Guest post by Heberto Hinojosa, Jr.

In Texas and many other states across the country, school districts are abandoning or limiting the use of traditional exclusionary discipline practices such as detention, in-school suspension, and suspension to tackle student behavior issues that affect the learning process. Instead, many campuses are turning to restorative discipline to help teachers and administrators prevent and respond to behavior problems.

The goal of a restorative campus is to build a culture where accountability and sense of belonging exists among students. Over the last two years, our campus has implemented restorative discipline practices with promising results. In particular, restorative circles have helped our school community respond to problems as they arise and served as a proactive measure to eliminate potential issues.

What are Restorative Circles?

Through dialogue and reflection at all levels, restorative circles empower students to take ownership of their actions, have empathy for others, and better understand how their behavior affects so many. We have adopted two types of restorative circles. Circles in the classroom are sessions that we use to prevent discipline issues. Circles in response to behavior bring together a smaller group of affected people after a behavior incident has occurred.

Circles in the Classroom

Classroom circles take place every Friday during enrichment time. Students enter and begin to set the room up in a circle, get a talking piece and center visual that reminds them of circle expectations, and wait for the teacher to begin facilitating. Our first question is always, “From a one to five, how was your week?” Topics that have affected the class environment such as bullying, disruptions, or major events can then be brought up with all students having an opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings about it.

Our teachers love classroom circles and provide positive feedback on its effectiveness. Here are two of our teacher’s responses:

“My students absolutely LOVE circles and are very disappointed when we have a short week and don’t have it. The impact on our classroom culture has been great! By doing circles, our students get an opportunity to learn more about each other which helps them understand each other’s personalities better. My students are very comfortable sharing what’s on their mind … sick grandparents, arguing parents, absentee parents, academic struggles, and accomplishments, etc. The level of compassion they have developed for each other blows me away.” —Wendy Sangdahl

“I LOVE restorative circles and feel that they have a direct positive correlation with student relationships. They give me an opportunity as a teacher to reflect on how I handle classroom behavior by getting to know them beyond our daily experiences in school. I have seen students build confidence as well as a growth in their awareness of others.” —Lisa Reeh

Circles in Response to Behavior

In place of traditional exclusionary consequences, circles have become our standard for responding to discipline referrals. We believe that “to discipline means to teach.” Instead of focusing on students “doing the time,” we facilitate a conversation with the student as well as others affected. This may include other students, teachers, and parents. We create a circle similar to a classroom circle and use reflective questions to guide the conversation. We ask students:

• What happened?
• What were you thinking of at the time?
• What have you thought about since?
• Who has been affected by what you have done?
• What do you need to do to make things right?

To involve those affected by the behavior, the following questions are used:

• What did you think when you realized what happened?
• What impact did it have on you or others?
• What has been the hardest thing for you?
• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

Whether a circle is the intervention used as an immediate response to the behavior or as a re-entry condition after a traditional consequence, the goal is to restore relationships that were damaged as a result of the behavior. Often times, teachers and students who were affected are not involved in the process and relationships within the school suffer. With circles, all have a voice, and our campus culture and climate have improved as a result.

What are your experiences with restorative discipline?

Heberto Hinojosa, EdD is the principal of Fabra Elementary School in Boerne, TX and the 2016 Texas Assistant Principal of the Year. He is also a professor of school law at Schreiner University.

Guest post by Ginni McDonald

Graduation is something every student should have the opportunity to experience. Aside from the indisputable benefits of a high school diploma, the preparations for graduation—the career action plans, the individualized academic plans, and the conferences—assist students in making choices that are right for them and their future. How do we connect with students to ensure they are on the road to graduation? There is no single answer to this question simply because each student is unique.

To help our Northside High School students navigate the road to graduation while addressing each of their unique needs, I knew our school leaders had to look beyond what had been done before. What we hit upon was a conference format that would offer students the freedom to select sessions that fit their interests and needs.

Grit, Goals, and Graduation 

For two years now, we have held a student conference called 3G: Grit, Goals, and Graduation. Our three main objectives for the event are to connect with students, create a deep understanding of what high school graduation means, and plan for postsecondary life. The conference includes breakout sessions on a range of topics related to graduation and postsecondary life, a keynote speaker, and a pep rally.

To organize this conference, a committee of school counselors, teachers, students, parents, and community members forms six months before the event to brainstorm ideas, interests, and themes. We contact possible presenters from the local community and across the state to conduct the breakout sessions. Our classified staff and leadership team work together on the logistics of transforming our campus into a conference center.

Breakout Sessions

Two days before the conference, teachers work with students to help them determine which four breakout sessions are most appropriate to their own goals and needs. The sessions offer students 70 different topics ranging from career options and college exploration to local internships and youth activities. To see the full list of options, please view the conference program.

The breakout sessions are led by small-business owners, college admission counselors, large corporate employers, technical school representatives, and members of multiple branches of the military. Channel 5 News anchor Darren Bob offers a session about careers in broadcast journalism. The Junior ROTC runs a presentation that explores the benefits and challenges of military life. And Leigh Ann Hasley, a local photographer, holds a session called “So You Want to Take More than Just Selfies?” to share the fundamentals of photography.

Conference Impact

The success of the 3G conference is evident through the high levels of student engagement. It is the only time in my career that I do not observe a single tardy student. During the box lunch in the cafeteria, I hear students talking with other students and adults about their favorite sessions and presenters. The conversations and sense of community are apparent.

Students provide feedback about the event and offer suggestions for future conferences. They appreciate having the opportunity to think about their pos-secondary life and explore a range of possibilities after graduation through the breakout sessions. They rave about the keynote speakers, including Freedom Writer Manny Scott, who spoke of the persistence and determination necessary to overcome challenges and barriers on the path to success. They also love the schoolwide pep rally that boosts their school spirit.

Though the graduation conference is a lot of work and involves many moving parts, the opportunity to reach students and provide a relevant learning opportunity is a huge reward. And the conference is just the start. Throughout the rest of the school year, the information, knowledge, and skills gained through the conference help students select courses, discuss postsecondary options, and plan for their lives after high school. Ultimately, our 3G conference helps pave the way for smoother roads to graduation and beyond.

What ways do you connect with students, create a deep understanding for graduating high school, and plan for postsecondary life?

Ginni McDonald, EdD, serves as the principal of Northside High School in Fort Smith, AR. She is completing her 20th year as an educator and was selected as the 2016 Arkansas Association of Secondary School Principals Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Jeff Simon

Many are concerned about the growing reports of school safety incidents. According to the Educator’s School Safety Network, U.S. schools experienced 745 bomb threats in the 2015–16 academic year. And since 2013, there have been 210 school shootings, as reported by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. This escalation of school threats and violence is generating fear and anxiety in students, parents, and educators and wasting precious learning time.

It is not a matter of if a school safety incident is going to happen but rather, when. As administrators, we must be ready. In order to prepare for the worst, it is imperative that administrators lead the way in making schools safe and secure. What policies and practices should districts implement and how should leaders go about developing a school safety plan? 

When tasked with improving our safety plan at Payson High School, I followed these guiding principles:

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Increase Knowledge of Safety Planning

It was important for me to first build my own capacity in safety planning to ensure I was working toward best practice. I started by attending as many safety-focused trainings as possible. Many of the presentations validated our current practices. They also helped me think comprehensively about school safety planning and gave me new ideas to improve practice.

One of the first things I learned is that districts need to align their school safety systems with emergency services so we all have common processes and vocabulary. To accomplish this task, all administrators on campus have taken classes from National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) to understand their structures in developing an incident command and safety protocols. These classes are available for free through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Management Institute on FEMA.gov (we assigned classes 100, 200, and 700) and allow the user to understand what will happen if an incident occurs and the police and/or fire departments come onto the scene. Through those classes, we developed a school level incident command structure that mirrors NIMS protocols.

Don’t Create the Plan in Isolation: Collaborate with All Stakeholders

When constructing or modifying a safety plan, collaboration with stakeholders is imperative. We bring in the Payson police and fire departments to review our safety plans, perform a threat assessment of our facility, and participate in our emergency drills. They give us valuable recommendations, including where to locate “incident areas” so teachers and students can use secondary evacuation plans.

I also make sure to collaborate with each staff member from custodians to veteran teachers and learn about their specific work areas before deciding the evacuation and lockdown locations. From these meetings, we’ve received great ideas such as buddy systems for teachers, evacuation and lockdown “go kits,” secondary evacuation routes, and digital attendance processes for evacuations during transition and lunch times.

