social media has knocked down the barriers of time and distance. Today, you can connect with other professionals across the street or across the globe. Your PLN can consist of other school leaders and educators, as well as people who are not in education. It is also important to connect to people who have both similar and contrasting views to your own so that you will be pushed to consider multiple viewpoints and contrasting ideas. A PLN also gives you the opportunity to take part in personalized learning whenever and wherever you want. It connects you to amazing educators, provides access to resources, and can help you keep up with the latest trends in education and leadership.

So how do you go about getting a PLN? My first go-to is Twitter. I once thought Twitter was just one more way to keep me updated on what celebrities were up to. I learned instead that it was a powerful tool that unlocked 24/7 access to unbelievable professional development opportunities as well as a support system that would turn out to be life-changing. I find hashtags that are of interest to me and then follow those that I find tweeting using those hashtags. I also find people on Twitter who are doing great things for education and then follow some of the people that they follow. I participate in educational chats and follow those who share and connect.

I also cannot say enough about bringing diverse voices into your PLN. The combination of many different people both in and out of the educational world have helped me to stretch my thinking and practice. There are also ways to grow your PLN outside of Twitter. There are many groups on Facebook and Instagram. A favorite of mine is The Principals’ Staff Appreciation and Motivation group run by Amber Teamann (@8Amber8) and Melinda Miller (@MMiller7571). The ideas shared in the group are top-notch, and the people that you meet there are supportive and helpful. Voxer is another great tool to help with connecting a group of people. I belong to groups like Principals in Action and Women in Leadership, and then our district principals also have our own group. You can use Voxer as a book study tool as well. It’s just one more resource that can be used to bring people together.

My final suggestion for developing a PLN is face-to-face opportunities. Make a standing appointment on your calendar to meet with the leaders in your district. Host or attend a #CoffeeEdu or #EdCamp. I used to feel that taking time out of my already busy schedule to connect with others was selfish. I now realize that I am so much more energized and effective when I make my own learning a priority.

Whichever way you choose to build your PLN, just know there are so many people out there ready to support you when times are tough as well as cheer you on with the celebrations. Being the organizational leader can be lonely and difficult. With technology, we no longer have to go it alone. By building your PLN, you can use the brains and experiences of all those brilliant minds out there to guide you and give you support.

Beth Houf is principal of Fulton Middle School in Fulton, MO, and co-author of Lead Like a PIRATE: Make Schools Amazing for Students and Staff. She is a 2019 NASSP Digital Principal of the Year. Connect with Houf on Twitter (@BethHouf), Voxer (@BHouf2026), and Instagram (@BHouf).

The teacher evaluation process has been at the forefront of many policy conversations over the past decade, and the underlying assumption resonates just as much today as it did ten years ago: the quality of the classroom teacher is the most important school-level factor that impacts student achievement. As school leaders, we must bring this assumption to life by creating a culture of teacher learning in our schools. Below are two important ways school leaders can help the teacher evaluation process become a robust and meaningful conversation that promotes professional growth and continuous improvement of professional practices.

Align Professional Development and Teacher Evaluation

Just like the need for student feedback to be aligned to standards and learning targets in the classroom, the supervision and evaluation of teachers should be aligned to professional development at both the school and district level. Research shows that this connection can be achieved through focused professional development planning, frequent classroom observations and feedback, and open communication about teacher goals. Meaningful teacher goals developed by the teacher within a larger professional development focus can help foster ownership and create a culture where teachers are leaders of their own learning.

Here are a few questions to consider as you reflect on the alignment of professional development and teacher evaluation in your school:

• What is the professional development focus for the school year? How did you communicate this focus with your teachers?
• When observing teachers, are you able to easily align your feedback with topics or concepts within the professional development focus?
• What is the process for teachers to develop their professional goals for the school year? Do teachers have the opportunity to identify their own areas of growth or areas for goal setting? Do teachers often choose goals that align with the professional development focus for the school year?
• How would teachers describe the connection between teacher evaluation and professional development?

Use Learning Logs to Create a Conversation

Part of the challenge in aligning professional development is that the actual documents often live in different places. The teacher evaluation process includes feedback forms, rubrics, and goal-setting documents that are completely independent of professional development notes, closures, and reflection questions. One way to support teacher growth is to streamline the alignment between the teacher evaluation process and professional development by using a single document that captures both: a learning log.