Don’t Leave It on the Shelf: Always Look to Improve the Process

After each drill and practice event, we hold a debriefing session where those observing and participating in the process give us constructive feedback to improve the process. These sessions require participants to discuss and resolve any issues that occurred. Any process changes are immediately made to the safety plan, which we view as a living document that we continually improve. We send a communication to staff, reporting the positive aspects of the drill and procedures that need to be corrected or changed.

Here’s a tip: Collect all safety books at the end of the school year. Our teachers turn in their safety books as part of their end-of-year checkout process. This way, I am able to update and redistribute these books, ensuring that each staff member has the most updated version.

Don’t Forget About Parents: Develop a Release and Reunification Process

One aspect that absolutely needs to be in every safety handbook is a process for release and reunification from multiple sites. In our small town, it was important for us to locate areas on and off campus where we could house our population of nearly 800 students, provide for emergency services as needed, and keep everybody safe through the emergency. In addition, there has to be a solid process where parents can be reunited with their children while accounting for every student, staff member, and volunteer. Our locations have been visited by our administration as well as our safety teams, and detailed plans have been created.

If we find ourselves in a release and reunification situation, it is imperative that everyone knows what they are required to do when staying with and monitoring students, working the check-in and check-out rooms, and working with students who are in need. Everything has to be uniform and detailed so that we can attend to students quickly and prevent unnecessary mistakes.

What are your best practices for developing a school safety plan?

Jeff Simon is the assistant principal of Payson High School in Payson, AZ, which serves 784 students in grades 9–12. He is the 2016 Arizona Assistant Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Paula Callan

It’s the crisis response plan we as school administrators pray we never have to implement: The sudden loss of a student. But when tragedy strikes, it’s up to school administrators to provide leadership to the entire school community and implement protocols to support the immediate family, students, and staff most affected. 

In the fall of 2015, a female member of our senior class committed suicide. Then two weeks later, before we even really had a chance to mourn her, another one of our students was killed in a tragic accident. Gripped by shock and sorrow, students and staff alike were struggling to process their grief and questions of why. How does a school community carry on in such awful circumstances? Here are some lessons I learned about how to deal with the aftermath of unexpected student deaths.

Inform the School Community and Encourage Respect for Privacy 

Upon learning the terrible news, our crisis response team—consisting of administrators, a nurse, guidance counselors, and school resource officers—met and determined how to inform our school community about the student’s passing in a way that was accurate, timely, and sensitive. Though some students and staff are affected more than others, a student death impacts an entire school community, and everyone wants to know what happened. We informed the staff in a faculty meeting at the end of the school day and discussed our plan for telling students the next morning. I created a release that was read in each of the homerooms at the same time; for those teachers who were especially close to the student, the administrators went into the classrooms and read the release. We reached out to those closest with the student and offered support without smothering them.

Our crisis response team also prepared for media coverage. In an effort to protect the privacy of the family of the student who committed suicide, we did not release any information that was requested by the media until we had an opportunity talk directly to the parents. They wanted to be in control of what was released, and we respected their wishes. To protect the students, we did not allow any media networks on school property. We prepared them on what they should say if they were approached outside the school.

Strive to Maintain Routines

It might seem inappropriate to carry on with normal routines when everyone is recovering from the shock of a student death. But it is actually very important to maintain the overall rhythm of normal school programming while at the same time building in opportunities to grieve, mourn, and remember those we have lost. We found that a regular routine helped students to keep moving forward, even while they were hurting. This normal pattern was essential to help staff detect those students who were still having trouble coping. Ultimately, that approach helped us to monitor the most vulnerable students and ensure they received extra attention and help.

Let Teachers Talk to Their Students—and Give Teachers a Timeout, Too 

Our students told us that they didn’t want “strangers” constantly asking them, “Are you alright?” or “Do you want to talk about it?” So instead of having the outside counselors interact directly with the students, we asked them to fill in for our teachers during duty times. The outside counselors became an extra set of eyes and ears for our own counseling staff and would refer the students to the appropriate personnel for further support. It also gave our teachers, many of whom were also struggling along with the students, a much-needed break.

For faculty members who needed additional support, we provided access to external mental health professionals, and we held an informal daily debriefing for everyone to share what had happened that day and simply be together. We committed to offer this service for as long as it was needed, which turned out to be about one week. The staff members were very appreciative as they acknowledged that they felt supported and were not lost in the process.

Accept Support from the Surrounding Community 

We had not anticipated the overwhelming support that poured in from citizens, business leaders, mental health care providers, and school counselors from neighboring school districts. Some sent cards, others food. Most offered resources and support. We knew it was important to accept their generosity and include them in this process, but we were not sure how to do so. To involve our community, we invited them to participate in events that were open to the public, such as the evening vigil. It was important for them to feel a part of the healing process and recognize that we are all members of the broader community as a whole.

Always Be Listening 

In a crisis situation, our instincts and training tell us as administrators to focus on action and execution of the plan. But when a school community is grieving, the most important thing we can do as leaders is remember to listen. Above all else, try to listen and pay attention to what students, teachers, and community members are trying to say to you with and without words.

Paula Callan is the principal of Messalonskee High School in Oakland, ME, and has served as a high school administrator for 24 years. She is the 2016 Maine Assistant Principal of the Year. 

Guest post by Danny Steele 

Dear Principal: I suspect you’re tired. It is easy to get discouraged. Some principals may even be disillusioned. As Tim Messick noted, “Job descriptions are written in such a way that a principal needs to be a superhero. A principal needs to have the power and strength of Superman, the intelligence of Albert Einstein, the popularity of Princess Diana, the political savvy of a presidential candidate, and the care and compassion of Mother Teresa.”

In a time when public schools do not always enjoy the support of policymakers and public schools are at risk of being undercut by vouchers and charter schools, principals are still charged with raising test scores in their buildings. They are tasked with leading schools that prepare students for an uncertain future. They may feel buried in mandates and distracted by controversies and negative press. How do principals respond?

We keep our eye on the ball.

We come to work each day to remove barriers for our teachers. We strive every day to create a safe school environment for students. We commit to leading a school where teachers want to work and students want to learn. We create a vision for our school community that encourages students to dream big and ensures teachers can help students achieve those dreams.

We remember that we actually play a role in raising student achievement. We embrace the responsibility of creating a school culture that elevates expectations for students and fosters meaningful collaboration among teachers. We sit with our teachers to analyze data, but we remember that each data point represents a student, their future, and all of their hopes and dreams. We work to increase student achievement, but we remember that we did not get into the business to raise test scores; we became educators to make a difference in the lives of our students.

We demonstrate every day, through what we say and how we spend our time, that meeting the needs of our students is the most important thing we do. We know that we have students walking our halls who need us. We advocate for the student who has been picked on. We are patient with the student who does not have any support at home. We make time for the student who is lonely. We are relentless about connecting with the students in our school, and we remind our teachers that they leave a legacy that transcends the curriculum. We remind them that there is not one magical instructional strategy, but there is magic in connecting with kids. We remind them that students may not always remember their lesson, but they will always remember their kindness.

We’ve all written school improvement plans. But we remember that people don’t follow plans; they follow passion. We have all been involved in the development of mission statements, but the best mission statements are not framed; they are lived. The job of a school principal is challenging—and at times it is certainly stressful. But we keep our focus. We keep our eye on the ball. We come to work every day to empower our teachers and inspire our students, to create for them a brighter future.

That is what I think we do.

How will you keep your eye on the ball?

Danny Steele serves as the principal of Thompson Sixth Grade Center in Alabaster, AL, where his passion is building a school culture that values connections with kids, fosters collaboration among teachers, and focuses on raising student achievement. He was recognized as the 2005 Alabama Assistant Principal of the Year and the 2016 Alabama Secondary Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Paul Hermes

The value of unique knowledge and expertise is declining significantly due to the proliferation of accessible digital technology. This phenomenon has happened in history before; however, it has not happened at this pace and not to this scale. Access to information, knowledge, and each other is historically unprecedented.
This was very apparent to me—as were its implications for education—when my 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son were recently building a blanket fort of the Millennium Falcon in our living room. As I toured their creation, I asked them how and why they built it the way they did. My daughter informed me that they “Googled it” (duh, Dad!). She described how they used our iPad to look up pictures and information on the features of the “Star Wars” ship. Amazingly, they did a pretty good job. The fort was the correct shape of the Millennium Falcon, with satellite dishes on top and a spaghetti strainer for a window.

Her statements, explanations, and process hit me. Here I am listening to my 6-year-old, who is completely comfortable and competent using devices like our iPad, discuss how she used tools and resources available to her to access knowledge that previously would have been unavailable. When I was a kid, I never could have done this. Not only did I not have the internet or devices, but if I needed to learn something, I needed to seek out someone—an expert who could teach me about it.

So what does this experience mean and have to do with education? Actually, quite a lot! It taught me that:

• The world has changed.
• The impact of digital technology (i.e., devices, internet, etc.) is significant.
• Our children will learn and experience their world in drastically different ways than we did.
• As educators, we must understand these ideas and adjust our practices accordingly. And if we fail to, we risk increasing our ineffectiveness and even the potential for total irrelevance.

My kids demonstrated the skills, abilities, and mindsets that soon (if not now) all of our nation’s schoolchildren will possess. Educators can no longer hang our hat on the fact that schools are the only place for knowledge and learning. We cannot place a great deal of value on information, memorization, compliance, and one-directional, teacher-to-student dissemination.

Now this is not all bad news for education—it is only bad news if we ignore it. If we approach this correctly and openly, we can begin a whole new era of American education, an era where we can inspire a whole new generation of thinkers and creators that can compel our nation deep into the 21st century. To do this, we have to keep in mind these lessons from my blanket fort experience:

• Lesson #1—Re-Evaluate Knowledge: My kids built a Millennium Falcon blanket fort on their own as learners using curiosity, accessible knowledge and technology, and their own abilities to find and apply information. We need to re-examine and reorder our views and values related to knowledge. We cannot continue to emphasize learning and knowledge in the traditional sense. Information exposure is not the concern; it is information processing and application that now is more important.

• Lesson #2—Be a Travel Agent: My kids built a Millennium Falcon blanket fort on their own without the direct role of experts. Educators also need to change our view of teachers, shifting from teachers being the keepers and sole knowledge bearers to guiders and igniters of exploration and application. I have heard it said, “Highly effective teachers are more like travel agents than tour guides.” This doesn’t make the teacher any less significant in the learning process. In fact, I argue it makes the teacher more vital. Teachers can now serve so many more important roles to learning such as facilitator, vision caster, and challenger in addition to still being a traditional subject-area expert.

• Lesson #3—Create Empowered Learning Opportunities: My kids now know and will remember more information and features of the Millennium Falcon because of the opportunity they had. This step is perhaps the most critical in our re-visioning of the learning process and schools. If we only learn lessons one and two, we miss the larger point. We need to create more “applicational” learning opportunities for our students. Places/times when they can explore curiosities, develop hypotheses, navigate through the ocean of information, ask questions, share their ideas with others, relearn from their peers, seek out support and advice from others, and ultimately “create” things. By cultivating these learning opportunities, not only will we increase student engagement and build stronger learners, we will become more effective in teaching the traditional areas of knowledge.

Paul Hermes is the Associate Principal at Bay View Middle School in Green Bay, WI. He believes being an educator is the most important profession in the world and has dedicated his life to improving the lives of students, families, and communities. He is the 2016 Wisconsin Associate Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @BVPaulHermes and visit his education and leadership blog, Analogies from an Administrator. 

Guest post by Alison Maurice, MSW, child nutrition policy analyst, Food Research & Action Center

Why celebrate the 2017 National School Breakfast Week? School breakfast not only fights hunger and improves young people’s nutrition, but it is a vital tool for improving the academic achievement of your students.

Tight family budgets and hectic morning schedules make eating breakfast before the school day difficult for too many families. The School Breakfast Program plays a critical role in ensuring that your students receive the basic nutrition they need to start the school day ready to learn.

Studies show that students who eat breakfast at school closer to class and test-taking time perform better on standardized tests compared with students who skip breakfast or eat breakfast at home. Additionally, children and adolescents who are experiencing hunger have poorer grades and slower memory recall. Participating in school breakfast allows students to focus on the tasks ahead of them, rather than their empty stomachs.

Hunger can also contribute to student behavioral problems. Research suggests that students who eat school breakfast are less likely to exhibit behavioral and psychological distress and have lower rates of absence and tardiness. Furthermore, schools that are providing school breakfast through after the bell programs—such as “grab and go,” breakfast in the classroom, and second-chance breakfast—have observed fewer behavioral problems requiring disciplinary office referrals, allowing educators to spend more class time on the curriculum.

The School Breakfast Program is an essential tool for ensuring that students have the nutrition needed to thrive academically, but school breakfast helps support health, too! Studies have found that children and adolescents who participate in school breakfast are less likely to be overweight and have more favorable weight outcomes such as a lower body mass index (BMI), an indicator of excess body fat, while skipping breakfast has been associated with a higher risk of obesity in the short and long terms.

The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) recently released its annual School Breakfast Scorecard: School Year 2015–2016, which further details the benefits of school breakfast, strategies for successfully increasing participation, and state and national participation rates in the program.

Here are a few highlights from the report:

• 12.1 million low-income students participated in the School Breakfast Program on a typical day in the 2015–2016 school year.
• Only 56 low-income students participated in school breakfast for every 100 that participated in school lunch.
• Breakfast after the bell programs increase low-income students’ participation in school breakfast.

While school breakfast participation continues to grow and reach more low-income students than ever before, there are still millions of low-income children missing out on school breakfast. The 2017 National School Breakfast Week offers an important opportunity to celebrate the amazing benefits of school breakfast and to spread the word about successful strategies to increase participation.

Visit FRAC’s school breakfast page or contact Alison Maurice for more information and countless resources on the National School Breakfast Program.

Alison Maurice is a child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research & Action Center.

Guest post by Britton Hart

We had a problem at Emporia High School—failure rates were going up but the time and money available to address student needs stayed the same. For several years, there had been a steady increase in economically disadvantaged and ELL populations. Our leadership team needed to find a solution using existing resources that helped us address the educational challenges of our evolving student population.

To meet these challenges, we decided to move from a traditional block schedule to a new trimester system for the 2016–17 school year. The trimester system has provided us a way to create a master schedule that better addresses the current needs of our students.

What is a Trimester Schedule?

In general, a trimester system makes three significant changes to the master schedule. First is the way the school year isstructured. Instead of quarters or semesters, the school year is divided into three 12-week trimesters. Second, there is a reduction of the number of overall class periods. Trimester schedules usually run five class periods that meet every day; block schedules run eight classes (four classes per day that meet every other day) for one semester. Third, the trimester schedule offers varying course lengths. Typically, core classes are two trimesters, or 24 weeks; electives are one trimester, or 12 weeks; and some special classes such as AP and music, are all three trimesters, or 36 weeks.

Benefits of a Trimester Schedule

The trimester schedule has numerous advantages for our students and staff. The first, and perhaps most important, benefit is increased instructional time. Look at this comparison of our previous block schedule and the new trimester schedule for a core class:

YEARLONG CLASS CONTENT (ALGEBRA I)

Despite meeting for only 24 weeks, the trimester adds an additional 31 classes and 21 instructional hours, which is a substantial increase. This extra time has provided our students more frequent interaction with their core teachers, which was a struggle for us with our block schedule. Another benefit of the trimester schedule is that it has allowed us to embed academic interventions within the school day as part of our RTI process. Intervention takes place during the last 20 minutes of the block twice a week.

Other benefits of the trimester schedule:

• Students are able to focus on fewer core classes at a time (three or less).
• Students can repeat a class in the next trimester if needed.
• Students can maintain sport participation eligibility each of the three trimesters versus just two semesters. Eligibility mirrors the seasonal schedule for sports and other activities.
• Teachers have fewer students and classes to manage at one time.

Challenges of Switching to a Trimester Schedule

As we considered making the switch to a trimester schedule starting back in 2012, we faced a number of challenges; one of the most significant was trying to overhaul our scheduling program. We use Powerschool to schedule all of our classes, and it took a tremendous amount of time to ensure the new schedule accommodated all of the students’ requests. Another challenge was getting staff buy-in and changing their mindset. Teachers had to overhaul course curriculums to fit the trimester system, requiring some classes to add instructional content and others to trim material. We devoted many professional development hours and in-service days to support this transition.