A learning log is a shared document (between teacher and evaluator) that houses teacher goals as well as reflections, notes, and takeaways from professional development and classroom observation feedback in one place. Many districts and states have progressed even further by creating a teacher evaluation online portal where teachers and evaluators log in to a shared system to collaborate and document steps throughout the process. Either approach essentially creates a digital space that connects teacher evaluation and professional development in a way that supports both a digital dialogue and an ongoing instructional conversation. This collaborative approach further aligns teacher evaluation and professional development to create a culture of continuous improvement.

As you plan for teacher evaluation in your school this year, challenge yourself to brainstorm ways to align the process with professional development. The teacher evaluation process can be a powerful tool to improve instruction and support teacher growth when it is an ongoing conversation about teaching and learning. How are you going to leverage the teacher evaluation process to foster a culture of professional learning?

Andrea Smith is Principal of Lyons Middle Senior High School in St. Vrain Valley Schools in Lyons, CO. She is the 2018 Colorado Assistant Principal of the Year. Follow her on Twitter (@SmithSVVSD).

Last Halloween, I took my 8-year-old daughter, Juliet, to a Brooklyn Nets game. She had just started playing basketball and was so excited to go to her first professional game that she gave up trick-or-treating to do it. That’s dedication!

Juliet in her Nets Hoodie

We arrived about 45 minutes before the game. Standing just inside the entrance, marveling at all the sights and sounds of the arena, we were approached by a member of the Nets staff who asked Juliet, “Would you like to be part of the ‘High Five Line’ and stand on the court with the players during the national anthem?” You don’t you have to guess what her response was. Juliet dashed off with the nice Nets lady so fast I thought I would never see her again.

After she got to go on the court, high-five the players, and stand with the team during the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, it would be impossible to overstate Juliet’s excitement about the Nets, basketball, and her awesome night out with her dad. She is a lifelong Nets fan now. I was so grateful to the Brooklyn Nets for going to all the trouble to make it special for Juliet.

But was it really a lot of trouble?

When you think about it, this was actually quite easy for the Nets to do. Every game, the players run onto the court for warmups and stand for the national anthem. It’s a fairly straightforward process to grab 12 fans and invite them to join them. They gave all the fans a T-shirt, but they were created by a sponsor and every shirt was XXXL so they didn’t have to worry if they fit each participant. Juliet was able to put hers on over her hoodie.

It wasn’t complicated, but the Nets were able to create this special moment for a group of fans because they are in charge. It’s their building, their court, their team. They have the power to make the event momentous for the fans. And our school does something similar.

One of the guiding principles of our school culture is “always do your personal best.” We tell kids they don’t need to be better than somebody else, but to strive to be better today than they were yesterday. To focus attention on social-emotional literacy and on personal development, we have monthly themes and use the CASEL SEL Competencies to guide our work in building students’ personal capacity.

As part of an initiative to promote this capacity building, we have something called “Personal Best Awards.” Four times a year, teachers select students to be recognized for doing their personal best. There’s a small ceremony after school, where students are given a T-shirt and a certificate with the reason they were nominated. Families are invited to attend. There’s cake with the school logo on it, and the school jazz ensemble performs as families enter and at the intermission. As the awards ceremony takes place on a Friday immediately after the school day, many parents can leave work early. Most of the staff attends as well.

JMS staff and proud PB Award Recipient

Parents are so proud when kids are recognized

The superintendent and board trustees join us to present PB Awards

Certificates, T-shirts, music, cake—nothing particularly fancy. Personal Best Award Ceremonies are special occasions for the kids and for their families, but they’re not difficult or expensive for us to plan. This small, simple event sends a powerful message about what we value as a school and creates a special memory for the students who are honored.

Principals and teachers can create singular moments for kids every day. Like the Brooklyn Nets, these are our schools, classrooms, hallways, gyms, and cafeterias. We are in charge of these settings. We can do extraordinary things to create lifelong fans of learning and of our schools.

What are some ways that you make it special for kids in your setting? How do you generate memorable moments that create lifelong fans for your school and classrooms? 

Donald Gately, Ed.D., serves as the principal of Jericho Middle School in Jericho, NY. He was the 2016 New York Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter at @donald_gately and visit his blog.

Has this happened to you? It’s Friday afternoon and, remarkably, the day has been unusually quiet. There are no extracurricular activities to support that afternoon or evening, and you can leave school by 4:00 p.m. guilt-free. Shortly after getting home, it happens—your phone chimes and an email comes through, which you casually look at and notice is from a parent. Do you read it right away? Do you wait until Sunday night? Monday morning?