Results and Future Direction 

The second trimester is nearly complete, and our preliminary data indicates positive results. After the first trimester, we have already seen a reduction in failure rates and we look forward to seeing if this trend continues for the second trimester. Students and staff have been largely positive about the switch and see many benefits to it. The trimester schedule has allowed our students to focus more intently on fewer subjects and has provided students and staff needed time for academic interventions. At EHS, we are doing “more with less” thanks to a trimester schedule.

Could a trimester schedule improve your school’s capacity to meet student needs?

To learn more about trimester schedules, visit Mark Westerburg’s website, School Improvement Using the 3 x 5 Trimester Schedule.

Britton Hart is the 2016 Kansas Principal of the Year. He is completing his 17th year in education, with 12 of those years serving as a building principal and athletic director at the high school level. He is most comfortable working in diverse, high-poverty schools supporting positive change to close the achievement gap for all students.

Recently, members of NASSP’s Student Leadership Advisory Committee visited Capitol Hill to meet with their respective members of Congress and participate in education-focused advocacy. The Student Leadership Advisory Committee has helped shape NASSP’s Student Leadership Initiative: Global Citizenship and continues to be an important voice on behalf of young people. In the posts below, learn about what a few of the committee members did while advocating on Capitol Hill. 

Kendall Haase

11th-grade student
Cedar Creek High School
Bastrop, TX

It was a last-minute flurry of activity outside of Texas Sen. John Cornyn’s office, swapping my practical shoes for sophisticated ones, digging out the folder of information for Sen. Cornyn’s staffer and my own notes, a lifeline I was determined not to need. I steeled myself to push open the doors and the most comforting assurance came to the forefront of my mind: “Congressmen are just people. Talk to them like you’d talk to anyone else.” True as this is, it is hard to forget that congressmen and congresswomen have very influential positions. They have power, endowed by their constituents, to make decisions that impact the lives of millions.

Going into the legislative advocacy day on Capitol Hill, I labored under the assumption that power was consolidated into the congressman himself, and perhaps his advisers. However, I was wrong. Students are constituents too. We have not only the right but the responsibility to advocate for causes close to our hearts. We sit in the classrooms and directly feel the effects of many decisions made and laws passed on Capitol Hill, so it is up to us to ensure our voices are heard. Student advocacy is an overlooked and underutilized tool that can have great effect. As student leaders, we have boundless passion and energy. When channeled into advocacy, that enthusiasm could effect substantial, positive changes at a local, state, or even national level.

Ryan Battle

7th-grade student
The Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS)²
Washington, D.C.

I had a great experience on Capitol Hill. Our purpose for going up there was to talk to Congress members or their staff about the Every Student Succeeds Act. We highlighted the fact that ESSA states that there will be a grant program under the Title IV act to help state governments provide students with a well-rounded education, support safe and healthy students, and support the effective use of technology. Also, we reminded them that ESSA needs $1.65 billion to make it successful and we hope they fund it at least at that amount.

Being on Capitol Hill was fun, and two out of the three staff members said that their congressman or congresswoman supported ESSA. One of the Congress members that supported it was my congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton.

I did not get to have much conversation with her, but at least I took a picture with her. I talked to her staff member and he was very nice. He let me ask some extra questions about his job too. I learned from him and the trip that members of Congress and their staff want to listen to us kids on topics. I think it’s because the decisions that they make will affect our futures, so they want to hear from us to see if they are making the right decisions for our futures. I was also able to meet John Lewis on the way to our meeting point. It was very fun and inspirational to meet him; I wish I had given him my business card. Thank you NASSP for this opportunity. #NASSPStudentVoice

Guest post by Paul Hermes 

In the early morning hours of a Wednesday in October while on my way to work, I exited off the interstate. As I reached the bottom of the off ramp, I breezed through a series of roundabout intersections that I go through on this particular route to work without having to wait or even slow down much. As I got closer to school, I came across my first traditional traffic-light-controlled intersection. I hit a red light and sat there waiting even though no other cars used the green light coming from the other direction. I became impatient and frustrated and felt like I was waiting there forever until I finally got the green light to go.

As I pulled away, I thought about how inefficient the traditional traffic light intersection was and how much better the roundabout process was for me that morning. And then it hit me. This situation is analogous to what is happening and must happen in education. Educational leaders now fully understand that the traditional, industrial-era model of education no longer best prepares our students for their current and future realities—that what we must do within education is not “reformation” but “transformation.” (If you haven’t already read it, please read Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica’s book Creative Schools for more on this topic.) 

It is not a matter of improving the traffic lights in a traditional intersection—making the lights brighter, using LEDs, changing the location of the lights, etc.—it is a matter of transforming the intersection completely, i.e., empowering the drivers within general rules, expectations, and structures to make their own decisions given the dynamics of the unique situation each of them experience when they approach the intersection.

For far too long students have experienced a “traffic light” learning experience. They were told when they can “go,” when they should “slow down,” and when they must “stop.” If a student was ready to go, but their learning light was red, they had to stop and wait even if there was no reason. Or if their light turned green, they had to move forward and go whether they were ready or not. Furthermore, all of the cars, regardless of the driver, the car, its condition, etc. are all directed in the same manner. There is little to no consideration of their individual abilities, needs, hopes, or desires.

Unlike traffic lights, roundabouts give much greater choice and empowerment for the individual driver. Within the structure of the road and roundabout, and under the parameters of the rules of the road, drivers can use their judgment to make decisions about whether or not they should go or need to stop. It is through this lens of a roundabout that we should view learning and opportunities for our learners. Educators still have a responsibility to lay the path and design the process (loosely), and the students still have to follow the “rules of the road.” Through a roundabout mentality, our learners can be more empowered to drive their own learning (pun intended). They can be put in the position to make the decisions, to react to their needs, to follow others, to learn from others, and to “go” or “stop.”

Having a roundabout mentality does not mean a free-for-all where students can do whatever they want. A roundabout mentality means that there is purposeful design and structure that enhances learning and gives the ownership of decisions, actions, and direction to the learner/driver rather than to the teacher/administrator/police/city planner—or traffic light.

Have you started implementing a roundabout mentality at your school? How has it impacted learning?  

Paul Hermes is the Associate Principal at Bay View Middle School in Green Bay, WI. He believes being an educator is the most important profession in the world and has dedicated his life to improving the lives of students, families, and communities. He is the 2016 Wisconsin Associate Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @BVPaulHermes and visit his education and leadership blog, Analogies from an Administrator. 

Guest post by Lizzie Sider

Lizzie Sider is an 18-year-old singer/songwriter born and raised in Boca Raton, FL. She is also the founder of the bully prevention foundation Nobody Has The Power To Ruin Your Day, through which she has personally visited over 350 schools with her original bully prevention assembly. In her post below, Lizzie offers principals some observations related to the importance of promoting a positive school culture. Lizzie’s endeavor highlights key values all global change ambassadors should possess, including promoting awareness/perspectives and empathetic action.

To see what global change ambassadors are working on and to learn more about NASSP’s student leadership initiative on global citizenship, visit makingglobalchange.org.

Lizzie Sider on her national bully prevention school tour. Photo by Darryl Nobles

In elementary school, I was badly teased, excluded, and ridiculed. I would come home from school crying almost every day, feeling defeated and not wanting to return. The strength that I ultimately gained through the process of overcoming the bullying inspired me to create my first bully prevention assembly, which combined music with messages of bully prevention, positivity, and encouragement. To date, I have led this same assembly at over 350 schools and before 150,000 children nationwide. My newest project, a free bully prevention video package, launched in December 2016 and is currently being used in over 3,400 schools, reaching more than 2 million children worldwide.

My experiences with bullying and bully prevention have given me insight into the important role that principals and other school leaders have in creating a positive environment for students. Imagine walking into a school as a visitor and being greeted by the principal as a fellow educator. Now imagine performing a live, upbeat assembly with hundreds of excited children who welcome you as a peer. In this unique dual role as both educator and student, I have been able to see what is really going on beneath the surface at a school, which is represented in its culture.

According to Dr. Kent D. Peterson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, school culture is “the set of norms, values and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols, and stories that make up the ‘persona’ of the school.” A toxic school culture is detrimental and leads to intolerance and unhappiness among all students and administrators. In contrast, a healthy one is what makes a school exceptional.