Several years ago, this scenario happened to me, and it forever changed my willingness to address issues through email after school hours. It was about 5:00 p.m., and I was looking forward to a relaxing Friday evening at home. Upon noticing the sender and subject, I opened the message and read what turned out to be a scathing message from a parent who was extremely upset that his son’s school-issued laptop was remotely locked by our IT department. To make things worse, the parent and student had driven to school that afternoon, but all IT staff and building administration had already left for the weekend. Predictably, the student told his father that he did nothing wrong and that he had an essay due on Monday which he could not finish without access to the computer. Based on the tone of the father’s email, I knew all too well that ignoring it would mean that he would be stewing all weekend and I would be faced with an irate parent first thing Monday morning, which is not how I wanted to start my week.

Before responding, I immediately sent a text to a member of our IT staff and asked if he knew why the network remotely locked the student’s laptop. Within minutes, he called, explaining that the student had gained root access to the computer, which essentially provided him with administrative privileges. I then emailed the parent back, explained why the laptop was locked, and asked the father to speak with his son. Within 15 minutes, the father emailed me apologizing for his scathing email. When confronted with the facts, the student admitted that he acquired root access to the laptop in order to watch Netflix, which was blocked by our network. The father also indicated that his son would be grounded for the weekend and would use the family desktop computer to complete his assignments. The father concluded by stating that he would support any school consequences for his son violating the acceptable use policy.

Having reflected upon this incident—as I have dealt with similar issues in the evenings or weekends—I have found that I am able to reduce my level of stress if I address the issue or concern immediately with brief and timely emails. While not every situation cannot be resolved easily through email, I have learned that by getting back to a parent or staff member immediately I can acquire additional information—but more importantly, I send the message that I am serious about addressing the concern.

As I enter my fifth year as an assistant principal, I cannot emphasize the importance of responding to all situations in a timely manner. Our staff and teachers have learned that they should email me if they need my immediate assistance—not because I am sitting at my desk, but because I am diligent about scanning all emails with my phone.

Some of you may be wondering, “Does this guy ever disconnect?” The answer is yes. First of all, 99 percent of my emails do not require immediate assistance. Next, I put my phone on Do Not Disturb when I sleep and, as a result, I am able to sleep soundly most nights, which is especially true when there is not a looming 7:00 a.m. meeting with an irate parent.

How do you strike a balance between being responsive to parent and staff concerns and protecting your evenings and weekends?  How do you use email to stay connected in and out of school?

Matthew Malila is an assistant principal at Windham High School in Windham, NH. He is the 2019 New Hampshire Assistant Principal of the Year.

Like my colleagues across the globe, my daily battle revolves around how to make decisions through the lens of what is in the best interests of my students. This seems particularly trying in my current nontraditional school situation that is focused on dropout prevention, content mastery, and personalized learning—all still within the confines and with remnants of our traditional mindset. I often feel my opinion on what is in the “best interests” for our students can change several times within the same day.

Some of our most challenging decisions have the highest stakes for our students, including whether they are permitted to graduate. Students attend Sarah Pyle Academy (#SPAinspires) because they have realized they needed a different way to accomplish and access their education. There is no seat time, and students master their skills and content at their own pace. But I still can appreciate holding students accountable to deadlines and standards of behavior—we are, after all, preparing our students for life after graduation. Even so, I have a hard time not letting a student walk in their June or August graduation ceremony because they have missed a deadline for credit attainment if I know they can have their work completed and meet the standards in time to walk with their peers. Why should it matter when this learning occurs, then, as long as it is before graduation with time to practice?

Well, because in life there are deadlines. There are times when things need to be completed for work. There are times when you need to take medication. Often contracts include clear dates and times. This is the world in which we live. I clearly can see both sides.

I bring every decision back to our school vision— “together inspiring lifelong success through personalization”—and yet there is still no clear answer for each scenario. Especially on days when a student is in front of me and I have to deliver the message, “No, this is it. You did not meet your goals, and you are not eligible to walk in this graduation with your peers.” But I also add, “I will be here to support you so you will be ready to walk in our summer graduation when you have met all your goals.”

I have to hope that this is the motivation to not miss another deadline, and that this is the ultimate lesson learned and not the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back that will lead to the student giving up completely and never embracing the true value of all they are worth. Or do I let the student run the deadline to the next wire, extending it even further, hoping that this opportunity to finish gives them a “light bulb epiphany” to change patterns of behavior? Hoping this does not continue into an enabled pattern of learned helplessness. Hoping that this act of support is what they need to thrive and not just survive—that this is the individual personalization they need to reach their goal.

I try to look at each student as an individual, as I pray someone would with my own children if ever in this position. I evaluate if we made missteps along the way in supporting each student—if we could have done more—and weigh that into my decision. Some days I sway back and forth several times. It’s maddening. I wish I would just pick a side and stay on it, but it’s impossible because every situation is different, every student is unique, and every path has consequences.

Knowing my teachers trust that I have only our students’ best interests at heart makes it a little easier to wear the heavy crown of the final decision. They understand that I will listen to our students as well as teacher input, and although I may not agree, we all agree that we have positive intent and that no one has the right answer or a crystal ball.

Having a culture where it is okay to express vulnerability and uncertainty is the secret ingredient in making these conversations possible. One of my favorite movie sayings is “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.” I have my own adaptation of it—sometimes we provide just the right amount of opportunity for our students, sometimes we provide too many opportunities for our students, but we will never not provide enough opportunity for our students. That’s a chance I am not willing to take.

As we head into a brand new year, let us be clear of our expectations for all. Let’s revisit the intentional—and potentially unintentional—consequences of those expectations. Let’s take a hard look at all our policies and make sure that they reflect the values, learning, and lessons we want our students to come away with, not just what we have always done. Let us be mindful of always having our students’ best interests at the heart of every decision and build a culture where we trust each other along that journey.

How do you make the most difficult decisions? What are some of your policies around makeup work? Deadlines? Seat time and attendance? Do they align with the values of your mission and vision?

Kristina MacBury is principal at Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington, DE. She is an author, speaker, leadership coach, and advocate for school happiness agency. She is a 2018 NASSP Digital Principal of the Year and in 2017 was named a Top 30 Technologist, Transformer, and Trailblazer by the Center for Digital Education. Follow her on Twitter at @MacBuryKristina and visit her blog at http://educate4hope.com/blog.

I vividly remember my middle level principal and the fear that hit my gut every time he would look at me or even walk by. He was six and a half feet tall, weighed close to 400 pounds, and his last name was Kevorkian. Who wouldn’t be afraid of that principal, especially if he never smiled and looked like he could be in the WWF as Andre the Giant’s tag-team partner?

Now as a middle level principal myself, I look back at the steps I took through the narrow, freshly waxed hallways of my middle level school and wish I could have had a positive relationship with my principal during those crucial and fragile years. I wish my principal would have been more of a mentor than a monitor, a sculptor instead of a suspender, more friendly and less formidable.  I truly believe if I had been able to have a relationship with my principal, my middle level and high school career would have been more successful, and my GPA would have exceeded a 2.0.

The role of school principal has evolved from manager to lead learner and teacher. If that aspect of the job has evolved, my hope is that our mindset and process of school discipline can follow suit.

Discipline over the years within the confinements of the “principal’s office” were centered on the concept of fear and consequence. Sure, fear may keep some students in line, but what fear does not do is teach, develop, or mentor. Those three concepts are what truly keep students focusing on what they should be doing—and, most importantly, why they should be doing it.

Before I go any further, let me address the elephant in the room. Some of you out there are thinking, “They need to have a fear of their principal. If they don’t, they will be out of control, and teachers can’t teach and learning won’t happen.”

I know this because I had that same mindset when I started my career, because as a student I was brought up to fear those in charge of my education. Unfortunately, I believe that fear is what caused me to never reach my fullest potential. Yes, I would walk (and not run) on the right side of the hallway, raise my hand before answering a question, and stay glued to my seat for 55 minutes at a time because I didn’t want to “get in trouble.” What I didn’t do was find a mentor; someone to sculpt me and show me what I could be. Those things were missing from the discipline tool belt that my principal wore, and until my mindset changed, they were vacant from mine too.

The irony is that discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina, which means to “instruct, educate, and train.” If that’s what the word is rooted in, why are we not planting those concepts into our discipline interactions and letting them grow? Why are we still making our offices a place of negativity instead of a place of enlightenment, growth, discipleship, and understanding?

Don’t get me wrong. If students misbehave, they need to be held accountable, but they also need to learn how to not make that same mistake again. They need to know they have a tag-team partner in their corner who cares enough to walk alongside them on this path of change. Consequences are important, but what is more important is a relationship with a child—a relationship where you can mentor them to not make that same mistake or decision twice. Receiving a consequence is immediate, but it’s not infinite. The pain of the detention, suspension, or missed recess will sting for a moment, but the lessons we teach alongside those consequences are what last forever.