Characteristics of an Exceptional School

From my observations, the principal makes all the difference in creating a positive school culture and is the one person who can make or break a school culture. Here are some characteristics of exceptional schools that I have seen and that principals should insist upon:

• Positive and uplifting leadership. It’s the duty of the principal to be invigorated, inspired, and invested in the spirit and the demeanor of everyone in the school. Your example will set the tone for everyone else around you. Communicate well and be an example of good values and respectable behavior. The faculty and staff will notice your behavior and feel compelled to mimic it, and then the students will follow and adopt that same behavior as their own.
• Mutual respect. Establishing mutual respect is key to opening all doors—conversation, understanding, discipline, etc.—with your teachers, counselors, students, and parents.
• Making sure everyone feels part of a team. Acknowledge work well done and get to know those around you, because they’re your teammates. Everyone will work best together when they all feel like part of the same team.

  A student-made poster at a school, with handmade butterflies and a painted quote from Lizzie’s bully prevention campaign’s theme song, “Butterfly.” Photo by Lizzie Sider

• Showcasing student art around the school. Encourage your teachers to engage in art activities with their classes and get those walls decorated with the students’ artwork! Seeing their own creations displayed inspires students to be more imaginative and more invested in their school community.

Making a School a Safe Space

A school should be a safe space for everyone in the school and it is up to the principal to set the tone for creating that safe space. Students should feel like they can come to the principal with any problems they might have and expect a compassionate adult who is actively listening and working with them to find a solution. Principals should also encourage teachers to submit new ideas to make the school better and, overall, model what the best choices are. Show students and teachers what to do with your own behavior.

As a principal, you set the bar for everyone in your school community regarding how to act, how to speak, how to regard others, and how to lead. It is your job to help everyone become the best version of themselves. A positive school culture may be only an aspiration or idea to some, but do your best to implement it in your school, and turn it from an idea into a practice. And then, principals, make it the principle.

Lizzie Sider can be reached at lizzie@nobodyhasthepowertoruinyourday.org 

Guest post by Margaret Calvert

As school leaders, we define success in numerous ways. Higher attendance rates. Improved reading and math proficiency. Increased achievement on assessments. But the ultimate measure in high school is graduation. In this measure, we strive to earn a 100 percent, like any good student. However, most of us believe that this exemplary standard exists only in the realm of our imagination and is impossibly beyond our reach. But what if we change our thinking? What if we make our goal to reach 100 percent and expect that all of our students find success?

This is just what we did at Jefferson High School in Portland, OR. JHS is the only majority African-American high school in Oregon with roughly 52 percent African-American/black students and 80 percent students of color in 2016. Our district faced declining enrollment and in 2011, in an effort to retain and attract more students, we redesigned our high school to a middle college focus option where every student is expected to earn college credits before graduating.

To achieve this goal, we knew that we must eliminate every difference in educational outcomes for historically underserved students. Our plan was to identify what was working in the school and take it to scale. If a pedagogical practice, structure, program, or partnership was working for 20 percent of our students, then how could we make it work for 100 percent of our students? Our guiding question was and continues to be: How do we need to change as educators to get to 100 percent?

Check our Beliefs

Our leadership team—a group of teachers, administrators, and community partners—met regularly to determine what this goal meant for our work with students. We asked ourselves a series of questions (listed below) that funneled our attention from the broad goal into specific actions and areas of focus. If we answered “no” to any question, we followed up with “why.”

• Do we believe that all students will successfully complete at least 12 college credits within four years of enrolling in high school?
• Do we believe that all students will successfully complete at least one college class before graduating from high school?
• Do we believe that all of our students will graduate from high school?
• Do we believe that all of our students will successfully complete every graduation requirement class?
• Do we believe that we have the skill, knowledge, and resources necessary to achieve our goal?

Put Beliefs in Context

We located where we were as educators and where our students were in their learning. Who was already finding success? Who was close to finding success? Who was struggling? We looked at students one by one, literally building lists on the wall, and searched for patterns. We asked ourselves over and over, how do we extend our reach within the classroom to help more students find success?

Our staff worked in collaborative cycles of inquiry focused on the students who were under-engaged in our classrooms. They designed lessons with these students in mind, invited colleagues to see the lessons in action, and then reflected on their effectiveness. We asked ourselves:

• What success am I seeing in my classroom?
• What moves was I making as a teacher to support that success?
• When are students most engaged? How can I build on that?
• Who is not finding success? What is my strategy to engage them?
• With whom am I collaborating? What impact does it have on student success?
• What questions are surfacing about my practice? How will I get feedback?

Develop a Plan 

We assessed our capacity for change and used it to develop the sequence of collaborative structures that we built over five years. The sequence allowed us to get supports in place for students before enrolling all students in college-level coursework and provided intentional places for staff to collaborate.

• 2011–12: Freshmen academy teachers released one period to collaborate.
• 2012–13: Resequenced courses to align with college.
• 2013–14: All juniors took a language arts class that was a dual-credit college reading class.
• 2014–15: All first-year algebra students double blocked.
• 2015–16: All seniors took a humanities-based, team-taught college class.

Let it Grow

Our first two graduating classes in the full middle college program (the classes of 2015 and 2016) graduated at a higher rate than our district and state. Students in the class of 2016 had an 84 percent graduation rate overall, with 88 percent for black/African-American students, and 90 percent of graduates successfully completing at least one college-level course. Though we are not at 100 percent yet, the increases JHS has made in a few years are significant. We owe much of our success to changing our thinking about our expectations of students, believing that we can achieve 100 percent, and committing ourselves to examine our practice.

Margaret Calvert is the principal of Jefferson High School—the Middle College for Advanced Studies in Portland, OR. She is the 2016 Oregon Principal of the Year. 

Guest post by Mary Anne Moran

Do you ever stop and wonder what the traditional high school experience is preparing our students for? Are we preparing students for life beyond the high school or college classroom? Do the hours in the classroom have a direct correlation to future success? It is time we begin to reconsider the programming that we are offering in schools to ensure that our students are prepared for their futures rather than the next classroom.

Nipmuc Regional High School, a school of 600 students in central Massachusetts, has been working to answer those questions for the last four years. In order to evaluate our programming, we spend a lot of time listening to our students and asking them about the learning experiences that are most meaningful. Sometimes the answers they share can have a lasting and transformative impact on teaching and learning. Four years ago, a graduating senior responded to his senior exit interview by saying that the most impactful high school experience was an internship that took place in the pathology department of a hospital in Boston between his junior and senior years. While we would like to take credit for placing this student in the internship, the truth is that it was offered to our students because the father of another student happened to be the head of the department at the hospital. It was luck, really. After spending four years in our classrooms, this student’s most consequential experience did not really have anything to do with our school. We knew we needed to change.

It was during the next year that we developed the Nipmuc STEM Scholars Program. In its pilot year, 35 seniors signed on to the program, committing to take rigorous courses in STEM areas to engage in workplace-readiness training, to explore careers through career-shadowing experiences, and to interact with higher education through collegiate experiences. The success of the first year was noted when over 100 juniors and seniors (one-third of the students) jumped on board for the second year of the program. Now in its fourth year, the program has expanded to include a Humanities Scholars Program, making it as inclusive as possible for all students.

Connecting our classrooms to colleges and careers is a challenge that more and more educators are embracing. While breaking away from traditional programming is a complicated undertaking, there are few simple steps that any school could take to develop such a program.

Listen to your students: Be sure that you regularly have formal and informal ways to listen to your students. Some of the best ideas are born from students.

Develop a clear vision: Take the time to align your programming to your school’s core values and beliefs. If it is going to be successful, it must mirror the values of your school community.

Foster a culture of high expectations: Raise the bar for all students. Embrace the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. Students continuously impress us with their commitment and professionalism.

Establish community partnerships: Build partnerships with professionals and local businesses that will help support and drive programming. Tap on the wealth of knowledge and expertise that exists within your community.

Get connected: Network with other schools and organizations in your area that are working toward a common cause. Many schools have models in place that can be shared and adapted to meet the needs of your school community.

Prepare students for the workplace: Remember that the ultimate goal is the workplace. Regardless of their career pathway, all students need the employability skills that will help them be successful.

Develop career-shadowing opportunities: Give students the opportunity to explore what careers they would or would not like to pursue in their future. This helps students take the guesswork out of determining what they want to do beyond school.