Disciplining just through giving consequences never was enough, and it never will be. Look at the prison systems in our country—they are full of people who have made mistake after mistake and never learned from them. How many could have learned to change earlier in life if they had a principal who stepped out of their role of lead disciplinarian and entered into the role of lead mentor?

We have to make sure we are not just punishing but developing our students. We need to make sure that we go the extra mile for all students, even those who push us to the brink of our sanity. I ask you to join me and become their lead mentor, instructor, educator, and trainer. You never know—the student’s name on the office referral sitting on your desk right now may be the principal who helps change the lives of future students one day. Don’t miss this opportunity.

Are you more of a consequence giver or a mentor when it comes to discipline? Look back at the principals you had in your education—did you have a positive, impactful relationship with them, or was your relationship built on fear? What is one thing you can change in your practice for the next school year?

Roger Gurganus is an assistant principal at Brownstown Middle School, a grade 6–7 building in Brownstown, MI. Follow his educational and leadership journey on Twitter (@RogerGurganusII), Instagram (@RogerGurganusII), YouTube (@BMSWARRIORS67), and his blog (https://raiseyouranchor.blogspot.com).

When a former colleague of mine, Joe Turner, was named teacher of the year, a reporter asked him for his advice to new teachers. He responded, “Teach every child like you’re their lifeline—like you’re their last chance to succeed.”

His comments inspired an initiative at our school that we simply call “Lifelines.” It’s not a formal program—it’s not structured, and there is no paperwork. We simply asked our staff members to be a lifeline to one or two students who would benefit from an adult in their corner. As a faculty, we are committed to going above and beyond to care about these students.

When our counselor gave me my three “lifelines” last fall, one of my challenges was that I didn’t teach these students. I may not even see them every day. The hallways are crowded, so class changes aren’t always great opportunities to have conversations with students.  And it can sometimes be awkward calling kids into the office just to check on them.

But I had an idea for a new strategy for making regular connections with my three students. I called “Caleb” down to the office, and I said, “Caleb, will you do me a favor?”

He smiled and nodded yes.

I continued, “I usually have good days, but not always. Everyone can benefit from others checking on them. Will you do me a favor and check on me every day, just to make sure I’m doing all right?”

He smiled again and said “okay.” I documented this process on Twitter.

Today I asked a student to check in with me every day… just to see how I’m doing. He smiled and said, “Ok.”

This is a new approach for me. We’ll see how it goes. #IntentionalConnections

— Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) December 4, 2018

The results speak for themselves:

He just came up to me in the hallway, smiled big with a thumbs up, and said: “You good?” We shared a big high five! It was awesome! (It is the first time all year he has greeted me in the hallway.)

— Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) December 4, 2018

I had similar conversations with other the other two students. All three students began making regular eye contact with me in the halls. They smiled at me, and they asked me about my day. This gave me a regular opportunity to connect with them, and it is teaching them to think about the well-being of someone besides themselves.  As the year progressed, I had longer and more substantive conversations with these students, but as a starting point, I had three students checking on their principal every day.

This afternoon, a student smiled at me and said, “Good-bye, Dr. Steele!” This is the 1st time all year!

Why?

We made a connection earlier today.

Why?

I asked him yesterday to check on me every day to make sure I was ok. It turns out… connections lead to more connections.

— Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) December 4, 2018

How do you connect personally with students? What are ways you can encourage students to make connections with the adults in your school?

Danny Steele has served as the principal of Thompson Sixth Grade Center in Alabaster, AL, for the past five years, where his passion has been building a school culture that values connections with kids, fosters collaboration among teachers, and focuses on raising student achievement. He is now an assistant professor of instructional leadership at the University of Montevallo. In 2005 Steele was recognized as Alabama’s Assistant Principal of the Year, and in 2016 he was named Alabama’s Secondary Principal of the Year. He has written two books with Todd Whitaker: Essential Truths for Teachers and Essential Truths for Principals. Follow him on Twitter (@SteeleThoughts) and check out his blog, Steele Thoughts.

Over the past couple of years, our school has been challenged by the social and emotional needs of our students. The impact of increased behavioral incidents has put a strain on our previously steady school climate, and while we are learning a lot, we have also found that we are not very well prepared to handle some of these needs. In an attempt to foster real teacher leadership in addressing these challenges, I had to step aside and allow the energies and passions of our staff to take shape.

Social and emotional learning programs can be challenging in a middle level school when considering the level of maturity and engagement. It also can be difficult to find the right balance between the appropriate materials and the level of students we are trying to engage. We have chosen Character Strong, a program which we believe will allow intentional entry points to assist students to feel a part of a community. Activity is at the heart of each lesson, getting students to feel comfortable giving us a chance to connect. Throw in a “character dare”— activities in which students are challenged to put strong character into action in their own lives—and our kids are taking positive steps to connect with each other and their community. Through the amazing work of our committed staff, we have bought into Character Strong’s philosophy of promoting character while at the same time providing social-emotional learning.

And it is teachers who are leading the efforts to implement the program. A group known as our Character Strong Champions have taken on character and social-emotional learning as their passion project. As a leader, handing over the reins has empowered this group to try new things and learn from one another. This has been well received by our staff in part because it is timely and well organized, but most importantly because it is from their colleagues’ efforts.

The Character Strong Champions meet on their own as a team and try to include all who are willing. Identifying training, advocating for resources, and planning all-staff professional development have been keys to their early success in leading our building through change.

As part of our efforts to create opportunities for teacher leadership, we’ve asked our staff to share their learning with each other in our building but also with the greater educational family around the world. Our schedule affords us the flexibility to run an extended advisory once per week. During this time, our entire building is working with students on developing relationships through hands-on activities, unique collaborative exercises, and character dares. My virtual tour event will give our teachers an opportunity to help others experience for a short period of time our extended advisory at LaCreole Middle School.  Our work will be highlighted by activities, but also by an opportunity to talk with staff and students about our early implementation efforts.

Our campaign on kindness, character development, and social and emotional learning has just begun. Work on training and implementation will be ongoing, but we have had enough exposure to know that the concepts will bring to light a unified focus for our entire building.  Our staff has so much to offer. Because they live the successes and struggles on a daily basis, our champions have a good pulse on what is working with our students.  In a sense, we have our own test lab which helps us adjust as needed.

I have become a believer in the proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Unfortunately, I have had to learn this the hard way throughout my career. Impatience has been my burden, and change in education seems to take its sweet time. I have grown in this area, though, and as a result, I have been able to see amazing things happen at our little school.

It takes courage to lead, and it takes time and mental and emotional energy to take risks and put new ideas out there for the scrutiny of others. Given the right amount of encouragement and opportunity, leaders do emerge, creating a strong culture that furthers the important work we do at school.

This blog is part of NASSP’s Virtual Tour Series. Be sure to tune in to Facebook on October 10 at 11:45 a.m. (ET) to participate in the live tour. Jamie Richardson will also be leading the #PrinLeaderChat on Twitter on October 13 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).

Jamie Richardson is the principal of LaCreole Middle School in Dallas, OR. He is one of the NASSP 2017 Digital Principals of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @JamieR42.

Over the past three years, I have had an amazing opportunity to view my school in a different way as the principal to my daughter, Sidney. As you might expect, I think that she is a pretty amazing young lady, and I eagerly anticipated her sixth-grade year at Messalonskee Middle School (MMS). Before she started, Chuck Pullen, the tech education teacher at our school, told me that I would never look at MMS in the same way after she attended. How right he was! I have had hundreds of conversations about school with Sidney, and through those discussions, I have come to see MMS through her lens.

As I saw her last day at MMS approaching this past June, I started to reflect on how much I have appreciated her perspective. I did not always agree with what she had to say, and I know that her views were not representative of the entire student population, but it was unfiltered feedback. That got me thinking: How can my teachers and I get this kind of honest feedback on a regular basis from our students?

I asked Sidney about this, and her first reaction was, “I don’t think that you can.” As we spoke over a couple of months, Sidney eventually told me that in order to get unfiltered, honest feedback, students need to feel comfortable and know that their ideas will be heard. We would need to ensure that students would not face any negative consequences due to their feedback. Having been on the receiving end of some of her critiques, I could see how it could be hard to hear and that the correct mindset would need to be employed by staff.

The main reason that Sidney could speak to me about any issue is because she knew that, no matter what she had to say, I would listen and never stop being her dad and loving her. When there is no risk of losing the relationship, our children can be more open. Why should it be different for the children in our schools?  Our students need to know that we care about them and that even their poor behavior, differing views, and constructive feedback will not change that.

During the summer I reflected on the past three years, read a lot about relationship building in NASSP’s Building Ranks: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective School Leaders, and began to make a plan. I came up with a few items that I will implement this year at our school to open up the lines of communication between students, staff, and families.