Think beyond the college tour: Find ways to get students on campus and partner with professors and universities. Whether participating in research or experiencing a college course, these partnerships will ensure that students are prepared for life on a campus.

Market your achievements: Share the successes of your program with your community. In order to continue to expand the partnerships and celebrate the continued work of students, teachers, and the school community, we must not forget to market our achievements.

To learn more about Nipmuc’s STEM Scholars Program and to access additional resources, visit http://10keystostemsuccess.weebly.com/.

It is time that educators and administrators look for opportunities to partner with professionals to ensure that learning in the classroom and beyond prepares students for their futures. It is not good enough to prepare students for their next assessment or their next classroom; it is our responsibility to connect students with colleges and professionals. Look for areas of opportunity in your school and develop programming that will support student success in the future.

Mary Anne Moran is the associate principal at Nipmuc Regional High School in Upton, MA. Passionate about reimagining, redesigning, and reinventing education, she was named the 2016 Massachusetts Assistant Principal of the Year.

Guest post by Sarah Goodrum

Research on violence prevention in schools focuses on building positive climates and sharing information. A positive climate increases students’ willingness to report concerns to school staff. There is less research examining the climate among school staff; yet, this climate also shapes whether teachers report concerns about students and how administrators respond to concerns about those students. This qualitative case study provided lessons learned about information sharing among school staff following a tragic high school shooting.  

On December 13, 2013, “KP,” an 18-year-old senior, shot and killed a classmate and then himself at Arapahoe High School (AHS) in Colorado. Law enforcement records, deposition testimony, and school records indicate that KP had displayed inappropriate and concerning behavior at AHS (and in elementary school) over the years. In September 2013, three months before the shooting, he threatened to kill the speech and debate coach, and underwent a threat assessment with the assistant principal and school psychologist. The assessment team labeled him a low risk.

The assessment appears to have missed information about the student’s behavior and beliefs. Overall, the findings identified two major obstacles to communicating information about this student among school staff, including (1) confusion about information sharing under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (known as FERPA, it protects the privacy of student education records) and (2) an absence of leadership to encourage information sharing and question decision-making. The findings suggest that adaptive leadership may help school officials use information to build a culture of safety and prevent violence.

Information Sharing

Information sharing proves critical to violence prevention, but students fear being labeled a snitch and staff fear violating FERPA. In this case, KP had exhibited concerning behavior in many instances prior to the shooting, but due to inconsistencies in recordkeeping, misinformation about FERPA, and concerns about negatively labeling students, no one—including the assistant principal and school psychologist who conducted the threat assessment—knew about all of those problems.

“[I wish] we had more information given to us about students . . . like an information vortex . . . where everything [is] brought together and where law enforcement [is] involved, the therapist outside of the school [is] involved. . . . [T]he information needs to be shared with everybody. Everybody needs to be brought in, and it’s frustrating for me,” said school resource officer James Englert in a deposition. “[T]he school is concerned about a certain kid, but they are holding back [information] because of fears of whatever.”

Those fears emerged from misunderstandings of FERPA, which grants the right to privacy for students’ education records. Penalties can be imposed if a FERPA violation is discovered. The guidelines, however, also offer a safety exception. According to the act: “[I]f the school district or school determines that there is an articulable and significant threat to the health or safety of the student or other individuals and that a party needs personally identifiable information from education records to protect the health or safety of the student or other individuals, it may disclose that information . . . without consent.”

School officials at AHS had difficulty knowing when and how the exception applied. Language teacher Victoria Lombardi explained in her deposition, “[B]efore the shooting, if I had an issue with a student, I couldn’t go to another teacher and say, ‘Hey, do you see the same behavior, because this is concerning me.’

I think [that’s a problem] because it takes all of us to keep the school safe . . . and information is important and communication is important . . . I think there should be a way that we know [about] every student in trouble in that school.”

At AHS, teachers could not learn about a student’s suspension, threat assessment, or safety plan. As a result, several teachers and one coach struggled to understand KP’s inappropriate behavior, and administrators did not recognize the escalation in his boundary testing.

“I was working in isolation in the fall of 2013 when all of this was happening [with KP],” said speech and debate coach Tracy Murphy during a deposition. “And it appears that [the Spanish teacher] was having problems with KP and that [his junior year math teacher] had had some previous problems, and [his senior year math teacher] had some issues. None of us knew this; none of the faculty that had direct interaction with the student was aware . . . I wasn’t aware of [all of these] problems.”

Conflicts can arise between protecting a student’s right to privacy and supporting a student in crisis. At AHS, confusion about information sharing under FERPA continued, even after the shooting. More than 18 months later, the school psychologist Esther Song acknowledged, “I don’t know what information can be relayed about each student to general staff and teachers, because I think that there has to be some protection of confidentiality to protect that student’s rights.”

FERPA guidelines, however, allow schools to share records with school officials without a student or parent’s permission when the school official shares a “legitimate educational interest” and when there are “health and safety emergencies” for the student or others. Some argue that the definition of a health and safety “emergency” remains unclear.

To explain the exception, the U.S. Department of Education has said: “This is a flexible standard under which the Department defers to school administrators so that they may bring appropriate resources to bear on the situation.”

The deference, however, appears to increase fears, not alleviate them. The fact that these misunderstandings persist indicates that FERPA represents an adaptive challenge, and school officials should not wait for the federal government or case law to clarify the confusion about FERPA.

Systemic Solutions

Sadly, the lessons learned about information sharing from this case are not new lessons; they were learned following the shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, which raises the important question: Why have we not yet fixed this problem?

The answer is that it is complicated. As Rebecca Costa has argued in The Watchman’s Rattle, complex problems require solutions with multiple strategies implemented in tandem. With violence prevention in schools, we are overcoming widespread confusion about FERPA, fears about violating FERPA, and a reluctance to share information. Until now, many districts have approached the problem with technical solutions (e.g., increasing guidelines, staff, forms, and trainings). These solutions, however, do not address the underlying system that discourages the sharing of information about students of concern. It is time to address the system. In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky ask, “What things, if they happened more frequently, or less frequently, would help make progress on the adaptive challenge I am working on?” Based on the findings from this and other school shootings, pro-actively seeking out information from and sharing information with relevant staff about a student presenting a safety concern would help school officials both support students and prevent violence.

Editor’s Note: The study was funded by The Denver Foundation; the report reflects the opinions of the author and not the official position of the University of Northern Colorado or The Denver Foundation. Also, because the deposition transcripts in the case were made public, the witnesses’ names and titles are used here.

Here’s what secondary school principals can do to help build a culture of safety at their schools:

• Implement a system for staff to consistently document student behavior concerns, disciplinary actions, academic problems, threat assessment results, and support plans and to designate an information coordinator for students of concern.
• Understand and communicate the meaning of FERPA’s safety exception to all staff to ensure the reporting and sharing of information about students of concern.
• Recognize and address the organizational, cultural, and social obstacles to sharing information about students of concern within the school.

Sarah Goodrum, PhD, is an associate professor and department chair for the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO. Tweet her through the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice @UNCOcriminaljus). 

Guest post by Melissa D. Hensley

Throughout my tenure as a middle and high school principal, the consistent request from teachers has been for ongoing, non-evaluative feedback about their pedagogical practices. Early in my career, this meant completing classroom walkthroughs, collecting data about instructional strategies, and offering recommendations. Providing this general feedback took a lot of time and often failed to improve instruction. I wondered, how could I help teachers get the ongoing feedback they wanted in a more efficient and effective way?

My leadership style is collaborative. I work to develop programs and structures that support and empower my staff and students. So when two of my teachers told me about the Instructional Collaborators program they learned about while at a workshop, I saw this as an opportunity to give teachers the continuous feedback they desired in a collaborative way.

What is an Instructional Collaborator? 

An Instructional Collaborator (IC) is an on-site professional developer who partners with teachers to assist them with the implementation of proven teaching methods. Our ICs are current teachers carrying a full course load who voluntarily give up 20 minutes of their planning period twice a week and collaborate with volunteer teachers to identify goals for improving the instructional delivery process.

Participation in the IC program is voluntary and participants’ names are kept confidential by the lead teachers of the program. School administrators are unaware of the discussions that take place between the IC and the teacher. The program is entirely teacher organized and managed.