Having a Family Advocate

We are starting an advisory program this year. Although there are a number of activities and lessons we have planned that work on different social and life skills, one of our biggest areas of focus is to develop family advocates. We not only want to build a relationship with the students, but also with their families so that each advisor is connected and parents feel that they have an advocate in our school.

Celebrating Success

We already do a lot to recognize our students. We have Student of the Month breakfasts to recognize students who exemplify particular habits of mind like having a growth mindset or managing impulsivity. We recognize students with perfect attendance each month. We celebrate students meeting honor roll each quarter, and we celebrate involvement in clubs and sports throughout the year. The addition this year is to institute the Principal’s 200 Club model, which we will call the Eagle 200. This process allows all staff in the building to recognize students for a variety of positive behaviors such as being kind, helping others, or persevering in class. Staff give a ticket to students, and they come to the office to put their ticket on the board. I will call home to share their recognition with their families.

Mark Hatch with his daughter Sidney and his wife Denice on the first day of school.

Mining for Feedback

Some students will not offer their true thoughts and feelings to any adult at school. To provide an alternative, we are going to use anonymous surveys. Teachers will be asked to send out a quarterly survey to gather feedback from students. They will answer questions about their level of engagement, comfort in the class, what they like, and what they would like to change. There will be some questions about our school climate as well. The data will go directly to the teacher, and they will be encouraged to share how they will use the information with their students.

What will you do to open the lines of communication and build relationships between students, staff, and families?

Mark Hatch lives in Sidney, ME, with his wife and daughter and has been the principal at Messalonskee Middle School for 16 years. He is the 2018 Maine Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @PrincipalHatch or check out the Messalonskee Middle School Facebook Page.‏

My school, long rated as top-performing, was this year given a rating of “targeted” for underperformance among student subgroups—including African-American, free and reduced-price lunch, and special education students. Though this is understandably not an ideal rating, I look at it as a blessing in disguise. We now have a very clear mandate to look at the performance of these subgroups and make immediate improvements. To me, this gives us an opportunity that will ultimately benefit all students, depending on the measures we put in place and the kinds of practices we implement. As an instructional leader, I am reminded that this work starts with me.

Over the summer, I was fortunate to attend several conferences, including the National Principals Conference in Boston and the High Reliability Schools Summit in Denver. In addition, I’ve been reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain by Zaretta Hammond and Reading for Understanding by Cynthia Greenleaf, Ruth Schoenbach, and Lynn Murphy. From this professional learning, I’ve been reminded of three principles for improving practice:

1. Instructional leaders must model the behaviors and practices we want teachers to practice in their classrooms.

We know that teachers can better leverage their time and energies if they work together. Many schools implement professional learning communities (PLCs), but many function as cooperative groups rather than true PLCs. If we hope to have teachers practice authentic PLCs, we must do that work ourselves. As a PLC, as an administrative team, as well as with our instructional coaches, we must establish our group norms and develop a data review protocol in order to inform our feedback and professional learning with teachers. In keeping with this notion, our administrative team established six team norms and a meeting process that will regularly look at various data to examine elements of our work toward school improvement, then share this information with our staff through a weekly email.

2. Dependent learners need both opportunities and explicit instruction in order to grow.

Hammond defines dependent learners as those who are “dependent on the teacher to carry most of the cognitive load of a task always; [are] unsure of how to tackle a new task; cannot complete a task without scaffolds; will sit passively and wait if stuck until [the] teacher intervenes; and [doesn’t] retain information well or ‘doesn’t get it.’” As instructional leaders, we need to assist teachers’ efforts to build students’ cognitive understanding and skills, as well as their confidence and mindset so they can become empowered and capable of accessing various strategies and processes to develop information.

In order to do this, we need our interactions with teachers to have a sharp focus on instruction, including helping them to explicate the domain-specific knowledge and skills students need in order to experience success. We also need to help teachers better define the cognitive and metacognitive moves students must achieve in order to master these elements. For example, in a recent conference with a social studies teacher, we talked about the ways he can help students improve and expand their reading skills through note-taking and close reading strategies.

3. Be present.

It goes without saying that our presence in classrooms matters. Students know that their progress and development as students matters to us when they see us frequently in their classrooms. Doing so also builds rapport and provides additional opportunities for us to find connections with them. Teachers not only appreciate our presence but also benefit from the frequent and specific feedback that such visits provide. By creating processes that track our visits, we can ensure that we get to each teacher in a timely manner. This year, I’ve already been in more classrooms and conferenced with more teachers than I have in years past.