Guiding Reflection

The role of the IC is to guide the reflective practice that will result in ongoing instructional improvement. They meet teachers where they currently are in their practice and offer choices for learning. Essentially, they are coaching a process that encourages teachers to think about instructional strategies before implementation and helps them analyze data to determine whether the strategies worked. To support this coaching process, ICs use the double-loop reflection model, which asks teachers to act upon the reflection and then re-reflect. ICs listen to teachers with the intent to learn, understand, and respond rather than telling them how to teach.

A Partnership of Equals 

A key factor in our program is ensuring balanced decision-making by never taking the role of an expert. The partnership between the IC and the teacher is a relationship between equals. Both have opportunities to express their point of view and believe that each teacher’s thoughts and beliefs are valuable. One of the primary benefits of this partnership is that each individual has access to multiple perspectives rather than one leader’s perspective. Giving teachers access to multiple perspectives expands their teaching repertoire and empowers them to make individual choices that are best for their teaching style, classroom, and students.

Positive Growth

Now in its second full year of implementation, the IC program shows promise and positive results. The lead ICs meet with me on a quarterly basis to share how the program is progressing and data regarding the implementation of the school’s core curriculum framework, seven instructional strategies that are utilized in every classroom. The data shows that teachers in the program are making improvements in many areas of instructional planning, instructional delivery, and classroom management.

Teachers in the program report a greater willingness to try out new techniques in their classrooms and express more confidence in their teaching skills. They appreciate the time they have to work with the ICs and reflect upon their instructional experiences. In addition to the participants reacting positively, our ICs have expressed how much they are learning, too. This experience has enhanced their skills in using the new teaching practice and their ability to collaborate with other teachers.

The IC program has provided our teachers a way to receive the ongoing feedback that they want and need to become better educators. Our instructional collaborators cultivate reflective practices that improve teaching and ultimately student outcomes. The collaborative framework also helps build leaders in the school and creates a sustainable program that will endure beyond the tenure of the current administration.

Could an instructional collaborators program help your teachers receive ongoing feedback?

If you’re interested in learning more about our IC program, feel free to contact me at mdhensley@shenandoah.k12.va.us.

Melissa D. Hensley serves as the principal of Central High School, a 2015 National Blue Ribbon School located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley in Woodstock, VA. She is the 2016 Virginia Secondary Principal of the Year. 

What if you turned off the bells in your school and threw away the traditional schedule for the day? What would you do for an entire day with students? How would students want to spend their time learning?

Change has to begin somewhere. As I visit classrooms and speak with students about their learning experiences, I find myself continuously asking, “What if?” It really is a powerful question that allows us to reimagine, redesign, and reinvent traditional practices in education. Last week, I wrote a blog post about the STEM Scholars program at Nipmuc Regional High School in Upton, MA. That program was the stepping-off point for my school community to tackle the bigger “what if” questions about teaching and learning. The STEM Scholars program was a small, essentially extracurricular program that served one-sixth of our student population. The success of the program encouraged us to ask the questions, what if this programming was built into our school day? What if it was available to all students and not just some students?

In response to these questions, Nipmuc Regional High School developed a model referred to as 21st-Century Learning Conferences, where we turn off the bells and throw away our traditional high school schedule in exchange for a professional conference for students. Through collaboration with educators and business professionals, the conferences offer a variety of sessions that are built around a common theme. The purpose of the conference is to provide authentic learning opportunities for all students built upon student interest and geared toward helping students develop skills for future success.

Providing authentic learning experiences is essential to ensure that learning in schools is relevant, connected, and meaningful for our students. The actions below will help you develop a 21st-Century Learning Conference that meets the needs of your individual school community.

Cultivate a common vision: Be sure that the vision for your 21st-Century Learning Conference is aligned to the core values and beliefs of your school community. Take the time to establish a common purpose and goals to ensure all stakeholders have an understanding of the day.

Build community partnerships: Build partnerships with professionals and local businesses that will help support and drive programming. Tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise that exists within your community to partner with educators and offer sessions during the conference.

Promote the collaborative work of faculty: Find time for faculty members to work together to develop sessions that meet the needs and interests of the school community. Whether partnering with an outside professional or a teacher in another department, educators will need time to plan engaging hands-on activities for their session.

Replicate a professional conference: Take this opportunity to make the day feel different. Our students come dressed for success with the understanding that they could be meeting professionals that may be key players in their future success. We use professional software for our schedule (sched.org) so that students have digital access to all sessions and can choose the sessions of most interest to them. Don’t forget the food and even some free swag for students to keep them excited about the day.

Promote the conference: Things are changing in education and great work is being done in schools every day. Be sure to not only market the success of the conference after it takes place, but also to communicate the vision behind the day before the conference. It is important that students, parents, and community members have a clear understanding of the purpose of the conference.

To learn more about our 21st-Century Learning Conferences and to access additional resources, visit http://21stcenturylearningconference.weebly.com/. As you browse the website and learn more about the program, I challenge you to continue to ask, “What if?” Think about what could be possible in your school if you threw away the schedule for the day, partnered with local professionals, and allowed students the opportunity to choose meaningful, authentic sessions.

Mary Anne Moran is the associate principal at Nipmuc Regional High School in Upton, MA. Passionate about reimagining, redesigning, and reinventing education, she was named the 2016 Massachusetts Assistant Principal of the Year. 

Guest post by Donald Gately

I read with great interest the letter from NASSP Executive Director JoAnn Bartoletti in this January’s issue of Principal Leadership. She references a report issued recently by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) about how principals spend their time. I want to react to the three key findings noted in JoAnn’s letter.

The first of these findings is completely unsurprising: The average principal spends 59 hours a week on the job.

As I write this, I am probably on hour 56 of this week, and it’s only Thursday! The job of the principal is complex, challenging, exciting, and sometimes frustrating, but always rewarding. I’m guided by what my own dad—a man who worked his own share of 60-hour weeks—told me: “Make sure you find a job that you love because you’re going to spend a lot of time doing it.” It would be impossible to be a principal if you did not have a passion for learning and a commitment to the success and well-being of kids.

I recently sat in on a meeting in which a young lady and her mother chose her high school electives. The girl said she wanted to take our gourmet foods elective at the high school because her aspiration was to be a chef. I said that is great, but you better be committed because that takes long hours and hard work. She smiled at me and said, “I know, I love it!” Being a principal is the same way—it’s too hard a job not to love.

This second finding was not surprising but rather dismaying: The largest chunk of the principal’s time (31 percent) is spent on administrative tasks.

Every school leader I have ever admired became an administrator to be a leader, not a manager. I’m not sure I can assign a percentage to these administrative tasks, but in the course of a week, I sign scores of timesheets, arrange buses and field trips, manage our awesome custodial staff (and clean up lots of paper in the hallway myself), and complete a host of other administrative tasks. While these are not the most rewarding aspects of the job, they are necessary and support the well-being of our students and their success as learners.

On the Martin Luther King National Day of Service, I saw President Obama painting inside the lines of a mural of Dr. King outlined on the wall of a hospital. Through his obvious commitment and apparent joy in this task, he modeled a powerful lesson on leadership: To be a leader, one must also be a servant. Servant leadership is found in the innumerable administrative tasks that are required of principals. This work should be embraced equal to the lofty toil of “leadership.”

I found this third finding somewhat anachronistic: Principals pursue formal workshops as their primary manner of professional development.

I have nothing against workshops, but there are so many dynamic tools for leaders to learn. As a connected educator, I have come to embrace the value of social media and myriad 21st-century tools to learn and connect with other educators anytime, anywhere. Twitter is the 7-Eleven of professional development, always open and found everywhere you go. I participate in various Twitter chats every week and enjoy a steady stream of useful resources from high-performing colleagues whose endorsements I know I can count on. Google Hangouts and similar tools (Facetime, Periscope, Skype) allow me to connect with voices in the field traversing wide geographic boundaries. I connect with fellow principals across the country via several Voxer groups to which I belong. I even learn during my daily commute or when I’m running by listening to podcasts by educational thought leaders.

As an educator connected through these tools, I am literally always learning. I’d like to see these approaches emerge more prominently in future surveys of principals’ professional development. The IES study on how principals spend their time was published in 2012 and social media in education has since expanded exponentially. I suspect that if this study were repeated today, the use of social media and other digital tools as a means of professional development would be much higher on the list among principals.

I don’t have the answer for the problem of time in the professional life of a principal but, like everyone else, I know there’s not enough of it. Successful principals must embrace the challenges this highly rewarding role presents and look for opportunities to make every single moment count to improve student learning.