Of course, there are other important elements that improve school performance, including focusing on school culture and ensuring a safe and orderly environment. But to me, these and other important levers of school improvement are encompassed in the three principles I’m already starting to practice for the 2019–20 school year. One other valuable lesson I learned this summer is that, as administrators, we are each other’s best outlets and resources, so we must take opportunities to share our thinking, practice, struggles, and victories.

What are the principles that guide your efforts toward school improvement? 

Valerie Nyberg has been assistant principal at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA, since 2013. She is the 2019 Iowa Assistant Secondary Principal of the Year. Follow her on Twitter at @vnnyberg.

We spend a great deal of time as school leaders talking about building culture. We often consider the day-to-day elements of this work: eating lunch with the kids, visiting classrooms, being visible at all kinds of school events, and having meaningful conversations with teachers and students. The work of leading a school and building a culture is much like leading a family, full of joy and, inevitably, pain.

After 17 years as a high school principal, I have been called upon to speak at more than my share of student funerals. A significant number have been the result of automobile mishaps, though some have been the result of students and families enduring long, painful illnesses. The ability to walk beside students and families as they endure, as they struggle, is an essential part of the work of caring for the community we are called to lead.

Often the greatest moment of our own growth as leaders is tied to how we guide our students and teachers through painful times. Our vulnerability as leaders in these moments validates who we are and who we want to be in all the other moments we face as leaders.

I have been blessed to lead two schools that have had more than their share of exceptional successes. Academic growth, the rebirth of strong arts programs, and athletic victories have happened as I have watched and worked with students and communities. With that said, I don’t believe that substantial growth has occurred unless it happened against the backdrop of previous failure and struggle.

The process of personal growth (for ourselves and our students) is not really any different than the process we work through as leaders of schools. It is our ability to take hold of the most difficult moments and use them as cornerstones of development, growth, and learning that makes us leaders. As leaders, we see the transient nature of all things, good and bad, and always walk with our teachers and our students and our communities toward the better tomorrow that we want to construct with them.

As I returned from my latest opportunity to eulogize a student, I had the chance to think about how we go about making something good out of deep sorrow. These four thoughts have consistently spoken to me in these moments:

1. Always remember that life is more than school, and you are more than a school leader. The greatest challenge I face on a daily basis is keeping things in perspective. Too often I allow anxiety and frustration to take an undue toll on me because I lose perspective. No failure is ever final if we seek to learn from it. No pain is fatal if we seek to make the lives of others better for having known us.
2. Speak to people about people. Whether you are dealing with a failure or a loss, students, parents, and staff members want to know how you are impacted. We too often undersell our own vulnerability as a leadership quality. People look to their leaders as a reflection of their own struggles, attitudes, joys, and pain; if we place ourselves above their pain or their joy, there is disconnection between us. If we don’t feel the pain of failure or loss or the exhilaration of success in the schools and communities that we lead, we ought not lead them.
3. Practice servant leadership. When we are working with students, parents, or teachers who are struggling, we need to remember that our leadership in that moment is not about us. It takes practice, intentionality, and mindfulness to be able to set ourselves aside in challenging moments. If we do not make it a practice to put the concerns of others first on a regular basis, we most assuredly will not be able to do so in the best or worst moments we face. The simplest and best way to do this can be summed up in four words: “How can I help?”
4. Speak to the future. The best of us who lead know to do this innately. My mentors and those who I aspire to emulate have this gift. We spend our lives speaking of the great possibilities of the future to those who are going to build it. Even—or, especially—in the most challenging of times, we must take the opportunity to reframe challenge and pain into the building blocks of future success. It is our ability to do this that gives us our claim as leaders. We must always be the voice of the positive—the voice of the future.

While we are as susceptible as the next person to the sorrows, elations, and distractions of life; as leaders in our schools and communities, we must learn to see life as the constantly changing and moving thing that it is. It is only when we recognize our need to move with it through the challenges, trials, and joys we face that we can lead others through those same things.  And remember, all eyes are on you. Lead like you know where you are going and like you will be happy to get there.

Have you made a commitment to being mindful and intentional as you lead your school through successes and failures? Do you find it difficult to be vulnerable with your students and teachers in the challenging moments you face together?

Duane Kline is in his 33nd year as an educator, and 18th year as a high school principal. He lives in New Liberty, KY, with his chemistry-teaching wife, Anne, and he is the proud dad of his special education daughter, Hannah, and soon-to-be history-teaching son, Aaron. He was blessed to be recognized as the 2016 Kentucky Secondary Principal of the Year.