Donald Gately, EdD, serves as the principal of Jericho Middle School in Jericho, NY. He is the 2016 New York Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @donald_gately.

Guest post by Holly Ripley

As school leaders, we are often expected to provide answers and guidance in times of uncertainty and transition. But what happens when we do not know the answers? I learned recently that sometimes the best response is to ask your students and encourage the community to share knowledge. Our job is not to have all of the answers but to help facilitate a collective search for greater understanding and help students leverage their own voices.

Three female Muslim students walked into the office and asked to talk to someone, and I was that “someone” available. I invited them into my office and listened as all three of them shared their recent interactions with other students and teachers at our school. The first reported that a white student told her, “Go back to your country.” Another had a debate in a classroom with a student who didn’t think the president’s recent executive order affected those in our community at all. The last explained that a picture of President Trump had been taped to her locker.

These incidents raised a number of issues from an administrative perspective—intolerance, verbal aggression, and student safety are usually the first things that come to mind.

Each of these young women had reason to be upset by these separate, but clearly related, actions toward them. External events had apparently triggered some of their fellow students to act cruelly. But instead of asking me to discipline the offending students, these fine young women instead asked me to help them find ways to educate their peers. They gracefully expressed how this is their school community as well, that they love it, and that they want it to be better for all. What they sought from me was advice on how they could help change the culture and foster an environment that treasures each as an individual.

As I listened to these young ladies, I felt their hurt, fear, and frustration, and I shared their sadness for our school community. I also felt a tremendous amount of pride and respect for the strength and courage it took them to come to me and share their experience. I knew I needed to help, but I didn’t have the answers. This was uncharted territory. I had a recurring meeting scheduled among the counselors and administrators the following morning. I asked the young ladies if they would be willing to share their stories with this larger group. They agreed. I cleared the meeting’s agenda.

The next day the students showed up 15 minutes early with written statements prepared in case they got nervous in front of so many adults. They had met the night before to make sure their message was clear. After introductions, I set the stage by saying that these students had shared something so compelling to me that I invited them to share their stories with the larger group.

Each student in turn shared her story of when and how she came to America. They spoke of the change in perception other students seem to now have of them because of recent political statements. The tears flowed … from every adult in the room, tears of compassion and humility and pride in our students. I encouraged everyone to ask questions—questions about their dream for our school and how to achieve them.

The group brainstormed avenues we could provide these students to share their feelings in a constructive way. Through further discussion, we agreed the next step would be to form a larger group of students who share the same passions for community. This group would formulate the plans of activities, events, and recommendations for our school to build a more inclusive culture of respect and appreciation for diversity.

As I closed out the meeting, I had each individual share a word or short phrase of how they were feeling after this encounter. A theme emerged. Every comment resonated around one word: hope.

These incidents reminded me that while administrators are often required to act decisively, sometimes our best role as leaders can be to listen and help others to raise their voices.

Think of situation in which you have provided a forum for listening and sharing among student voices, and identify a project in your school community to increase constructive dialogue about the importance of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion.

Holly Ripley is the assistant principal of West Fargo High School in North Dakota and the 2016 National Assistant Principal of the Year.

There is a great deal of attention and focus in education today surrounding the idea of providing personalized instruction to every student. Providing instruction specific to each individual student can greatly enhance the educational experience. However, personalized instruction means little if students aren’t valued as individuals within the culture of the school.

My eyes were opened to this notion early in my career as a principal. I remember receiving student scores for the PLAN (now the PreACT) and noticing that one young man had done extremely well. Later that day I passed him in the hall and remarked, “Hey Richard, I was just reviewing the scores for the PLAN and you did an awesome job!” The student looked at me confused and thanked me. He then took about three steps before turning around and asking, “Mr. Berry, how did you know my name?” I was shocked and I could tell by his reaction that this was probably the first time that he had received a compliment from a principal. I vowed that day that I would seek to know the names of as many students as I could and call them by name whenever possible.

Our school also takes great pride in recognizing students in all areas of the school community. We have a Bruin Wall of Fame in which we recognize students for academics, service, athletics, character, and art. Through our Wall of Fame, we have recognized students ranging from star athletes to those who display outstanding character and make our school a better place. The idea is to ensure that all students, not just those gifted academically or athletically, have opportunities to be recognized for their contributions to our school.

We also hold a winter pep rally that has a variety-show feel and includes nearly every organization in the school. Of course, we recognize our athletes and cheerleaders, but we also feature musical selections from students and teacher-student games, and even allow students to face off against their teachers in a trivia game called “Are You Smarter than Your Teacher?” Students from our chapter of the National FFA Organization also hosted a “Kiss a Pig” segment, in which students collected funds to choose which two of their teachers would kiss a pig at the pep rally. The funds raised were donated to our local SPCA. (Side note: One of our Englsh teachers kissed the piglet and the FFA students let her name him Gatsby). The winter pep rally has also provided a way for us to announce our Teacher of the Year in front of the entire student body.

In addition, we intend to start a new tradition at graduation this year. Inside each student’s diploma cover will be a hand-written card from one of their teachers. Our teachers will sign up in May to write a card for at least one graduating senior. Each card will offer congratulations, but will also have an anecdote about the student’s experience in our school. This will ensure that every graduate of Camden County High School is aware of the impact that they had in our school.
These are just a few small examples of how our school seeks to ensure that our students know that they are valued. It is imperative that we as leaders get out of our offices and spend time with our students to help create a culture of personalization in our schools.

Here is a great video that displays the personalized, family culture of Camden County High School.

What steps does your school take to create and maintain a personalized culture? 

Billie Berry is the Principal of Camden County High School in Camden, NC. In 2016, Billie was recognized as the North Carolina Secondary Principal of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @PrincipalBBerry.

Guest post by Alison Maurice

Nationally, on an average school day in the 2015–16 school year, 12.1 million low-income students participated in school breakfast, an increase of nearly 433,000 children from the prior school year. While this is definitely progress, there is still room for improvement, especially at the middle and high school levels, where school breakfast participation has often been lower than at the elementary school level.

The good news is that a growing number of middle and high schools are implementing breakfast after the bell models to ensure that their students have access to a healthy morning meal and are able to start the day ready to learn.

The Food Research & Action Center’s (FRAC) “Breakfast for Learning” brief highlights research that shows students who begin their day with a healthy morning meal exhibit improved cognitive function, are more attentive, and have better memory recall. In fact, students who eat a nutritious breakfast closer to test-taking time perform better on standardized tests compared to their counterparts who skip breakfast or eat it at home. Eating school breakfast has also been associated with decreases in tardiness, absenteeism, and behavioral issues. 

In partnership with NASSP, FRAC is releasing the Secondary School Principals’ Breakfast After the Bell Toolkit to help middle and high school principals collaborate with their school nutrition departments to implement strong breakfast programs that reach more students and increase school breakfast participation. Included in the toolkit are valuable resources such as best practices for a successful program and sample communication materials for staff, students, and families about the benefits of school breakfast.

Middle and high schools should structure their breakfast after the bell programs based on the individual school’s unique needs. Below are three common breakfast after the bell service models that schools can implement to ensure greatest access to school breakfast:

“Grab and Go” Breakfast: Students can quickly and easily grab their breakfast from carts or kiosks in the hallway or the cafeteria line to eat in the classroom.

Breakfast in the Classroom: Meals can be delivered to, and distributed in, the classroom at the start of the school day. This approach is more common in elementary schools, but it is successfully implemented in some middle and high schools. It tends to generate the largest increase in participation.

Second Chance Breakfast: Students are offered a second chance to eat breakfast after homeroom or first period. Many middle and high school students are not hungry first thing in the morning. Offering breakfast after first period allows students ample opportunity to arrive to class on time or socialize before school, while still providing a nutritious start early in the day. This approach can be most impactful if used in combination with “grab and go.”

Implementing one of these models helps to ensure that school breakfast is an integral part of a school’s morning activities, akin to taking attendance or handing in homework. These models help schools take an inclusive approach to meeting the needs of their students, one that removes stigma, boosts school breakfast participation, and supports academic performance.

For additional resources on improving access to school breakfast and implementing breakfast after the bell models, please visit www.frac.org or contact Alison Maurice at amaurice@frac.org.

Alison Maurice is a child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research & Action Center.